Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

May 12, 2020

The mint green walls of the room waver as the woman’s eyes close and open in a blink slower than is natural, even for a human. Which she isn’t.

The emotions rocketing through her are beyond overwhelming, though she’s arguably had plenty of time to anticipate this day. She closes her eyes and focuses on the sounds: a clock ticking slightly off-tempo on the wall, carts rolling down the hallway and beeps from the nurses station down the corridor, phone rings and static, and under everything, the sounds of all the human bodies in this wing of the hospital, from the healthy to the very ill. The focus required to mesmer the man scratching his pen against the clip-boarded paperwork outside the room is negligible, really, but what will be needed to cast the necessary illusion onto the teenage girl sitting next to him bumps up against the pain coursing through the woman’s body so hard, she doubles over, wrapping her arms around her middle in a feeble imitation of the enveloping embrace she had received from the girl’s mother just a few days ago, when she had been gloriously and beautifully alive.

Natasia’s head swims, even though it’s already between her knees. She feels her ribs expand under her fingertips as she breathes in and holds it. She stands, opens her eyes, and lets out the breath as her arms fall to her sides. The shorter hairs at her temples and fringe float as she calls aether into her body in preparation for what she's about to do. No need to think about the Welsh words fluidly pouring out her mouth, they’re as much a part of her as her own heart. She walks to the door to usher the girl and her father into the small green room with her. This was her first and only job. She can do this.

She knew it would hurt to look at Briana, so she doesn’t, until the very end. She looks so much like Faye– both the Faye who died two hours ago and the Faye she had met twenty five years ago– that it’s like staring into the sun. What happens next is impulsive, and she does it before she has time to talk herself out of it. Remembering the time a decade ago when she'd folded Faye’s goodbye message into the girl’s mind “just in case,” she feels a fresh wave of tears course down her face, ignores them, and speaks, bright golden eyes locked to deep brown ones:

“You won’t remember this,

but I want you to know

that she was my friend.”

She was my friend.

Chapter Text

September 7, 1993

Faye is running late on the first class of her first day in college, which doesn't bode well. On the other hand, this is just an English survey class; a general ed requirement. Not really a big deal, probably. Hopefully?

She bites her lip and tries to orient herself without the map she’s spent a good deal of time trying to memorize. The midmorning sun is in her eyes when she looks back the way she came. The library is to her right, which means that on the other side of those trees should be the big cake-looking building with the columns and rotunda. She clears the trees, feeling her shell stick to her back under her entirely unnecessary but appropriate for the occasion sweater. Dang it. No dice.

She walks over to a bench and swings the bag down from her shoulder, fishing an already tattered map out, and finds where she needs to go. Luckily (or embarrassingly, depending on which way you look at it) it seems to be just around the corner. After putting the map back in her bag, she tugs on her skirt nervously and pats her hair down. What would Mama say? Fake it til you make it, probably, she thinks to herself as she hurries down the path.

When the door to the lecture hall is propped open and she is definitely not the only clearly confused student meandering around on the first day, she feels marginally better. Or at least relieved that she’s more inconspicuous than she’d imagined, which is almost the same thing, functionally. She ducks into the first spot she sees open with a sprinkling of other people seated around it, to hopefully continue to remain anonymous.

Faye sits for a second, looking around, willing her heart rate to lower. From the raked stadium seating, she sees the professor at a podium, repeating his class expectations for latecomers, surrounded by a white board on wheels and dark blue-gray carpeting. He had helpfully written his name, the class name, and the course code on the board. So she is in the correct room, at least, that's something.

Leaning over and unzipping her backpack, she tugs out a notebook. The pen stuck in the spiral binding catches on the tie of a small leather-bound book, bringing it out with the notebook. It dangles for a minute, and then falls.

Almost too quickly to track, the hand of Faye’s seatmate shoots out to grab the book before it can hit the floor. Faye startles; no one has touched her Bible outside of a ritual… ever. She reaches out to take it back as promptly as she can, brushing what feel like abnormally warm fingers as she does so. She tries to make her face look appreciative instead of the horrified expression she knows she’s currently projecting.

“Thank you,” Faye murmurs, turning to look at her neighbor. Her neighbor who is impossible to read, as it turns out. Faye blinks, then feels a hot prickle across her cheeks. She’s pretty sure the teacher is turned facing his whiteboard, but her eyes flick to the front to check anyway. “Appreciate it,” she says a tiny bit louder, in case this person just didn’t hear her.

