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Late Fic. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
moireach asked me to write back-up fic for the Willow ficathon. Many apologies for it's lateness (I promised it would be in a week ago).
Warnings: It's very rough and in desperate need of comments and/or beta services. We need to polish this up, people!! Go Team!!
Really! All criticsm and comments welcome.
Have You Seen the Wind?
“I wish that you would visit me one day,
In my house.
There are such sights I would show you.”
-Neil Gaiman, The White Road
The coven has rules about time spent in the garden. Reflection is good, but sometimes she can’t quite stop herself from seeing how far away she can call to something and have it come. Most days it isn’t a struggle. Most days -- cold, dreary, overcast days -- are enough of a reminder. When there is snow in the clouds Willow stays indoors.
Spring brings the most dangerous days. Days where she feels *almost* alive and the thought of curling her toes in the grass and losing herself in the heavy scent of the roses is almost more than she can bear. On those days she isn’t always let out.
But days like today. Now. When the sky is glittering late evening gold and red it is safe. A stillness pervades everything, and on those days Willow retreats to the garden with a book or an old letter and sits beneath a sprawling tree. It’s usually the same book. The letters may change. Everyone wishing her well. Detailing how much they miss her. The last letter is over ten years old.
The book she carries is even older.
Lost between thick, curling, yellowing pages, tucked between the tale of the duplicitous Mr. Fox and bloody Bluebeard, a tuft of hair, coarse and silver gray. Willow reads and re-reads the tales every year and every year pretends surprise when the little patch of memory slips from the book just as she turns the page:
The bough did bend
The bough did break
I saw the hole
The fox did make
Brushing slim, cold fingers over the carefully bound fur, Willow recalls a high stone room in Nepal. An icy mountaintop that, at the time, failed to pierce her cold skin. Destroying one wall with nothing more than the laziest gesture of indifference, Willow welcomed the blowing air and swirling snow. Then she built an alter, there, in the space where the sky fell into the room. She covered it in runes, some made with the blood of her enemies.
Be bold
Be bold
But not too bold
Willow read aloud. Her nimble, white fingers caressed the gilt edge of the heavy book cradled in her lap. She stroked the page lovingly, slowly smoothing the thick, creamy vellum. She glanced up, her eyes caressing Oz stretched spread eagle across the room.
Pinned beneath the window, his pale skin, marred by green-purple patches, nearly glowed in the moonlight. She only wished that before she found him that his hair had been blonde and then he would be a perfectly, perfect sacrifice. All blonde and white and with a wave of her hand, he was.
“You know the rest, don’t you, baby?” Willow slid from the bed nearly naked. Standing over him, Willow stroked her fingers lightly over the tops of his thighs and the bruises decorating his ribcage.
Be bold
Be bold
But not too bold
She paused and waited but Oz only turned his face away.
Willow pulled herself up onto the altar, straddling Oz’s blue-white belly, settling herself just over his cock, leaning down she licked his cheek. “Or else your life’s blood shall run cold.”
She kissed him gently beneath his ears, her lips ghosting over his new platinum locks and the iron collar around his throat.
Last night the moon was full and Willow fucked him til dawn. Her last orgasm came just as the sun crested the distant mountains and Oz shrank back into the skin of a man, weary and pale. In the quiet gleam of early morning, Willow imagined that the sun looked beautiful on her breasts.
“Don’t be that way,” she arched her body into his, drawing tiny circles along the inside of his arms stretched high above his head.
“Mister Wolf, with your red lips and your green eyes, eyes that snare a maiden’s soul, and your yellow teeth which could eat her heart,” Willow whispered against the corner of his mouth before pressing her lips lightly against his and flecking her tongue across the resistant seam.
Oz whispers around the swelling in his mouth, his voice compressed by the pressure of the collar around his throat.
“What was that?” Willow asked. She tucked a lock of inky hair behind one ear and tilted her head towards his bruised mouth.
“D-Don’t,” was all she could make out.
“Don’t what?”
Oz turns burning, tearful eyes up to hers. “Will,” he chocked on her name.
Willow encircled his throat with her slender, pale hands. The iron collar warmed beneath her touch. “Don’t what?” she asked again. “Kill you? Why not? It’s your fault. All of it is your fault. If you hadn’t left I never would have met her and she wouldn’t have died and I wouldn’t have had to kill them.” Willow swallowed hard. “It’s your fault.”
Her fingertips tingled and the magic poured up, white-hot, from somewhere deep in her belly. Oz wheezed and struggled, his eyes wide and round as he writhed beneath her. A sacrifice. Anointed in the blood of the innocent and beloved. Righteous with revenge. Blinded by a broken heart and the tears she refused to shed. Somewhere Tara lay cold in a pool of blood. And here is where it begin.
Stroking the patch of hair, bound tight, Willow replaces it in the book on her lap.
It had almost worked. Giles’ plan. Had worked. Mostly. And then Xander had hammered through the fragile cracks in her pain. Hammered at her with memories colored in yellow crayon. But not before she had sacrificed her very first lover to see the world end. Not until she had already strung him up and skinned him alive. Not until after she had drained him dry and painted a stone floor with his blood. Runes and sigils that burned.
“Willow! It’s getting late. You should come in now.”
Willow closes her book and rubs at her tired eyes, brushing away memories like cobwebs. It doesn’t do to be out too late. The sisters wouldn’t like it.
