Hey Kittens. Once again it's Tuesday night and I have an update for you.
Disclaimer - Most of the characters belong to Mutant Enemy, but Jo and Dani are mine. There is a spell in this bit, which I borrowed from Llewellyn's 2003 Witches' Spell-A-Day Almanac (p. 53 if you're interested).
Rating - R, mainly for situations and nudity.
Angst level - mostly a 5/6, but possibly as high as an 8 at the end.
And yes, I am a fan of Raiders of the Lost Ark - if this puzzles you now, it probably won't later....
Hope you have fun.
***
The four of them stared out the windows at the darkness. Tara could almost taste Jo’s rekindled fear. She sighed softly, remembering her own childhood fear of the night and what her mama had told her. Her mama had never lied to her about the things that could go bump in the night; her mama had never been anything other than truthful with her. She had simply shown her some of the good things that dwelt in the darkness. Tara could still feel the rapid heartbeat of the bat that had for a few moments settled in her hand, ears swiveling, tiny nostrils quivering, as it studied the witchchild who held it.
She glanced at Dani, who was doing only a little better than Jo. She had no bat – she lacked even a firefly – with which to reassure them. Yet both girls needed to learn what her mama had taught her: that light needed dark. Neither could exist without the other.
She stood suddenly.
“Tara?” Willow called her name, surprised. “Are you okay?”
She smiled over her shoulder at her lover as she took the few steps to her altar. “Very okay, love. I just need your h-help with another spell.”
“Oh,” Willow said, her brow furrowed. “The ill-banishing wasn’t enough? It worked, didn’t it?”
“It w-worked perfectly.” She rummaged through her supplies, found two candles of the appropriate colors – blue and yellow – and pulled her mama’s spellbook from its shelf. There had been a time when she had known the words by heart, from doing it with her mama monthly for three years. But that had been a long time ago. “This is something d-different. It’s a kind of blessing.” She carried her burdens over to the bed, handing Jo the blue candle and Dani the yellow. “That is, if you w-want to?”
Dani nodded quickly, almost eagerly.
“Okay.” Tara met Jo’s eyes, eyes that had lost much of their innocence in the past week. She rather regretted that. Although the prospect of more magic filled them with wonder, Jo still held back.
“A blessing?” her neighbor asked cautiously, and then spoke in a flurry of words. “Why? Why is that necessary? If the other spell worked and if Buffy defeated the monster, why do another spell? Is this something you’ve done before? And why do you need us?” She looked down at her hands that held the blue candle, seemingly chagrined. “Sorry. It’s not that I don’t want to help, I just need ….” She looked up and shrugged.
“Some spells do th-things ….”
“Like the banishing spell we did earlier,” Willow interrupted. “That spell removed the taint of evil from all of us.”
“Oh,” Dani exclaimed softly, and then frowned self-consciously as they all looked at her. “It’s like that spell you do before we meet for Wicca group, isn’t it?” she asked, gazing at Tara, but didn’t wait for her to answer. “I feel just like I do then … clean inside.”
Tara nodded and shifted her own gaze back to Jo. “Some spells, l-like this one, just invite good things to happen. And yes, I’ve done this one before,” she paused, remembering. “M-Many times.” She opened her mama’s spellbook to the appropriate page – it had been almost four years since she’d last spoken these words. But it was time again, if Jo consented.
“What do I …” Jo looked quickly at Dani. “What do we need to do?”
“You just h-hold the candles and look into the flame as Willow and I read these words.” Tara held the spellbook out to her. “See, here it is.” Knowing that it would require an admission on Jo’s part, she watched Jo’s face as the girl read the text, Dani reading along with her over her shoulder.
The girl’s face slowly lifted to hers when she finished reading. “You’re doing this because I’m afraid. Because there are evil things out there,” Jo acknowledged, pointing at the dark windows.
“Uh, evil doesn’t limit itself to the dark,” Willow pointed out. “It can be quite happily productive during the daytime.”
“Thanks. That’s supposed to make me feel better – how? That’s rhetorical, by the way.” Jo glanced back and forth between Willow and the windows, avoiding her eyes, avoiding looking at her.
Tara bit her lip, concerned.
“It’s about balance. You can’t have light without the darkness,” Dani interjected suddenly, sparing her the necessity of forming a reply. “You can’t have hope without fear.”
“You can say that?” Jo gazed incredulously at the other girl.
“Yes.”
Jo rolled her shoulders to relieve the tension and then nodded. “Fine. Do the spell.” She handed the spellbook back and lifted up her candle alongside Dani’s to be lit.
Tara lifted her chin in silent acknowledgement as Willow took a taper and lit the two candles. “Dani, h-hold yours a bit higher. There. Jo, I’ll let you know when it’s y-your turn.”
