Chapter Text
The first thing Eda did when she woke up, muscles burning post-transformation, was throw up.
Her stomach clenched and attempted to flip itself inside out. Her throat burned.
Beyond the blood rushing in her ears she could hear someone yelp, and footsteps skittering around her.
“Edalyn!”
Through watering eyes she made out the figure of her sister fussing and pulling her up with cold, thin fingers, away from the mess she’d made.
“Lily?” She croaked.
Fuck, she was exhausted.
“Oh, Edalyn, we were so worried! How do you feel? I’ve never made the elixir from scratch like this before.”
Her vision blurred and she swayed.
She tried to brace herself against the wall, only to end up flailing against nothing.
Because she was missing a hand.
Right.
She’d forgotten about that.
Lilith yelped and looped her remaining arm over her shoulder, supporting her weight.
“Carefull! You’ve been the owl beast for over a week, you should rest.”
She was being set down against something soft, and she sank into with shaking legs.
“King,” she rasped. “I was…I was going to save him. There was this-a kid? They took him-”
“That was the collector,” Lilith said gravely. “They’re some kind of immortal god-child that’s taken over the isles. He’s chosen King as his companion.”
She brightened slightly.
“But don’t worry, he’s safe. The collector doesn’t seem interested in harming him. King is actually the one who convinced him to reanimate me. Afterwards he helped me slip away and find these hidden corridors in the archives where I found the supplies to brew the elixir and sneak you out of your cage.”
Her head still felt like it was spinning.
“ Reanimate you? The Collector? What are you-What happened, Lily? Where is everyone else-” panic like a shot of ice slid through her veins.
“ Raine -”
Lilith flinched, and the dread intensified.
“Edalyn,” she said slowly. “I'm so sorry.”
She closed her eyes.
“The collector is an incredibly powerful being. He’s completely remade the isles into his personal playground. The subjects of the isles his toys. In more ways than one. He turns everyone into these…puppets.”
She made a wide gesture and Eda followed the sweep of her hand around the dim room they were hiding in. The cold, polished walls illuminated by a massive bubbling cauldron. All manner of odds and ends shoved against the walls and into corners to insulate and cushion the small space.
Some of them Eda recognized as her own. Remnants of the owl house that made her heart ache.
“That’s what the archives are for,” Lilith continued in a sombre tone. “The collector keeps everyone here in storage when they’re not using them for his games.”
Eda raised her head.
“Everyone?”
Lilith hesitated knowingly.
“Eda…”
“They’re here, aren’t they?”
“You should rest. They’re really not going anywhere-”
“Show me.”
-----------------
The coven heads were kept in a special room separate from the rest of the archives. Like rare collectibles on a reserved shelf.
Eda gripped the bars separating herself from Raine’s familiar silhouette.
They really did look like a giant toy now, skin turned to smooth, polished wood and interconnected joints. The collector’s magic warped them all, marking them in celestial patterns and cold colors.
“Oh, Raine,” She murmured, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
Lilith placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“Does it hurt?” She asked.
Lilith shook her head.
“It feels like…the edge between being awake and asleep. Time becomes hard to track, and it takes effort to become aware of anything around you. Everything is quieter.”
“Do you think they can hear us?”
“...I don’t know.”
Eda bit her lip, gazing at their stiff form longingly.
She gripped the bars and pulled.
“Eda! No-”
Metal creaked and groaned and bit into her palm. Black spots swam in her vision.
Eda growled and wrenched-
The bars gave away with a squeal that echoed in the empty halls.
Lilith yelped.
“Edalyn! You’re going to get us caught!”
Eda ignored her and clamored through the hole she’d made, ripping her dress and getting cut on the sharp edges of the broken bars.
She didn’t care.
She ran forward and threw her arm around them, biting back a sob at the wooden clink of their limbs.
She cried into their back, uncaring of Lilith’s wary eyes on her.
“Shit, Raine,” She choked. “Fuck,, why does it always have to be you?”
Always separated, always ripped away.
She really thought they were going to make it this time.
It wasn’t fair!
After a few moments, she heard Lilith sigh and her footsteps fade away.
Leaving her alone with her tears for the wreckage her life has become.
