[In Thunder, Lightning, or in Rain] 1/1
Once upon a time, you used to be special. Your name was written in stardust, your power in the ink on your wrist and the green flash of your eyes. They used to fear you, but now they laugh. They look at you and they think you’re broken-that your mind has been shattered beyond repair. They don’t know that your mind is the sharpest it has ever been, that your power itches beneath your skin, that you have memorized countless memoirs and dead languages curl off your tongue with ease.
You’ve forgotten your name, but you are not broken.
You are not afraid of the world, but it’s about to learn why it should fear you.
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When you were young, your kiss brought the boy you loved back to life. His guts were red streamers against the snow and they steamed in the open air. Torn to shreds by a wolf, they’d said when they found him, his blank eyes gazing starward.
There was no wolf; or rather, not the type that the humans in your village spoke of.
But you won’t know that until much later, when the next moon rises, heavy and bloated in the sky.
Until then, you press your lips to his and he shakes awake.
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You weren’t born a witch. Your parents were simple serfs, and for most of your girlhood, you had no inkling of the power that flowed through your veins. You cared little for the magicians of your time, the jesters who made butterflies burst into being or the little old hags in the woods.
You aren’t like the Argents, who cast spells with the bones of animals and wear thick fur pelts bound in magic. Hunters, born and bred-they pass their magic down to their descendants like a disease. They are a friend of the raven and an enemy to the wolf, and their eyes are just as wild as their prey.
You certainly aren’t like the nearby Wolf Pack. They shed their human skin by moonlight and run on four legs, their very breath like magic. There is a rumor of a girl they had turned-that they’d seduced her into the woods or perhaps they’d saved her from the nightmares. In spite of the demons that made her tremble and quake, the girl shone like moonlight and morning dew even before she’d been turned, and her pack only realized afterwards what she was.
You live and breathe as a human. You have no coven-you are alone.
So you defy tradition and make a name for yourself.
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At the height of your power, there were two others like you: an Argent with hair as dark as night and a wolf that shone like spun gold.
The Argent girl came to you.
She wandered into your forest ripe for the plucking, leaving her clan behind. She played with the bones of small animals-rodents and rabbits-even the fractured plates from the skull of a wolf.
“There’s power there,” she’d told you. “If you look closely enough, you can see the future.”
You hadn’t understood. Your power was in the raw earth, the water, the ink of your spellbooks. With her simple tools, she would tell you her premonitions of the things that would come as the two of you huddled around your fire.
The wolf came to you as well, drawn to your magic like a moth to a flame. She had taught you the most wonderful things, how to brew poisons and antidotes, and how to calm a brush fire with a stroke of your hand.
Together, the three of you changed the world.
.
Immortality isn’t hard to obtain if you’re clever enough to look for it. Your hair stays red as an autumn fire, your eyes as green as spring grass, your skin like snow, your lips as pink as summer berries. Later, you will read the fairytales they wrote of your kind and you will laugh, your body carrying with it traceries of the seasons.
You live for decades and watch your loved ones die-but death will never come for you, even as the centuries fade.
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Your Argent girl dies first, when her people come for her in the middle of the night. Your heart aches when your wolf howls and rips them all apart and you keep half an eye on her even as you rush to your Argent. You watch your wolf tear them asunder, her claws deep in their soft bellies, a snarl on her lips-golden hair a tangled halo. You watch your wolf even as the life goes out of your Argent’s eyes-as she gasps, terrible and wet, for the very last time. Your hands are bloodied and your eyes burn, because there is nothing you can do.
“Bring her back,” your wolf shrieks, golden and fierce, blood smeared across her face.
You shake your head, thinking of something your Argent once told you.
“Not yet,” you tell your beloved wolf. “The future will come. We must be patient.”
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Civilizations rise and fall, and with it, magic itself wanes and ebbs with the flow of time. The centuries are lonely at times, so you pass the time by living different lives. You are a cellar girl for a time and a hermit for another. You marry into royalty in the 13th century and for all the history books know, you die with it.
