20th October 1995 (63:6:29)
— Contact plus 00.01.17:15.45
The first thing Beth noticed — drifting half-awake, unfocussed and numb — was the depressingly familiar smell of burning flesh.
She woke up slowly, exhaustion like hands trying to drag her down, the world feeling oddly far away. Finally her eyes blinked open, but it took a while for her to get them to focus properly, bleary dull blurs that refused to resolve. Slowly, she made out a triangular peaked ceiling, wood, the cross-beams painted with unfamiliar designs in red and yellow and white.
Beth had no idea where she was. Waking up and not knowing where she was wasn't that unusual of an experience these days — they'd been moving around a lot, she often didn't have long enough to get used to a place to the point that she expected it waking up before they were somewhere new again — so it wasn't really so concerning. She just blinked up at the ceiling, trying to think.
Indochina, they'd been relocating to Indochina. She wasn't sure if they were actually in Vietnam or Laos or Cambodia, somewhere around the three-way border there, up in the mountains. They'd arrived right in the middle of a battle, she knew that, but she didn't really remember much...
She was laying on her back, on some kind of mat — she could feel the weave of whatever it was made of, almost like one of those woven baskets, though smoother to the touch — and covered with a blanket — she immediately recognised the mass-produced wool of the things they had floating around in the Army, vaguely scratchy. Under the smell of sour burnt bacon — dead aliens from the battle, she assumed — there were various sweet floral and sharp spicy scents, some of them too unfamiliar to really sort out, and there was chatter going on outside, muffled, Beth's cheater omniglot powers instinctively trying to figure it out making her kind of dizzy. It wasn't tiếng Việt, but it had a similar vibe to it, it must be related.
Slowly, as Beth woke up further, the numbness faded away, she consciously realised the significance of how much of the weave of the mat and the itchiness of the blanket she could feel — she was naked. Waking up someplace unfamiliar wasn't really distressing anymore, but that was.
Beth twitched, half-sitting, before choking out a little gasp at the dull pain thrumming through her. It didn't really seem to be focussed anywhere in particular, just, kind of a generalised pulse, followed with a low burn along her side and—
There was a little gasp and a clatter of wood from nearby, Beth's eyes flicked that way. The little house was rather cheap-looking, and cluttered, work tables here and there with tools (some unfamiliar) hung on the walls or in little clay pots, baskets and jars and hanging strings of what must be food over there (she didn't recognise a lot of it), but it was clean, and clearly well-cared for, colourfully painted with curly designs she assumed must mean something to the people here. Standing at one of the tables — working on something, but Beth's mat was on the floor, she couldn't see whatever it was from here — was a...
Her first thought was boy, hair cut short and wearing trousers, but something about the face and the stitching along the hem of the long-sleeved shirt made Beth think she was actually a girl. She was maybe eight or nine? Definitely too young for Hogwarts, it could be hard to tell at that age without obvious cultural stuff to use as hints — and this was the middle of nowhere in rural Indochina, who the hell knew what they considered to be masculine or feminine things, that shite tended to change way more than you'd think. The girl chattered at her for a moment, before skipping on out the door, and she was gone.
...Going to get a grown-up, Beth thought. She hadn't understood the language at all, but that was the vague feeling she got. Gritting her teeth against the pain, feeling stiff and weak, Beth managed to push herself up to sitting. She wrapped the blanket around herself (trying not to feel too self-conscious about it, she was alone in here), and looked around the little house. It didn't entirely look like something out of a previous century, some of the cooking stuff looked like modern metal and ceramics, she belatedly spotted a radio on a shelf over there, but they did seem to be very much in the middle of nowhere. She didn't remember seeing power lines on the way in...
She'd only been looking around for a minute or two before someone was coming in through the door. Definitely a woman this time — the way the fabric of her top (a long-sleeved shirt similar in concept to the little girl's) draped over her figure wasn't indecent, exactly, but it did make it kind of obvious. Shiny and delicate, dyed a soft orangeish-pink, Beth thought that was probably silk? That stuff did come from around here, didn't it? She was wearing trousers too, loose and slightly billowy, dyed a dark not-quite-properly black. (Beth vaguely remembered something about black being a hard colour to get before modern industrial methods.) Maybe women wearing trousers was just normal here? Honestly, the outfit kind of almost looked like pyjamas to Beth's eyes, but different cultures wore different things, she had just stepped in from outside...
The woman set a sort of straw hat down on one of the tables, ran a hand through shoulder-length, solid black hair, shot her a smile. She said something, but Beth didn't follow it, in that same language the girl had spoken before — the vague feeling Beth got was asking how she was feeling, maybe?