----------------
The first time King returned to the hideout after Lilith had subdued to owlbeast, Eda cried again.
“King!”
“Eda!”
He scrambled into her open arm and clung to her tightly.
“I was so scared!” He cried. “We didn’t have any elixirs and the collector hardly ever rests so I couldn’t get away and I didn’t know what to do-”
“Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay, baby,” Eda murmured wetly. “Mama’s right here. I missed you so much kiddo.”
King whined and buried his face in her chest, soaking her ragged dress.
“Luz is gone,” He whimpered. “I made sure she and her friends got through the door before it broke again.”
“So she’s in the human realm now,” Lilith said, apropos of nothing. She was nestled in a cushion beside the cauldron, hunched over some kind of sewing project she had get to allow Eda a proper look at.
King nodded.
“Then she’s safe now,” Eda breathed.
In the midst of all this chaos and despair, this was by far the best news she’d heard yet.
Luz was safe.
She was with her mother.
Her real mother.
One of her kids was safe .
King whined again and she hugged him tighter, pressing a kiss against his temple.
“I miss her.”
Eda sniffed, curling protectively around her son.
He was too little to be caught in the middle of all of this. Just a baby.
Too young to have to be the one protecting his family from the attention of god. For this much responsibility to weigh on his tiny shoulders.
Eda felt the helplessness of the situation crash over her again, just as it had when she’d seen the coven heads in their wooden shells.
She kissed her son’s head again, tears sliding down her cheeks.
“Me too, hun. Me too.”
-----------------
Days began to bleed together.
Somewhere along the line, Eda found catharsis in walking the now-familiar path to the private archive.
“Tada! Whaddya think?”
Eda did a small turn, showing off her newly cropped hair.
Raine stared on passively, face as blank as ever.
Eda decided to take that as approval.
“It’s a little rough, but practical, and smokin. I had this same cut back in my thirties and ho, boy, did I pull at the bars after that!”
She tangled her fingers through the ends and batting her eyelashes, before breaking the facade with a snort.
“Lily cut it for me, and then somehow got the bright idea to have me do her hair too.”
She waved her stump with a smirk.
“You can guess how well that went. King gave me this look the entire time. Kid knows me way too well, he could tell was enjoying the power a little too much.”
She sighed.
“Still no progress on a reversal for…whatever this is.”
She nudged their wooden shoulder sadly.
“Lily is already convinced only the collector can reverse it. But don’t worry, we’re gonna keep trying anyways.”
“I thought I’d find you out here again.”
Eda jumped.
Standing on the other side of the broken bars was Lilith, holding up a cloth sack.
“You haven’t eaten in a while.”
Eda wrinkled her nose.
“It’s fine, lils. I’m really not hungry.”
Lilith frowned.
“You’ve been ‘not-hungry’ since the day of unity. Eat something anyways? Please. You need to keep up your strength.”
Eda shrugged and accepted the bag, untying it with little ceremony.
Inside was a small bowl of cooked canned meat and vegetables. The tin-like scent it carried made her stomach turn.
To be fair, everything seemed to make her stomach turn.
There was something else in there, though.
A little juicebox with familiar red writing.
Eda’s breath hitched.
“How did you-”
Lilith beamed.
“I was exploring for more supplies and found a whole case of apple blood! It’s only the regular juice, not your usual fair, but I thought you’d like it.”
Eda eagerly stabbed the straw into the top and took a sip-
And immediately spat it back out, dropping the box as the most rancid taste she’d ever experienced hit her tongue.
“Holy shit!”
She gagged, stomach acid coating her throat.
“ Herk- I think these thing are expired- fuck-”
She clasped a hand over her mouth, stomach feeling as though it were attempting to turn in on itself.
Lilith picked up the box, scanning it meticulously.
“It can’t be, I checked the expiration date!”
She turned the box over in her hands.
“Perhaps it wasn’t cold enough and that sped up the process…”
She sniffed it, and frowned.
“Huh. It smells fine.”
She took a hesitant sip.
“Edalyn, there’s nothing wrong with this.”
Eda shook her head.
“You’re kidding me. That was the worst thing i’ve ever tasted. It was rancid.”
