Chapter Text
A warning:
The faeries of Gallifrey are known, amongst those who remember them, to be devilish little tricksters. They do not always say what they mean, and they do not always mean what they say. But beware, for some may not bother to say anything at all, and will simply trap you in a bargain you never knew you were making.
The day of the Beltane festival had sprung warm and sunny. It’s Yaz’s favourite festival of the year mostly because of all the dancing, but also because everyone is always happy. There’s no work for a city guard when everyone is happy, bustling through the city as they prepare for the parties that will begin at sunset, when all the brightly coloured lanterns will be lit, the best of the spring harvest will be shared and the musicians will coax the dancers onto the floor. There is nothing for her to do today but man her post, occasionally offering a hand to the bakers running past, bread rolls balancing precariously on the edge of their trays (they always thank her for pushing those rolls back on to the tray by just giving them to her).
And Yaz just barely stops herself from leaning against the wall they are stationed against, wistfully looking into the bustling town centre as the lanterns are hung, the organisers run to and fro, and all she can really think about is how excited she is to get out of her stuffy armour, into the new dress her mother had picked out for her, and dance the night away. She loves to dance. And if she finds a pretty girl to dance with in the crowd later… who could really blame her for wishing for that.
“Earth to Yaz?”
Yaz snaps upright again, “Sorry.” She mutters, straightening her spine and looking alert once again while her partner on guard duty, Ryan shakes his head with a chuckle.
“You daydreaming again?”
“No.” She vehemently denies, but he doesn’t look convinced. Maybe her denial was a little too quick and intense… dammit.
Ryan just laughs at her again. “We’ll be off soon, then you’ll be free to dream about whatever pretty girl has caught you eye now on your own time… Maybe even take a bit of time to work yourself up to asking her to dance, yeah?” and he waggles his eyebrows suggestively.
Is she that obvious? Yaz ducks her chin, hoping that her dark skin will hide the blush she feels creeping up her neck. “There’s no pretty girl…” she lies.
“Oh really?”
“Yes, really.” She states, firm this time.
But there is a girl.
She just doesn’t technically know who she is. She’s never seen her before, just dreamed about her. All soft sunshine hair, and hazel eyes, laughter always dancing on the edges of her mouth. She’s dreamt about her every night for the last month.
She has never seen her before. She doesn’t exist. Yaz knows, she’s looked, and she’s certainly not living in this city at least. And since she’s never left the city, she doubts she knows her from another.
But sometimes she thinks she catches a flash of blonde as someone darts around the corner ahead of her. Or she hears the clear bell of her laughter. But when she rushes after that hint, there is no one. Her imagination really seems to be running away from her these days.
She can’t tell Ryan about it. He'll think she's mad.
Yeah Ry, there is a girl actually, only problem is… she’s imaginary. Made her up. How great is that?
No, she definitely can’t tell Ryan about it.
So, she sticks to her lie, and changes the topic. “What about you? Got your eye on anyone?”
Ryan’s waggling eye brows stop dead, the teasing expression dropping from his face to be replaced by something…. Guilty?
He clears his throat, looks down to the ground where his boot scuffs the dirt, “Me? Nah, no one.”
Yaz narrows her eyes, opens her mouth to press him further but-
“Khan! Sinclair!” They both look to the voice, two other city guards clomp over to them across the square. “You’re relieved.” Says the one of them, a little bitterly. No one likes being on duty on the night of the festival, having to stand guard at the edge of the square while everyone else enjoys the fun.
Oh well, at least this year it’s not Yaz. Last year she had been stationed on the city gate, so she hadn’t even been able to watch.
But this year, this year she is completely free. And she plans to use her evening well.
When Yaz makes it home that afternoon the house is empty, her family already gone out to dinner with their friends. She’s pretty sure they’ve gone to Grace and Grahams for dinner this year, since they all ate here the year before. Yaz, Ryan and Sonya used to play together at those dinners when they were kids. But now they’re old enough to go to the festival themselves, heading into the main square with the rest of the young people and more committed revellers rather than having a quiet night in with friends.
Ryan had said he was busy this year and couldn’t go with her though. And she dreads to think what her sister might be doing and who she might be with. But she’s off duty now, it’s not her problem.
Yaz pours herself a glass of water, gulping it down at the sink as she looks out the kitchen window and over the forest at the edge of the city. Sonya is constantly moaning about how far away from the centre of the city they are because of how much harder it is to meet up with her friends, but Yaz likes it out here.
The forest is like an old friend, reminding her of the passage of time and providing the opportunity to escape in between her shifts as a city guard. She had joined with the hope of helping people, but she finds that so far, she spends a lot of time standing in doorways or against walls doing very little at all. So, she escapes from the city to wander the forest a lot these days. Almost as much as she did when she was a child and used to play pretend in there with Ryan.