Willow slipped an arm around her waist and held her close. She closed her eyes, feeling her lover’s heart beating, feeling her breathing, and effortlessly matched both. She could feel Dani’s concentration on the candle flame, strong and focused. She sought Jo and found her, uncertain but trying. She opened her eyes on the words in the book and together, she and Willow spoke them.
“Dark flows to light, day flows to night, as ‘I’ flows into ‘we’ and rivers flow to the sea.” She felt the magicks focus as she and Willow continued the invitation, coalescing as they spoke the final words of the first part. “In heart and mind, between the two, love and truth are born in you.”
She met Jo’s eyes, nodded, and the girl raised the blue candle a little shakily. Dani needed no instruction and pulled her candle into a subordinate position.
“Day flows to night, dark flows to light. Dark Moon, New Moon, Magic Moon anew. Silent moon, subtle moon, bringer of change and power, lunar blessings flow freely now, carried through night.” The room grew brighter, as though everything in it was lit from within. She and Willow reached out their hands, surrounding their friends’ hands on the candles, and let the blessing play for several long moments.
Together, the four girls breathed it in, the blessing a glowing light that caressed them, then she and Willow blew out the candles. The twin flames extinguished, the fairy lights flickered once and then went out, plunging the room into complete darkness.
Listening to the soft breathing around her, feeling the soft warmth of the darkness, Tara smiled. It was good, just like she remembered.
*****
The lock clicked behind them as they hesitated in the impossible brightness of the hallway. Jo couldn’t believe how much her life had changed since Thursday afternoon. Witches, and vampires, and a girlfriend.
Oh my.
At least she thought that was what Dani was becoming. That had certainly been her intention yesterday, and it had certainly felt that way in Tara’s room. But here, now, under the white lights in the hall, it was all awkward and uncomfortable again, like it had been last night.
Like it had been after she’d seen Dani’s scars.
“Hey, it’s late. I should ….”
She shook her head. “No.”
Two eyebrows lifted like twin question marks.
“It’s late – like you said.”
Dani looked at her levelly. “Are you telling me I shouldn’t go?”
Jo met the other girl’s gaze. “Yes, I am.”
Dani crossed her arms and cocked her head to one side. “Why?”
There were so many answers to that! Answers like ‘Because it’s dangerous’ and ‘I don’t want you to’ and ‘I’m afraid.’ All of them were true, but there was only one right one.
She swallowed and reached out to the brown-haired girl, but stopped short of touching her.
“I’d miss you if you left.”
****
Willow locked the door and pressed the rocker switch that controlled the fairy lights. That blessing had needed total darkness at the end; linked as they were, she’d felt the little magical push Tara had given and added her own. They were probably lucky they hadn’t tripped the circuit breakers throughout the building, but Tara’s control was apparently better than hers.
She turned to her lover, a smile playing on her lips as she shifted the words in that last phrase. Tara in control – she liked the thought of that. She watched silently as the blonde witch turned down the covers of the bed. That was why she saw Tara wince when she bumped her leg on the mattress.
“Tara? Baby? Are you okay?” She rushed to her lover’s side.
“Just a little achy, love. I’m fine, really.” Tara caught up her hands and lifted them, kissing them gently. She yawned suddenly and Willow felt a wash of warm air over her knuckles.
They giggled together and dropped their hands, pulling one another into a close embrace.
“Sleepy?” Willow murmured in one of Tara’s large but perfect ears.
“Mmmm. Yes and ….,” Tara kissed her neck gently, “No.”
“Ahhh.” She slid her hands over Tara’s back. “So, you’re achy? Can I kiss you where it hurts and make all your ouchies better?”
Laughing blue eyes met hers as full lips twitched into a grin. “Yes, please – that sounds very nice.”
She eased the shirt up over Tara’s head, then pulled the thermal pants down as Tara chuckled. “What? You have to be naked, ’cause, y’know, I have to be thorough.”
“Of course, love. Thorough, by all means.” Tara sat down on the edge of her bed as she knelt before her, and lifted her feet so she could pull the pants off completely. Willow leaned forward, eager to begin the Tara kissage, but a gentle hand on her shoulder stopped her. She looked up into Tara’s smiling face, questioningly. “I think for this bit of magic to work properly, you need to be naked too,” Tara explained solemnly, her twinkling eyes belying the gravity in her voice.
“Oh, really?” Willow asked. “Skyclad, is it?”
Tara nodded, eyes heavy-lidded with both sleepiness and desire. Willow smiled inwardly as she undressed. She really didn’t expect Tara to stay awake for long, but slow, gentle lovemaking was an appealing thought. She watched Tara pull her legs up onto the bed and lie back. That one gash on her leg – the one that she had bumped moments before – that was the one really nasty-looking injury.