"Um, I'm sorry, do you speak Vietnamese?"
Her head tilted a little, her eyes widening. "Yes, Vietnamese. It is, eh... A little." Yeah, her teacher had said they spoke different languages up in the hills, Beth wasn't super surprised. "You are awake! Are you well? There is food, if you are..." She trailed off, glancing away, obviously trying to think of the word in the right language.
"Hungry. And, yeah, a little, but maybe..." And now Beth's tiếng Việt was failing her. "Um, clothes?"
The woman smiled. She detoured to one of the tables, picked up a bundle of cloth before moving toward the mat — a fresh uniform, looked like, Beth's must have been ruined. She did have a spare in her bag...which she must have left back at camp? (Didn't remember.) One of the Brits must have brought hers over here for her, that would make sense...though she wasn't sure why she was waking up here and not back there, but whatever. Sinking to her knees, setting the uniform down on the floor nearby, the woman said, "You were hurt, in the fighting, your Sergeant Weasley, er..." She gestured vaguely to herself, apparently not sure how to describe the whole healing process thing. Her eyes flicking away, she hesitated for a second, before leaning in slightly, her voice dropping. "There was a woman in the room with you, always."
Beth was confused for a second, before realising she was trying to reassure Beth she definitely hadn't been raped while she'd been undressed and unconscious. That thought wouldn't even have occurred to her — it was just Bill, you know — but that was...thoughtful of the locals to make sure of it, she guessed? "Um, thanks? I'll do this now..."
Getting dressed was kind of awkward, given how stiff and pained she was, and there was a stranger in the room. She managed to get her vest and pants on without getting out from under the blanket, which made it less horribly uncomfortable, at least. She was shaky enough that she actually needed a hand up to get her bloody trousers on, which was embarrassing, but it couldn't really be helped at the moment.
Of course, it didn't help that the local woman was actually kind of pretty, an impression of some kind of spices lingering around her, and, ugh...
Before too much of an ordeal, Beth was presentable again — she plopped right back down to the floor, leaned against a post holding up the ceiling, feeling unreasonably out of breath, her limbs twitching. Jesus, what the hell happened to her, she should not be this wiped out just from getting dressed. The woman retrieved a basket from somewhere, started laying things out on the floor in Beth's reach. Her standard-issue pistol, which she never bloody used anyway, a pouch with a couple spare magazines, her wand holster, the handle of her wand visible — Beth immediately grabbed that one and started strapping it onto her arm — pouches she knew had food and water, basic first-aid stuff, an emergency portkey. Everything she'd had on her at the time, basically. She idly started reaching for the food, but hesitated — those bars really weren't very appetising, and hadn't this lady said something about there being food...?
"I will find the Sergeant now, and bring some food." Oh yes, food, good. "Okay?"
"Yes." Shooting her another smile, the woman started for the door. She was nearly out when Beth called, "Oh! Um... Thank you, Cousin." Vietnamese didn't really do normal pronouns, for whatever reason, tended to use random vocabulary and kinship terms instead. Of course, the word Beth used literally meant an aunt — your father's sister, specifically, because some languages thought that distinction was relevant — but it was also used for cousins, depending on relative ages and stuff, because it turned out tiếng Việt kinship terms were horribly complicated. She actually didn't quite get how it all worked yet, suspected her teacher hadn't fully understood the particulars either, would probably have to pick it up from native speakers over time.
The woman smiled at her again, said something in the local language, and then she was gone.
The troop must still be hanging around in the village, because it was maybe only two minutes at most before Bill was walking through the door. Like most of the mages Beth had run across over the last... Jesus, was it over a month now? It was nearing the end of October, right? Army sending her to tropical places was throwing off her sense of time. Anyway, Bill had partially accommodated the expectations of their muggle friends, like the rest of the SCF mages wore the uniform and all — though his was slightly scorched in places at the moment, a bit of mud or what looked very much like dried blood here or there — and the dangly nundu fang earring he'd had the first few times they'd met had been replaced with a simple stud, less likely to get in the way. He'd refused to cut his hair, though — when there was going to be fighting he kept it firmly plaited and pinned to the back of his neck, but at the moment it was let free in the more familiar pony tail, bright red-orange trailing down his back.
If Beth's hair was as pretty and well-behaved as Bill's, she probably wouldn't want to cut it either. Now that she thought about it, her hair actually hadn't regrown while she slept this time, that was odd...
"Good, you're awake," Bill said, sounding a little more sharp and gruff than usual. By the look of him, his face strained, Beth guessed he was just tired. He set a few things down on a table before approaching her sleeping mat thing — he let out a little groan as a sat in front of her, sore from the fight.