Her neighbor has poreless pale skin and messy black hair– messy in a clearly intentional way, more symmetrical than it might otherwise be– and is wearing a worn leather motorcycle jacket with faded black jeans. The sort of person Mama would likely cross the street to avoid, Faye thinks. Though there aren’t any other visible clues, she thinks this person must be a girl; her jaw is fine-boned and what Faye can see of her face looks delicate, almost elfin. She's wearing dark Ray-Bans, so Faye can’t see her eyes at all. That’s a little disconcerting, honestly. They look at each other for a moment, the prickle crawling down from Faye’s face to her shoulders, finally ending with her hands still holding the Bible. Ms. Too Cool finally unthaws and says, “No problem,” then turns back around and faces the lecture.

Oooookay, thinks Faye. Sort of odd. She clutches the leather bound book to her chest and strokes it absently before putting it on her lap and opening her notebook to copy down what’s been written on the board. As she settles in and tries to pay attention to the class, the scent of pine resin and old-growth forests reaches her nose. Reflexively, she inhales fully through nose and mouth, then notices a slight mineral, almost salt taste on her tongue. Where is this coming from?

Suddenly a vivid memory blossoms into Faye’s mind. The first time she’d stayed overnight on her uncle’s boat. She was eleven, off the coast on the other side of Galveston Bay, in Texas where she grew up. Waking up early to go to the bathroom and then realizing how different the world is when you are the only one awake before dawn. The briny ocean in her mouth, nose, and hair, the stars seeming closer to her than she’d ever felt, the boat moving gently underneath her like she was riding a giant, breathing animal. It's a sense memory she never expected to recollect in a dusty lecture hall on a university campus she barely knows, a thousand miles from home.

She mentally shakes herself and tries to come back into the room. Today you are beginning the next phase of your life! She tells herself sternly. It’s not time to reminisce about the past. Although, if she’s being honest, it wasn’t the memory of the boat itself that was enthralling, it was the newness, the raw quality of the feeling she had experienced that night, alone watching the sky lighten at the edge of the horizon. The rushing realization that she was part of this world, made of the same stuff as the water all around her and the stars winking out one by one above her, but just as much a part of the creatures below the boat in the unknowable deep. She was used to feeling connected to plants and such; she is a Wildcrafter after all, but this was different, more visceral than her root had ever felt. That’s what the smoky resin and salts smell felt like, as wild and elemental and foreboding as that precipitous moment had been.

Faye shivers, though she feels warm in this lecture hall. It’s barely September in Carolina, and there are a couple hundred people in here. Faye leans forward and wiggles her way out of her cardigan without elbowing anyone or dropping her notebook. Thank goodness for small favors.

The lesson today seems to just be redundant; she could have read the syllabus on her own in her dorm room and gotten the same information she has already, as far as she can tell. Oh well. Better than a pop quiz, she thinks.

Faye’s thoughts meander outwards to her fellow classmates and the room. Not too many Black kids, but she’d expected that. Lots of people who looked like they could have been in her Honors classes in high school; they were probably in their own Honors classes at their own high schools. Teacher is a white man in a short sleeve white button down shirt and khakis, about as predictable as his own syllabus. Lecture hall has one missing ceiling light and some slow-moving fans.

The girl next to her shifts in her seat and Faye’s eyes dart to the left and back quickly, trying to glean anything more than she had when retrieving her Bible. All she can see is the hand the girl is writing with; silver rings on long, pale pianist’s fingers. Her handwriting looks neat and old-fashioned, which strikes Faye as incongruously charming. There had been some goth kids in her high school, but they had always seemed like they were trying on costumes to Faye. This awkward girl with the reflexes of a cat seemed like she couldn't be wearing any other clothes than the ones she had on now.

Sounds begin hitting her ears and she realizes that people around her are starting to pack up. She closes her notebook, shoves her pen back in the binding, and folds the writing surface back in the armrest of her seat. She has some free time after this class so she watches all the frantic people rush out instead of trying to compete.

She is putting her cardigan back on when she realizes that she feels that prickly, almost electric sensation on her cheek again. Turning to the left she first sees that her neighbor has finally taken off her sunglasses, and then that she’s frankly staring at Faye. There’s no time to feel self-conscious because when she looks in the girl’s eyes, her impossibly bright golden eyes, the prickle ratchets up into a sharp zing she feels all through her body down to her toes. Oh no.

