Devil Woman
Hello yes I fell in love with @scurvgirls House Witch AU so I did a bit of backstory for Selene in it <3.
House Witch AU
Serahlin(Mentioned) is @scurvgirls
Dirthamen is @feynites
(TW for Shitty Parenting, Abuse, and Haleir)
Selene is sixteen years of age when her book is traded away.
“How dare you!” She screams at her father, fury and anger and rage pouring out of her. Fists turning white as her hair where they clench at her hips, every muscle tensed in the aftermath of her 'Wonderful Birthday News'. The curtains catch fire and his potions quake in their bottles on the table beneath the wrath of her remaining magic. Des lets out a long, ear shattering hiss from inside of the warded crate in the corner, still trapped where Elrogathe had drugged and shoved him for the 'negotiations'.
Negotiations that had promised away her hand and her firstborn.
His palm connects with her cheek and it is not unlike the deflating prick of a balloon.
She crumples to the ground, knees banging against the hardwood floors as rage gives way to grief beneath the stinging heat of the assault.
“It is an honor,” He tsks, correcting his potions where they have shifted on the table. “A show of loyalty to the coven, to our people. It is your own fault for causing them to doubt your loyalties, child. Be grateful this is all they asked of you; there are far worse fates than marriage and family.”
“You seem to feel cursed enough by your own,” She mutters.
Elrogathe stiffens as a bolt of electricity strikes at the mirror that had been hanging on the wall behind her head.
“Your mother was worth suffering any curse,” He manages through grit teeth before finally turning to look at her for the first time today. “Even a child so devilish and selfish as you.”
–
She is married on her eighteenth birthday.
To the great grandson of their covens founder. A towering, sun blessed witch with long, bright red hair he keeps in a braid laid over his shoulder. He has been well sought after by many a witch; his bloodline after all, guarantees a very powerful child, and his family has no shortage of wealth or prestige in the circles.
She spends most of the reception searching for her book. Trying to find it, to flee, to run before their bond can be consummated. Des darts from room to room in the extravagantly large mansion, searching and scenting for any hint of their magic.
Neither manages to turn up even a scrap of what they are looking for.
The honeymoon has been arranged in one of his families summer homes, hidden away in the thick of an ancient forest.
There is no moon in the sky that night, and Haleir had driven them off before Des could manage to jump into the car. Her book is still gone, and though this was supposed to be a symbol of her loyalty to her coven, to prove her as finally one of them, she feels farther from her magic and her self than she ever has before.
She spends the night outside of herself, like some captive audience to the horrors being committed.
Des finds her in the morning, and curls into her arms. Some small semblance of comfort for what may now be their new reality. She feels better with him near, even through his exhaustion of making the journey back to her.
More like herself.
At the end of the week, she's made to pee on a stick. It's not the way her father tests for children, but Haleir assures her that this is one type of precognition the mortals have figured out.
The symbols on the display screen don't change, and her new husband makes a disappointed sound and says “Well, we'll just try again then. As many times as it takes, I suppose. I have expectations to live up to you know. “
Selene just nods numbly and runs her fingers through Des's fur as she slides into the passenger seat of the car.
Haleir scoffs down at her familiar and makes a comment about fleas and litter boxes, while his toad makes a loud croak from the backseat in what she assumes must be agreement.
As many times as it takes, her mind echoes.
...surely, that can't be too many more times. Right?
–
Selene is twenty one when she finally has enough.
Enough of feeling like only a piece of herself, enough of vacating her body each night, enough of lying there while her husband dreams of other women and she dreams of a day when she no longer has this obligation to fulfill. Far away and isolated from their coven, from any she might once have considered a friend, and with her only source of communication besides her unfaithful husband, vague postcards from her father unsubtly asking if she has managed to produce an heir yet.
Enough.
Haleir is out on one of his ‘business trips’ when she makes up her mind. It is going to be a full moon, and her own moon-blessings will mean the powers she still has may actually be strong enough to pull it off.
Des is uncharacteristically wary of her plans. He almost attempts to talk her out of it before finally agreeing that this may be her only way out.
It is a cruel plan. Cruel, and tragic, and monstrous.
An act of desperation, and her only chance.
The one benefit of her time spent dissociating over the past few years is that her dream walking abilities have vastly improved; a skill that will make what she is about to do far, far safer.
She lights the appropriate candles and pays in her blood and herbs before finally stripping and settling into the center of the circle of the rug she had managed to bring with her from her own home. One of very few items in this house that could be considered hers. Precious to her, but nothing Haleir will notice is missing if anything should happen to it.
Des is slowly circling the ritual, checking for errors, and she gives him a smile before focusing herself, and managing the incantation in a long forgotten language.
Old, and ancient, and very very dangerous.
Several creatures drift past and through her as she sits in the plane of dreams, most frustratingly uninterested in her offer.
But she waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Until something seems intrigued enough to stop.
She shivers beneath the gaze of its eyes. And it has many with which to do so. Selene is having trouble making out the silhouette of the spirit as the shape of it is unfamiliar and ever shifting, edges blending into the darkness around them.
You long for freedom.
She doesn't hear its voice, exactly. There is no mouth to speak of, but she can hear them all the same, reverberating somewhere deep in her mind.
“Yes,” She says aloud. The movement of her mouth is awkward, and her voice echoes in the thick silence of the air around them and she wonders for the first time just how long she has been waiting.
What will you do with the child?
Selene hesitates.
She had been planning to leave. To fulfill her obligation to produce an heir and to find her book and to take back the freedoms that had been stolen from her.
