It is actually early, but it was on my heart to do this one shot for @jacksope-lives story Train Hunters. Hopefully, she enjoys this...
He stared at it for a long time. Grace really would adore it. It checked the right boxes. The first and most important being pink, it was an animal that he hadn’t seen her ever have before - a hedgehog, and it was affordable enough for him. Way more expensive than he thought the thing ought to be, but he’d made at least one mistake with this.
Hazel told him, “Girls LOVE plushies! A soft and cuddly little guy? You CAN’T go wrong with a plushie!” And… he didn’t… necessarily go wrong with it, but he selected a badger. Why? Because she didn’t have one and he thought it would be unique. But, then he tried to see if he could get some pink for razzle dazzle and the animal clothes were too big and doll clothes too small. So, since he was gonna have to remix it anyways (Hazel told him he didn’t have to remix it, but what was he gonna do? With their past of excitement and uniqueness just give her a plain badger plushie? Hmph). So… he personalized it.
He ripped up one of his old shirts to give it a little outfit, took a broken spiked choker he intended to eventually repair and made it a little belt, and drew on a tattoo of Grace’s name in thorns on its side. He finished it off with a set of right ear earrings made of notebook spiral, and a rusted chain link that he attached as a nose ring.
“OH MY GOD!” Grace yelped in surprise whenever he gave it to her. Needless to say, she had not been expecting such a gift. “It’s…”
“A badass badger,” Simon said, pleased with himself.
“I… love it…” She forced and accepted it. “It’s a very… YOU gift.” She was smiling, but Simon suddenly felt super embarrassed. It was a very HIM gift. Not her. This wasn’t her style.. “Thank you,” she said and kissed him on the cheek. And she carried BadAss around with her, but he thought maybe she did it for his benefit.
So, he wasn’t going to do that again, despite her insisting she loved it whenever the subject came up. Now, he was looking at this pink hedgehog. Are we those kinds of people? We do VDay and stuff? He reached for it and looked around, what else would go with this? Should he buy flowers? She wasn’t a flower kinda person. In fact, he’d seen her snatch a flower right off of a bush and crush it into crumbled petals that she daintily let fall from her fingers with a little smile, once.
“Wwwwwwwwwhy… did you do that?” He’d asked.
She looked a little bit self conscious and she rolled her eyes and asked him back, “What, were you in love with that flower or something?” He laughed at how defensive she got about her flowercide, but didn’t give her too hard of a time and after a moment she shrugged her shoulders and said, “It was gonna die anyway. Flowers are fragile little bitches who are pretty for a limited time, and then they die. Why not do it?” He never saw her do it again, but he wasn’t sure to make of that, except for that she obviously didn’t give much of a shit about flowers. Knowing Grace though, she probably had some fleeting thought about her mom or something and took it out on that plant. She would rather just push stuff from her mind than discuss it too much, so he just let go of that.
Candy… That was so corny and pretentious. He looked at all of the heart shaped boxes, irritated that he was suddenly aware that he wasn’t sure what kind he would even get that she might enjoy. Chocolate covered cherries… Nuts and caramel turtles… He glanced over and saw baking stuff and perked up. There were a few selections, but he thought that would be better than candy, at least. He was good at baking and he had never baked anything specifically for her before. He looked at three options that he knew she might like and then muttered, “Fuck it,” and swatted all of them into his handheld cart. He’d do cup brownies, cup cheesecakes, and cup cookies… “Why aren’t there cupcakes?” He saw the empty spot for them. Okay, so at least he wasn’t being too basic.
He gnawed on his lip and pondered whether or not he should try to get a bottle of wine with his fake ID. He made it himself and he was certain it was excellent, but if it wasn't and he was clocked, he might have to leave without this other stuff. Leave without the pink hedgehog. Nah. There was a pink champagne with a very pretty bottle that he knew that Grace would probably love to collect or use for some art project. He studied the bottle, glanced around, and stuck it into his long pocket. He adjusted slightly, happy that his baggy pants were equipped for concealing it, and picked up a few more things before heading to checkout.
“Somebody’s gonna be pretty happy this Valentine’s Day!” the cashier said, and began ringing things up. What do you think they got you?”
