Chapter Text
Ch.1
Sarah wakes up—again—as the remnants of her nightmare dilute in the dark of the bedroom. This time, however, what wakes her up is different from what woke her up the past two nights.
She sits on her bed and fumbles for her diary between the sheets. As far as her eyes can see, with the help of a few lightning strands that enter through the window, the scattered words match what she remembers from the dream. A woman, falling, white, she reads, and looks for the pencil to add a few more details. Memories come back to her as she writes; the white light becomes too bright to see through it, the woman screams as she falls—screams her name, Sarah—and Sarah feels the world trembling under her naked feet. She cries and the earth opens and the white becomes impossibly bright… and then there’s nothing. She stops the frantic writing for a second, her mind racing with images repeating themselves, sweat running all over her face and hands, and a crack. The pencil’s point breaks against the notebook the same way Sarah’s heart breaks at the memories because this nightmare per se shouldn’t be so moving—it isn’t different from others she’s had before. It shouldn’t be a problem, but the thing is it is paired with the most shaking emotions.
It shouldn’t be important, but the thing is the falling woman in it is Tally Craven.
Sighing, Sarah leaves the diary aside and falls into her bed, exhausted, worried. The wet nightgown sticking uncomfortably against her skin brings her back to the bedroom, away from the images. Through the fabric, she can feel the cold of this mid-January evening. Unlike other nights, this time she experiences the cruelty of winter on her bones in full force. She blinks into the darkness and tries to put her focus into something else. She should know by now how to let a bad dream extinguish and yet here she is, catching her breath, trying to bring herself to the present, to the place of peace she’s built so carefully for the past year.
She breathes in and breathes out, and eventually she succeeds. The pressure on her chest fades away; the rain outside relents as well. The sound of the drops gently hitting the cabin’s roof cocoons her into sleep again with just a thread of thought hanging stubbornly from the edge of consciousness: something about these dreams feels extremely uncommon. She just can’t tell what it is yet.
—
The morning arrives but the feeling remains. It’s deeper than it should and persistent, so much that Sarah can barely shake it while doing her daily chores.
She walks towards the farmlands and carries out her Weatherwork as she goes, guiding the rain clouds to the south where the crops are still weak and the land is still healing. The fresh pastures are already good for human consumption but they look paler than they should. There are things to improve but nonetheless, she trusts the process. Progress is gained one day at a time, one Seed at a time, and that’s enough for Sarah to find a new purpose every day, a different way to fight.
She performs the Work the Mother grants her—a capability to heal the soil and to reconstruct nature around her, if only partially and not without a cost on her health if conducted carelessly—to patch the damage sustained by the Mycelium during the war. Far from being completely restored, the consequences remain to this day. Droughts are devastating in some areas, infertility in others. The resources become scarce but thanks to a strong community, and with the help of Sarah’s powerful Work, they have a chance to rebuild. To reconcile.
This day, like any other day, when the sun is starting to fall, Sarah returns to her cabin in the middle of the woods and away from the rest of civilization. It’s strange, even after all this time, to return to the silence of an empty home. That doesn’t stop her, though, from creating some sort of routine out of it, where cooking makes what’s left of the day bearable, even enjoyable.
Sarah takes the knife and chops the last bits of potato before mixing it with the meat and other vegetables on the pot. This recipe is not hers. It pops up on her mind every time she thinks about Fort Salem and how her biddies hated when a new coock changed something, from the original ingredients to the right amount of pepper. As any other form of art, cooking has a basic set of rules like following instructions, and respecting quantity and resources. It requires patience and perseverance in case something fails. It is a methodical task. For Sarah, any resemblance to war tactics is not merely a coincidence, and for that she excels at it.
She adds two fresh logs to the top of the fire, hoping it will keep the house warm while the stew keeps boiling on the stove for the next twenty minutes or so. In the meantime, she debates within herself if she should come back to the notes she took during the night.
The diary lays on the kitchen table, she might as well end hesitation once and for all.
As she breaks the sigil, Sarah feels like she’s taking precautions that are no longer necessary here in the loneliness of the woods. Something about this performance draws a connection to who she used to be. As well as classified documents, these notes shouldn’t be read by anyone but her. They’re far too private and intimate, and now haunted, it seems, by the presence of one Tally Craven.
Some of the pages on her diary are scratched, overflowed by old notes and schemes. Others just crumpled. The ones destined to her dreams are almost empty, if not for the brief descriptions she managed to write down.
