"You look after her for me, okay?"
"I promise that I will do everything I can to protect her."
"Don't cry for me, for valkyries in our last life it's not called dying… it's called rising."
She shouldn't be here and she knows it, like a bygone that clings and lingers, she's unseen and unheard yet there in a way they all feel. It's late and Kenzi tucks her daughter in, sits on the edge of the bed with the last chapter of their story-book and smoothes her hair down in a way Tamsin remembers from her own childhood.
"More?" Dagny eyes her with those big pools of green and somehow Kenzi resists. She's two and delicious and completely Tamsin's, from the quiet stare she's already mastered to the simmer that boils when she's told no.
"Tomorrow night, Lil' D." she kisses her head and pulls the quilt over her tiny yawning shape. "Sweet dreams, sweet girl." she smiles and the light goes off, she disappears behind the closed door, and they are alone.
Tamsin tip-toes, and for a moment she's not sure why, she's here and yet not and it's something she's not used to yet. But she takes up her watch like she does every night and waits for her youngest to fall asleep.
"Momma," Dagny calls out tiredly, little wispy blonde hairs stuck to her face as she stares in a certain direction.
"I'm here, don't you worry baby girl." Tamsin whispers and again, she's not sure why.
"Story Momma." Dagny holds her stare, and Tamsin falters.
"You can see me?" she whispers again and this time it's for her own benefit.
Dagny nods, she pats the spot beside her and Tamsin obliges without much thought. "Story?" she urges and nuzzles at her side.
"You see this blanket?" Tamsin feels the smile widen into the wetness of her cheeks with this impossible moment. "A long, long time ago there lived a king of all the Fae and he had this blanket woven from all the stars in the night sky, they called it the Blanket of Skeemotah…"
She moves freely between the worlds, she is the changing of the leaves and the sunset of a hundred skies and the air she once bended has become her.
"You're late." Hale scolds her, pushing the scotch across the bar.
"Time has no place in Valhalla, remember." Tamsin huffs, picking up her glass and eyeing him in that familiar way.
"How's our girls doing?"
"She started school today, Kenzi let her wear a tutu and put leftover pizza in her lunch box." Tamsin nurses her drink with a shake of her head and Hale laughs, it's cool and bitter in all the ways she needs and it's a tiny victory to soften the blow of an almighty loss. "She didn't see me today, didn't even know I was there..."
"Kids, they grow up fast." Hale sighs and signals to the bartender for two more drinks. "She'll always know you're there, you're her mom, she can't escape that."
"How's old Trick doing?" Tamsin changes the subject and tries to quell the screaming ache in her guts, Hale sees it in her eyes, she knows he does, but he obliges her with silence anyway and for that she's thankful.
"Ask him yourself." Trick pushes two more drinks in front of them. "How are you doing, Momma?"
"Seen better days."
She's six and long framed, her hair is wild and she's yet to grow into her gangly arms and legs, much to the amusement of the other kids. The other girl pushes her one too many times, knocks the tray right out of her hands. Blows rain from up and down and side to side; her fists are furious and fast, then out of nowhere her eyes begin to darken, and Tamsin is beaming with pride.
"That's my girl." she nudges Hale's ribs, stepping over the piled heap of the other girl to follow after her daughter who found herself being dragged to the school office. "That's my daughter." she grabs his shoulder once more and grins.
She's eight the first time she finds the old tapes in the basement, the VCR whirrs to life and for the first time Tamsin feels like she should leave and give her some privacy. But suddenly, she's on the screen and too captivated by the look in Dagny's eyes.
The tape is rewound again and again, played and paused with expert timing.
"Hey Trouble!" a past version hums from the screen, stuck in a moment.
"Hi Mama." Dagny's grin widens, and it breaks her heart. "I just wanted to say, I love you."
"Dagny I'm here," she almost begs, she's at her side, hugging her and running her hand over her hair. "I am right here baby girl." she promises and her words go unreturned. "I am always with you, you make me so proud to be your mama."
Tears stain her cheeks and she's glad Dagny can't see them.
"I'm really glad I got to talk to you, I miss you." she whispers after a pause, right at the screen.
"I'm glad we talked to." she wiped the wet from her eyes. It wasn't much, it was barely anything and nowhere near enough, but it was something and that was good enough for her.
She's fifteen and she has her first date, Kenzi gives her the talk and brushes down the shoulders of her mom's favourite jacket and tells her about the time Tamsin wore the same one when she went on a date with the literal Ying and Yang sisters.
She paints the air around her with the story and all three of them laugh at the memory, but only two voices were heard.
Kenzi gives her a minute to finish getting ready and once again they're alone, Dagny fusses over herself in the mirror and Tamsin expertly reads the look of nerves and terror buried somewhere in the swallow of her throat.