"Was there any doubt of that?"
"That you would wake up eventually? No. But how long it takes someone to wake up after overchannelling that badly is a sign of how miserable of a recovery they're in for. Your wand hand," he demanded, with a little flick of his fingers.
Grimacing, Beth pushed herself off of the post she was using as a backrest, sat up cross-legged right in front of Bill, their knees nearly touching. He took her hand, his wand drawn, frowning as he cast several unfamiliar analysis charms — no incantations, but Beth could feel the magic prickling at her, some like sandpaper and others like needles and others like being pinched by a thousand tweezers. Squirming in discomfort, she asked mostly to distract herself, "Was it really bad?"
"It could have been worse," Bill said, slowly, a little absent. "I was worried when I heard you'd passed out, but you managed not to burn yourself too badly. There was some nerve damage, but— Well, I'm not a healer, by training, but if you start to see damage to the surrounding tissues, that's an extra degree of severity, if you know what I mean."
"Like the different degrees of burns."
Bill nodded. "Yes, exactly like that. I got a couple healing potions and some salts in you last night, and you seemed more or less fine. What spell was that, by the way? I wasn't at a great angle to see it at the time."
"Crystalline Citadel."
There was a twitch, sharp enough Beth could feel it, Bill's fingers tightening around her wrist. He glanced up at her face, gaped at her — but the shock only lasted for a second, brow furrowing and eyes turning hard with a glare. "What were you— Beth, that was insanely reckless! Crystall— That's a personal shield charm, intended to counter multi-stage curses, it is not meant to be cast over that large of an area!"
"I know that." Beth shrugged, a little sheepishly. "I didn't... Well, a standard shield charm wouldn't have worked, and I didn't think a Heliodor Circle would have stood up to that stuff either." Heliodor shields were good for elemental spells, but that stuff had been, well, it hadn't seemed like a safe bet at the time. "It was the first thing I could think of. Did it work? Is the village okay? I mean, I guess some of it is..."
Bill bit out a harsh sigh, his wand hand coming up, pressing the back of his wrist to his forehead. After a moment of...whatever that was, he went back to the examination — his hand on her shoulder, gently prodding at her chest, which was uncomfortable, she was trying to ignore it. "Yes, Beth, it did work. Most of the village survived the attack. But you are very lucky you didn't incinerate yourself from the inside out."
Well...yeah, that was the danger with big spells sometimes. There had to be dozens of people living here, it'd just...seemed like the obvious thing to do at the time. "Do you have a better spell I could have used?"
The examination paused, Bill frowning over her shoulder. Letting out another sigh, he admitted, "No, I can't think of any off the top of my head — at least, none that could be cast on such short notice without risk of hurting yourself. You did save the village, but it was still very, very dangerous."
Beth shrugged. Most of the things she did in a fight were super dangerous, when you got down to it — the only difference this time was that she'd actually managed to hurt herself.
As though he knew exactly what she was thinking, Bill shot her a sharp, displeased look, but he didn't comment. Letting go of her shoulder, he reached into the bag slung over his shoulder, pulled out a little glass phial, vanished the stopper with a flick of his wand. "Drink this." Beth took it without question, shuddering at the slimy, sulphur-smelling stuff trickling down her throat, ugh. "And this one." The second potion wasn't as bad, at least — tasted vaguely of mint and anise, which was a little weird, but it went down easier. In the couple seconds afterward there was a funny pins and needles feeling in her fingers...but she thought that was her feeling coming back, she hadn't realised she was that numb until it started getting better. "You did some pretty serious damage to yourself, and I'd be happier if you'll go see a proper healer at some point, but you should be fine in a few days. Take it easy for a little while — I don't want you casting any magic, at all, until at least tomorrow afternoon. I've already talked to the Captain about it, and you're grounded for the next five days. After that, if the nerve damage has cleaned up and your magic is coming like normal, then you can fight again, but absolutely not before that."
"Right, okay." Not being allowed to do magic for a day was going to be a pain, but she'd deal with it. "How long was I out? What did I miss?"
"You weren't asleep for that long — it's only the next morning, about..." Bill glanced at his watch. "...quarter to ten, local time. It took some hours to hunt down all the dinos around here, bastards were hiding in the fields waiting to gut anyone who walks by. Once that was cleared up, we left a few people here to keep an eye on the village while we went to rescue the captives."
"Wait, captives? I didn't think they had time to take anyone."