He furrowed his eyebrows. Got him? Lol… Grace wasn’t gonna get him anything. They weren’t really those kind of people. But, with Valentines Day being a day centered around love and Grace having gotten such weird distortions of what that was in early life, he guessed he just wanted her to feel special. “Eh, if she decides to keep dating me, I think I’ve got my gift, right?”
The lady chuckled and cooed, “What a lucky lady. That’s so sweet.”
“You know what? I think I’m gonna get some pink roses too. I don’t think she likes flowers, but I don’t KNOW that she doesn’t?”
“Better safe! Besides, plenty of people don’t prefer flowers, but it's still nice to get them, especially for this time of year.”
“Give them to me. A dozen. Two. Wait, how much is three dozen?”
“I’ll give you my discount. You’re working hard, Man.” She smiled. He did too. He felt kinda bad for pocketing the wine. It was done now, though.
Grace was home, in some pink lounge wear… looking way too good just to be sitting at home. He wondered if he could get past her with things, but then decided it was already so much, so a surprise reveal or something cheesy like that would simply be way farther than he was willing to go. “Hey, Hazel made us…” she looked up and stopped what she was about to say when she saw him fumbling with bags of pink shit. “Dude!” She laughed and rushed to assist him. “What is this? You throwing a party I didn’t know about?”
“Sorta. I got you Valentines…”
He saw the moment of sheer joy in her expression before she calmed her tits and gave him a soft smile and a kiss on the lips, “How. Darling.” she said. He blushed. He wondered when he would stop doing that for her. He hoped never, to be honest. The butterflies were nice. “Well, I was gonna say Hazel made us cards, AND… I got you something too.” He turned even more red and Grace smiled in satisfaction as she retrieved something from her art tote. “So, Hazel made us cards and I was like… that’s cute. And your mom came by to… grab her for a bit, in case we needed… private time.” He was redder, still. “And I told her and showed her the cards, right? So she’s like, “Oh I loved all of Simon’s from school!”
“Wait…”
“And then she rushed home to get them!”
Would Grace think he was soft if he started crying right now? Because he might… She was very pleased with herself as she showed him hers, and the photo she took of it from his mom’s collection.
“Wait, now… Because I…”
“And I recreated the first Valentine’s Day card you made your mom, but for you!”
“She keeps… everything,” he said.
“I thought that was really sweet. And I thought, well… he made me a custom gift before…” She gestured to BadAss. I just wanted…” Simon had set down everything, scooped her up and kissed her. She smiled into it, letting herself melt against him.
“I thought that I was doing something so stupid and you were gonna look at me like you looked at me when I gave you that badger…”
“I have no clue how long I have to tell you that I love that badger…”
“And you actually were doing something equally as goofy for me!”
“Wow. Romantic was the word that I would have used, with a sentimental twist.” He nudged her with his nose, “When is she bringing Hazel back?”
“Why? You tryin to get something from me.”
“I mean… there’s a window…”
She laughed and said, “I actually had gotten you a gift before then, but it was SO weak. I got you a men’s beauty/hygiene set. Bath stuff, lotion, etc.”
“Trying to tell me something?”
“Just that I’m bad at gifts until the last moment, apparently.”
He laughed and nodded. “Me too though. I got all this… stuff… And I didn’t even know. Oh! But…” he went through the bags and said, “BadAss has a friend.”
Grace gasped loudly and she snatched the hedgehog, “Are you freakin’ kiddin’ me? This is ADORABLE!”
“See? That is the difference in something you actually loved and something I just gave you.”
“Shut your fucking face, I LOVE my badger! I just wasn’t prepared to receive him. But, he looks like you took time on him and dressed him in love, so I love him because you did that for me. And I also love this guy, because he is a pink hedgehog and that appeals to my interests of pink, of stuffed animals, and of hedgehogs. I don’t even remember telling you I liked those..”
“You did not. He just… looked like you’d like him.”
She checked her phone, “Come on! We gotta make use of our window!”
“Yes!”
She reached for his pants and asked, “WHAT is in your pocket?”
“...Oh!” He pulled out the bottle of pink champagne and she fawned over how pretty the bottle was, but set it down and grabbed him by the shirt to pull him to the bedroom.