Lilith gave her a long, considering look.
“Edalyn…I think you’re getting sick.”
Her eyes widened.
“What?”
“You’re constantly nauseous and dizzy. You haven’t been sleeping well. Now you can’t even drink apple blood! You’re clearly coming down with something.”
“No. Absolutely not. It’s just-it’s just stress. I’m not sick.”
“You need to rest.”
“I don’t have time to rest! I need to-”
“Raine isn’t going anywhere, Eda.”
Eda froze.
Lilith gave her a knowing look.
“The collector rarely takes the coven heads out of the archives for his games, and they’re always put back before nightfall. We haven’t made any progress in reversing the puppeteering spell. Nothing has changed. And nothing is going to change if you take a few days to lay down and rest.”
She pulled Eda into a hug.
“You don’t have to deal with this alone, sister.”
Eda sniffed.
Her chest felt tight.
“Okay.”
----------------------------
Days turned to weeks.
Idly, Eda wondered if they shouldn’t start marking the passage of time on the wall in tallies.
Lilith pointed out that only prisoners in cheesy films did such a thing.
Lilith, Eda thought, was kind of a buzzkill.
Sleeping for twelve hours straight and choking down a few vegetables did make her feel better, but only so much. Apple blood, for reasons she couldn’t understand, still tasted rancid as all hell. Lately she’d also become prone to fits of dizziness, and, on one memorable occasion, fainting.
The longer the symptoms stuck, the more it bugged her.
“Maybe it’s these new elixirs,” Eda mused, eyeing her mug distrustfully. “They do taste worse than I remember.”
“I take them too, and I haven’t experienced any side effects,” Lilith pointed out with a raised eyebrow.
“Meh. Potions are tricky like that. Sometimes they’re different for everyone.”
“Perhaps. I can’t help but have my doubts, though. It could be something more serious. You might need a healer-”
“Oh wow, what a genius thought, Lilith! Why don’t I just walk on over to the nearest clinic to see one- Oh wait!”
She clapped her hands against her cheeks in a mockery of shock, expression dry as a desert.
Lilith flushed.
“I’m perfectly aware of the current state of things, Edalyn. I wasn’t making a suggestion, I’m just worried.”
Eda shrugged.
“Yeah, well add it to the pile along with everything else we gotta be worried about.”
“I’m serious, Edalyn.”
“So am I. Look, for the thousandth time, it’s just stress. Sometimes I get a little ‘blegh-y’ when I’m worked up. I feel better once we have an actual plan to stop the collector and save everyone from all this end of the world junk.”
“If you’re sure…”
“I am. Now, be honest, do you think my nails still look okay? The polish is chipping and I can’t find any gold paint. Should I just go red?”
“You could just cut them.”
“Never.”
“You’re so impractical about the strangest things.”
“It’s called fashion, Lily.”
-------------
Most nights Eda couldn’t sleep.
She tossed and turned, but while Lilith and occasionally King slept like rocks in the darkest hours where even god-children were at rest, she was wide awake, in spite of her own exhaustion.
Everything felt too wrong.
It was too hot, and then suddenly too cold. Her legs cramped, her back would ache like hell, and when she did sleep, her dreams were strange and hazy, more so than her usual shared dreamscapes, who was also being…weird. Quiet, even.
On these restless nights, Eda would get unbelievably sick of staring at the ceiling, and listening to Lilith’s snoring.
So she’d pull her blanket around her shoulders, and pad barefoot down icy corridors to the private archive.
“Hey, Rainestorm,” She mumbled, settling down beside them and leaning against them. “Couldn’t sleep again. Hope you don’t mind.”
Her back twinged and she huffed, rubbing her cheek against their cold wooden leg, which still somehow smelled like the coffee addiction they’d had all their life, like the bitter drink was embedded into their very essence.
It was comforting.
“Do you still sleep like this?” She asked.
Raine didn’t answer.
“Lily says it feels like being sort of…almost asleep. I hope you still get to rest in there. Though I don’t think sleeping on your feet is super comfortable.”
Eda had no idea if they could even hear her.
Somehow, the answer didn’t matter.
