Paint
Author: Chris Cook
Email: alia@netspace.net.auRating: R
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters are the property of Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy.
Notes: So this is what I came up with for Halloween - unrevised, unbeta'ed, unrehearsed, but on time, so that's something right? Enjoy
*****
“Could’ve been an alchemist,” Willow muttered to herself, “but nooo. Had to aim high, be an enchantress.
Now look at where we are.”
She trudged onwards along the path, keeping her gaze fixed on the solitary house up ahead, and holding her staff tight to keep her hands from shaking. There was nothing else nearby - no place to hide among the grey, leafless trees that stretched off into the mist - but still, she couldn’t force away the feeling that
something was behind her, and no matter how many times she stopped, looking in every direction and listening for any sound in the silence, the feeling persisted. The nearer she came to the house, the harder it was not to break into a run for it - for something solid, anything, to put her back to.
At least the villagers were right, this is real, she consoled herself.
Can’t be an enchantress if you never break an actual haunting. She was by no means fearless, but she knew the difference between common anxiety and the real presence in the woods around her. The spectres her imagination conjured stalking her in her wake may not have been real, but the pressure behind them was, and it wasn’t coming from her own mind.
At last she reached the end of the path - glancing back as she stepped onto the porch, and of course seeing the way behind her still and silent as she knew it had been all along - and tested the door. It was closed from the inside, but a whispered incantation lifted the simple latch, and with a creak it swung open to admit her. The dim interior was by no means welcoming, but it felt good to close the door behind her.
“Alrighty,” she said in a hushed voice, dropping her heavy travelling pack to the floor and rummaging in her satchel for candles. “Let’s see what we can see.”
Placed about the room, the candles’ light - and the blessings in their wax - helped Willow feel more at ease, and she set about studying her surroundings much as she had used to approach exercises at the Great School, putting aside for the moment thoughts of the nebulous presence outside the walls. It was obvious nobody had lived here for a very long time - dust caked every flat surface, even the shards of glass on the floor, where one of the windows had been broken. The stone hearth was long cold, the mantle bare, the shelves of the wooden cupboards collapsed to the floor as the years had worn them down. Nothing of the least value remained, no plates or spoons or pots, nothing adorning the walls, no furniture that wasn’t broken and lying forlorn where it had fallen. Willow imagined how it might have been - boys and girls daring each other to venture into the local haunted house, during the bright of midday when its foreboding would be weakest, poking some branch or stick through the warped old door frame to lift the latch, and ‘escaping’ with some mundane trophy or other... long before nightfall. The remains of leaves were scattered about the floor, and she guessed there had been many days when the house remained open to the elements, until some chance gust had blown the door closed again. Even the days of fearful bold children venturing out here seemed long gone. Willow wondered how long since anyone had actually lived here - since whatever violence had created the spirit that plagued the place. Perhaps centuries; the village magister had told her the house had been haunted since his grandmother’s day, and nobody knew how or why. Maybe, she mused, even the presence outside didn’t remember how it had come to be.
There was what might have been a bedroom, separated from the rest of the house by a door that had wedged just a few inches open from the wood slowly warping, leaving just enough space for Willow to squeeze through, leaving her long coat outside and holding her satchel in one hand. The one window was too crusted over with dirt and age to admit any real light, and it was only Willow lit a candle and looked up from placing it on the floor that she saw the last thing she would ever have expected in such a forlorn place. Amid the dust and age, one wall was a splash of vivid colour - a painted mural, so lifelike it seemed but for the grain of the wood and the slim gaps between planks to be a portal into some other world, where the sun shone bright and the wind was a gentle caress through the leaves, not the fitful zephyrs that tugged the bare branches outside. Sitting on a smooth rock, gazing peacefully at the storybook landscape, was a woman, her naked form glowing in the sun, her face turned towards the distant horizon hidden by a curtain of honey gold hair.
Willow approached the mural and gazed at it and into it, letting her eyes slowly move across the bright, perfect detail somehow surviving on the old and weathered wall, as if it had been painted just a day ago. And by a master, too - even the irregular grain of the wood that bore it seemed to work in its favour, the faint ridges of growth from the tree that had born it settling into natural contours in the painted scene, as if they were always meant to be together.