For a century and a half you rule your part of the world, a queen in your own right. You choose your name that way-Lydia-and your power crackles on for miles. It makes the grass grow and the flowers bloom, and the dead claw free of their graves. You are the sorceress of the East and the West, and you flourish.
Time and time again, the Argents go to war with the wolves. You refuse to help either of them, thinking of your Argent girl, blood and apologies on her lips. After so long, they hate you as much as they hate each other, a three way quarrel that could level a forest.
Centuries pass and you watch them live and die-let them turn to ash and dust while you live on.
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Your wolf lets herself die, refusing eternal life each time you ask her. She grows old before your eyes, hair gone grey and skin wrinkled, until she finally withers away.
Even as you weep, you try not to mourn her.
After all, you’ll see her again.
.
(You used to be somebody.)
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In the 21st century, you enroll yourself at the local school, because you are bored. You can pass for sixteen in your natural form and age yourself down if need be, and you are so very, very tired of the forest.
You make yourself anew-dabble in fashion and play at being dumb and insipid. You snare yourself a boy that reminds of that first boy, the one you brought to life with your love and your lips; you let him think he has your heart. You stifle the fire under your skin and introduce yourself to chemistry and physics and all of the new laws that the world has come up with to explain away the unknown.
If you’re honest with yourself, this life just as boring as the forest had been. Learning new things is terribly interesting, but knowledge itself is as fluid as time, forever changing and weaving. Knowledge is power, but the process of it all has grown tiresome.
You toy with the idea of moving back to Paris for a decade or three when the Argents move back to town, the Wolf Pack’s descendants start expanding once more.
The game is finally back on.
.
You watch and wait-watch as the little town you’ve made your home turns into a warground. The Argents no longer wear pelts with spellwork woven into the stitching, the ravens have all but forgotten them, and their magic has shriveled in their veins. They prefer weapons now: poisonous bullets and barbed arrows. The littlest Argent you befriend on her first day of school-Allison Argent, all dimpled smiles and sweet disposition.
Her magic is stagnant, buried beneath her skin. It lies in the precision of her arrows and the tilt of her lips, but you feel it.
They’ve forgotten you, the Argents, and there is no recognition there when she lays eyes on you, your little Argent girl.
You watch her blossom as the year goes on, as animal attacks plague the wildlife preserve and the boy she’s tied her heart to falls prey to the moonlight. People die-you manage to let yourself be savaged by a mad wolf-and slowly, Allison’s petals begin to fall.
Her eyes harden, the palms of her hands go rough with calluses, and her smile turns to barb wire.
The crows and the ravens flock to her, though you don’t think she notices. They treat her as one of their own, like she’s an Argent of old. Their voices are loud, obnoxious, and they grate on your nerves, but though their voices are ugly, they sing for her all the same.
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The first time you see Erica, you wonder why she’s not yet a wolf. She reeks of power, like bitter apples and nightshade, and you remember a wolf girl made of moonlight and dew drops. Erica is but a shade of that girl, you think.
Such a pity.
You feel the moment she is turned-her magic reaching a crescendo-making the hairs of your arms prickle with static. Like lightning, they had said, all those centuries ago. She comes in the night and singes your very soul, the devil’s fingerprint.
Erica Reyes is no devil, but she does make a glorious wolf.
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Peter Hale inside your head is like having a brain parasite. He lingers in the cobwebbed recesses of your mind, soaking up your power-mocking you.
Pretty little witch girl, he croons. What will you do now?
You are old, older than many of the trees in the preserve. You will not be cowed by the ghost of a wolf.
His plans are to drive you mad, take control of your mind, and use a very old ritual to bring him back to life.
You laugh at him, your painted lips curled meanly, and dig him out of his grave.
You need no wolf magic-you bring him back to life with a kiss.