"You look beautiful." Tamsin shakes her head and bites her lip, "Don't you ever let this girl forget how lucky she is." she whispers and all but prays her baby hears it.
She sits on the bed and fiddles with her phone, nervous and waiting for the text to say she's outside.
"Valkyries can read people; you just wait until you feel how nervous she is and you'll be just fine." Tamsin sighs, sitting beside her. "This next part is really important Dagny, you really need to listen to this bit, don't ever fall in love with a girl who wears more leather than you. They're bad news, okay?"
Her phone buzzes, and as quickly as she had her, she's out the door.
She's sixteen and coming into her powers, she finds Acacia before Acacia finds her and Tamsin knows her friends did an amazing job of hiding her daughter from harm's way.
"You look just like her." Acacia shakes her head the first time they meet. They're in Dark territory somewhere out of town, a bar that Acacia sometimes frequents when she needs to get away from Valhalla, and already she's impressed that Dagny knows this.
"Look at that wild thing I made, Caish." Tamsin's grin is wide and proud, right behind her daughter.
Acacia hears her like echoes that resonate from one plain to the next, she sees flashes of green eyes and blonde hair but she ignores her for Dagny's benefit.
"They say my mom was the best warrior," Dagny eyes her in a thoughtful and intrigued way, arms crossed and head cocked like someone who came before. "And that you trained her?"
"Your mom was the best, depending on who you ask of course." Acacia laughs and eyes an ever-jealous Stacey scowling into the back in her chair.
"If she was the best, then I want you to train me and make me even better." Dagny steps forward, determined and more like her mother than she knew.
There's a pride that simmers through her, and she knows Acacia feels it.
"Tamsin, I love her already." she chuckles at the sky, kicking out a chair for her newest ward to sit on.
"You take good care of my girl, make her better than I ever was." she leans in Acacia's ear, and she knows from the flex of her jaw and the falter of her eyes that she's heard.
"You killed my mom." she whispers, suddenly sixteen and smaller than she'd been in years.
"Actually," Jack grins from his seat and wags his finger, "It was you who killed her."
Her eyes flicker between green and black, the room is a vacuum and her powers are infinite. She is more powerful than any in this room, her wings are ablaze and Tamsin is almost in awe.
"Don't listen to him," she begs her, right in her ear. "He's wrong, Dagny."
The conversation drives on and she feels Dagny's power choke the room, it's intoxicating and not yet at it's apex and there's still time to pull her back from the brink, Bo has trained her well, they all have and she has faith in her daughter.
"Speaking of our dear departed Tamsin—do you think she did regret it the next morning? I never got a chance to ask."
She feels sick, and she's not sure whether it's a symptom of herself or overflow from her daughter's churning stomach. She reaches out, a final attempt before the power consumes her from the inside out, and brushes her fingers over the glowing print. "Marking you doesn't make you his. He needs you, like a parasite." she tries.
A gun goes off in Dagny's hand, it's pointed at herself and red begins to bloom like a flower across her chest.
They're all around her, holding her and hollowly promising she'll be fine. And Tamsin knows they are right. This was the first of many for her daughter, but it didn't make it anywhere close to bearable.
The screech and din of their friends begins to dull, and her daughter's eyes focus and stare in a particular direction and it's time.
Tamsin grabs Acacia before she can move, her force is invisible but like an echo from one plain to another she's heard. "I'm coming out of retirement for this one, Caish."
"Mama?" Dagny barely whispers and there's blood in her mouth.
"I'm here." Tamsin promises, she kneels and shrouds her in wings made up of scattered light and they're the most beautiful things Dagny has ever seen. "I'm taking you home." she nods and Dagny barely nods back. "I never regretted it, not for a second." she quietly promises. Her daughter drifts asleep, and that's her cue.
Her daughter is tiny and newborn once more, she's ready to go back home and true to her calling Tamsin is nowhere near ready to let her go.
"I'll take her there myself." Acacia promises, waiting for her grip to loosen on the baby.
All Tamsin can do is nod, there's a sniffle somewhere that runs through her lips but she's happy none-the-less, her daughter is tiny and all is right in the world. There's a little cry, and for the first time she gets to tend to it, and she knows from the furious rubies of Dagny's cheeks to the long wailing noise from the deepest depths of her tiny belly that it was worth waiting sixteen years for.
"I'm here, don't you worry baby girl." Tamsin whispers and this time, she's more sure than anything else. "You see this blanket?" Tamsin feels the smile widen into the wetness of her cheeks with this impossible moment, wrapping her daughter in a gift from the sky. "A long, long time ago there lived a king of all the Fae and he had this blanket woven from all the stars in the night sky, they called it the Blanket of Skeemotah…"