“You’re magic,” Willow whispered, gazing into the painting. Her eyes travelled across the figure’s bare back, and she blushed slightly, then muttered “I’m being professional,” and kept her gaze fixed. Studying for an enchantress’s commission didn’t leave a lot of time for social pursuits; some of the students snuck out of the Great School after curfew to steal an hour or two with boyfriends and girlfriends, but Willow had focused on her work, and there hadn’t been anyone she had been desperate to see anyway. Still, though, she had imagined. There was far more to the painting though - a sense of peace, a warmth that promised that, whatever life brought, all hurts would be healed, and tomorrow would always hold hope. Something more than a skilled hand had created this, and was still sustaining it, all while the house around it slowly succumbed to time.
A branch banged on the roof in a sudden gust, and Willow swore as she saw the sky beyond the grime-streaked window was dark. Quickly she snatched up her satchel and squeezed back through the door into the main room, cursing at being so careless as to be distracted, and let night fall without having made any preparations of substance. Away from the mural’s comfort she could already sense the tendrils of fear from the unknown outside, tempting her to check every corner for an intruder, every window for a face looking in. She knew there wouldn’t be anything so overt - a centuries-old haunting wouldn’t muster a flesh-and-blood monster - but now the sun had set and it was gaining strength, she needed to be on her guard for the mental assaults that would try to make her question her convictions, fear for her safety, hide instead of confront, everything that would scuttle any attempt to break the haunting itself.
“I’m safe,” she muttered to herself, glancing quickly down at the protective pendant hanging from her neck, and the faint sigils sewn into her dress, and the coat she snatched off the floor and tugged on. Trying not to let her hands shake she found a vial of coloured sand in her bag and carefully tipped it into a circle on the floor. For a moment she considered simply sitting inside and waiting out the nameless panic she could feel trying to insinuate itself into her thoughts - she had rested during the day, and had time to work with before she grew tired again. The spirit wasn’t
that strong, it would tire before she did. But annoyed at herself for delaying already, she pressed on with her ritual, walking the perimeter of the room, touching the walls and windows, feeling the slight tug on her mind as her own spell began to permeate the structure, and insulate it from the threat outside.
For a second, as she passed a window, she caught sight of a distant figure standing by a dead tree, waiting.
She swallowed and pressed on, reciting calming passages under her breath as she worked, trying not to snatch her hand away from the wall each time she touched it. Her vision seemed to be narrowing, and she told herself not to be distracted by it; this was a
real experience, not something in training, but - she whispered - that didn’t make it more powerful than it was, only more than she had felt before. She knew she was ready.
The door - by necessity the last thing she had to touch - creaked and moved under her hand, and her eyes darted down to see the latch undone. Had she left it open? She couldn’t have - could she? She pushed the door closed, sighed as the latch slid back over its catch, locked, and-
Something crashed against the door, Willow screamed and bolted for the safety of the other room. The stuck door wouldn’t close but she braced herself against the wall and managed to shove it a few inches further before sinking down to rest against it, taking deep, steadying breaths. There was no other sound - no wind, no branches creaking, nothing moving outside.
“Got scared,” she told herself fiercely. “That’s all, could have happened to anyone. Doesn’t mean you’re in danger, it was just a little trick to scare you, and it worked, but that’s all it was.” She nodded to herself. “Still going to do this.” The candlelight from the main room still shone in a strip across the floor, brighter than the single flame lighting the bedroom, and when she risked a glance through the crack of the door, the circle was unbroken, and the front door latched closed.
She rested for a moment with her hands in her lap, and then, turning them over, noticed a smudge of paint on one fingertip, and glanced up at the wall where she must have touched it.
“Oops, sorry,” she whispered without thinking, then frowned in puzzlement. Experimentally she reached out, as she had done when she had pushed to close the door, but nowhere on the edge of the mural where she must have touched it could she see a smudge from her finger. Inwardly glad of the distraction she looked back at her fingertip - green/blue, the shade of the leaves meeting the sky, but the edge of the forest painted on the wall was pristine. Her eyes moved further afield, across from where she had, or hadn’t, touched, eventually reaching the seated figure who-
Was half-turned, no longer staring away at the horizon. The edge of her face was almost visible through her hair, her shoulders had turned, her
...yup that’s a visible boob, would have noticed that before, Willow realised, reddening. Warily she leaned closer, alert for the slightest motion - but there was nothing, just paint on wood.