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The world turns, the seasons pass-your ex-lover goes from lizard to wolf, your Argent girl breaks into pieces, and your wolf goes feral in the hands of the alpha pack.
You watch and wait.
Once they realize, they will come to you.
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A boy named Stiles once fancied himself in love with you. You had admired him, for all his flaws.
He is the first to figure you out.
In truth, you thought that he would have realized sooner.
“I met your mom, Lydia!” he shrieks, his voice higher than a meadowlark.
“An illusion,” you tell him. “The eyes see what they expect to see.”
He scowls at you, hands clenched at his sides. You already know why he has come to you.
“Be the spark, Stiles,” you tell him, crossing your legs at the knee and leaning towards him. When your hand touches his, electricity passes from your thumb to his forefinger and he jumps. You laugh. “If you need help, you’ve come to the right place.”
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You teach him while you wait. Despite his brain going a mile a minute near constantly, he makes for a good pupil.
He is patient as you teach him the old ways-handy little tricks to keep that little pack of his together. You watch as he weaves protection spells into cloth and air alike, offering him praise only when he’s truly earned it.
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“This war-it’s only just beginning, isn’t it?” he asks you, running a hand nervously over his scalp.
You smile at him.
“Ten points to Gryffindor,” you tell him, patting him on the hand.
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The Norse called it Ragnarok; the Hindu await a time when Kalki descends to end the current Kali Yuga. The Christians call it the second coming.
For all, it is simply the end of the world.
It’s nothing as simple as zombies or plague. The world ends as it was always going to-through the actions of human beings. War rips the planet apart and you want to laugh until you’re sick. Once, you were somebody. But with all your power, you cannot prevent this.
Not by yourself.
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Erica is the first to come to you. There’s dust in her hair and magic crackling beneath her fingernails; the first thing she does is slap you.
You taste the blood on your lip, a quick flicker of tongue, and grin when she follows the motion.
“What were you waiting for?” she hisses. “This? Is this what you wanted? When you could have stopped it all?”
You spit at her feet, blood spattering her boots, and smile serenely when she just glowers at you. “What could I have done, Reyes?”
She growls at you. “Stiles told me,” she hisses. She flings the words like an accusation, an insult, as if she couldn’t have figured out the same exact thing that he did whenever she wanted.
Your smile widens, making your dry lips crack. “He told you what, exactly?”
“You know very well what.”
You shrug. “That I’m a witch? My true age? That I knew this was to come?”
Silence.
“What exactly did you think I could do about it?”
When Erica speaks, her voice is tight with desperation, a roughness choked up in her larnyx. There’s a wet sheen to her eyes and anger in the set to her mouth, her own magic nipping at your skin. “Anything,” she hisses.
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You aren’t fond of radiation. Feeling your skin melt is unpleasant, even with the ability to repair it again. Thankfully the blast was far enough away that it won’t be much cause for concern for weeks, months even. Still, the ground blisters and the grass withers beneath your feet.
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Erica breathes.
You snort. “It will take far more than this to kill me, Reyes.”
There’s a rock digging into your back, right up against the knobs of your spine. You shift, lips curling with discomfort.
“Me then. I’m going to die, aren’t I?” she asks, the tremble in her voice barely discernible. You raise an eyebrow at her and think of the smell of bitter apples and nightshade. You wonder for the first time if she even knows her magic is there.
Shifting to your side isn’t a fun feeling. You’ve spoiled yourself this last decade, sleeping on plush beds and forgetting the feel of the ground beneath you-dirt in your hair and the sky glittering above you. You reach towards her, touching the very tip of your finger to her brow.
Her breath catches when your magic surges against hers.
“Be the spark, Erica Reyes,” you tell her, your eyes bright. “Then maybe you’ll live.”
.
You had lost track of the others when you and Erica had left Beacon Hills. From her, you know that the pack is still alive-presumably Stiles’ work-that they wander the hills now, a tight band of misfits who don’t even know their own strengths.
