Work Text:
It was rainy night in a small town, a young girl was outside walking home from school. Her back hair drenched in rainwater, her shoes covered in mud.
The young girl arrived home and rang the doorbell, her expression was rather scared. A woman answered the door, but she didn't seem to notice the horrid expression on the young girl's face.
"Ashley... You're soaked. Get cleaned up, honey, then head down for dinner." The woman spoke softly to the child, The girl simply just nodded and headed upstairs to get cleaned.
A few moments later, after Ashley got cleaned, she headed down for dinner. The food was warm, but bordering on cold. Her father and mother were seated and eating their meals when all of a sudden their landline rang.
"I'll get it," spoke the father, his silverware clinking on the plate as he strode to answer the phone.
"Hello, Redmond household speaking..." He answered.
"Yes, this is Ashley's father."
"An incident? Did she have another moment?"
Ashley froze up hearing it from the other room. She quickly ate her food and left her plate and utensils in the sink before sprinting towards her room. She could still hear her father speak on the phone through her room.
"Sorry...? Say that again?"
"Into a spoon...?"
Ashley locked herself in her room. Hearing the conversation she was scared for her life. She knew her parents would go ballistic if theyknew she used her magic again... Even worse of it was maliciously. Ashley covered her ears, not wanting to hear the conversation anymore. Even fter the conversation ended and she could hear her father screaming to open the door, she still refused to.
"You were behaving much better, what happened?! Don't ignore me, young lady! You know this is a sin to our beliefs!"
Eventually, her father gave up and left her alone... For now. Ashley soon went to bed after it, crying herself to sleep.
~
The next day at school, she noticed some kids whispering things while looking at her, some even directly laughing at her face and making rude remarks toward her. She tried not to mind all these things, but she noticed a few set of people much older than her staring at her from her classes, observing all her moves. The young girl tried not to mind them and thought they were just weirdos.
But then, after school and when she was walking back to school, the same group of people who were watching her and drugged her unconscious. When she woke up, she found herself tied to a wooden post, gasoline spilled at her feet. Her hearing was deafened, however she could make up words that sounded like... A prayer.
When she finally felt more conscious, she saw many of the churchgoers from where her and her family go to for church service, many whom she'd recognize, some not.
A man stood infront of her, and he began to recite form a paper on his hand.
"A poor soul trapped sin, a child merely curious of the world around her, but was captivated by dastardly witchcraft. The devil has withered her mindset and has turned her into the evil grasp of Satan himself. She has done numerous acts of sorcery, some innocently decieving, some dastardly treacherous."
As the man continued to go on about Ashley's wrongdoing , she tried to struggle free from the ropes, but they were too tight to escape from. Then the man turned to her.
"Young Ashley Redmond, do you repent for your sins and want your soul to be saved from damnation?"
Ashley didn't answer, and instead tried to struggle even more. The man did not wait any more for a response, and lit a match on fire.
"Thou shalt not permit a sorceress to live." He muttered, before the crowd repeated.
The man dropped the match into the puddle of gasoline, the fire started to spread across the wooden stick and Ashley's entire body. The young girl tried screaming for help, her eyes overflowing with tears. He embody started to fill up with wounds, her skin suffering severe from the fire.
Just before Ashley decided it was her death, a blur of red swooped in and untied the ropes to save her, it flew her away from the site as fast as it could and dropped her back at her home.
The young Ashley was left in shock, frozen in place, she looked down at herself, the marks from burning still gruesomely present. She kept thinking to herself, keeping that shocked expression before heading back inside her home, not cleaning up for fear of the scars hurting more.
A few days later, her parents drove her to Diamond City, where her parents forcefully shoved her out of their car, leaving her with her stuffed bunny doll.
"If you hadn't turned your teacher into a spoon, we wouldn't have done this." Their voices cold and stern, not even daring to look at Ashley before driving off.
Ashley was left alone, clinging onto her stuffed bunny, her body still lingering with pain from both malnutrition and the burns from the days prior. Her poor body was trembling, confused, scared and afraid.
~
... The present day, Ashley woke up crying. She whimpered out sobs from under the blanket before her friend, Red came in.
"Ashley? Are you okay? Did you have another nightmare?" The small imp whispered.
"I'm... Okay, Red. Just... Just another nightmare..." She whispered, not daring to look at Red back. "Red... Thank you, for everything .. for saving me that day, for taking care of me... It means alot." she looked down at her folded arms, tracing idle patterns her healed burn scars.
Ashley got off her bed, her arms stretching out as she let out a yawn. "Let's... Just get ready for the day, Red... I don't want to think of it all any longer."