It all started three nights ago when the first of them occurred. The touch of a hand, Sarah had noted down, a firm grip and then the soft retreat of cold fingers. A voice thanking her, her voice thanking Sarah, but why?
That is the first of many questions. She can’t explain why the first dream ignited a curious need to write down these rare occurrences but she thanks her intuition for carrying on with it. If something begins to describe these dreams is the feeling of disconnection, as if they were out of time, out of context, with no beginning or end. There is something that feels different from other dreams. Besides the images, a raw emotion comes with them… And just like the first dream, the second one fills her with longing, but also urgence.
A dream that feels too much like a memory—certainly not the first of its kind—like a deja vu of something that hasn’t happened yet and if it would, she wouldn’t dare to stop it. Warm hands, a warmer thigh, agitation. A dark quilt, she reads, and red hair sprawled against it. As her eyes roam through the almost blank page she rides the sensations again. The earthy scent of wet soil fills her senses and the cold air contrasts with a heat she knows very well albeit unknown at the same time, being relieved for the first of many times. There is a lingering connection, broken, but not quite.
She sighs and feels it again, like the other times she left her imagination roam these ways. Not guilt or shame but definitely a piercing inconvenience. This dream represents something longed for and restricted at the same time. Once due to her position as a superior, now because time has passed and life continues its course, and the aftermath of war left the both of them in different places, figuratively and literally speaking.
If only time and distance could heal these insistent what-ifs.
As for the notes about her last dream, or nightmare more precisely, Sarah doesn’t dare to review them yet. Instead, she abandons her diary and throws some condiments to the stew to distract herself fruitlessly. She has been brooding over the nightmare since last night. Without a doubt, it had been the most unsettling of the three, and she doesn’t have an explanation as to why these dreams stick with her for the rest of the day and for the rest of the night. Why is she dreaming of a soft contact, a sweet voice, and why does it leave her with a wistful longing? Why is she dreaming about Tally being in danger? Is she okay right now?
There are no answers really, and that’s what puzzles Sarah the most. Is it their link, getting stronger again? Why now? Why like this and not the subtle reververances she’s come to get used to since the last battle, since the First Song? Something had happened then, something that reignited her connection to Tally. Relinking, Izadora had said, but different than the remnants of a biddy bond. Whatever this is, remains unexplainable, and now Sarah has not only questions but also worries.
She tastes the stew and the hot sensation against her tongue does nothing to ease the mental images and the doubts her thoughts arise. Not being able to shut them down it’s cruel and frustrating. Outside, even the cold northerly wind and drizzling rain are on cue with what happens on Sarah’s head. And it could be the sudden preoccupation or the impracticality of overthinking about something she can’t explain but the turmoil becomes a mysterious need to turn around and leave the cabin. Her chest fills with longing and flutters at the same time as if she is about to run into the battlefield. There’s a sense of closeness, imminence, that runs through her and makes her fix her eyes on the front door. An invisible force draws her slowly towards it, and there, as she watches idly, a sigh gets caught for a few seconds before leaving her lungs in the form of a constricted Tally.
Looking for the doorknob almost desperately, Sarah opens the wooden door only to find her waiting under the light rain.
“Hi!” Waving a hesitant hand, Tally stands still and surprised in front of Sarah’s door. Surprised just like Sarah is, because the push in her chest releases instantly.
She looks at Tally in the eyes, and then her eyes roam through the soldier’s entire existence. The wet hair, her skin, her clothes—civilian clothes—and the backpack, all coated by a layer of small drops.
“What—are you doing here?” She manages to articulate.
“Should I… leave?” The smile fades from Tally’s face and something close to panic seems to take its place. “I can leave—”
“Of course not. Come in.”
Sarah urges Tally to enter, receiving her backpack and leaving it beside the fireplace.
“Wow,” she hears Tally say, still confused. “This place is nice.”
She turns around and watches, observes Tally as she’s taking in every detail in Sarah’s cabin, eyes wide in awe. Sarah is in awe too, following Tally’s rigorous but polite examination, and how her face changes when she comes close to the stove.
Sarah wonders if she’s dreaming right now.
“It smells good too,” Tally adds.
A second passes before Sarah is able to say something else. “I will get you something to dry yourself off.”
Dream or not Tally is standing there, all soaked and probably freezing, but shining as always.
Maybe it’s not a dream after all.
Taking her diary with her, Sarah enters her bedroom, looking for some towels in the closet and some composure as well. She picks the softest ones and some toiletries Tally could find useful, and she makes a mental note to offer her a warm bath later.