After Hazel got home, they spent time baking the treats together. Hazel smiled at them, at her cards on the fridge held up with magnets and then at the baking stuff in front of them. “I think I love you guys,” she said. Grace teared up. “Awww… Love you too, Hazy.”
The army that had come with Amelia were all captured and imprisoned for the time being. Lucy would have to assess them with the staff, to know what type of sentencing they deserved, and she was quite busy just trying to get the kingdom to understand that the crown had skipped over Grace, someone who they planned on being their next queen for at least 18 years. It was a HARD realization for folks that not only did the King and Queen die in battle, but even the Princess was not going to be on the throne. And what would they do for a King? Lucy had not been attached to a soul mate. The girl barely made friends!
“I don’t know,” Grace said, “but everyone will figure it out, I’m sure.”
She had been tasked to visit the Institution, to rescue any children there, bring in any adults and take the structure down.
On this mission, Simon discovered his worst fear had come true. “I don’t have my power,” he said, after everyone was safely removed. “I’ve toppled mass communities within minutes, but I can’t do anything about this…”
Grace frowned and said, “Walk me through it. Maybe, this structure is protected by magic that we didn’t sense.” With Simon’s instructions of how to perform the spell, Grace made the entire school and all of the annex buildings crumble to piles of dust. She looked at Simon, sadly. “You didn’t need magic like that, anyway. That felt gross.” She shivered, but he knew that didn’t feel gross. It felt amazing. It always had. It filled your core with the peak of your magic and then for several moments, it rushed through your blood, invigorating every part of you.
She assisted Lucy with things that the girl couldn’t do herself, despite the fact that there was a legion of others, waiting to be of help to the new queen. Simon perused Grace’s collection of magic books to figure out if he would be able to do her type of magic, or if this was his punishment - to never wield it again.
He was laying in her bed, on his belly when a boy, about his age, maybe slightly younger, with pink hair stepped in, but didn’t say anything.
Simon’s eyes lifted from the page and he sat up, and stared at the boy. The boy dipped his head, very politely, and still said nothing.
Simon and he stared at each other for a moment longer, before Simon asked, “What is it that I need to do in order to get you to do whatever it is that you need to do?” The boy smiled slightly and flicked his fingers, which turned to a page. “Summon your Familiar…” He furrowed his eyebrows, “My familiar is dead. Punished for my crimes.” But, he still read the instructions. Grace interrupted whenever she entered the chambers and the boy swiftly transformed into a white crane with pink accents, which flew to her and perched on her arm.
“Was… was that your familiar?” Simon asked.
“This is my familiar,” she corrected him. “Have you summoned yours yet?”
Simon frowned and shuffled on the bed to put the book in his lap. “I don’t understand. How can I summon her when she’s been destroyed?”
“Oh, Simon… Not her specifically. It’s not really like that. But, you are naturally magic. You should be able to call upon a familiar. I don’t think The One would take even THAT away from you…” But, she wasn’t sure. Her crane settled in her lap and she stroked his feathers. “Sorry that you didn’t get to meet him sooner. He had to feel like he could trust you first. A good witch never tries to force their familiar. They ask them for their help and if they’ve treated them well, their familiar is not likely to deny them.”
Simon read the spell and said, “I don’t know where I would find these items.”
“The Royal Apothecary literally has everything but the blood of my enemies.” He flinched when she mentioned that. He used to do QUITE a bit of work with that. He now had what appeared to be a birthmark of the symbol he used to wear drawn in it on his face. It was a stain that he had to remember any time he looked into a mirror. She handed him a scroll. "Here. Make a list and go get it. It'll be nice for you to get out."
He didn't think so, but he had nothing else to do. His entire life had been turned around. Grace was handling the sudden changes much better than him. Maybe a familiar could help… do… something.
The girl with the broom gasped whenever she saw him and it occurred to him that everyone only knew about the mark on his head from reports of conductor attacks.
"I'm Simon," he started and she sighed,.with relief. Introductions usually went one of two ways. Either the person wound up MORE terrified, having heard rumors of his past, or they relaxed, thinking that the Queen surely would have handled him if he were still "tainted." "I'm trying to find some items."
The girl reached for the list and whenever.she saw the symbol on his hand, she stared at it, worried. "It's the only one I've got," he promised.