...an easier concept when she considers the creature she will be bearing an obligation, rather than a child.
“My first born has been promised to another,” She admits. “But I will need to produce it before I can fulfill that oath. My current...partner, and I, are having difficulties.”
Do they know you are here?
Selene swallows. “...No.”
The spirit stirs a bit, at that.
You would betray them?
Selene snorts. “There is nothing to betray,” She assures them. “There is no love between us. He would rather be elsewhere, as would I. But he holds my book in some hidden place, and I cannot leave without it.”
The spirit seems confused by the concept.
That does not seem like a very beneficial partnership.
“He's more like my captor at this point,” She says. “But I need the key to my cage; and he will only hand it over if I produce a child he can claim as heir.”
This, at least, the spirit seems to grasp.
Their form shifts again, and a single blue eye as large as her head with lashes as long as the curls in her hair settles in front of her face.
Your first born is already promised, the spirit says as one long tendril reaches out to touch her stomach, So I will take the second.
Her vision blurs, and magic swirls around her. Hers, theirs, others that she doesn't even recognize. Swirling galaxies and the roots of great trees flood her mind, her fire turns to smoke and she is sucked into the creature and feels a terrifying and overwhelming sense of loneliness and age and worlds growing and dying and being torn apart and then forced back together. She sees great depths and clear skies and the world feels at once huge and infinitesimal, like she could hold it in the palm of her hand and drown in it all at the same time.
Her breath is stolen from her lungs and returned to her in great heaves as her soul is ripped out and then carefully placed back into her body.
She is shaking and crying and sweating on the rug her mother had once taught her to read on, on her hands and knees and with a migraine that makes the room around her spin. The candles she had lit are long burnt out, wax melted into large pools and already cooled, and Des is looking at her in fear and concern while pawing at the back of her hand.
“I'm alright,” She rasps, throat dry from dehydration-how long has she been here, doing this?-straightening back up and pushing her hair back, curls damp and clinging to the edges of her face.
Des lets out a soft meow, and she knows exactly what he's asking.
Did it work?
She settles one hand over the slight curve of her stomach and lets out a breath.
“...I think so.”
–
Selene gives birth exactly nine months later.
To twins, one with dark hair, and one with white; both with bright blue eyes.
Selene knows that neither she nor Haleir possess blue eyes; but that the creature she conjured for the fertility ritual did.
Thankfully, Elrogathes eyes are a deep blue and his hair a dark enough blue it is often mistaken for black, and with her own green eyes and white hair she's able to convince Haleir that the children are his. A sure sign of his virility, and that their sons will grow into very powerful, very capable witches in their own rights.
She almost convinces herself of it, too.
Almost convinces herself that in her haste and selfishness, she hasn't damned at least one of her sons to a creature that is almost certainly a demon, in retrospect.
The twins are three days old, and still without names when Haleir comes home drunk from a celebratory night with his friends.
“You can't see them like that,” She gripes, blocking the doorway with her still recovering body.
“They're'my'f'ggin sons,” He slurs, half halfheartedly trying to push her aside.
She holds her ground.
He glares down at her-or tries to, anyways. He's never been very good at holding his liquor, and he seems to be having difficulty figuring out which one of her is real.
“B'tch,” He grumbles, turning and waving like it was his decision not to go in. “F'ggin witch bitch...” He snickers. “S'till powerless witch bitch....”
Selene feels her skin heat, thinks of how satisfying it would be to light him up...and remembers the children, sleeping in their cribs behind her. Of her father, sleeping in the spare room down the hall after making the long trip to deliver his grandchildren, and how poorly it might go for her and the children to upset them both at once.
She sighs.
...She cannot leave the children alone with Haleir. He is unfit, and the oath her father signed for her is not their burden to bear.
Damn.
Damn.
She doubles down on her search efforts for her book in the following months, in hopes that if she found it she could leave with her sons. Selene tears apart the home of every one of Haleirs relatives they visit with the children, tracks down old trade ledgers and tries to see where it might have been sent, or ended up. She thinks perhaps there may be a trail to follow over the sea, but ship ledgers are notoriously unkempt and untrustworthy, and it is a very long journey to take with two toddlers.
Toddlers who are not without omens of their own.
Selene explains the first few ravens that show up at the house with lies to Haleir; after all, who could predict why birds behave the way they do? Perhaps Des tormented a friend of theirs and they are out for revenge. Be sure to throw salt over the back porch, and she'll plant fresh lavender in the front when the weather warms.
But she doesn't miss the way the birds watch her children when they play outside, or the way the shadows shift around them. Haleir is disappointed when neither of his children are sun blessed the way he is, and upset that the twins would rather sleep through high noon than watch him perform simple spells and tricks that have only frightened them in the past.
She only says that they should enroll the twins in swim classes when she finds Darevas sitting in the bottom of the pond in their backyard; curious and unafraid of the cavernous sinkhole growing in the center, and breathing as easily as though it were air in the dark and deepening water.
They are far too young for their magic to be manifesting, she thinks in a panic as she dries the elder twin off, Felasel finishing his muffin behind her.
Not for the first time, she regrets the haste in which she acted. If she knew what their biological father were, she might be better equipped to care for them.
And better prepared to protect them, too.
The twins are still six months away from their sixth birthday when Serahlin knocks on their door.
Selene has known Serahlin for as long as the children have been in school, as their children share a class together.
But when she calls her sister, Selene feels a sense of relief she hasn't known since she was fifteen years old. A sense of kinship, and the sort of gratefulness she thought she was long past.
'Thank the gods,' she praises as she opens her door wide and invites the other woman in 'for Sisterhood.'