I Will: The Magician’s Promise
This is an updated, hopefully better version of my original I Will fic. Reposting for Nadiavember Day 2: Dreams.
Summary: Since waking from her years-long magical sleep, Nadia can’t seem to escape the lasting trauma and nightmares that haunt her. But someone’s always there to take good care of her. Post-upright end. Pairing: Nadia x apprentice Nel Rating/Genre: Hurt/Comfort Length: 1015 (not counting a few lyrics)
Dedicated to one of Nadia and Nel’s theme songs, “I Will” by Mitski.
-
No. Not again. This couldn’t be happening again.
Clouds of ash billowed from beneath her feet with every panicked step, carrying up with them the stench of regret, of hopelessness, of failure.
Her failure.
Stained with grey as pale as death itself was the earth that surrounded her, her own color draining as despair continued to set in. No, this couldn’t be right. She couldn’t be here again. The Lazaret, the symbol of her greatest shame; the tower, the source of her most excruciating pain. Not again. How many times did she have to suffer?
Alone. Here. With everyone and everything she lost merely dust that choked her lungs, stung her eyes.
It all began to drown her face in tears. She fell to her knees, unable to stop her body from sinking under the island’s foreboding weight, or the growing discordance that bore into her ears—an uneasy whisper that multiplied into a thousand ghastly voices gritting her name across their formless tongues while her ash-covered hands rose to shield her from the sound.
“No,” she cried out, “I don’t want to be here.”
“No!” She screamed once more as she felt a presence behind her. Despite how desperate she was to not be isolated, to not be trapped in this place all over again, she couldn’t bear to imagine who or what might be lurking, haunting this corner of her mind. She recoiled, though just as the presence came close enough to brush her shoulder, the cacophony of anguished voices howling her name disappeared. Only one remained. A familiar, delicate voice that carried her name clearly through the silence.
“Nadia,” it called. This presence was warm, and it spoke her name with a cadence she knew well. As it continued to tug at her shoulder, she recognized its touch, too. But the presence wasn’t like anything that she had felt or heard in this place before. It was welcoming. It was corporeal, earthly. It was…
“Nel?”
She turned to see nobody there, only a light shining far beyond the island where the water meets the sky. But with quiet determination, the voice kept calling.
“Nadia, wake up. You are safe.”
The light grew brighter, its faintly humming warmth somehow traversing the desolate seascape to glow against her face. She squinted, but did not look away.
“Come to me.”
Trusting the familiar voice and the light at the edge of the world, she ran. Those last three words rang out, reverberating all around her, a false earth quaking under every heavy step of her feet. Under the echo’s command, the facade of an island flaked and shattered before her eyes as if crumbling under its hollow, soulless construction. Ash whirled through the suffocating air, displacing the soot and sand to open a chasm beneath her body, and she fell.
...
“Nel!” Awake, she shot upright, heaving chest and grasping fingers all she knew of herself in the moment as she frantically searched the sheets, dreading the thought that she may find an empty space beside her, as if any good that came into her life these past years was the real dream all along.
“Yes, it is me.” One of Nel’s careful hands grabbed onto Nadia’s to give her direction in her distress, the other held a casted spell of light to illuminate what little space existed between them. “Look at me. I am here.” Nel did her best to remain calm, knowing her own tendency to worry would only worsen things as they were.
Without any hesitation, Nadia reached up to grasp Nel’s face, her eyes darting back and forth to take in every detail before settling on the bright, brown gaze before her that bestowed nothing but tender, genuine concern. On her back, she felt the gentle press of Nel’s hand holding her in reality, and as respiration became her body’s unlabored nature once more, she was relieved to take in her lover’s scent of cinnamon and clove—a magician of pure and earthly wonders, her essence grounding.
Turbulent thoughts subsided in favor of a clarity which opened her tired mind to the truth around her. Each of her senses that she relied upon surely proved that this was no longer the making of an illusion. She was here. Nel was here. A soft sob, or perhaps a sigh of relief, escaped her lips.
Considering her words, Nel reassured her. “It was only a dream.”
“Yes,” Nadia caught her breath, attempting to steel herself against the tears that fought to make themselves known. “After all this time, I am harrowed still by the same nightmare—one which I can’t ever be sure that I will escape. And then there’s you. My love, my beacon of light on the horizon.” She ran her fingers through Nel’s rich curls.
“It can never keep you. Not again. I will always be there to guide you home.”
Nadia smiled in repose. “You will?”
“I will.”
Nadia raised the magician’s hand to her lips and kissed the back of it. “Thank you.”
A silent invitation crossed Nel’s face as she positioned pillows against the headboard. Lying back into them, she opened her arms, an offer of safety to the countess before her.
As Nadia settled against her, her shoulders and back were enveloped in Nel’s gentle embrace. Her trusted magician. Her love. The one she would do anything in her power to protect, but also the one who just as easily would prove countless times to be her savior. Things would be all right, that night and always.
“How do you do that?” Nadia’s tired voice waned as Nel’s fingers brushed through her long hair.
“Hm?”
“From the very first time I wandered that island, when it was more than just a nightmare... It was you who rescued me, and you continue to rescue me time and again.”
Nel simply continued to stroke the woman’s hair with one hand, the other still cradling her orb of light. She didn’t have an answer. She didn’t need one.
“It’s you.” Nadia sighed with newfound peace as her eyelids drifted shut. “It’s always you.”
-
Stay with me. Hold my hand. There’s no need to be brave. And while you sleep, I’ll be scared So by the time you wake, I’ll be brave.