She nodded. She went to a spot behind the counter and pulled out a basket full of items. She hadn't collected them or searched. She just had them in there. "Here it is," she said, and set the list on top. Whenever something was checked off on the list, it glowed green in the basket, until Simon saw that indeed, she already had a basket with all of his needs.
"Do you frequently get people coming for a summoning kit?"
She thought for a moment before saying, "I am a familiar. I know when someone seeks one." He looked at her small frame and miniature afro. She looked like a little girl, but the jewelry that she wore, alone, radiated more power than Simon could even stand to sniff out.
"Who's familiar are you?" He wondered.
"I belong to House Monroe. I've been with the family since this kingdom began."
"You're old!"
"Yes. Spirits have a longer existence. We are allowed to split our time between various forms. You know what that is like, in a way." Her eyes returned to his hand.
"Have you seen this before? On someone else?" He wondered.
"No. But I've heard about it. There was one, long before I existed, and there is nothing to state that it was like this one at all, but the message is the same. "Do not kill him. His debt is for The One."
"What did that guy do?" Simon wondered out of curiosity.
"Committed the first act of murder against his own brother."
"Wait. He only killed one dude and he had to go through…" he whispered the last word, "This?"
"That's how the story goes. I wasn't there. It may simply be one of a long list of fables. Or maybe someday, people will speak of the last of the Laurents in similar confusion."
"Last of… I mean… I'll be able to have children. I won't be the last… wait. You meant… because I still will be here when they're gone. I'll outlive the others."
She blinked sadly. "Do you need help, with your spell?"
"Yes!" He was desperate to change the subject and grateful that she knew that. After helping him with the magic, a mist came out of the cauldron and it formed into the shape of an old woman. Samantha. "Samantha!" He cheered. She stared at him, confused.
"That is not her name," the Monroe familiar said.
The spirit in the mist asked, "Who seeks my help?"
He cleared his throat and announced, "I am Simon Laurent. The last of the Laurents…" the mist evaporated and Simon blinked.
"She declined," the familiar said. "You're known as a murderer of magical beings and an enslaver of souls."
"But, I'm not dangerous anymore. I can't even do magic."
She giggled and it was the most childlike she had sounded. "Of course you can. You have some of the most powerful magic I've ever encountered."
"I'd love to know what it is or how to use it." She took his arm and led him to a mirror. The mirror was not doing what he was doing… "What is that?"
"That is your reflection."
"No. My reflection does what I do. It has to. It's reflecting the image in front of it. AND! It looks like old me."
"Is there much of a difference?" The mirror asked.
"If you were me, you'd KNOW that!"
The reflection smirked and he said, "Here is the thing. I have been with you up until now. I know you in a way that you could never look at yourself to see. We love and loathe the same things. You make mistakes and we feel the same brutal consequences."
Simon frowned. "Aside from the curse of living for however long, do I have magic?"
"Yes. Though. I suppose that you would want to call it something else. It's still magic, to be sure, but it's inverted. So, counter magic or anti magic could be applicable. What I can tell you for sure is that it is going to work very different from the magic you had before. Hence why you got this gift." The reflection pointed to his hand, which had the infinity symbol on it."
"Gift," Simon repeated.
"This will help you to come back in the event that the counter magic takes too much from you to fulfill the attempts." He smiled, "Also, I spoke to everyone and I'm basically the only line of communication you'll have with the spirit world. So… I'm the closest you get to a familiar. Lucky for you… I'm as powerful in inverted magic as you were in what you did."
Simon turned to the Monroe familiar and she offered him a smile. "I've got just the thing for this." When she vanished, Simon stared at his reflection. It was covered in runes, still. With his hair hanging down, checking his fingernails.
"What did you mean when you said that the counter magic takes from me?"
Mirror Simon frowned, "Which words are confusing to you?" They glared at each other a moment, then the reflection scoffed. "You spent years stealing the energy from others to fuel your magic, but you'll spend the rest of your existence drawing it from yourself. That's why you had to visit the other planes and know every version of yourself. You will have to draw from that. You will have to pay back what you stole, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many versions of yourself have to fall."
"And you'll.. guide me through that?"
"What? No. You're dragging me along, like you always have. I'm just able to help now."