You don’t like Derek Hale, but Stiles trusts Scott, and you trust his judgement at the very least. So if McCall wishes to put their fate in Derek’s hands, so be it. Far be it from you to judge whom people have faith in.
You also know that they don’t trust Erica anymore, that she’s no longer welcome amongst them-too unstable for their tastes after the Alpha pack had played her like an empty doll.
Some nights her eyes are wild, a snarl building in her throat. You have not yet seen her under the effects of the moon, but when the time comes, you think that you’ll be able to handle her. For now, a touch from you has her calming, the burning hatred in her eyes snuffed out like a torch.
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The next bombs are close enough that you can feel them heat your face. Not nuclear this time, just fire bombs that set your forest alight.
The trees weep as they burn, the merry crackle of foliage and the snapping of brittle, charred bark.
You watch for as long as you can stomach, before you turn to Erica. Her eyes are bright, but there’s no terror there, just interest-flames reflected in her dark eyes. You lay your hand on hers and watch as she blinks slowly, pulling her gaze away from the forest fire so that she can meet your eyes.
“Help me, Reyes,” you whisper, threading your fingers through hers.
She blinks again and a shy smile creeps across her face.
Your magic curls against hers, honeydew and bitter apples-thunder and lightning, sparking.
The fire goes out and the trees sigh, a breath on the wind.
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You’ve played this game before. You’ve had other lovers-older men with grey in their beards, nubile young boys, maidens that reek of innocence. You know where to touch and kiss and stroke, all the places to best bring them pleasure. So when Erica sidles over to you one night and tucks her hand over your belly, you know how this is going to go.
She crawls up your body, a smirk on her face and fire in her eyes, and she kisses you.
You know how this goes; you kiss her back.
.
With you two, it isn’t romance and flowers. You are no Juliet and she is no Romeo, there are no Prince Charming’s in your world-no orchestra to play swelling music each time your lips touch hers. You are two bodies, teaching each other how to survive in a dead world. You take comfort in each others skin, shelter in one another’s arms.
You make her come apart beneath you with the power of touch alone and swallow her pleasure.
Her hair shines in the sunset like spun gold, dark eyes and pink lips.
For now, she is enough.
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The first full moon you spend together, she tries to kill you.
It’s short-lived, the fury going out of golden eyes the moment she locks her jaws around your forearm. She pulls away with a whimper, licking blood from her lips. She looks scared and ashamed, and you think if she were a true wolf like her ancestors, her tail would be tucked between her legs. So you call to her-pull her close to you as you push magic into the wound-as you soothe it and push the infection away.
The moonlight turns your skin to porcelain, white as snow, making the red streaks of blood all the more blatant.
She watches as the wound fades, until there’s just streaks of dried blood left over.
You smile at her and curl a hand against the nape of her neck. “I told you, Reyes,” you breathe into the air between you. “It will take much more than that to end me.”
.
Allison comes back to you as autumn gives way to winter, the nights growing longer and colder, forcing you and Erica to curl together beneath thick animal pelts that still smell of blood. You think that if you felt up to braving the towns you could find warmer clothing, blankets, maybe even water that isn’t from a stream. The towns are all full of cut-throats though, humans that have given in to madness, and you don’t quite trust them around Erica yet. Her magic is fierce and she has the strength of ten men, but she is still but a child in their eyes.
You hear the ravens before you see her, their crowing voices cutting into the quiet air.
Argent, they croak.
Blessed beloved child, they squawk.
Erica tosses rocks at them and they laugh at the curses that hiss past her lips. After a moment, you still her hand.
Allison is not the same girl she once was. Her dark hair falls in snarls down her back, twisted and tangled around her sunken cheekbones. Her eyes are as dead as her ravens, her lips pale and cracked.