She kept talking anyway.
“I hope you can’t feel pain like this. I hope your back doesn’t hurt and your feet never get sore. I hope-”
Her voice cracked.
“I kind of hope you are asleep. That you won’t remember any of this when it’s over. This place is a fucking nightmare. I don’t know how Lily does it. She’s been keeping the both of us sane and I don’t understand how she can still smile sometimes. It’s so hard. Even when King visits. I feel like the only thing I can do anymore is worry.”
She traced the pattern of the grain of Raine’s leg.
“If you were here. Like, really here, you’d probably say something cheesy about how everything is going to be okay. You’d probably give me that stupid goofy half-smile you always do when you’re trying to cheer me up and fiddle with your vest and say I can do anything I set my mind to.”
She huffed a tired laugh.
“And I would believe you. I always do.”
Eda shifted and pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders.
“I miss your voice,” She whispered.
“Do you remember when we were younger, we had this hill we’d always go to? There was this massive meadow of snapdragons and we’d climb to the top almost every day no matter what either of us had going on and just…talk. I liked hearing about your apprenticeship studies. I didn’t understand half of it but I just loved to hear you talk. You would wave your arms around and laugh and we’d been together for ages at that point, but I still felt like I was going to have a stroke when you were being that cute. Every single time.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against them.
“Sometimes I think there’s no way you remember any of it, not like I do. I still think about how I broke your heart because I was so scared of hurting you with my curse that I just…forgot there were plenty of other ways I could hurt you too. Until I did and I kept thinking it was for the best.”
Eda swallowed thickly. Her throat ached at the melancholy emotions these memories brought back.
“It was such a long time ago. It was a long time, and I hurt you. I never stopped thinking that if you just forgot all those little things, like the hill we used to visit, or the picks you gave me when you taught me how to play the lute, or, or the way my house smelled when you made your special curry because I was sick….”
She had to stop and take a breath then, eyes stinging.
“If you just forgot all the little things, stuff that I burned into my head and turned around and around for decades because I never learned how to stop missing you, it would be okay. Because those memories hurt. They hurt me so bad to remember when you were gone and I never wanted you to hurt.”
Another breath.
“I hope you did forget. I hope you forgot our hill and the good days and the bad ones and I hope until we ran into each other again that day in the market you completely forgot about me.”
Her body felt heavy.
“I hope you were happy. I really do. I hope you never looked back and that you were so, so happy, every single day.”
The rhapsody that she’d written for them floated through her mind and she couldn’t help humming it out loud.
The notes were familiar, a constant on her mind since their very first composition.
Comforting, in every form.
She yawned.
“Hope is pretty fucking useless,” she mumbled, eyes feeling heavy. “Least it feels like that these days.”
“You make me want to anyways.”
She fell asleep, blanket falling loosely around her elbows.
Raine stared forward, wooden smile as perfect as it ever was.
------------------
“You know, I really thought we had a chance.”
Today was dusting day, a chore Eda had brought upon herself to do when it had been a while since the collector took the coven heads out of the archives.
After all, being dusty couldn’t be comfortable.
So she tied some of her feathers up in twine to a stick and used it to make sure Raine stayed in pristine condition.
“Back when you let me join the batts,” she continued. “I was more excited than I had been about anything in a while. I expected you to be mad if you ever saw me again, but it was like the years didn’t mean anything at all.”
She smiled.
“Then we started going on raids and you were so strong and clever and I thought I was going to have the hardest time pretending I wasn’t still crazy about you.”
Eda carefully removed their glasses, cleaning them on the edge of her skirt.
She glanced up at them with a smirk.
“Imagine my surprise when you started acting like such a massive flirt.”
She flipped the metal frames over, staring down at her reflection.
She had to hand it to herself, the lack of beauty products in the apocalypse hadn’t done a thing to hinder her. If anything, she looked better than she had in ages, eyebags and all. Her hair had gotten noticeably thicker and her skin was looking damn near flawless.
“Not that I blame you,” she purred approvingly. “I am called the hot mom at all the PCA meetings for a reason.”
She gently slid the glasses back onto their face.
“Still, I didn’t expect you to be interested in, ah ‘retracing old steps’.”