"Here it is!" The childlike voice announced. She handed Simon a gauntlet. When he simply looked confused at it and didn't take it, she put it on him and showed him a mechanism that made a mirrored surface blade come out… and the reflection stepped out of it, actually startling Simon.
He had on the same outfit as Simon, but he pulled up the top part of his hair into a half ponytail. "You can tell us apart, now," he joked. (He was chrome. You could always tell them apart). But, one thing that was bizarre to Simon was he was wearing a red coat. It was the only thing about him that wasn't reflective.
"The coat. How did you…" and the coat transformed into a large majestic bird, and it's wings spread, reflecting off of Mirror Simon like flames. "A phoenix!"
"Mm hmm."
"So… I can still use my magic. I just have to draw it from myself," Simon said as they headed out of the apothecary together.
"That's not what I said and I hate how bad at listening you can be. I said that your magic is inverted. Stuff like destroying, killing, and trapping… you can't do ANY of that shit anymore. But you can do the reverse. You can make things grow, live, free…"
"Can I… undo what I've done?"
"You can break curses that you've instilled, but… you can't have some sort of mass awakening for all of those deaths. To bring something back from the dead, it has to be extremely recent. Three days MAX."
"WAIT, WHAT?"
Mirror Simon frowned, "I told you already…"
"But, I thought that was impossible without tremendous sacrifice and the deaths of a surplus of magic beings!"
"Yeah. And you've DONE that part. Now, you're on the other side. The side where you can bring others back to life. That's the catch of it. To be able to bring others back to life, the ultimate sacrifice is you. It's meant to keep people from pursuing such power, but the rest of us never fully estimated the absolute nerve of mankind."
"So.. I… don't have to lose Grace," Simon said, almost relieved, because that had honestly been his biggest fear since this fate had descended on him.
But now, Mirror Simon was extremely serious. "No. You still have to say goodbye to her. But… I would not recommend using that more than thrice."
"What is it with you and the number 3?"
"It's powerful. And your inverted magic is powerful, but it has restrictions and they're going to be tight." You won't be able to just bring her back over and over and if we're being honest, if you love her like I have good reason to believe you do… I don't know that you should do that to her at all. She'll remember her life, but she'll also remember her death. You've seen how much it hurts her to heal others? When she dies, that will be her actual pain, and there's just not enough known to be sure of how that might affect someone."
"Then… why have it, at all?"
"Animals who help the ecosystem. Children who mysteriously passed without having a chance to even have their first cohesive thoughts. Someone who had a freak accident that would have traumatized them anyways. There's like… so many other reasons to have it! BUT, most importantly, because you killed so many without thinking about it. You learned magic and used it to harm and now you can't." They paused outside of Grace's bedchamber, "If you'd be able to live with yourself if it drives her mad or makes her have chronic pain or something terrible… then I still wouldn't suggest doing it. I know how you feel about her. I also… have the ability to consider the other sides of things." The Mirror Simon draped his coat over his shoulders and slid back into the dagger.
But, even when he wasn't communicating with Simon, Simon noted little differences in his reflection at times that he had never seen before that day.
.
Grace smiled brightly whenever Simon returned sans familiar. "The spirit world hates me," he said. "I have to like… use my reflection."
Her eyes widened and her smile went away. "You mean like, inverted magic?"
"Yeah."
She shook her head, "Simon, inverted magic is super dangerous. The magic comes from you and most people aren't strong enough to do more than a few years of successful magic."
"That's why I have this gift," he said and showed off his infinity symbol. She took off her glove and reached for his hand, but he resisted. That hurt her feelings. He saw it in her face. He just… didn't want to burden her with everything. Grace clenched her glove in both hands until he allowed her to touch his hand.
To feel his feelings and feel his memories and know his truth. She sniffled and he jerked his hand away, ashamed of himself for allowing her to see when he knew it would hurt her.
"It…" she struggled for words, "can't be that lonely, Simon. You have me. For however long you have me, you have me, fully." He cupped her face and rested his forehead on hers. She put her bare hand on his forearm and whispered, "This feeling. Remember it, okay? Pull it out whenever you feel that loneliness.."
He couldn't describe the magic that her healing hands were providing right now, but it felt like safety… it felt like support. She could even heal the heart, when it was him. He may have been in a lifeline loop, but however many lifetimes he would live, he knew that she would always be not just his first love, but his only love.
