Archive of Our Own ^beta

Memories of his mother were all he had left of her, and Matthias woke up every morning realizing that those precious things were slipping from him. Memories were all he had left of any family, really, and he was loath to admit that the faces of his parents, the adoring smile of his baby sister, were foggy at best.

He could remember how his mother loved to bake, and how his father loved to sing. He could remember his sister loving to dance from the very second she could balance on her own two feet. Matthias himself hadn’t always been so cold. He had once been a young boy who dreamed of adventure and falling in love. He had believed in magic and the good it could do.

Amidst all those memories of smiles and dancing was something that was more of an idea than an event. The dark circles under his mother’s eyes had really been there. Matthias knew that for certain. She could eat and eat and sit in the fresh spring air as long as she liked but she never got better. Not until-

This was where everything went sideways, like Matthias had only been half awake when he heard his parents’ voices. They almost never argued, and certainly never in front of their children, but he remembered the urgency in the words his father spoke: “Stop being so stubborn, Katja! You have to try-“

Matthias had not heard whatever his father had meant to say, because his mother interrupted. Her words were slow and weak. She had been getting worse.

“It is too…” Her voice cut out. “I can’t…” She was protesting- but protesting what?

“Surely Djel did not intend for…” Matthias had sat up in bed then, annoyed that he couldn’t hear everything.  He could hear their footsteps better than the conversation, and he knew they must be pacing together, both of them looking for a solution hand in hand, just like they did everything else.

Around midnight Matthias had heard both his father and mother retreat to their room. He had not heard any more of what they had been saying, and he had more questions than he’s begun with.

The next morning Matthias carried his sister down to breakfast and found his mother looking healthier and younger than she had in months. The shadows under her eyes were not so dark, and her skin seemed to glow, like she had swallowed the rays from the rising sun. His father had a bandaged hand and he looked tired and happy.

Knowing he would get no answers, Matthias asked none of the questions that burned him from the inside out.

One winter night a woman brought her sick baby to the Helvar home. Matthias knew his mother was good with medicines. It ran in her family. The baby wasn’t getting any better and Matthias covered his ears with his pillow to drown out the sounds of the poor thing’s choking and wailing.

The woman stayed the night, sleeping peacefully by the roaring fire after Matthias’ mother had prayed and laid hands on her. Through the night his mother worked to save the baby, and when the dawn broke she presented their guest with a healthy child. The woman left calling her thanks through the grateful sobs that shook her.

Matthias ran over this memory again and again as he lay in the stinking hut under grimy skins with a witch pressed against his bare flesh. Some parts of the memories all fit together like the tiny pieces of the most beautiful music box. Some parts felt more like a patchwork quilt, all over the place and not lining up.

How had his mother gotten better overnight? What had she been sick with in the first place? What had she given that poor, dying baby to bring it back from the brink of meeting Djel?

Then there had been the fire, which Matthias remembered best of all. The memory was burnt into him and never left him any peace. It was an act of Djel that he lived at all. Everything about that night seemed wrong now, but then it hadn’t seemed unordinary at all. Some Drüskelle were passing through his town, lead by Commander Brum himself, and all the neighbors banded together to provide their brave protectors with shelter and dinner.

Katja Helvar’s baking was rumored to be the best that side of Elling, which must have been the reason Commander Brum and his second were insistent on staying with Matthias’ family. Looking back, he did not know why strangers had wanted to stay in his family’s cottage. All he knew was that he went out to water the Drüskelle’s horses and peek at their wolves feeling proud to play host to such powerful men, and when he began his walk back home from the stable all he saw was smoke.

The house burned quickly. Brum’s second had raced out and held Matthias back by force, shouting that it was too late and he would only walk into his death. Matthias could see his little sister, his sweet Elise, screaming from their bedroom window. Her little hands beat on the thick glass pane, and he heard her shriek in terror when it shattered with the heat. Suddenly she disappeared from the window, and moments later Commander Brum carried her outside, cradling her tiny body against his chest as she coughed and sobbed. She cried for her mama, but all she could have was Matthias. Her brother held her through the night, but Brum had told him that Elise had inhaled too much smoke.

There was only one body to bury the next morning. Mama and papa were gone faster than the memories of them could fade. All Matthias’ dreams of adventure shriveled up the second he heard Brum say that the fire must have been started by a witch. “Drusje,” was the word he had used, which confused Matthias. His mother had always spoken plainly and called them Grisha. She had never said they were to be feared, but then she had been murdered by one, so what did she know?

Matthias felt the witch stir under their covers, pulling him out of all the sadness and nostalgia. He stomped down the effortless thought that she was soft and beautiful, because her kind were the whole reason he was here at all. If her abomination of a people never existed, he would be living a good life with his family. Maybe he would be betrothed. Maybe he would work with his father to build his own home. Matthias would never know what shape his life would have taken if everything had gone right, but he felt moderately better when he remembered that if all went according to plan he would personally get to put the noose around this vile creature’s neck.

A year later Matthias lay next to the same witch- his witch, his red bird- deciding whether or not he ought to tell her about these memories. He decided that could wait.

Two days later he decided he didn’t want to wait. Nina should know. She would be able to speak the truth that Matthias was so afraid he had misunderstood. Nina would be able to piece together his blurry bits of memories and see the whole picture. A moment’s thought brought the realization that Matthias wanted Nina to know everything. He didn’t want there to be a single secret about him that she wasn’t privy to. He wanted her to have all of him, which was terrifying and felt so right. No matter what his past held, Matthias was certain that Nina would still love him.

He did not live to see the end of the week.

When Matthias Benedik Helvar took his first steps into the Bright Lands he was greeted by the family who had gone on before him. They told him they were proud. Time was of no consequence there, and they knew that his death was the first step towards justice for Nina’s people, his mother’s people.

His people.