Work Text:
Tereza had learned her arts from her mother. She and her sister had been taught what herbs did what, how to identify a person’s illness, what they needed to know. She had sat deathbed vigils and risen the next day to deliver a child.
There was freedom in being a woman like her, but there was also danger. Her sister had died to a band of men who thought her too confident, too self-assured, and too in tune with the old ways. They had told what they knew, and she had been killed for it.
So Tereza had learned to keep a secret. She refused to let the danger stop her from doing her work, but she built up allies. Good folks who would warn her when she might be in danger.
Walking one evening, she met a woman of her ilk, who gave no name in case it was used against her. Tereza called her Dusk, for the hour they had met. With Dusk, she felt some of that wild spirit she had once so greatly possessed return to her.
They danced, in the woods, and laughed with careless abandon. They met as lovers, under the cover of night and the moon’s caress, afraid of being caught but wanting this more than anything. Someday, they might have to flee. But they would have had this.