She looked slightly up to see his face and was thrown back by the intent look in his eyes. "Are you okay?"
"I want you to spend the rest of your life with me. Not in some “we were tethered as infants and we're drawn to each other” way. But in this way… I know you and I love you and I have no idea how much time we have left together, but I want us to be together, like you said, fully." He took off her remaining glove, took both of her hands into his and got down on one knee. "I want you to be Mrs. Laurent. I know that you're not going to be on the throne, but you'll forever be my princess, even when you're… no longer with me. I want you to… agree to that?"
She stared at his hands, holding hers, and her shaking hands, being soothed with his thumbs. She never touched people this way. Their feelings made it difficult. But, all she read from Simon was love and determination… maybe even desperation. He meant it. She nodded her head, “I agree to that.”
.
Lucy placed the children from The Alrick Institute of Magic into the care of the caverns. They would each have separate journeys and tests, given to them by The One, until they were proven to have been recovered and ready to reenter society as reformed members of the community. They would have various problem solving puzzles and life skills tests to have the runes on their bodies removed and when they were cleared of it, they could be placed in the care of someone in the kingdom. Over the past few years, The Conductor had devastated a lot of the land and with that, many families and creatures that no longer had safe habitats (if they survived at all), had lost most of their loved ones. Simon had taken every orphan, runaway, and even the slightly disgruntled children he found and made them into her soldiers. The thought of taking the time to undo the work made Simon almost not want to get out of bed.
He was exhausted. Grace had been teaching him healing magic. She taught him how she challenged his curse at the lagoon and took him to the ruins of Lucy’s village, his first mission of that sort, for his training.
Simon had learned more about Grace than he knew before through the lessons. He learned that her ability to sense magic was a branch of her gift of empathy. She was able to get as close to the border of the curse as possible without touching it. If she touched it, she would feel it, and curses hurt more than memories, more than physical pain. Curses were felt in her body and her soul.
Grace clenched her fists hard enough to draw blood and she and Simon both winced about it. It amazed her that someone who was so used to and fond of violence couldn’t stand to see her have even the slightest bit of pain. She placed her hands on the ground, feeling around for magic. Somewhere in the grounds, she could sense it. Another little paw print. Samantha may have left one at every site, knowing that someday, a proper Witch of the One could restore it. “Okay,” Grace poured water from a canteen on her hand wounds and wrapped them as she explained, “There is but a handprint of magic still here. I think Samantha did it on purpose, after you took everything. She would leave a paw print in blood, and as a magical being, the magic can be detected. It’s not a bridge so much as it is a small space in which magic can communicate, to get inside.”
“It’s like if you lock yourself out, but you can cut open the screen to get in through the window,” he clarified.
“Yes. But, your home has been demolished and covered in blood and you have to go through reliving what happened to even get the curse to lift. It will try to latch on to you and instead of it overtaking you, you have to duel and you have to win. Your magic has to be a match for it’s magic, or it will reduce you to rubble.” He looked horrified. “You’re totally strong enough. I was.”
“No. I mean, yes. I just… You could have died trying to lift the curse?”
“I was pretty confident that you weren’t stronger than me, Fake Witch,” she said with a wink. Before he could refute, she put her hands on his shoulders and nudged him downward. Simon dropped to his knees and opened his hands. “They’ll need your blood.” He nodded and used his dagger to slash marks on his forearms. He didn’t want to lose the usage of his hands. But, he collected it in his hands and touched the cursed rubble. “Now, you will alert the curse to your magic and like a ghom, thirsty for the essence within you, it will move against you to challenge your presence…” He felt like he was hit by a windstorm and she nodded, “That was it. Now, remember when I faced the ghom and I told you that you have to show them your power? It’s probably similar to whatever it is that you used to do when you used to activate those runes? Whatever you did then, do it now.” A light shined from his hands and the rubble began to glow and Grace swooshed her cloak over both of them and grabbed him up to take cover. He watched from beneath the cloak as the entire village appeared to explode and debris flew everywhere as a geyser of blood fired into the sky and rained down on everything nearby. He saw glittering, green things floating and flying out of the chaos and he smiled as his green eyes glowed.