“I’m sorry, I should have let you know I was coming,” Tally says, peering into the room from the kitchen as Sarah walks out. “I thought the wards would give me away.”
“I don’t need them here. You can use the bedroom if you need to change.”
Tally smiles as she takes the towels and after searching her backpack for a fresh change of clothes, she heads towards the bedroom. Fighting inside, Sarah manages to hide the way she follows Tally’s figure around her until the very moment before she closes the door and her eyes stay fixed on the wood. It’s hard to believe that the woman in her dreams is on the other side. Why now? Sarah asks herself again. And of course, she has no answer.
The crackling of fire brings her back to reality. The stew must be ready by now, how could she forget about it? She quickly chops some parsley and adds it to the top, and after that, while her mind is still lost on the unexpected pleasure that is Tally Craven in the contiguous space, she serves two bowls.
The door opens behind her. “Thank you. I’ll put this by the fire,” Tally announces.
She hears Tally moving through the room, extending her wet clothes over a chair, near the fireplace. She turns to see Tally drying her hair with the towel, distracted by the flames. With a bowl in her hand and warmth in her heart, Sarah feels something inside her getting softer, lighter.
“This one’s for you,” she says, offering the bowl, that softness filtering through her voice a little bit too much, and as soon as she can acknowledge it she clears her throat. Time has passed, but Tally’s effect on her is still more powerful than she dares to recognize.
With wide eyes, Tally receives the bowl, dimples on full display. If she says something, Sara really can’t tell because all of a sudden, the turmoil in her head unleashes again like a wild storm.
This moment, the fleeting touch of Tally’s fingers, all of it feels exactly like the first dream she had. The brief contact brings the images and sensations from the past to this exact second, like thunder, like a ghost, like something she can’t ignore. And she realizes then that Tally can read the confusion on her face, paleness covering her own.
“Are—are you—okay?” Tally stammers
“Yes.” Sarah is lying, answering too fast, meeting her eyes with fake confidence. But Tally is worried, she seems lost in her own thoughts, which is why Sarah does everything in her power to dissipate the situation. “This will get cold. We should eat.”
Tally nods and so they sit, each on a side of the small table, silence only breaking when Tally tries the stew for the first time, moaning delightfully with every bite. As if she remembers her days as a biddy, they talk about ingredients and herbs and what a good stew is supposed to include. Tally’s interest for everything food related keeps intact to the pass of time, as Sarah can confirm.
It doesn’t take much time for Tally to finish her first bowl, so Sarah offers a new one, leaving room for a new wave of questions about her lifestyle in the Cession, the work the community is doing to regain trust, and her role as a mere helper. Sarah is not a leader anymore, not in the way that would put medals and ribbons on her chest, but people respect her image, and esteem her presence. Inside, Sarah knows very well that there is a purpose more important than keeping a reputation: reconstructing nature, healing the earth the Camarilla dared to poison.
For once, the small talk feels pleasant. Not that Sarah doesn’t enjoy it once in a while with the right person, it’s just that with Tally, small talk isn’t really a thing they had a lot of time to experience before. She doesn’t remember, in fact, if they ever had a conversation so light and not guided by tasks that need to be fulfilled, so devoid of urgency and demands. Maybe when Tally was a biddy, she tries to recall. Maybe when she was unbiddied and their link lingered between them, making Tally admit she had missed her terribly. If only Sarah could have been able to tell her she missed her too.
If only she could articulate those words right now without risking too much.
The night falls completely and finds them enjoying a glass of whisky by the fire, music in the background. As Tally changes into her bed clothes, Sarah fixes her modest couch into a small bed, and after a couple of attempts at dissuading Tally, she finally concedes to her the pleasure of sleeping by the fire—in Tally’s words—instead of taking the comfort of her bed.
“As you wish. I always take the couch when visitors come home. I would not mind doing it this time as well.”
“So you do receive visitors after all,” Tally teases, sitting on the floor by the fireplace. Sarah can’t tell if she’s just lit up because of the alcohol or if she’s flirting, or both, but the mischievous smile and hooded eyes do something to her.
“Only a few, lucky ones,” is all she has to say to make Tally hide a giggle and break eye contact, smiling into the fire, its light camouflaging what Sarah knows is a blush. She doesn’t blame her, though. That heat on Sarah’s body is not caused by what she’s drinking right now. Or the fire, if anything else.