Bill shook his head. "Not this village, there's another one around that way," he said, pointing vaguely past one of the walls, "behind the hills over there. The alien camp is a few kilometres downriver, we think they hit both villages at once — looking for slaves to work their farms, same as back in Africa. We moved fast enough to hit them on the way back, we managed to rescue the captives before they could be infected."
Oh, well, that was good news.
"We lost Olwen, Joshua, Clement, Rick, and Lewis."
It took a second for the meaning of what Bill was saying to filter in, but even after what he meant clicked it didn't seem quite real, Beth staring at him more in confusion than anything. "Wh– What?!"
Bill was only a couple syllables into an explanation when there was a noise at the door, Beth jumped, barely stopped herself from reaching for her wand. The woman from before was back, carrying a wooden tray, with little posts sticking down from the corners — like a tiny little table, Beth guessed. Shooting the two of them a smile, she walked over, gracefully sank down to her knees to set the tray down at the edge of the mat near Beth. On the tray was a ceramic bowl (modern-looking) filled with some kind of noodle soup — not Western noodles, they were wide and flat and semi-translucent — with some vegetables in there which were mostly unfamiliar to Beth, and maybe those bits were chicken? Hard to say. There was also a small plate, with a couple slices of...some kind of fried something, not sure what that was. A little cup had a drink in it, dark and...coffee, maybe — or, they were in east Asia, maybe it was tea? And then there was, just, a big leaf, held in place wrapped up in a wedge with some kind of twine, she had no idea what that was about. Also, the only utensils were a pair of chopsticks, which Beth had only played around with a couple times having Chinese takeout with Sirius, but she was sure she could figure it out.
The woman was saying something, Beth hadn't been paying attention, um...she thought it was just polite, hope you're feeling better, enjoy your meal stuff — not literally, of course, "polite" meant different things in different cultures, but that was the vibe she got. It was obvious Beth and Bill were having a talk here — had he just said five of their people had died?! — she excused herself quickly. Before she could get out the door, Beth called, "Oh, wait! Um, what's this?" she asked, holding up the leaf wedge. There was definitely something in here, and it was noticeably warm to the touch — had they...cooked whatever this was in a leaf?
Smiling back at her, the woman made a little box with her hands, folded them open. "Inside. You don't eat the leaf."
...Okay. Beth glanced over the knot in the twine, yanked at one of the ends, it fell apart pretty easily, she folded over one end of the leaf and— "Oh." There was a vaguely squarish wedge of rice in here, probably small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, coloured an intense orange-ish red, with little bits of what looked like some kind of fruit in it. The smell coming off of it was noticeably sweet, with a subtle edge of an unidentifiable spice — this was dessert, she guessed. "I see. Thank you, Cousin." The woman shot her another warm smile, said something in the local language with a nod of her head, before ducking back out the door. "Okay, now that she's gone, when you say lost, you mean..."
His face grim and cold, Bill nodded. "They didn't make it."
That was...kind of hard to imagine, honestly. Of course, it was a war, Beth knew that happened, but, it'd been a month, and their sixteen-person troop had only lost two people so far? Elliott was fine, he'd just gotten terribly ill not long after arriving in Africa — he'd still been in Goma last Beth had heard — and Curt had died just a few days ago, in the push to Isiro. (While Beth had been in her language lessons, useless.) Lewis had been sent to fill in for Elliott, they'd still been one short when they'd been moved to Indochina — and it'd been one day, and they were already down to ten? "What the hell happened?! I thought you said it's only the next morning!"
"It is only the next morning. Clement was hit by one of those...flame-throwing big walker things, attacking this village. That liquid fire they use is extremely effective on living things, he was dead before he hit the ground."
Beth twitched, her breath hitching in her throat — she vaguely remembered seeing, in passing, one of the fliers on brooms being hit with a stream of liquid fire. She'd probably seen Clement die, and hadn't even realised it at the time.
"The rest died rescuing the captives. Lewis and Joshua were hit with the fire, Rick was ambushed by a dino, and Olwen was hit in the back with bugs. I got to Lewis and Olwen in time to try to help them, but neither of them made it." Bill wasn't quite looking at her, staring off to the side, a tone to his voice of— Getting to a friend in time to try to heal them, but for them to still die on you anyway, Beth could guess that that probably felt pretty fucking miserable. She remembered, in the first attack, Hermione had tried to help...Beth had forgotten his name, one of the muggles who'd come up to help them hold off the aliens in the Underground. Even after Hermione semi-miraculously managed to stabilise one of the other muggles after being stabbed through the gut, Beth could tell she'd still blamed herself for not saving the other bloke — and that had been a practical stranger, she'd been living and fighting with Olwen for over a month now.