Her cheeks heated up slightly.
“Let alone as closely as we did one particular night. You are so lucky my kids didn’t notice I was gone, by the way. I snuck into my room that morning through my window- snrk- I felt like a dumbass kid again.”
She sighed happily.
“You have a funny way of doing that. Making me forget I’m not a single mother who is definitely too damn old for crushes and sneaking into my own damn house.”
She poked them in the chest.
“Shame on you, buster.”
She couldn’t even pretend to be mad at them for more than a few seconds, and she snorted.
“Not that it mattered much in the end. Darius ripped you away in that forest. I was worried sick about you after that, by the way. I didn’t sleep for days and I had the worst dreams when I finally did.”
Raine stared through her placidly.
Something bitter rose up inside of her.
Eda clenched her fist.
“Then I hear you’re going to be in the coven parade and I get my hopes up all over again, thinking I’m finally going to see you again and make sure you’re okay, to hold you again. But no.”
She grit her teeth.
“You just had to be a self sacrificing idiot and pretend to be brainwashed, of all things. I said I forgave you for that, and I really thought I did, but dammit , Raine!”
Her voice echoed against the walls, far louder than was safe.
She didn’t care.
“We were so close! We were so fucking close to I-I don’t even know the fuck what but it was there and I wanted it so badly, like I haven’t wanted anything since you left me the first fucking time, and you just HAD to pull away! To PROTECT ME?”
She glared fiercely at them, feathers climbing up her neck and down her arms.
“I don’t know if you were just under a rock, but Belos already had a massive fucking target on me. On my kids , hell, even on Lilith! We were already in danger! You could have stayed. You could have let me help!”
Her vision blurred and she roughly wiped her eyes before any traitorous tears could fall.
“Dammit, Raine,” she said again, more quietly.
“I think I hate you sometimes, just a little bit. I hate you because I would have done it too. All of it. I hate seeing you hurt. I hated it then and I hate it now. I wanted to protect you too.”
She sighed and dragged her hand through her hair.
“I really thought we had a chance,” she repeated, suddenly feeling tired.
“When we were laying in your bed after that raid, you kissed me like we were twenty again and I really thought enough had changed and just enough had stayed the same that maybe everything would work out and I could just take you home with me after it all, that I could keep you.”
Eda lifted her hand and cupped their face tenderly, wishing their sharp jaw was warm skin under her touch instead of grainy wood.
She kissed their cheek chastely.
“I love you. I always have, never really stopped.”
She stepped away, heels a hair’s breadth from tripping the security sensor.
“I just wish loving you was enough to keep you safe.”
------------------------
“What do you think?”
Eda huffed and struggled with the laces of the trousered Lilith had stitched up for her.
“I think either your measurements are off, or I’m getting fat.”
Lilith smirked.
“Well, you have been eating more often…”
“Shut up.”
She finally got the laces sorted out and turned to the buttons of her new blouse.
In all honesty, she hated the damn thing. It looked just fine, but it was scratchy and stiff and every time the front of it brushed her boobs she wanted to cry.
Eda growled.
“This is ridiculous. How the hell am I gaining weight during the fucking end of the world?”
“It’s not a bad thing,” Lilith reasoned. “If anything I’m relieved. You were far too skinny before.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Now you just sound like Mom.”
“It’s true! I was worried you were going to waste away, especially when you rejected apple blood.”
“Whatever, is there anything else I can try?”
Lilith gestured to the pile of clothing she’d salvaged with a shrug.
Eda sifted through the pile, still grumbling under her breath.
The pile in question was part of what Lilith had managed to find from the house. Eda rarely deviated from her usual look, knowing it suited her and seeing little reason for change, but her dress could only take so much damage, and had seen the end of its days, far earlier than it deserved.
She dug around until her hands met something soft and cable knit and she pulled it out.
Oh.
This.
It was a sweater, a very, very old one.
She’d stolen it from Raine when they were younger.
When they’d broken up she used to sleep in it every night, shoving her nose into the neck of it because it smelled like them, and she’d missed them so badly it sat in her chest like a stab wound.