She can see Tally’s profile from where she’s sitting. She could see her smiling like that for hours but she fears she would want to do it forever. And forever is no longer a possibility. The Mother gave her more power but the gift of a mortal life comes with certain limitations. It doesn’t allow infinite longing or baseless hoping.
No one should live forever and nothing should last forever. She just wishes Tally’s smile would last just a little longer.
“I need to tell you something,” Tally says, eyes still lost in the fire.
And just like that Sarah knows that forever is a fleeting moment.
“We—” Tally starts, this time turning to face her, obviously trying to find the right words. “The army retrieved some information. A small cell of seven men, probably ex-Camarilla. We captured them at the edge of the border, trying to enter the Cession, two towns from here. We have no proof but the fact they were headed here, the equipment they had… we think they might have been coming for you."
Sarah listens to her carefully. She takes a long sip of her whisky. “I know.”
“You know?”
“Anacostia told me about it two weeks ago. She farspeeched me in detail.”
“So you know the wards should be up? I mean, you didn’t even lock the door. You should be taking precautions.”
“She told me the same thing you did. The cell was dismantled, taken into custody,” Sarah says and finishes her drink, resting her hand on the armchair. It is hard for her not to channel, if only slightly, the General she was for over three hundred years when Tally is questioning her decisions. “She also told me she couldn’t confirm those suspicions. Has something changed since then?”
“Not really. We still don’t know if they have contacted other groups or what was their objective. But…” Tally stops. There is something Sarah can’t quite read in her eyes. Doubt, fear perhaps. Whatever that is seems something unsettling but Tally decides to not share. “But even if it is just a hunch, we can’t just stay here and do nothing. We need a plan just in case, an escape plan—”
“I will not elaborate an escape plan based on a mere rumor,” Sarah cuts her off. It doesn’t come out in a rude way but she can see Tally is conflicted. Things have changed between them; sharp statements have been long abandoned, so she feels the need to explain herself. “My work here is almost done. I promised the Mother that I would stay wherever I’m needed, to help, as long as it takes. And that is exactly what I’m doing. When the time comes, I will decide where to go. Not before.”
“You don’t understand.”
“What do I have to understand, Tally?”
“You need to come back home, to Fort Salem. Please,” Tally pleads. She even moves from her sitting place and kneels in front of her, keeping a distance but close enough that Sarah’s determination almost fails. “Look, we’re still looking for more information. We’re still hunting them, what’s left of the Camarilla. We’re close to stopping them for good. Until then, I think—I—” Tally cuts her words, her eyes so intently trying to communicate something but Sarah can’t figure out why she doesn’t say it once and for all. “We all think you would be safer in Fort Salem.”
And there it is.
“We. You mean the army. That is why you are here,” Sarah concludes. The realization isn’t painful itself, but her heart drops a little. Tally is a soldier after all. Soldiers follow orders. “Anacostia sent you. Is that right?”
It shouldn’t but for some reason it hurts. What else would Tally be doing here? How else would she know how to find her?
“Please, just listen to what I have to say—”
Sarah steps up and walks to the table where she poses her empty glass. The soft tud is enough to mark the conversation with some sense of finality. “I had this discussion with her when she contacted me. The army is doing a formidable job at bringing peace after all that happened.” She turns to face Tally again. “You and I were there. You know exactly how hard we fought to restore our safety and what it took to defeat them. Thanks to that there is no threat to any witch, not like it used to. You know as well that all of it came at a great cost. That is what I am trying to repair here.”
“You are not any witch, though. You are…” Tally glances at the entirety of Sarah Alder. Her eyes soften so sweetly. “You are you. Everyone looks at you with different eyes now, you are a symbol. If they still have a way to reach you, they’re gonna do it. I’m not saying you need to leave forever, it’s just—Maybe until we know for sure that it is safe for you to stay.” Tally’s voice cracks, if only imperceptibly. “What can I do to convince you to come with me?”
Sarah ponders that question. It doesn’t sound like something a soldier would use to accomplish a mission, however Sarah doesn’t allow herself to look for possible explanations. Ironically, she knows for a fact that there is something Tally could say to make her at least reconsider her decisions.
But, Tally isn’t there to say it. Not this time.
“Those logs should last for a couple of hours. Feel free to keep the fire burning through the night, if you wish,” Sarah says, gesturing to the fireplace. She fights the tears menacingly polling in her eyes. She swallows and hopes for the words to come out as unaffected as possible. “Good night, Tally.”