Olwen was nice. Beth didn't know Lewis so well — he was new, only been around for a week and change — but Beth had met Olwen way back at the training camp, she— Well, she was slightly silly about the Girl Who Lived stuff, or at least she had been at first, the way that British mages could be, but she'd gotten over it pretty quickly. And, you know, they were the only women around — there were muggle women in the Army, like Hermione's mum, but few of them applied to the SCF, for whatever reason — so they'd spent a fair amount of time together, and—
It was, just, surreal, that Olwen was dead, and Beth had been being unconscious and useless at the time. And Ricky, she'd liked Ricky, he was funny, and he—
It was hard to believe they were, just, gone.
"You should eat," Bill was saying, the words slowly dragging Beth out of her scattered, directionless thoughts. "Healing charms and potions require materials from the body to build with — there can be serious health consequences if you don't eat enough." Bill didn't say that the risk was less if the person was carrying enough fat reserves to cover it, but Beth was a skinny bitch, so.
"...I don't know if I could eat at the moment." She'd been pretty hungry a moment ago, but— Full on a third of their people had died, and Beth'd been—
Bill bit out a sharp sigh. "Don't blame yourself, Beth. I can't imagine anything you could possibly have done beyond what you already did. You already put yourself in more danger than you probably should, reckless fucking Gryffindors—" Said with an exhausted edge of humour, his lips twitching. He was a professional cursebreaker, after all, Bill was a bit of a reckless fucking Gryffindor himself. "—you did more than your fair share last night. Sam's explanation of how you two took down the flame-spitting things was very helpful, that second fight might not have gone quite so well as it did without the hint. You did enough, more than enough, nobody blames you for not being there.
"As powerful of a mage as you are, Beth, you're still human — and humans have limits. Sometimes people die, and there's just nothing you can do about it. It's not your fault."
Deep, cold exhaustion dragging at her, her breath turning hot and thick as her throat clenched, Beth felt the stinging in her eyes, bent over and pressed the back of a hand against her face. That was— Bill was right, she knew that. Multiple times over the years, Hermione had pointed out she had a saving people thing, and, she knew she could be—
It was actually Sirius who'd pointed it out, first. He tended to get Beth, sometimes, without her needing to explain herself, which could be as uncomfortable as it was convenient — the reason he got it was because he'd been abused by his family growing up, which, Beth normally tried to avoid thinking about her childhood if she could help it, so. But anyway, Sirius had noticed that, when crazy shite happened with the Chamber of Secrets, or the bloody dementors around the school, or Voldemort coming back and the war ramping up, she had a bad habit of blaming herself for things that really weren't her fault. The reason why was obvious, of course — whenever weird magic stuff happened around her growing up, or really anything the Dursleys didn't like for any reason, she was always punished, regardless of whether she'd done it on purpose or even knew it'd happened until afterward — but just because she knew that was a problem didn't make it automatically stop happening.
It still sucked that they were dead, yes, but it wasn't her fault. She'd done everything she could. She'd done more than she could, really — she'd almost seriously hurt herself pushing her magic too hard, after all. Be sad about her friends being dead, but it wasn't her fault.
Her breath thick, Beth nodded, wiped at her eyes quick before looking back up — or, mostly, she still wasn't quite meeting Bill's eyes. Didn't know why, just, she felt really awkward all of a sudden. "Yeah, I—" She cleared her throat, her voice coming out thick and wavering, took another pass at her eyes, the back of her hand coming away damp. "Yeah. Fine, I'll try. To eat, I mean. Um. I don't know if I can..." She waved vaguely at the chopsticks.
His wand appearing in his hand, Bill picked up the chopsticks and transfigured them one at a time — one turned into a simple metal fork, the other a spoon. "We should all get used to the local food — I think they mean to keep us here through to the end — but there'll be time for that later."
Besides, Beth probably only had to eat alongside some locals a few times before she'd pick it up from their heads anyway. Omniglots were cheaters like that. Fork in hand, Beth picked up the soup bowl, held close against her chest — she had no idea how easy it was to clean this mat, she didn't want to make a mess. Fucking hell, this stuff smelled pretty intense. Black pepper, definitely, and lots of it, and there were other spices too, and...was that some kind of mint? Whatever, this was going to be some pretty strong-tasting soup, that was all.
At least if her eyes kept leaking, Bill would probably just assume it was the food. Or at least they could both pretend it was — that very brief talk was enough feelings stuff for her, thanks, she was already exhausted.
Curling a couple noodles around her fork, she asked, "So, catch me up. What's the plan?"