Grace looked at his face and at the destruction and then reminded herself out loud, “Oh, right, he sees magic.” He blinked and looked at her, eyes normal. “Look again, Dude.” He did so and it was honestly just… wreckage and blood. No curse, but no magic either.
He had a flashback to how it looked whenever he first barged in. The children ran rampart, raiding everything. Amelia sat on her armored horse, cloaked with only her glowing runes visible. Her voice was deep with the magic as she said, “The children get the treats, but you will get the treasure.” The people in the town looked terrified as imposing witches dressed in black with pale faces and blue light in their eyes descended upon them, murdering and stealing. It looked even worse now.
Grace’s team began to take the remains away, foul with the odor of death and decay, and stained with the evidence of terror and defeat. Grace shook her head, “That staff really would have come in handy,” she mused as she dug her toes into the dirt and the blood staining everything began to wash away.
“Hey,” Simon said, softly, and took her hand. “Use me.” With their hands and eyes locked, the blood washed away and while Grace normally would have been spent after magic like that, instead, she shone brighter and the rubble began to right itself. When she finally felt faint, Simon caught her and held her. Then they looked at the village. It was just as they had remembered it from before.
Lucy walked towards the border, with the warriors who were tasked to watch over it and she almost dropped the staff in her emotional reaction, before straightening her posture and clenching it tightly.
Her magic wasn’t powerful enough for her to be confident about her protective spell before, but with one hit of her staff onto the ground, they watched as a green glimmering protective fence surrounded the village, then went invisible.
She turned to look at Simon, but wore no expression.
It didn’t feel right to her to thank him or forgive him for what he had done to this place, even if he fixed a huge portion of it. Some parts never could be. The lives that were lost. The years the spirits wandered or worse, were enslaved. The time that it was cursed and she could only look upon her first home as a place of desolation and destruction. No, she wasn’t thankful to him for this work and she hadn’t forgiven him of his previous work. But, she was going to be fair. Technically, he had been punished for his crimes and now, he would make restitution. “It was the least you could do,” she finally said to him, before turning and transmitting herself back to the Mothership.
Grace bit her lip and looked at Simon. “That’s the best you’ll get from her on a good day.”
“She’s nicer when you aren’t looking,” he said.
“She’s more careful when I’m not there to protect her,” Grace corrected.
He looked at the village again. Nearby magical creatures approached with caution to see if they were allowed to go near it and were happy to find that they could enter the barrier. Simon reached his hand out, to test and was met by an instant barrier. He nodded. That was fair. Lucy cared about him, after having spent time around him, but if it would take longer for her to trust him, especially with safe spaces in the kingdom, he couldn’t fault her. Maybe eventually, that would change.
“This is my life now,” he announced. “Spending my time, energy and power fixing whatever I can of the mess that I’ve made.” She nodded her head and touched his wrist to give him a little jolt of healing support. “Hey!” He took her hand into his. “You’ve worked way too hard today to be wasting your energy like that.”
“I am so close to passing out,” she acknowledged with a little laugh.
He collected her to himself and pressed his lips against her forehead. “Let’s go home.”
FCs Used: Lovie Simone as Grace Monroe, Abe Paymans as Simon Laurent
I did a Fanthology for this story a while back and had these moodboards there, but I wanted them to be their own separate post, since that one was so long.
“Grace could’ve sworn that she saw a chorus of red flags being twirled around before her. Dancers, circling her and performing tricks with them. She was never one for rose colored glasses. She learned a long time ago that those weren’t for her… so these were red flags. She also knew that she often saw red flags where there were white ones. Because she didn’t believe in surrender, only blood for blood. She was angry in general, and usually seeing red.”
- Excerpt from People Watching
I thought I posted this AGES ago, but I can't find it on the page, so I guess I didn’t.
Yeah, I still been drawing a little bit this year, when I have a moment to breathe.
So... in the story, Grace is doing some crimes, but on a more organized level than in the cartoon. She still wears the mask, but she also puts them locs away in a scarf or headwrap or tam hat or something, so I tried to do her with a headwrap and the canon mask. Y’all can judge whether or not it worked out. 🤷🏿♀️
Grace Monroe St. Catherine of AU Infinity Train Fic People Watching