From the time she was small enough to leave her mama for short times— to go to school, to run to the corner for milk— she had been warned about Merlins and how they hunt root practitioners. Her mama hadn’t seen one, she knew, but her grandma who she’d never met had, when she was young. Faye never thought she’d see one, certainly not in such a mundane place as her college lecture hall. The characteristics her mama had made her recite over and over were just rote words with no meaning half the time. Bright blue or green flames, a smoky scent like incense at church, and sharp eyes that glow gold, red or yellow. You see or smell any of these things and you turn right around and run, you hear me baby? Don’t let them catch you!

Faye didn’t hesitate. She picked up her book bag and walked as quickly and calmly as she could, trying to pretend there were no alarm bells tolling in her head, until she was outside. Then she ran, and she did not look back.

~~~

Fuck. Fuuuuuuuck.

Natasia was used to reactions to her eyes, to her whole general head-to-toes look for most people, but for those who came close enough, it was always the eyes. They were so obviously unnatural, which was why she usually wore the sunglasses in the first place, damnit.

Most people would look away, make an excuse to leave perhaps, some bold people– usually men, natch– would even ask about them, but she’d never had anyone actually run away before.

The worst part is that it had been obvious from the moment she’d touched the girl’s Bible that she was an aether user. It had nearly tingled in her hand immediately when she’d caught it, but if it hadn’t, the look of quiet horror in the girl’s deep brown eyes when she’d grabbed it would have been enough. A disbelieving look, as if she couldn’t fathom the object in anyone else’s hand but her own. Then after she’d given it back, Natasia had scented a bit of an old working coming off her fingers from the leather cover: verbena and sweet citrus. It had made her mouth water, but no time to examine that odd effect, because this girl in her class who somehow worked aether with her Bible had known what Natasia is the moment she had seen her eyes.

Who was she? From her clothes and the name brand on her notebook it was obvious she is from out of state. Northern chapter? No, there had been a twang in her voice. Her body was athletic, but didn’t have the dexterity one usually sees in those trained to fight. Maybe volleyball? She had the shoulders and lower body strength for it, that was obvious even under the generically tragic business casual first day outfit she had been wearing. Natasia sighed, chiding herself; none of these observations were helpful or on task.

Her education had been oddly lacking in depth of information about other aether users. Well, not oddly lacking; it was not odd, after all, that the Order chose not to concern itself with the untold number of aether practitioners worldwide who were not aligned with the descendants of a long-dead Welsh king, his knights, and his jolly friend the cambion. She knew, just from listening when she wandered around Chapel Hill, that there were other practitioners all over, but they mostly were quiet and kept to themselves; she’d seen no evidence of anyone summoning Cysgodanedig or working with any demons at all. They mostly seemed to use plants for healing and rocks for aura energy work, that kind of nature-loving hippy thing.

So the girl is a rogue, but is she aligned with Shadowborn? Is that why she knew what Natasia’s eye color meant? Surely not. She seemed so… innocent wasn't the right word at all; what she had really seemed to be was wise and inquisitive, but she had also struck Natasia as incapable of subterfuge. Which is exactly how an undercover operative would present themselves!

Fuuuuck.

She had been taught a clear protocol to follow with rogue aether users. If there wasn’t any imminent danger, she was to write up a report to the Seneschal of Shadows and they would likely send out some members of the mageguard to deal with them. Privately though, Natasia thought that was a little like nuking an anthill. Sure it would work, but then there’s a huge hole in the street, and would it be so bad if the nature-loving hippy ants just lived? Usually, her answer was simple: ignore the ants, don’t snitch to the Regents.

Today though, she would be foolish to ignore what she had seen. This aether user, this girl who was taking the same boring survey class she was, who clearly was brand new to UNC, the entire state and, it seemed, the concept of leaving her hometown; this girl knew right away that she was a Merlin, and she ran scared.

This fact marked her as a threat, and now Natasia was Oathbound to treat her like one.

Chapter Text

For the next week Natasia tailed the girl whenever she could. She turned out to be fairly normal and boring, all things considered. Class - dining hall - library - dorm, or some variation of those were her days.

She seemed to not know anyone here; all the conversations Natasia overheard were amongst classmates or dorm room neighbors, people who she was obviously only recently acquainted with. No talk at all about magic or even any kind of spiritual practice, not even church. Odd considering the Bible was important enough to go with her to class that day.

Of course it made sense that Faye— for Natasia had obviously found out the girl’s name and class schedule through the usual methods— would not add any frills to her week. She was a likely overwhelmed, certainly out-of-state new freshman, learning a large campus alongside 3300 of her peers. Plus she might suspect Natasia would tail her; the goody two shoes schedule she had observed could be a ruse.

She could draw out this investigation and wait for Faye to slip up, but Natasia was impatient. She had never liked to have unresolved anything hanging over her head. The only way to get more information, unfortunately— her conscience does twinge a small amount at this— is to search the girl’s dorm room.