Willow calls, “Coming.” She rises from the grass and carries her bundle of memories and letters inside.
moireach asked me to write back-up fic for the Willow ficathon. Many apologies for it's lateness (I promised it would be in a week ago). Warnings: It's very rough and in desperate need of comments and/or beta services. We need to polish this up, people!! Go Team!!
Really! All criticsm and comments welcome.
Have You Seen the Wind?
“I wish that you would visit me one day,
In my house.
There are such sights I would show you.”
-Neil Gaiman, The White Road
The coven has rules about time spent in the garden. Reflection is good, but sometimes she can’t quite stop herself from seeing how far away she can call to something and have it come. Most days it isn’t a struggle. Most days -- cold, dreary, overcast days -- are enough of a reminder. When there is snow in the clouds Willow stays indoors.
Spring brings the most dangerous days. Days where she feels *almost* alive and the thought of curling her toes in the grass and losing herself in the heavy scent of the roses is almost more than she can bear. On those days she isn’t always let out.
But days like today. Now. When the sky is glittering late evening gold and red it is safe. A stillness pervades everything, and on those days Willow retreats to the garden with a book or an old letter and sits beneath a sprawling tree. It’s usually the same book. The letters may change. Everyone wishing her well. Detailing how much they miss her. The last letter is over ten years old.
The book she carries is even older.
Lost between thick, curling, yellowing pages, tucked between the tale of the duplicitous Mr. Fox and bloody Bluebeard, a tuft of hair, coarse and silver gray. Willow reads and re-reads the tales every year and every year pretends surprise when the little patch of memory slips from the book just as she turns the page:
The bough did bend
The bough did break
I saw the hole
The fox did make
Brushing slim, cold fingers over the carefully bound fur, Willow recalls a high stone room in Nepal. An icy mountaintop that, at the time, failed to pierce her cold skin. Destroying one wall with nothing more than the laziest gesture of indifference, Willow welcomed the blowing air and swirling snow. Then she built an alter, there, in the space where the sky fell into the room. She covered it in runes, some made with the blood of her enemies.
Be bold
Be bold
But not too bold
Willow read aloud. Her nimble, white fingers caressed the gilt edge of the heavy book cradled in her lap. She stroked the page lovingly, slowly smoothing the thick, creamy vellum. She glanced up, her eyes caressing Oz stretched spread eagle across the room.
Pinned beneath the window, his pale skin, marred by green-purple patches, nearly glowed in the moonlight. She only wished that before she found him that his hair had been blonde and then he would be a perfectly, perfect sacrifice. All blonde and white and with a wave of her hand, he was.
“You know the rest, don’t you, baby?” Willow slid from the bed nearly naked. Standing over him, Willow stroked her fingers lightly over the tops of his thighs and the bruises decorating his ribcage.
Be bold
Be bold
But not too bold
She paused and waited but Oz only turned his face away.
Willow pulled herself up onto the altar, straddling Oz’s blue-white belly, settling herself just over his cock, leaning down she licked his cheek. “Or else your life’s blood shall run cold.”
She kissed him gently beneath his ears, her lips ghosting over his new platinum locks and the iron collar around his throat.
Last night the moon was full and Willow fucked him til dawn. Her last orgasm came just as the sun crested the distant mountains and Oz shrank back into the skin of a man, weary and pale. In the quiet gleam of early morning, Willow imagined that the sun looked beautiful on her breasts.
“Don’t be that way,” she arched her body into his, drawing tiny circles along the inside of his arms stretched high above his head.
“Mister Wolf, with your red lips and your green eyes, eyes that snare a maiden’s soul, and your yellow teeth which could eat her heart,” Willow whispered against the corner of his mouth before pressing her lips lightly against his and flecking her tongue across the resistant seam.
Oz whispers around the swelling in his mouth, his voice compressed by the pressure of the collar around his throat.
“What was that?” Willow asked. She tucked a lock of inky hair behind one ear and tilted her head towards his bruised mouth.
“D-Don’t,” was all she could make out.
“Don’t what?”
Oz turns burning, tearful eyes up to hers. “Will,” he chocked on her name.
Willow encircled his throat with her slender, pale hands. The iron collar warmed beneath her touch. “Don’t what?” she asked again. “Kill you? Why not? It’s your fault. All of it is your fault. If you hadn’t left I never would have met her and she wouldn’t have died and I wouldn’t have had to kill them.” Willow swallowed hard. “It’s your fault.”
Her fingertips tingled and the magic poured up, white-hot, from somewhere deep in her belly. Oz wheezed and struggled, his eyes wide and round as he writhed beneath her. A sacrifice. Anointed in the blood of the innocent and beloved. Righteous with revenge. Blinded by a broken heart and the tears she refused to shed. Somewhere Tara lay cold in a pool of blood. And here is where it begin.
Stroking the patch of hair, bound tight, Willow replaces it in the book on her lap.
It had almost worked. Giles’ plan. Had worked. Mostly. And then Xander had hammered through the fragile cracks in her pain. Hammered at her with memories colored in yellow crayon. But not before she had sacrificed her very first lover to see the world end. Not until she had already strung him up and skinned him alive. Not until after she had drained him dry and painted a stone floor with his blood. Runes and sigils that burned.
“Willow! It’s getting late. You should come in now.”
Willow closes her book and rubs at her tired eyes, brushing away memories like cobwebs. It doesn’t do to be out too late. The sisters wouldn’t like it.
Willow calls, “Coming.” She rises from the grass and carries her bundle of memories and letters inside.