Eventually though, the smell had faded and Eda had forced herself back out into the dating world, determined to get over her heartbreak one way or another.
Naturally, the sweater got shoved to the back of her closet, forgotten.
Until now.
She hesitated.
Then set it back down and pulled out a loose red blouse made from soft, stretchy cotton instead.
There was no need to be that pathetic just yet.
“I think this one will work. Gimme a couple minutes? I wanna use the mirror.”
Once Lilith was gone Eda shucked off the scratchy, offensive blouse from hell and tugged the new one one, sighing in relief at the difference in texture. She did up the buttons with minimal difficulty, though she noticed this top clung to her skin much more tightly than the old one.
She examined herself in the mirror, frowning.
Her hips and thighs looked a thicker, and her stomach was not nearly as flat and taught as she was used to.
Although it was firmer than she expected from a little weight gain.
And-
She turned to the side, furrowing her brow in disbelief.
“The fuck?”
Were her tits bigger?
“That’s definitely not normal,” She muttered to herself.
She smoothed her hand down her front.
Her stomach really did look weird.
Was she bloated?
That happened sometimes, during her moon cycles, and it was probably about that time, considering she hadn’t had one since-
She stopped to think.
Since…?
She’d always been pretty irregular. Curse transformations could throw her off a bit. She’d been pretty late after her near petrification.
And after that?
The next cycle was fine, and then-
And then?
She pieced the dates together with frustration.
And then Lilith had moved out, unrelated, obviously.
Then she joined the batts and reunited with raine.
Not relevant, they’d definitely used protect-
Wait.
Had they?
She was normally meticulous about it. If there was one thing Eda had experience in, it was one-night-stand etiquette. Hell, she probably had a condom packet or two still stashed in her hair right now.
But that night-
That night had been a blur. An entirely unplanned, spur of the moment, incredibly fast paced blur.
Eda stared at her reflection with wide eyes.
Her heart was pounding in her ears.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh shit.
“Are you done fussing over that mirror yet? Honestly Edalyn, I’m sure you look fine-”
“I’m late.”
Lilith stood in the entryway with a baffled look.
“What?”
Eda turned to look at her sister with a vacant expression, one hand still on her stomach.
“Three months ago I had sex with Raine Whispers, and now I’m late .”
Lilith dropped the finger she’d been pointing at her sister, jaw slack.
“You. Oh.”
Eda laughed hysterically.
Lilith continued to stare, gears visibly turning in her head.
“ Oh.”
“Yeah,” Eda agreed, face twisting into a panicked, mildly unhinged smile.
“Shit.”
------------------------
“Ever seen one of these before?”
Eda waved a small glass tube in front of Raine’s face. It was bubbling calmly and tinged a bright, cheery pink.
“I’ve made these more times than I could count. For all sorts of witches. Teenagers, escorts, couples…”
She trailed off and rolled the vial from her fingers down to her palm and gripped it tightly.
“Wanna know how many times I’ve had to make it for myself?”
She gave them an entirely false, cool smile.
“Three. That’s actually pretty impressively low for a witch of my rep . I’m careful like that. Every single time it came blue-that’s the color most witches want, by the way-Because I, was smart.”
Her smile strained.
“You, Rainey, unfortunately, have a very particular talent for making me act like a complete fucking dingus.”
She chuckled, but there was no humor in it.
“So,”
She jabbed the vial at them again.
“Here’s to trial number four. The very first positive.”
She jerked her head.
“Oh, yeah, this is a pregnancy test by the way. Con-grad-you-fucking-lations.”
She smiled placidly at Raine for several moments.
They stared back silently.
Her breath hitched
Her shoulders shook.
The first sob rang deafening in the silence of the archives.
She couldn't do this anymore.
Eda threw her arm around them and squeezed.
They were so cold.
“I need you to wake up now,” She hiccuped. “Please.”
Raine remained silent.
“I’m scared, Raine! Fuck, I’m so fucking scared.”
She buried her face in their chest.
“I miss you so fucking much. I need you!”
Their arms stayed limp at their sides.
They continued to smile at nothing.
Eda sobbed harder.
“Please. Please, wake up, I need you to wake up!”
Raine did not wake up.