Anger flashed through her. Jonathan had a lot to answer for: what he’d done, the way he’d warped the universe – or maybe universes. It was altogether possible – actually highly probable – that another universe had been born when Jonathan had performed that spell. That would have been the branching point. Parallel universes, one in which Jonathan had performed the spell, one in which he hadn’t, where everything had stayed the same. And maybe even a third, one where they didn’t figure out and break the spell. All were equally true and real now.
And then there was the damage his spell had done to Tara.
That deserved special punishment, and she thought she just might show him the error of his ways. There was a spell that she could use to lock him in a loop so that he could experience the pain and terror that Tara had … over and over and over. That would be so very approp …. She stopped.
“Willow? Wh-What’s wrong?” Tara sat up and reached for her.
She sagged down onto the bed beside her lover, shaken and unable to meet her lover’s eyes. “I just thought of a spell to use on Jonathan … to punish him. He’d relive what you went through over and over. But if I did that, I’d … I’d be just as bad as him.”
“Willow. Look at me.” She reluctantly raised her head and gazed into the blue pools that were Tara’s eyes. Tara’s gentle fingers wiped the tears from her face. “No. You’re. Not.” Tara shook her head adamantly. “No. Don’t ever think such a thing. There is no evil in you.”
“Tara, he hurt you! He altered reality. He should be punished,” Willow argued. “And … and Buffy’s the Slayer, but he’s human, so she won’t … she can’t do anything to him.” She clutched desperately at Tara. “I want to hurt him, Tara, for what he put you through.”
Her lover hugged her tightly, rocking just a bit. “I know, love, but we have no right to do such a thing.”
“But I wanted to!” She was aghast at the depth of her need to strike out at Jonathan.
“W-Wanting isn’t doing.” Tara stroked her face and ran her fingers through her hair. “W-Wanting isn’t b-being.”
Willow studied her lover’s face. Calm, serene, lovely – any anxious ripples she’d caused had already dissipated. “How did you become so wise?”
“P-P-Practice.”
****
“I don’t have footed pjs to offer you, sorry.” Jo rummaged about in her dresser and came up with an oversize t-shirt, which she handed to Dani.
“No problem.” The other girl shimmied out of her top and bra and pulled the t-shirt on.
Jo glanced at the bed. It looked altogether too small and narrow. “How are we going to do this?”
“Well, usually I’m on top, although the bottom can be nice too.” Dani grinned a bit lasciviously as she dropped her jeans and stepped out of them.
“That’s ….”
“I know that’s not what you meant.” The grin gone from her face, Dani touched her arm briefly. “I can manage with the floor if you’ve got a blanket for me to curl up in.”
“No. I want you in my bed. Uh, not like that though. Not y….” Jo stammered to a stop, embarrassed and angry. “Damn it, I hate it when my mouth and brain stop communicating. Sorry.” She glanced at Dani, who was standing by quietly, uncritically, and took a deep breath. “I didn’t ask you to stay so that you could sleep on the floor.”
“Okay. It’ll be cozy, then. You okay with that?”
Jo nodded, slipped out of her clothes, and pulled on a UCS t-shirt. “Inside or outside?”
“Whichever.”
“Then I’ll take outside – that way I can get the lights.” She padded over to the switch, hearing her bed creak as Dani crawled in. She flipped the switch and walked carefully back in the dark. She eased herself carefully into the bed, not wanting to jostle Dani.
“G’Night, Jo.”
“’Night.” She lay there on the outer edge of the bed for a few minutes as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Dani wasn’t touching her at all, which meant that she had to be pressed up against the wall.
Great.
This wasn’t at all what she had in mind. Dani was going to think she was crazy. Dani probably already thought she was crazy. And maybe she was right. Yes, no, yes, no. Talk about mixed signals, and yet she knew what she wanted tonight. It just wasn’t sex. She edged back towards the other girl just a little bit.
“Dani.”
“Yes?”
“Would you hold me?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
****
Once Willow had calmed down, they’d taken it slowly. Willow had kissed her ouchies. She’d kissed every one of them, and then found other places that ached in an almost painful way. She’d kissed and licked and nibbled them, too.
It had felt so good that the ouchies were forgotten, and together she and Willow had rocked to quite satisfactory orgasms.
Now Willow slept, her breathing warm and even against the back of her neck. They nestled together in the center of the bed like spoons in a drawer. Tara locked her fingers with Willow’s limp ones on her tummy and sighed.
Everything she’d said to Willow was true. Wanting didn’t make one evil. Evil was in the doing. Evil was in the deceiving.
She had had practice, after all.
She squeezed Willow’s hand, and felt her lover stir in her sleep.
Was it so wrong that she wanted to be happy for a little while?
(I trust you wouldn't describe it, but I'd know it's there...)
Pax! -Bev 
Hard to know that she has to endure that for some more time.
