Chapter Text
Renee perches on the arm of Allison’s chair, a hand resting on her shoulder as Allison reaches one of her own hands out over a large map spread across their coffee table. There’s a crystal pendant wrapped three times around her palm (it isn’t purple, so it probably isn’t amethyst, and that just about exhausts the extent of Renee’s gem identification abilities) and Allison thumbs it idly as her hand drifts across the map, occasionally stuttering or pausing in its journey before ultimately clapping down over a swath of the southeastern United States.
“Goddamnit,” Allison mutters, opening her eyes. “I fucking hate the south.”
“It’s not so bad,” Renee says, but her mouth twists distastefully at the thought of being so close to her childhood home.
Allison sighs, standing to go rummage through her crate of atlases and find a map that will give them a more specific location.
“It’s the humidity,” she grumbles. “It makes my hair frizzy. The vibes are all wrong there.”
The vibes, Renee knows, are an essential part of Allison’s witchy process, though over the course of two years the blonde has been able to give Renee neither a quantitative nor qualitative explanation of what exactly they are or do. At this point, Renee has resigned herself to the fact that she simply may never know.
“A change of scenery might be nice, at least,” Renee says mildly.
Though Renee hasn’t minded attending Portland Community College alongside Allison by any means, she just wasn’t made for cold weather the way some people here seem to be, and she is - perhaps selfishly - looking forward to a little warmth.
The reason for the change of scenery is, of course, less than ideal. Allison maintains that she hadn’t meant to prestidigitate that poor boy’s pants across state lines into Seattle in the middle of his final presentation, but - nevertheless, any attention is bad attention if you happen to be on the run from a religious cult, for example, or a practicing witch trying to avoid exposing her whole kind to the world at large. And, between the two of them, Allison and Renee tick both of those boxes, so, for better or for worse, it's time to move on.
The kid had been a dick, anyway.
Allison returns with a folded map of South Carolina - “I have a good feeling about this one” - and Renee takes it before Allison can tear any of its edges in an attempt to wrestle it open. They both know from experience at this point that it’s far easier this way.
“I happen to like when your hair gets all poofy, anyway,” Renee tacks on as she smooths out a crease cutting Clarendon County neatly in half.
“No offense, babe, but you’d like me if I dressed in a potato sack for the rest of my life,” Allison sniffs, shaking out her hands before selecting a pendulum from the collection around her throat. “The same potato sack. Forever.”
Renee shrugs. No use denying the truth. Allison’s eyes cross slightly as she surveys her options, and Renee takes several very gay breaths. Allison is very cute.
A lot has changed since fleeing James and his cronies a little over two years ago. For example, Renee is a lesbian now - something she hadn’t been able to figure out in her adolescence due to heteronormativity and also semi-constant water torture. Also, Renee is - well - Renee. The name change had started as a half-suggestion from Allison, a way of avoiding notice both from James’s cult and any potential true crime fanatics who might recognize her as that teenager who’d gone missing in rural Georgia back in 20XX. What it had ended up being, however, was an exercise in self discovery and a deep dive into a truly nauseating number of baby name books. She’d found that her birth name, Natalie, had Latin origins that meant birthday of the Lord, which quite frankly made her skin crawl upon first reading. Testing out Renee (born again, new beginnings, a fresh start) even briefly had felt so right it had been impossible to ignore. So, here she is - new name, new girlfriend, and - soon - new home. Again.
“It would probably start to smell eventually,” Renee counters. “I probably wouldn’t like that.”
“You sure?” Allison asks, eyebrow arched. “Because somebody very wise told me the other day when they were very sweaty that over time lovers biologically become attracted to their partner’s body odor, so maybe - maybe you would come to like it!”
Her volume increases as she goes on, and as Renee smacks her repeatedly and in earnest with a sweetly embroidered throw pillow.
“Hate crimes,” Renee cries, giggling uncontrollably, “I’m being hate crimed in my own home. You’re homophobic.”
“Sweetheart, I am the homo blueprint.” Allison flicks her hair back dramatically. A few strands of it snarl in the intricate details of one of the pendulums she had singled out previously, and she nods decisively. “Okay, you, then,” she murmurs, and pulls it over her head.
Renee finishes pressing down the corners of South Carolina and Allison leans over the coffee table pensively.
“If you’re done being hate crimed,” Allison says, “you could probably use this as a chance to practice.”
“More hate crimes,” Renee mutters, but obligingly leans against Allison’s shoulder again and closes her eyes.
It had taken Allison a couple months once they landed in Portland to ascertain whether or not Renee was a “real prophet,” whatever that meant, or something else entirely. Unfortunately for Renee, Allison’s conclusion had been that she was the real deal, and as such needed to be properly trained after being deprived of the opportunity to do so for so many years.
From what Renee can gather, a number of prophets are actually self-taught, but then, a number of prophets also have much of their adolescence to figure out their skills without the constant threat of a religious cult hanging over their heads, so she’ll take what help she can get. A lot of that help seems to be guided meditation while Allison simmers a rotating assortment of herbs over their electric stove. Sometimes it works, and Renee is greeted by visions of the future when she closes her eyes, and sometimes it doesn’t. Fortunately, the worst consequence of the latter outcome is that Renee has spent half an hour meditating and inhaling lavender, or whatever, so it’s not as if she’s too put out. And it has helped; she can find that mental trance state much faster than she used to, like, sixty percent of the time these days, and Allison is constantly saying that that’s half the battle. The visions will come.
Now, it takes Renee a few minutes to settle into the groove in her mind that she has been steadily wearing down for the past two years - not her best time, but not her worst either. Her world narrows to her breathing, to the warmth of Allison’s shoulder, to- the pendulum. Which, Renee should not be able to see. Because her eyes are closed. Which is - usually, anyway - counterproductive to sight. Which means-!
Renee’s excitement at her success very nearly knocks her out of the vision altogether, and she hastily calms herself down. Breathing. In, out. The pendulum swings. Lands on- a town so small the map barely bothered to label it. Palmetto.
As she reads the name, Renee’s brain abandons the pendulum and the map in favor of supplying images of unfamiliar people. They flicker like old-timey film across her eyelids - a man, freckled and blue-eyed, crouched face to face with a snarling wolf; the same man, now with a word-weary expression as he stares down a taller, dark-haired, inexplicably shirtless man; a blond- no, two blond men, apathetic and identical - and- shitfuck-
The slideshow might have continued, but Renee loses her concentration as Allison shifts in her seat.
Renee reluctantly opens her eyes to see the pendulum - somehow less real than it had been in her mind’s eye - swing to a stop exactly where she’d expected it to.
Allison leans in close - Renee knows Allison’s forgotten she’s wearing contacts, because she reaches up absently to push nonexistent glasses up her nose - and hums thoughtfully.
“Well,” she says at length. “Looks like we’re going to… Uh…”
“Palmetto,” Renee finishes for her, a small smile gradually gaining traction on her face. “This should be interesting.”