“Are you something to do with that?” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder at the door. She mulled over the possibility, thinking back on how easily she had lost track of time and endangered herself (
no stop thinking that, I’m not in danger here, it can only scare, nothing else). A lure? But she dismissed the possibility - she was no seeress, but she had studied hard, she could tell the difference between real and unreal, even when the unreal was pushing on the boundary between the two. The scene was beautiful, and it was
real beauty, the kind that never took, only gave - not an imitation designed to fool the unwary.
Frowning in thought, trying to remember details of obscure lore read in books once years ago, Willow looked from the painted figure to her hand and back, and slowly raised her fingers to touch, ever so softly, the grass beneath the rock the woman sat on. Just for a second - and just for a second she moved, so that when Willow drew her hand back and everything was still, she could now see the edge of a gaze staring back at her. She glanced down at her hand - paint on all five fingertips now - then back up, and realised the woman was
still moving, but ever so slowly, her full lips starting to part.
“A-are you...?” she began to ask, then swallowed, and let her hand touch the painting again. The woman’s barely-perceptible turn became real again, and before Willow’s startled eyes she turned fully to face her, stood, and walked forward until she seemed to be standing on just the other side of the wall, looking out of the painting at Willow just as Willow was looking in.
“Can you... hear me?” Willow wondered, and the woman slowly raised her hand to touch her fingertips to her side of the barrier between them, matching Willow’s - to touch her. Willow gasped as she felt warmth,
life coursing through the connection, up her wrist and arm to swirl through her body, making her legs tremble with the unexpected vitality, and how intimately it caressed her.
“Are you alright?” she heard, as she half-stumbled, and by instinct she nodded.
“Yes,” she said, straightening back up. “Yes, just... I wasn’t ready. For the contact, for... you.” She gazed in awe at the living image in front of her. “Who
are you?”
“...I don’t remember,” the woman said, after a pause in which fear seemed to flicker behind her eyes. “I don’t... everything is fuzzy, like... I’m asleep, or... Who are you? Where are you?”
“I’m, I’m in a house,” Willow said quickly. “An old house - haunted.”
“Haunted?” the woman asked, worry creasing her brow.
“It’s okay, I’m an enchantress,” Willow insisted. “I came here - on purpose, I mean - I’m here to fix it. Stop the haunting.”
“No,” the woman said, shaking her head in rising panic, “no you have to go! She- There’s... I can’t remember, why can’t I remember? There’s something, a... she, a thing, person, she’s out there and you’re in danger, please, go!”
“I’m not in danger,” Willow said, hoping her voice sounded as certain as she wanted to be. “I promise. I’m protected - my clothes, and I’ve done a ritual, the house is safe, I’m okay. It’s okay, nothing’s going to happen, okay? She, whatever she is, she can’t get in.”
“You’re safe?” the woman asked, caught between hope and doubt.
“I’m Willow,” Willow said, hoping that would be taken for reassurance.
“Willow,” the woman said. “I’m... I can’t, my name... I had a name but it’s, it’s gone.”
“It’s okay,” Willow said, trying to sound soothing. “It’s okay, you’re... um well, you’re in a painting, so things are probably going to seem a bit weird, but... I think you’re okay? Nothing seems wrong I mean, so, yeah.”
“Painting,” the woman echoed. “I... I remember paint. Colours and, and imagination. But there’s...” She closed her eyes, then shook her head and looked at Willow again. “I feel like I should be able to remember things, but I can’t. Just the sense of... empty space, but it isn’t meant to be that way. A-are you alright though? When we touched, you... it seemed...”
“I’m okay, promise,” Willow nodded. “I’ve just never... whatever this is, it’s not something I’ve ever seen before, so I didn’t know what to expect. It was uh...” She trailed off, looked away from the woman’s eyes, found herself looking down, blushed, and quickly looked to the side.
“We touched,” the woman said, slowly, as if the thought was only gradually forming.