She wears a wolf pelt on her shoulders, tawny fur catching the fading rays of sun, and there are at least ten weapons on her person, not including the bow she has pointed in your direction. When she sees you, her eyes don’t soften, they don’t go bright with recognition. Fair’s fair, you don’t particularly look like the Lydia Martin she once knew.
Your hair is just as tangled as hers-your face bare of makeup, fingernails cracked and brittle. There’s a line of purple bruises trailing from your collarbone up your neck in the shape of Erica’s mouth, streaks of blood on your pale skin where Erica had forgotten herself and torn the skin.
Allison looks at you like you’re an animal and it’s only Erica snarling at your side that prevents you from getting an arrow to your chest.
The arrow hits Erica in the shoulder as she launches into action, teeth bared as her magic flings itself at Allison like a projectile. Allison hisses when it hits her and the smell of burning fur fills the clearing. They tear into each other-magic, teeth, and steel, and it’s only your voice raised to a shout that makes them falter.
You glower at them, your eyes burning green as you hold them still, and slowly, recognition dawns in Allison’s eyes.
“Lydia?” she whispers and you laugh at the look on her face. Erica lets out a sharp bark of derision and you have to tighten your hold on them so they don’t break free and rip each other apart.
“Hello, Allison,” you sigh, tucking a lock of hair behind your ear.
Her ravens laugh and laugh and laugh-
.
Erica and Allison hate each other with an intensity as bright as any hunter and wolf. You think that there might be something else there though, a history between them that you aren’t aware of.
It’s strange having an Argent alongside the both of you-waking up to raven feathers in the clearing and another sleeping body beside you and Erica. It makes you think of simpler times; another Argent and another wolf girl-so like these two and so different as well. The animosity between them is palpable-they bicker during the day as you walk, hissed insults and thinly veiled threats. Often, they make good on those threats and it’s only your presence between them that halts them from killing one another.
It’s irritating, making you clench your teeth at night until Erica rolls over and kisses you.
She touches you now as much as she ever did, clever fingers between your legs and her mouth on your breast. When she rolls her hips against yours, you can hear Allison breathing across the clearing, feel the way that her breath speeds up as Erica smirks against your pulse and coaxes you louder.
.
“Jealous, Argent?” Erica hisses one night, three fingers twisting inside of you and her other hand tugging on your hair. With a twitch of her fingers, magic lights your insides, making you gasp and whine as you grind against her hand.
Not ten feet from you, Allison is silent.
She stays that way the entire time that Erica fucks you, quiet enough that for a time, you think she’s sleeping.
Only when morning comes do you realize that she’s bitten her lips bloody.
.
The night comes when Allison grows tired of Erica’s games-when she heaves herself out of her furs and over to the two of you.
Your face is between Erica’s thighs, tasting the sweetness of her, and stifling laughter as she describes what you’re doing to Allison, voice smokey and rough. “God, Allison, you were friends with her once-have you ever felt her tongue? It’s like magic,” Erica groans, claws pricking at your scalp.
You hear it when Allison growls and heaves herself up-when she marches over to the two of you, her heart thumping frantically against her ribs.
Erica growls when Allison kisses her and you laugh into her folds, flicking your tongue against her clit. When you slant your eyes up, you watch them tug at each other-snarling, teeth clacking together, biting at each other’s lips. Erica whines when you pull away from her, so you slide two fingers into her, reaching for Allison.
Allison comes to you gracefully, though her eyes are nervous as you close the space between you. She tastes like honeysuckle and metal, opening her mouth and letting you lick inside. Dimly, you’re aware of Erica shifting away, freeing one of your hands so you can curl it into Allison’s hair. You lick at the blood on her lips and catch her gasp in your mouth when Erica slides a hand down her pants.
She shakes apart beneath your lips, Erica smirking at you over her shoulder all the while.
.
“You need to learn how to control it,” you tell them, because they’re no use to you sparking all over the place like a couple of children.
“How?” Erica asks you, her voice like a whip.