~~~

Mid-morning Thursday is the first opportunity she has to search Faye’s room. Both her and her roommate had a 10:30 am - 12 pm class, after which they had met back at the dining hall for lunch the previous week. An hour and a half was certain to be enough time, but wiggle room didn’t hurt either. Not that she would count on it.

Both Faye and her roommate had left Old East before 9:30, presumably to eat before their class. Natasia didn’t try her luck then, only circling back once she had visual confirmation that they were on their way to Genome for their lab.

She is wearing a hoodie today instead of her leather jacket, to be less conspicuous. She needs to look forgettable enough that this could be her dorm, even though she’d never even had a need to enter the building, historic as it was.

Faye lives two windows in from the northeastern most corner of the building, on the third floor. Natasia makes short work of the stairs, and only sees two people still hanging around the hallway at this time of day. Once it’s clear, those two having gone into the bathroom at the other end, she slips in through the fire door and part-way down the hall to number 320.

She hesitates for a moment, listening just in case, but of course neither of the roommates is home. Natasia smiles as she turns the knob and realizes she’d won a pointless bet with herself that the door was unlocked. She wonders if the rest of her guess was correct: she’d posited that Faye would prefer to keep their room locked, but that the roommate– a white girl named Erin, with freckles and some conveniently pitched jangly bracelets that made her easy to pinpoint in a crowd, even without a visual– would be more laissez faire about locking their room, and Faye wouldn’t want to rock the boat. Silly thing to make up a backstory for, really. She'll likely never find out if she is right or not.

Once she’s in, she locks the door herself, though. Better safe than… etc. etc.

Natasia turns around to take in the room for the first time. As is usual, the dormers didn’t give much room to get creative with furniture placement, so it’s more or less symmetrical in that regard, with each side having a twin bed, the standard desk with built-in bookshelves, a dresser, and a night stand. The window looks out into a sunny green walkway in between buildings.

As is also true with most shared dorm rooms she’d seen, it is immediately obvious which side is which. They are both neat, but Faye’s side has drastically less stuff. The only decoration there is a poster size print of Janet Jackson’s self titled album cover, in subdued sepia tones. Erin apparently is in danger of forgetting what her high school classmates look like, because the wall next to her bed is papered with pictures of a gaggle of almost identical smiling, peace-sign waving white girls with big hair and their boyfriends’ blue and gold letterman jackets on, or frothy prom dresses, or in bathing suits at the beach. Big poster board signs covered with collaged glossy cut-outs from fashion magazines saying “I’ll miss you babe!!!!” and “Best Friends Forever!!” in carefully markered bubble letters.

Turning away from all those exclamation points and shiny teeth, Natasia checks her watch, then surveys Faye’s side, wondering where she should begin. The bed is made neatly with a quilt in soft-looking muted calicos, a throw blanket at the end of the bed that is definitely also handmade. The night stand only contains an alarm clock and some lotion; the desk only schoolbooks and a small stack of paperback novels. She stops herself from flipping through those to learn more about this girl, and instead looks at the top of the dresser for more relevant clues. At the front, there are normal things she expected to see: a basket of bathroom things all ready to grab on the way to the shared facilities down the hall, plus a free-standing mirror and things arranged around it that she clearly uses here in the room: some makeup, nail polish, a curling iron and a straightening comb, plus some jewelry and a glasses case.

At the back of her dresser though, behind the mirror, there are a few things that make Natasia’s fingers itch a little bit when she sees them. Three rough but tactile looking crystals: a bloodstone, a pointed rose quartz, and what looks like a carnelian she thinks, but she isn’t positive. Those are deep orange, right? She hums to herself. She’d always found this stuff kind of hokey to be honest, and hadn’t studied as hard as she could have when learning the energetic properties of different semi-precious stones. Pulling aether and creating constructs hard enough to crush stones was always much more satisfying.

Next to the little triumvirate of admittedly pretty crystals, sits the Bible she remembers from the first day, a small jar of pecans in the shell, a corked green glass bottle of some liquid, and a fresh grapefruit. None of those things is odd necessarily, in and of themselves. They are clearly arranged just so, though, even though none of them really goes together, except the food. There aren’t any candles, or incense, or religious icons, but this is very clearly an altar of some sort, and an unobtrusive one.