“Yeah we sure did,” Willow agreed, grinning in spite of her embarrassment.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
“No! No it’s not- nothing’s wrong,” Willow said. “I’m... no harm done. Not even, on the same spectrum as harm, it was actually... I mean I guess no sense being coy, it felt - is it awkward, for you, that I felt that from you? - it was great.” She risked a glance at the woman, and found her staring, surprised, but slowly smiling in return.
“I felt it too,” she said softly. “It was... I’m glad, we... we felt, we connected.” She swallowed, and then her voice was a little more resolute. “You’re an enchantress? A magic user?”
“Uh-huh, schooled and mentored,” Willow replied automatically. “I mean... in a sense I’m kind of still in training, only, trained enough to be out on my own, doing this.”
“Dealing with hauntings?”
“Yep, facing all the... whatever goes bump in the night, and stuff. Settling it down so, no more bumps.”
“This is what you do?” the woman asked. “What you want to do, come to places like... here, haunted places?”
“That’s what enchantresses do,” Willow nodded. “I mean part of it - there’s a lot of possibilities - but a major part. A haunting is, well, it’s something not at peace - something in the world that’s hurting. We, enchantresses, we go where there’s hurt, and heal it. That’s really the heart of it. Lots of ways, but haunting, demonstrating I can handle this kind of magic encounter, it’s kind of a milestone.”
“You’re brave,” the woman said admiringly.
“I, kind of, I’m trying?” Willow admitted. “I mean... someone’s got to fix what’s happening, and I’ve got the know-how, so better me than someone else right?”
“You can fix it?” the woman asked. “Face the... her?”
“I can try,” Willow nodded. “Can you remember anything about her? I know there are gaps, but anything - even a tiny thing - just knowing what’s going on and why, what made this place the way it is, that’s going to be the key to it all.”
“I... I remember,” the woman said, frowning with effort. “Fear. And, helplessness? Not being trapped, exactly, but... like, wanting to do something, anything, but- This sense that, that everything’s spiralling, down, and there’s no way to stop it, to make things right.” She looked at Willow, and something in her gaze was imploring. “I remember not understanding
why. Just... being alone, and afraid.”
“You’re not alone,” Willow promised. “Not now. And I’ll find a way to stop her, I will, and then undo whatever got you in there in the first place, if it was her or something else. There won’t be anything to be afraid of. Can you, if I go look out for a moment - I mean, stop touching the painting - is that alright?”
“I think so,” the woman said, biting her lip.
“I’ll only be a moment. I just, honestly, I’m feeling kind of confident at the moment, and that’s the best time to do something like this - and it’s what I need to do. Face the ghost, or whatever she is, see what she is and start to figure out what will dispel her, and make everything okay.”
“Be... be careful?”
“I will,” Willow said. She took a deep breath, then stepped back, and watched as the woman’s image slowed again - still moving, and not quite so slowly as before, but out of keeping with time. Willow moved back to the door, pushed it open enough to slip through, and at the last looked back, to see the woman’s head turning, slowly, to follow her.
The smile that she gave in reply without conscious effort remained as she crossed back to the magic circle in the main room, and only then became a determined frown. Moving her hands in well-learned gestures and whispering under her breath, she raised her arms as if lifting, and a ghostly echo of the circle rose from the floor and hovered around her, following as she walked slowly towards the door and, with a deep breath, opened it.
“I’m not afraid,” she said, with conviction, as the door creaked open, and she stepped into the dark beyond. The candles behind her lit the porch enough for her to take the steps to the ground, and after a few more paces she paused, on the edge where the glimmer of light vanished completely into the night. A few stars shone above, keeping the surrounding mist just on the edge of grey rather than pitch black, and the nearest trees were visible as dead silhouettes.
“I’m not afraid,” she repeated, louder. “So come out, let’s see what you are.”
Something moved on the edge of her vision, and she clenched her fists to keep from turning to watch it. Again the flicker of motion, on the other side, and then the mist seemed to stir, closer now, as if something unseen was passing through it, leaving zephyrs in its wake.
“Come on,” Willow said. “Give me your best shot. I’m...”
She trailed off, and peered at something in the mist - not a form hidden by it, but a pattern within it, the random trails and clouds seeming to drift into the image of something. She whispered another spell, enhancing her sight, and peered at the slowly forming shadows - two of them, vaguely circular, and then another, below them, growing.