There are old faerie stories of a twisted and bent over tree in the heart of the forest that is a doorway to the faerie realm of Gallifrey. She doesn’t go looking for it anymore, but she and Ryan did when they were children. They never found it, the forest is so large that they would usually get hungry and give up their search within a few hours.
The legends of Gallifrey are generally scoffed upon by all but the children. And Yaz is old enough to scoff now too, too firmly planted on the ground and full of cynicism.
Nowadays she just walks aimlessly. Enjoying the crunch of the fallen leaves through autumn and the smell of fresh greenery in spring, measuring the passing of years in the shifting landscape. Nothing magical about it beyond the effervescent bursting of life all around her.
And if sometimes gets the eerie feeling of being watched as she walks, she, quite sensibly, chalks it up to paranoia. Or squirrels.
She finds her dress already laid out on her bed, a soft eggshell blue colour. A stem of bluebell flowers sitting over the top of it. She lifts the little spray of flowers to her nose, inhaling the sweet smell and weaves them into a braid that she pulls across the top of her head like a crown, holding the rest of her hair loose and away from her face.
She slips into her dress, pulls on a half stay painted with midnight blue flowers. She pulls it tight enough that the dress will not shift, but not so tight she’ll be uncomfortable. She plans to dance until her shoes have worn through, it would not be good to be constantly fussing with her dress or unable to breathe.
She looks herself over in the mirror, satisfied with how the dress falls in ruffles, the cotton light enough that she won’t get too hot later as she dances, pleased with the way her curls have dropped into soft waves throughout the day, the bluebells matching nicely with her outfit.
She looks quite nice. Maybe she will find a pretty girl to dance with tonight. Forget about her dream girl. It would be best to keep her feet firmly on the ground.
She tumbles back out the door, setting up a brisk pace through the city, right back to where she had spent most of the day at her watch. But this time she can slouch as much as she wants, dance as much as she wants, buy some of those pastries she saw being carted past earlier that the bakers were too careful to let slip.
She thinks she spots that very particular shade of blonde ahead of her that she seems to always unconsciously be looking for these days, but this time she ignores it, does not try to chase after it. It’s not her, it never is. She doesn’t exist.
And even if she did, she's distracted by a familiar - and definitely not imaginary- figure as she passes the apothecary. Ryan’s grandmother, only just closing up for the day.
“Hi Grace, you're finishing up late, shouldn't you be at dinner with my parents?”
“Oh hello, love! Yes, I am! It's always busy on Beltane, lots of people coming in asking me for love potions! Can you believe? And every time, I tell them, I’m a nurse, not a magician! And then they leave and another bunch comes in asking for the same thing!”
Yaz laughs. “I’ll help you close up.”
“Thank you love.”
They work together for a few more minutes, pulling shutters closed and wiping up the counter, bringing in the wooden signs from outside.
"Are on your way to meet up with Ryan?"
"No," Yaz replies, tying off a bunch of parsley and hanging it with the other herbs. "He's got plans with somebody else, though he's been mighty sneaky about who it is, you don't know do you?"
Grace very suddenly cannot meet her eye, the friendly smile disappearing behind a nonchalance that's just a little too forced. "No, love, haven't got a clue who that could be."
"... Uh uh." Yaz eyes Grace for a little longer, hoping that she'll crack under the stare she levels at her, but Grace is suddenly very engrossed in her sweeping. With a shrug, Yaz decides it would be more fun to torture it out of Ryan anyway, so she returns to helping Grace tidy the shop so that they can both get out of here and on to the fun part of the day.
“Thanks love, and make sure you enjoy the rest of your night.” And with an affectionate pat her Yaz’s cheek, Grace turns for home.
"You're welcome, and tell my parents not to wait up!" She calls out as she restarts her walk back to the square, Grace waving in acknowledgment and farewell.
The sun is beginning to set, golden light filtering through the buildings lending the city an ethereal, romantic air, and Yaz hears the musicians in the distance starting to tune their instruments. She follows the crowds for a little longer before deciding to take her favourite short cut through the backstreets, avoiding the press of bodies for a little longer before she throws herself into the maelstrom.
As she winds through the final alleyway, the main road just before the square yawning ahead of her, people rushing past on their way to the festivities, she spots something glinting on the ground ahead of her.
She squints and steps up closer, crouching down to find a ring lying in the middle of the road.