Natasia leans in and closes her eyes to see if she can smell the remnant of the working she had scented before. She does, and more besides; her senses push aside the effervescence of the grapefruit, tannins of the nuts, and the alcohol that must be in the green bottle, and finds that bright lemon tree and verbena scent she had detected before, almost like a sweet herbal lemonade. For a moment she sways on the spot as the scent fills her up in the odd, wanting way it had before. She flutters her eyes open, once again smelling more normal dorm room scents to match the visuals around her: the roommate’s saccharine floral body spray, a dirty laundry bag in the closet, a stash of chocolate at the bottom of a drawer, toothpaste.

It’s only been a few minutes, but Natasia hurries through the rest of Faye’s things. There’s nothing weird in the closet, except maybe more shoes than she’d expected, but everyone has a weakness, she figures.

She finds a small stack of photographs in a drawer, perhaps waiting for a way to be displayed. Snapshots of Faye with an older, shorter woman who can only be her mother, a few from what looks like a family party for her high school graduation, and one small, fragile, wallet-size black and white picture of a striking young Black woman. It has some writing on the back in pencil that says: “your grandmother Jessie, 1954.” Natasia puts these back carefully, with a pang. She doesn’t know how to miss one’s family, since that was never an option for her. In her earliest memories, it seemed that every time she had been able to enjoy being with her own human mother, her father or another Master would remind her that soon she’d never see her again, that human pain and longing would hasten Natasia’s own descent, that a good soldier thinks only of protecting her charge. Her charge.

Her teeth grind involuntarily at the thought of her dormant dork of a King, Martin. He is safe in his own class by now, she hopes. There’s no reason anyone from the Order should know or even have any interest in what she’s doing on any Thursday morning as long as he’s safe and there aren’t any open gates to deal with.

Natasia shakes herself. The task at hand, and then the next, rings through her mind in Master Jenna’s voice.

It’s 10:45, she has plenty of time. Is she missing anything? She looks around, rechecks drawers and the closet, then gets down to look under the bed. She finds an empty suitcase, a box of notebooks and other paper, and a small drawstring bag on the floor underneath where Faye’s head would be laying all night. She does not touch it, but she can smell that it contains salt and herbs, including a few that she does not recognise. A protection charm of some kind?

Who is this girl? thinks Natasia for the umpteenth time this week. She’s not a dabbler, someone who just walked by the new age shop and got seduced by the pretty rocks. Those kind of people don’t do any real workings anyway. Natasia had scented an aether signature on her! Faye wasn’t just hoping and praying, she was using the energy of the earth, molding it to her will in some fashion. Homemade tinctures, charm bags, a Bible that looked like an heirloom– she must belong to a tradition of some kind, and learned this from… her mother? Even in the candid shots from her graduation, it was clear that Faye and her mother were very close, that maybe she didn’t really have much of anyone else.

Natasia begins to get up off the floor but then stops as she scents something coming from an unexpected place. The charm bag from under the bed, but— she turns in the direction she is scenting it, and realizes she’s facing the head of the roommate’s bed— could there be another? She bends at the waist once again. Yes, another stuffed drawstring bag placed directly under Erin’s pillow. Interesting.

Standing, she dusts off her knees. There’s nothing else here to see. She puts her sunglasses back on and gives a silent salute goodbye to Ms. Jackson as she walks to the door, pausing to listen for movement in the hall. After waiting a moment for someone to leave the hallway telephone booth for their room, she slips out and back through the fire door to the stairway she came up from, brain churning.

~~~

As she meanders through campus on her way to do a visual check on Martin, she thinks about what she saw in Faye’s room. Or rather, what she didn’t see. No weapons, no signs of her doing offensive casting, nothing that would indicate either working with or fighting the Shadowborn.

Why was she scared of my eyes? she wonders. Does she know what a cambion is or did she just recognize a non-human eye color and play it safe? Shadowborn are attracted to aether in any form, after all. Even if the castings Faye does are small and personal, she may have been taught to avoid anyone not fully human as a precaution.

Natasia feels the knot under her sternum loosen slightly at this thought. It’s very reasonable for rogues to be wary of Merlins after all; neither now nor at any point in the past have the Order’s military been lenient with any witches or un-aligned aether users they had come across. Could it be that simple? Is her investigation over?

~~~

Over the next two days she mentally goes over her findings as judiciously as possible, multiple times: Faye Ayeola Carter, 18 year old freshman, from a Houston suburb. A rogue aether user, also utilizing plants, both food and herbs, crystals, and a Bible. No weapons or other indicators of her either fighting or working with the Cysgodanedig. Autonomic body signals indicated fear upon seeing cambion eye color.