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You teach them as their ancestors once taught you, your hands on theirs, coaxing their magic to the surface. Erica’s been with you long enough that her magic is used to you, it comes to your fingers like an affectionate pet, twirling around them.
Allison’s is wary, nearly dry beneath her skin. Spark, you tell it, and it flickers weakly beneath your palm.
You pull out a jar of ancient bones and curl her fingers around it. Then you watch, throat gone dry, as she tosses them-over and over, dark eyes glazed. When she looks back to you, she smiles, your little Argent girl from so long ago, and says, “I remember you.”
She kisses you gently-your temple, your wrists, your ankles.
“I’m missing something, aren’t I?” Erica says, brow arched.
Allison laughs and presses her forehead to yours. “You’ve been so patient, my love.”
You have been.
You’re so tired.
.
“We can save this world,” Allison tells Erica later. “We changed the world once, we can do it again.”
“What the fuck are you on about, Argent?” Erica mumbles drowsily into your collarbone.
Allison turns to look at you. “‘When shall we meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?’” she asks.
You smile. “‘When the hurlyburly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won.’”
“‘That will be ere the set of sun,’” Erica finishes, huffing. “Congratulations, you can both quote Macbeth, now will you let me get to sleep?”
Allison nuzzles into your side, stroking a hand up your flank. She isn’t all Allison anymore-your Argent girl shines through every time she touches you. When the battle’s lost and won, you mouth against the skin of her throat. She shivers, pressing herself closer and laughing when your fingers tickle her thigh.
Erica growls under her breath, grumpy and exhausted.
When Allison slips her dainty little hands under your skirt, Erica watches you both, her eyes sleepy and golden.
You come with a language that neither of them know on your tongue.
.
‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.’
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Channeling power is never an easy task and stopping war is something that can’t be accomplished by three people, no matter how powerful. You think of flooding the world, like the Christian’s great flood; drown out the wickedness and let the earth flourish anew.
It’s just a thought, tempting as it may be.
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“This isn’t going to work,” Erica sobs, squeezing your hand tightly enough to cut off the blood flow.
You shrug.
“We’ll die trying then,” Allison tells her.
.
Power accumulates over the years, and you are very, very old.
.
It’s as simple as letting it all go.
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“No, no-Lydia, what have you done?” Allison yells, half panicked.
You laugh, blood flecking your lips. All around you, the forest is blooming back to life as your magic seeps into the ground beneath you. Your magic alone isn’t enough to save the entire globe, but it heals enough of it to be a start, cleansing the air of pollution and the animals of toxic chemicals. You can feel it, all around you; like bringing the dead back to life with a kiss.
You push life into everything your magic touches and for a moment, you are unstoppable. You are all powerful-the moon and the stars and the earth-you are the water of the oceans and the springs, the trout two miles north and the bear five miles east. You are everything, a queen in your own right.
Erica shakes you and you suddenly have a body once more, reality returning to your senses.
It doesn’t hurt as much as you had thought it would. Your body aches and it feels like your blood is boiling, but you are content. Allison shifts you into her lap and dimly, you’re aware of the irony, that she’s the one cradling you as you die this time around. She’s half sobbing words into your ear, Erica crouching before both of you, the very tips of her blond hair touching your chest.
“Why?” Erica asks you, and you have to take a long moment to focus on her.
“‘When the battle’s lost and won,’” you breathe, the words of a dead poet like ash on your tongue. You swallow. “I did the hard part, you two get to do the rest. Slackers.”
Your voice wobbles on the last word and you flinch when Allison places a kiss on your brow. You don’t regret anything. You have lived for too long as it is, and well, dying so your lovers can live... Well, that’s not a bad way to go out, is it?
“Thank you,” Allison whispers, laying her brow against yours.
The world smells like honeysuckle and the beginnings of a storm-thunder, lightning, and rain.
You think there are worse ways to go.
.
Once upon a time, three witches saved the world.
You’re all stories in the end.