She picks it up and turns it over in her hands. The band is gold, shaped like swirling vines around a large blue stone. She has seen sapphires before, but the stone in this ring is nothing like that. The colours shift subtly as she turns it, little pinpricks of light within the stone revealing themselves as the light catches them, gleaming the silver white of starlight.
She can’t quite believe anyone would be careless enough to drop something so beautiful and obviously valuable. Whoever they are, it’s lucky that Yaz was the one to find it, a member of the city guard and with enough conviction in her beliefs to not just keep the ring for herself. She decides she will make a stop at the guard office before heading into the square, whoever lost it must be losing their minds with worry right now and will probably head there to ask if anyone had turned it in before long.
She looks around to see if she can spot anyone searching for something on the ground, thinking that they may already be retracing their steps to look for the ring, and stops dead when she sees her.
It’s her.
The girl.
The one from her dreams.
And she’s standing a few metres ahead, right in the middle of all the traffic moving into the square. Not showing even a modicum of care for how she is in everyone’s way, because she is apparently too busy looking right at Yaz.
All soft sunshine hair and hazel eyes, laughter dancing at the edges of her mouth, turned up now in a smile that Yaz has seen a million times and also never before in her life.
Yaz is transfixed, too scared to look away, too scared to even blink, in case the girl disappears and she’s left with only her dreams again. She slips the ring into her pocket, no longer caring about finding its owner, no longer caring about anything beyond the girl, who is suddenly smiling wider, giddy elation lighting up her whole face.
It draws her in, and without ever telling them to, her feet are carrying her through the crowd towards her. She just barely manages to stop herself at a polite distance from her.
“Hi.” Yaz breathes.
“Hi.” The girl replies.
They stare at each other for a moment. Yaz a little dazed and the girl mysteriously thrilled.
“Have we met before?” Yaz asks.
“Yes! Well, no- but sort of, yes? I mean, we haven’t actually met before, but I’ve watched- seen! Seen. I’ve seen you before.” The girl blushes.
Yaz think it’s beautiful. “I’ve seen you too.” In my dreams, she continues silently.
The girl smiles again, blush still staining her cheeks a pretty pink. “I know.”
“You know?”
“Umm, yeah, I mean, if I’ve seen you, you’ve probably seen me too, right?”
Ah. That makes sense. Even if it’s not true. “Sure.” Yaz agrees. She changes the subject to hide her discomfort at the lie. “Are you new to the city?”
“No. I just visit from time to time. Lots of beautiful things to see in the city.”
Yaz decides that the girl is probably not going to disappear after exchanging so many words with her. Decides that she’s real enough to risk looking away for a moment and examines her city again.
Takes in the sandy coloured stone buildings, the cobbled streets and brightly painted window shutters of the shops lining the street. The purple wisteria climbing up the sides of buildings, sending out a sweet scent on the evening breeze. The coloured lanterns turning everything jewel like in the growing darkness. It is beautiful she thinks. But when she looks back to the girl, the edge of her hair shifting in the gentle breeze, the simple yellow dress that sits across her shoulders, leaving delicate collarbones on show, she finds what is probably the most beautiful thing in her city.
“Yeah.” Yaz absently agrees, “What’s your name?”
“Tatiana. It means ‘great one’” she winks, running a hand through her hair in the most charmingly cocky gesture Yaz has ever seen.
Yaz laughs. She’s funny. She’s beautiful and she’s funny, and most importantly, she’s actually real.
Laughter lingering on her tongue, enjoying the pleased way that Tatiana is looking at her. “Well, great one, I am very happy to meet you. I’m Yasmin. You can call me Yaz.”
Something a little odd crosses Tatiana’s expression then. Maybe something like relief? Or longing? Yaz can’t tell, and she doesn’t have the mind to think on it anymore as Tatiana repeats her name.
“Yaz.” It falls from her tongue like a precious jewel, like Yaz’s name is immeasurably valuable to her. “You can just call me Tiana then.”
And suddenly they’re back to staring.
But music interrupts them, bursting from the square ahead of them, stragglers rushing in towards the party that has just started, grabbing partners and moving to the dancefloor.
Yaz holds out her hand, “Would you like to dance with me, Tiana?”
Tiana slips her hand into Yaz’s, it’s cool and soft and it zaps a little current of electricity up her arm.
“I would love to.”
Yaz dances with Tiana all night, her dream girl come to life.
She decides she must have seen her around the city while she was on watch. She can’t believe she didn’t immediately notice her and begin an embarrassing level of pining that Ryan would have surely picked up on and teased her mercilessly about. But it must’ve been on a slow day when the people were faceless and unnoteworthy and she just wanted to get home and take off her heavy armour. And that mindless half second of a glimpse must have been enough to weave the girl into her subconscious every night for the past month.