“No,” she murmured to herself in thought. Not growing - opening - a mouth. And above it, eyes, eye sockets hidden in shadow. A face, slowly becoming in front of her eyes. She braced herself as the shine of moonlight on the forehead and cheekbones appeared, ready for a sudden sound or a rush towards her, anything to startle her, but the face remained still, watching her - not shouting or wailing, as she had read of haunts doing, but... yearning. And almost familiar...
So entranced was she with the face, the sudden tug on her fingers took her by surprise, and she snatched her hand back and whirled around, just quickly enough to see the outline of a body in the mist next to her vanish into immateriality, dispersed by the gust of her motion. In the split second it took her to look ahead again the face had vanished, and she was left alone in the dark, staring around herself, and then, at last, at her hand.
“How’d you
touch me?” she asked, startling herself with her voice, loud in the total silence. “That’s not... you couldn’t have gotten into my head like that, not to fake a touch, not through the runes and sigils and, and I wasn’t even scared really, how-” She stopped, her mouth hanging open as her thoughts derailed the sentence and rushed on ahead, until finally she slapped her forehead and dashed back into the house.
“I’m such an idiot!” she said as she rushed back into the room with the painting, sounding halfway between scorn and elation. Skidding to a halt she pressed her hand to the wall, feeling the enchanted paint move under her palm, feeling the intoxicating surge of connection even before the woman touched her own painted hand to Willow’s.
“You’re alright?” she asked at once.
“Fine, I’m fine,” Willow said in a rush, “but I think I’ve got it, the, the ghost - only I don’t think- She
touched me, my hand, which shouldn’t be but I think the paint- sorry, I need to slow down,” she said, grinning sheepishly as the woman frowned at her in incomprehension.
“I need you to try to remember,” she went on, “please - if you can, just anything you can. I know it’s difficult, but - you knew about
her, out there, you warned me about her. But the fear you remember - was it her you were afraid of, or something else? Someone else?”
“She’s...” the woman began, and hesitated. “I feel... fearful of her, but, I think... I don’t remember
fearing her. When I try to think about it she... she doesn’t fit, somehow?”
“You were afraid of something else?” Willow prompted.
“Not... one thing,” the woman said slowly. “Just... fear. Oppressive, like... nowhere to turn, it would be the same everywhere. Closing in.”
“I think I know how I can heal this,” Willow said. “If I’m right - this is asking a lot, but, trust me? Give me your hand.”
“My... how?”
“You’re not just the, the image here, the picture of a person,” Willow explained. “I think all of this, the whole painting, is you, and a part of you was still with me - the paint on my hand - outside. I think you can come with me. Can you try?” The woman stared at her for a long, thoughtful moment, then nodded.
“I’ll try,” she said. Her hand in the painting pressed against its side of the wall, against Willow’s hand. For a moment there was nothing, then the colours bloomed outward, the woman’s fingers emerging, lacing between Willow’s and clasping around her hand - and then flowing over it, up her arm, and the entire landscape was becoming liquid, a swirl of colours, leaving bare wood in its wake as it coalesced around Willow’s hand and spread over her body.
“
Gods,” Willow gasped, her heart thundering as the woman surged into her - not just covering her, but permeating her, filling her with the sensation of another existence, another heartbeat echoing her own, other lungs drawing in air, other eyes seeing through hers. As the last of the paint vanished from the wall it was as if a tether holding her in place let go, and she caught herself on shaking hands as she sank to the floor, trying to think through the intoxicating bombardment of sensations.
“Are you alright?” she heard herself say - but not her voice, and the mouth she felt move wasn’t exactly hers, even though it
was. She nodded - again the strange sensation that
she nodded but her head at the same time didn’t move - and slowly got to her feet, leaning against the doorframe to get her bearings.
“We’re together,” she managed to say, staring in wonder at her arm, where instead of her usual pale skin tone she was now the blues and greens of the forest landscape, and the texture of brushstrokes in the paint, but within her, not covering her. Slowly she moved her hand, and watched in awe as the colours that were part of her moved too, but not quite at the same pace, two forms occupying the same space, echoing each other.