Those were the facts.

The hypotheticals though, those really haunt Natasia. She can infer with some measure of confidence that Faye had learned whatever tradition she practiced from her mother. She seems to be a solo practitioner, but this is much less certain, considering she is brand new to the area. Perhaps she was the type to gather with her coven in the forest under a full moon and dance naked– a happenstance that Natasia had surprisingly witnessed more than once since she’d been patrolling the wilderness surrounding UNC– but she didn’t think so, somehow.

Identical charm bags under both her and her roommate’s beds suggest that her motives are protective, and the snapshots she’d found made her wonder if there was an aspect of ancestor worship to the tradition. That last is a pure gut feeling on Natasia’s part. There is nothing strange about bringing photographs of one’s family with them on their first big move away from home. It would have been more odd if she hadn’t had any pictures of her previous life at all. Still, there was something about how they had been nestled in the drawer, as if they’d been waiting for Faye to come back and continue a conversation.

That makes no goddamn sense, she groans internally. Facts, Kane.

Still, she keeps coming back to it, which makes her hope there is something to her gut feelings, as if it were possible to gain some proof that she could trust herself. Trusting myself, she scoffs. Something she’d been warned against by every Master she’d ever trained with. It was why Merlin had created the Oaths alongside the Spell of Eternity, after all.

One of the hardest parts for her to parse had always been the nebulous aspects of her role as Kingsmage. She was duty bound to investigate any threats to the Chapter and her King, but thankfully the Oaths in her body allowed her to make decisions based on the spirit rather than the letter of the law. This is how she knew that she didn’t have to make a report to the Regents unless she still had doubts about the girl’s innocence. There was currently no paperwork with Faye’s name on it. All she had to do was be sure of herself, of her conclusions after tailing this Unanedig girl for more than a week. And she was sure this girl was not a threat. Certainly not to her King nor the Chapter as a whole. She was sure.