And speaking of Ryan… She would’ve spent more time wondering what that guilty look on his face had met, if she hadn’t been so distracted by a certain blonde- but it turns out there’s no need for her to think about it much further at all. Because she understands exactly why he had been so cagey earlier the second she spots him in the crowd. Dancing. With her sister.
She sees him realises he’s been spotted. Sees the way he gapes like a fish at her. See’s the way the guilty look on his face intensifies to hold just a hint of fear. See’s Sonya freeze beside him before rolling her eyes at the little power battle going on between her sister and her sister’s oldest friend.
But then Tiana is touching her face, wiping away the little bit of cream Yaz hasn’t realised is on her face from the pastry they’d stopped to eat. Tiana wipes it away with her thumb before licking it clean and flashing Yaz the most brilliant grin. And Yaz forgets all about Ryan and Sonya and literally everything else in the world besides Tiana mouth.
She wants to kiss her. She really, really does.
But then the musicians are starting up a new song, a song that obviously delights Tiana because she’s gasping in delight and tugging Yaz back onto the dancefloor.
Tiana dances with so much joy. She doesn’t really seem to know any of the steps. But she makes up for that with enthusiasm. Her wild improvisations drawing a few frowns from the older couples dancing around them, but wild laughter from Yaz. Dancing with Tiana is the best thing she’s ever done. She’s never enjoyed herself so much.
She tries to find out more about her, but her answers are always maddeningly vague.
“Where you are visiting from?”
“Oh, far away…”
“Where are you staying?”
“Nowhere really, just wherever takes my fancy.”
“Do you know other people in the city?”
“A few”
“How long are you here for?”
“As long as I feel.”
“Did you come here for the festival?”
“No I came here for you.”
That last answer is delivered with a coy smile and mischievous wink, but there’s something in Tiana’s eyes that is a little too serious for Yaz to take it entirely as a joke. And she doesn’t really know what to say in return.
Which is embarrassing really because Tiana is obviously incredibly charming and smooth and Yaz is continually finding herself at a loss for words. Too overwhelmed to reply with any real finesse.
It happens more times that Yaz would care to admit. Because the longer Yaz spends with Tiana – maddeningly vague answers and all – the more Yaz likes her. She had worried at first, that all those nights dreaming of her, would have built this mysterious girl up in her head until she was so perfect no mere mortal could ever meet those standards. But her dreams, it turns out, have been frighteningly accurate. Tiana is her dream girl in pretty much every sense of the phrase.
She dances like a mad woman, she finds the joy and curiosity in everything like a child, she laughs freely, smiles broadly, and has the sort of boundless energy that Yaz finds herself unable to resist matching. In the short time they’ve known each other (properly) Tiana has already made her see the world differently. Made her see herself differently in it.
It's as refreshing as it is intoxicating. And she finds herself desperately hoping that this feeling, like Tiana, will never go away.
At some point they had found a spot on the cobbled ground against one of the walls of the square, hidden behind one of the tables laid out for revellers to sit and drink at throughout the night. The table is empty now, as is most of the square, only the most committed festival goers still swaying about on the dance floor with their partners, half drunk, to the slower songs the musicians play now.
Yaz and Tiana have been sitting, shoulders and thighs pressed together, leaned against the wall, swapping quiet words and looking up at the few stars they can see past the lanterns still burning in the square.
“You should see the stars in my home, Yaz. They burn so brightly. I miss them.”
Yaz shifts her head until she is looking at Tiana. “Yeah? I’d like to see them sometime.”
Tiana turns to her with a smile. “I’ll show you! You’d love it!”
“Ok.”
They hold each other’s gazes, the smile falling from Tiana’s face, everything suddenly becoming so much more serious. Tiana’s gaze drifts down towards Yaz’s mouth, and a hunger like nothing Yaz has ever felt before flares to life low in her belly. She looks at Tiana’s mouth too, sees the way her tongue flicks over her pink lips, and Yaz distractedly brings a hand up to stroke across Tiana’s jaw. Barely aware that she’s done it until she registers how smooth her skin is, how beautifully it contrasts against her own. Loving the way she can see and hear and feel the little hitch in Tiana’s breathing.
“Can I kiss you?” Yaz whispers.
Tiana’s eyes flutter closed, “Yes please.” She breathes back.
And Yaz leans in, brushes her nose with her own. Inhales Tiana’s scent, so similar to the bluebells she had found on her dress earlier that evening. And presses her lips to hers.
She’s aware for a split second, of the softness of her mouth, of the taste of honey bursting across her lips, of the way fireworks flash behind her closed eyes.
And then she’s aware of nothing, because everything goes black.