“I feel it too,” the woman said through her, and she recognised the heaviness in the voice, as if she was on the verge of sobbing at the sheer weight of feelings within her.
“What do we do?” the woman asked, after a moment in which she seemed to gather herself.
“We find her,” Willow said. “We show her that there’s... there’s nothing to be afraid of.” She looked down at her body - the vivid colours, including the woman’s skin, covering her entirely - shrugged off her coat, and began to undo the laces on her dress.
“I was doing it all wrong,” she said as she disrobed, trying not to be distracted - because Gods she was on the verge already - by how the woman’s colours covered her,
everywhere, underneath. “Thought I was protected, but all this is to ward off malevolence, that’s not what’s happening here. Wearing this shows her
I’m afraid, of her - that’s the problem, that’s what she’s afraid of. I think, what
you were afraid of. People fearing you, and there’s no way to calm them, nothing you can say or do, and because they’re afraid, they lash out, and, and you hid. But she didn’t, she... she’s the part that didn’t hide, the part that wanted to protect herself, yourself.”
She slid off her boots at last, and took a deep breath, naked but untroubled by the cold night air, feeling like her skin was radiating heat.
“She’s me?” Willow heard herself say, and nodded.
“That’s why she could touch me,” she said. “The paint, the part of you on my hand - it’s part of her too. Now you’re here, and there’s no armour, nothing to make her think she’s threatened, I’m hoping... well... I’m kind of making this up as I go, but I hope she... she won’t be afraid, and something good can happen.”
“I trust you,” the woman said through her. Willow sighed, and then stilled as she saw the echo of something in the mist.
“I think maybe so does she,” she said. Again there was the suggestion of a face, in shadow - not scowling, but sombre, pale cheeks catching the moonlight as if they were streaked with tears - and then it dissipated, but slowly, not recoiling in flight, but changing. Willow heard the slightest sound behind her, like the ghost of footsteps on the dry leaves, and let out a shuddering breath as she sensed a presence nearing her.
“It’s alright now,” she said out loud. “I’m here to help.”
Something touched her then, on her hip, and then the other - fingertips on her skin. Willow looked slowly down to see two hands slowly encircling her waist, so pale as to be almost white, starkly colourless against the mural of vibrancy her own skin had become. The hands were touching her so lightly - hesitant, she realised, ready to dart away at any moment, any hint of threat - but while they stiffened for a moment when her own hands slowly moved to cover them, they didn’t withdraw.
“No more fear,” Willow and the woman said together, pressing the hands gently to her stomach, and feeling something else press against her back, slowly embracing her, and letting out a long-held sigh of relief.
“I remember,” the woman said, and with her another voice, just beneath Willow’s ear as something nestled against her shoulder. “I... I, I can... if you trust me...?”
“Trust you,” Willow whispered, closing her eyes, and feeling her lips move with the ‘thank you’ that wasn’t said out loud. The sensations behind her were solidifying, familiar now - the woman hugging her, holding her, pressed against her back, her legs touching Willow’s, and then she stepped forward and
through Willow and-
scattered thoughts of warmth and contentment and peace, in a dream
-and Willow blinked blearily, opened her eyes, and squinted at the bright sunlight bathing her as she and another person lay, cuddled together, in the grass in front of the old house. The woman stirred, she too realising where they were and how close, and together they sat up, disentangling from one another, but neither of them especially hurrying to do so.
“Willow?” the woman said, meeting her gaze - exactly as beautiful as she had been in the painting, but alive and whole and (
kind of naked still Willow realised and quickly pushed the thought away, lest bringing it up cause her to say something to change that particular situation).
“Y-yup?” she said, finding her voice. “Present and accounted for, all good. Are, are you...?”
“Tara,” the woman said. “I remember it all now - my name is Tara.”
“Tara,” Willow smiled. Tara smiled back, for a long moment, then looked around.
“There was a... a movement, a cult,” she said, swallowing. “They said witches were evil. People listened to them, and...” She sighed and shook her head.
“I saw ruins back near in the village,” Willow spoke up. “A temple - the Lighted Path. That’s what they used to call themselves. There’s no more now, they, um. I read about them. They built into a crusade, eventually, but... it’s all over, gone. Hundreds of years ago.”