So why couldn’t she get Faye out of her mind?

~~~

Faye’s stomach growls for the third time since the top of the hour, just as she is finishing up an English Lit. essay in the computer lab. She doesn’t want to come back here again later on; the fluorescent lights are making the pressure build up behind her left eye. From experience she knows that if she leaves now and makes sure to hydrate as well as eat, she can hope to stave off a headache. She checks the clock above the door, it’s 2:35 pm. Is lunch still open in the dining hall? Damn.

She quickly saves her file, prints out two copies, and slides her floppy disk into its sleeve in her backpack, removing her water bottle before zipping it back up. After filling up the bottle at the water fountain, she leaves the building for the first time since she had arrived in the morning after a late breakfast.

Blinking in the sunlight, she pauses at the top of the stairs to get her bearings, then heads down the stairs and around the corner to cross the quad towards her dining hall.

It’s a beautiful fall day, the clear sky and turning leaves injecting Faye with a bit of energy just from proximity and the sun on her skin. There’s a mild breeze and plenty of students gathered on the green enjoying a weekend afternoon. She hears bird song from high up in the trees and the faint sounds of someone’s boom box from the kids playing frisbee on the other side of the quad.

As she walks along the path, hoping there is still some decent food she can find, she begins to realize there is someone matching her pace for longer than could be coincidental. She takes a peek to her right to see who it is and is startled to realize that it’s that odd goth girl, the Merlin she had sat next to in her first lecture hall. Immediately her heart rate increases. She hears the girl clear her throat and her shoulders tense. Suddenly all the advice her mother had given her over the years seems inadequate. Does she know who Faye is? What does she want?

“Faye,” the girl says softly. Her voice is low and gravelly, but with a commanding richness. “I fear we got off on the wrong foot the other day. I brought some lunch and I’m hoping you’ll consent to sit with me so I can explain.”

At this Faye stops and smiles inwardly despite her trepidation. What a funny way of speaking! She takes a breath and turns to look at her.

She is dressed in much the same way she had been before, all black denim and leather, and with the same Ray Bans covering her unnatural eyes. Since they are both standing, she can see that the girl is an inch or so shorter than her, with narrow shoulders to match her delicate bone structure and elegant ringed fingers. She is gorgeous in a way that is completely foreign to Faye, as if she exists in another realm altogether than the normal everyday world she’s always known. Her mother’s warnings fade to whispers in her ear.

“I am hungry,” Faye says, and the girl smiles dazzlingly.

She leads them to the shade of a tree off the path, checking in with Faye before sitting down and taking food out of a bag. She notices before she sits that they are still in full view of students on the main walkway through the quad, but there aren’t any other people so close that they could overhear a conversation. Okay, I see you, Merlin, she thinks as she folds her legs underneath herself.

“So you’ve found out my name. Do I get to learn yours? Or why you know mine?” She accepts a sandwich gratefully and unwraps it, somehow unsurprised to find out it’s roast beef, her favorite kind, and even made with the brown mustard and banana peppers you need to specially ask for in the deli line. Interesting.

The girl sits with her legs crossed facing Faye and her back to the tree. “My name is Natasia Kane.” She takes off her sunglasses and looks down as she folds them carefully and places them in the grass next to her. It seems like she is moving slowly, as if Faye is a wild animal who could startle easily. Her prickly gaze travels slowly up to Faye’s face as she continues, “I’m used to all kinds of reactions to my eyes from strangers, but the way you…”

“…ran away?” Faye jokes nervously, suddenly wary of this girl’s— Natasia’s— serious tone. Her eyes reach Faye’s face and she feels the sharp zap on her cheekbones she had felt before as she takes a bite of her sandwich.

“…reacted, let’s say. It made me… curious.”

“So you looked me up. How exactly? That class isn’t small.”

“I know people in the registrar’s office,” she says vaguely.

“Huh. Okay.” They look at each other for a moment while Faye chews. “You did say you were going to explain yourself.”

“I did say that. How I got your name isn’t the important part though.”

“What’s the important part then?”

Faye feels the intensity of her gaze kick up a notch before she speaks. “I need you to know that you have nothing to fear from me.” She pauses to gnaw on her lower lip, and Faye tries to keep her face placid, aware that this conversation is getting close to an edge, very quickly. “I can infer from your reaction last week that you know what I am, is that correct?”

“A Merlin,” breathes Faye before she knows she’s even speaking.

“Yes,” says Natasia, “and let me be clear: someone told you to stay away from us.” It’s not a question, but Faye nods anyway, her mouth dry. “That person is correct. You have more to lose than you can fathom from my ilk, but I can promise you right now that no harm will come to you from me, and I will protect you if I can.”

“What makes you think I need protection?”

“What tradition do you belong to?” Natasia asks in return. Faye’s heart stutters. “Look, it’s clear you manipulate aether.” Ether? She does not mean old school knockout anesthesia. “You don’t call it that I see,” continues Natasia.

“No?” Faye is still confused.

At this, Natasia’s sharp amber eyes quickly sweep around the quad and then snap back to Faye. Her right hand, which had been playing with a piece of grass the moment before, is now held palm up between them, fingers extended and taut. Wisps of what look like silver smoke are being pulled towards her hand, consolidating down into the shape of a small button, a replica of the buttons on Faye’s sweater, only pulsing a bluish-silver, slightly slower than her own heartbeat. She hands it to Faye. The not-button feels warm and solid in her palm. Holy shit.

“Aether is what we call call the substance I made that from. It’s an invisible element that exists in nature everywhere, but when it’s active, those with the Sight can See it, some can manipulate it.” She pauses and picks up the button again with two fingers and lets it disintegrate into nothing. Looking at Faye with an open, inquiring face, she asks, “What do your people call it?”

My people, thinks Faye wryly. My one person you mean. Aloud, she says, “Root. We call it root.”

Natasia seems to relax minutely at this, and she smiles. “Root. I like that.”

Faye laughs loud. “Yeah? Aether does sound sort of… clinical. It’s a very ‘white folks’ kind of word.” She takes another bite of her sandwich and chews, wishing she had a soda. She turns to her where her water bottle is sitting in the grass.

“I brought you this too!” Natasia blurts suddenly, handing her a bottle of Sprite from the food bag. “I mean, if you prefer water, you have some clearly,” she finishes, a bloom of red appearing high on her cheekbones.

“No, a little sugar after a shock sounds delicious, thank you.” Faye takes a drink, and pauses. “I’ve never told anyone about my rootcraft,” she says quietly.

“That’s good,” says Natasia.

“Can I ask you how you knew I work root? And while I’m at it, how you knew exactly when I left the computer lab famished, plus what my favorite lunch is? I’m grateful— and stuffed— don’t get me wrong. The banana peppers make the sandwich.” She drinks a bit more soda to stop herself from talking, and then folds up the deli paper and puts it back in the bag.

“You know I’m a Merlin.”

“Yes, but I don’t know what that means beyond what my mama’s warned me about, and she was just repeating what my grandmother told her.”

“It’s more complex than this but for now it’s enough to tell you that I’m not completely human.” Faye stares. “My not-human-ness is many, many generations back, but the blood is dominant enough that I have a natural affinity to aether, as well as other physical characteristics that mark me as,” Natasia seems to chew on all the word options in front of her for a moment, “abnormal.”

“Like…”

“Well, my eyes, plus my body temperature is higher than yours, heart rate lower.” She holds out her hand to Faye, who accepts it, staring down as Natasia encloses her hand in both of her own. She feels so much warmth it begins to bleed up her arm towards her shoulder.

“Wow…”

“Plus other stuff too. I am fast and stronger than most people.” She says it like it’s an understatement, and Faye files that away for later as she pulls her hand out from between the other girl’s hands.

“What does that have to do with you knowing what I like to eat for lunch?”

“I’m observant.”

“Huh.”

“My senses are stronger than most people’s as well.”

Faye can feel herself beginning to get overwhelmed by the implications of being noticed by someone with these abilities. “Would you mind walking me home? This is a lot, and we still haven’t really gotten to the part where you tell me why exactly I need protecting from… other people who aren’t you but who have superhuman senses and speed like you do?”

“Do you want to hear more now? Really?”

“Maybe another day,” says Faye, and this seems to be the right answer because Natasia’s forehead releases the tension it had been holding. She flows up to standing easily, catlike just like before, offering her hand to Faye again. She smiles, accepts the help, and they set off together towards Old East.

~~~

Sitting in the hall waiting for the phone booth to be free for her regular Sunday evening phone call home, Faye wonders if she should bring up Natasia at all. Well, not Natasia herself, per say, because hearing that she has made friends with a mildly stalker-y white goth girl wouldn’t exactly thrill her mama. Perhaps there’s some way she can ask about how Grandma J described the Merlins she’d come across back in the day.

She faintly hears the girl in the booth saying her goodbyes and stands up, fishing her phone card out of her pocket. “Thank you,” she says, grabbing the booth door as the girl leaves, already anticipating the rich drawl of her mama’s voice on the phone. She knew she’d miss her going to school out of state. The phone rings, she leans back and props her feet up on the booth’s opposite wall, and feels a tear leak down her face.

“Hi mama.”

“Is that my one and only baby girl? How are they treating you up there at Carolina? You eating enough?”

Faye keeps her eyes closed as they talk because it’s easier to imagine that she’s home drinking hot tea at the kitchen table after all the supper dishes are washed. She feels the love cover her like a blanket from over the phone lines. There have been so many new people and experiences since she got here, and spending twenty minutes once a week listening to her mother’s voice is a luxury.

She reluctantly checks her watch and peeks out the window to see if anyone else is waiting for the phone. Just one person. She has a few more minutes.

Once her mother is done telling her about all the salon gossip from this week, she pauses and says, “You are too quiet, Faye-yay.”

“That old nickname! My goodness.”

“Don’t change the subject when the clock is ticking down. I can call you all the childish nicknames I want. I earned that right! Now tell me what’s on your mind.”

Faye pauses. Crosses her fingers for luck. “I know you’ve told me about what Grandma J taught you, about staying away from those Merlins.” She hears her mother suck in a breath, but continues on, “Did she say anything more about them? Why they were dangerous?”

“Have you seen one up there?”

“No mama,” she lies smoothly, hoping her rehearsal for this phone call is enough to keep her mother from worrying too much. “I just thought I’d ask since this is a new environment, I want to stay alert. I know what to look out for, but not why they are especially dangerous to rootcrafters.”

“Well—“ she can almost hear her mother’s frown, “I don’t rightly know, but they have a predator’s eyes. Your gran only saw one a few times and she didn’t stick around long enough to learn anything more about them. I told you how she moved cities so many times before settling here?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well that was part of why. She was trying to stay safe, to keep me safe too.”

“Alright.”

“I know you’re at that school because your brain needs more answers but I don’t have any for you about this. Try to trust your gran, sweetheart. She never met you but I know she’s out there loving you with her whole soul from the beyond.”

Faye’s heart cracks. Or expands a size or two, it’s hard to say. “I trust her. And you.”

“You won’t go looking for trouble, will you?”

“No ma’am,” she says, shaking her head, but this lie is harder.

She already knows she’s going to see Natasia again, that she wants to learn everything about her and the world she inhabits, even if that means being a daughter who lies to her mama, who goes looking for trouble.

“I’ve got to go, there’s a line. I love you!”

“I love you too, baby. Take good care of yourself for me.”

Faye hangs up and goes back to her room, wiping a last tear from her face as she goes.