“Hundreds,” Tara whispered.
“I’m sorry,” Willow said, hesitating on reaching for her, but only for a moment before her hands settled on Tara’s shoulders and gently pulled her into a hug.
“I... I was alone,” Tara said at last, after a quiet sob had passed. “There was nobody who... some of the villagers left - fled - and the others, they, they went along with the speeches, and the... the hate.”
“It’s over now,” Willow promised. “No more. Not that the world’s nothing but peace and sunbeams, but nobody’s going around preaching hate like the Lighted Path used to, saying people are evil just because they’ve got some magic to them. I mean, look at me, I travel around doing magic, and people are glad to see me. If they don’t mind that I talk a lot.” Tara laughed softly.
“I think, I don’t mind that at all,” she said.
“Tell that to a couple of the mages who tutored me,” Willow grinned. “But um, there’s, I bet the people in the village would be glad now, to have a witch nearby. I know this is, this must be a lot to process - I’ll stay, if you’d like, to help you, get used to... to y’know, being back, and...”
“Not being a painting,” Tara chuckled. “I’d like that... but maybe, I could...”
“What?” Willow prompted when she fell silent.
“It’s a long time since I lived here,” Tara said, glancing at the old house, worn down by so many years. “If you didn’t mind, I could, come with you? Instead of staying here? Maybe find somewhere else, something new, or...”
“I mean, yeah, yes,” Willow nodded, smiling and trying not to focus too much on the possibility of ‘or...’
You two just went through something very intense together, and it’s natural to, well, you and she, that was... you know what actually, let’s not ruin this by analysing it. “I’ve, I’ve got some spare clothes in my pack, and we can get something proper in the village and then... I’d like the company, that would be great. And your magic - I mean, I’m sure we could teach each other a lot, maybe if you wanted you could help, when we find something that needs doing, as well?”
“Healing whatever’s hurt?” Tara said. “That’s... that sounds a good way to live. Willow?”
“Yup?”
“Thank you? For, for healing me.” Tara took a deep breath. “When I... I tried to hide the part of myself that wanted to be left alone, that didn’t want to fight back... but that left the part that
did.” She looked down, wringing her hands together in her lap. “I was what they thought - something to be feared.”
“Hey, no,” Willow insisted. “I... Everyone’s got, got light and dark in them. You didn’t want to hurt anyone. And... that world I saw in there, the painting, that was beautiful, and that was you too. That’s
still you.”
Tara found Willow’s hand, and held it softly.
“I don’t think I can say thank you enough to you,” she said with a faint smile.
“You don’t have to say it at all,” Willow replied, “but you’re welcome.” There was a soft silence between them, which Tara finally broke.
“Uh we, we should...” she murmured, glancing at the house.
“Hm? Oh right,” Willow grinned. “Yeah up and, clothes, and stuff.”
“Clothes and stuff,” Tara agreed, and Willow told herself it was her imagination that Tara sounded a little reluctant on that score. She got to her feet and gave Tara a hand up, biting her lip as the woman straightened up in front of her, with nothing obstructing her view
if she peeked, I’m not checking, maybe she peeked.
“O-oh,” Tara said suddenly, surprised, as Willow was distracted noticing her nipples weren’t exactly soft. Willow looked at her and saw her looking down at her, and followed her gaze.
“That must have been... left over,” Tara said, lightly touching Willow’s hip, where there seemed to be a streak of paint - under her skin, within her, a single brush stroke of vibrant blue, the colour of the sky, or Tara’s eyes.
“I can fix that,” Tara said quickly. “I didn’t mean for...”
“Actually- y’know, maybe wait on that,” Willow said, tilting her hip to get a better look at herself.
“Wait?”
“I, uh... what we did,” Willow said, blushing, “what we shared, your magic -
you - being... with me? That was the most...” She trailed off unable to find the words, then smiled.
“Well, then,” Tara said hesitantly, her lips turning up slightly, “if you want to look at it as a gift...?”
“Suits me don’t you think?” Willow grinned impishly, and Tara giggled.
“I can teach you,” she offered. “If you want?”
“I do.”
They looked at one another for a moment, then by unspoken agreement turned and walked back towards the old house, hand in hand.
*****