The grove was mostly normal trees, tall oaks that had clustered together like a family. The branches wove thickly together, crowns overlapping, shrouding the whole space in green light and greener shadow. The sun dappled over the earth, and danced across the cenotaph she had placed there.
Denny Hollowdine
She hadn’t known what else to put. It had felt wrong to call him a brother, when he had rejected her. It felt strange to write some notice of his qualities, as if he were more worth mourning that way. A personal expression of her grief...too presumptive. He wouldn’t have liked it.
She didn’t know what he would have liked.
His life was too brief
It was the only truth she could admit. He would have agreed with that. Anyone would have. No boy should be dead at eighteen, body abandoned, never to be recovered.
Cleaned up by Marius’s enemies so they could cover their tracks. Dumped in a river or pit somewhere.
At least he returned to the earth.
Jhazel lays the flowers down on his birthday each year. It’s the only day she has to mark him. Marius couldn’t tell her the date that he died. He didn’t remember.
He hadn’t stopped long enough to think about anyone other than himself.
The simple headstone of rough rock, its letters carved cleanly and the earth beneath it undisturbed... None of it was enough. The grave was empty, her home was empty, her heart hollow as their name.
She presses fingers to the earth and wills it to hold the headstone upright for generations to come.
"The sun, when it rose, seemed to shine a little brighter than it had the day before." - for Spencer or Silver Birch!
Spring was on its way. Spencer looked out of the window of their little attic room, and rested their head against the glass, still cold from the night. On the outside of the pane, a little spider spun a delicate web, clinging on despite the breeze making it rock in the wind.
Silver Birch had started to emerge over the last week or so. Jhazel had promised she’d be back within a month, but winter had made it hard, and they were approaching month three. Spencer tried to remember how long it had taken her in the lab, but in the lab she had been growing out of a young tree already, and sheltered from the winter with sun lamps, heaters, nutrients and watering.
It wouldn’t have taken so long, either, if Spencer hadn’t needed so much help. But being locked in the sterile lab for months had made her sickly, and Jhazel spent as much time helping her recovery as the dryad’s.
But the frost was melting. The afternoons were warmer and longer. And the sun, when it rose, seemed to shine a little brighter than it had the day before.
A white square blocked out a chunk of Jhazel’s face, secured by the wrap of bandages. Tape fringed the edges of the gauze, pale across her light brown skin. The visible eye was downcast, ringed by shadow and deepened by pain. The stain was gone. The taint, the price she had paid for abusing her magic, had run its course. A scar now ran from brow to cheek.
Across from her bed was the sturdy oak chair she’d saved from a skip and fixed. Ensconced in the chair was a large woman with a short quiff of brown hair and a heavy brow over a serious expression. Dark blue eyes held Jhazel’s stare. She was peeling potatoes without looking. Her name was Amina.
“I ruined everything.”
Amina’s head tilted, silver piercings in her ears and nose catching the light. “Don’t be stupid,” she said, her voice deep and coarse like unmilled grain. “You fucked up good, for sure, but you didn’t ruin everything. You always think in extremes.”
Jhazel frowned, her nose scrunching a little. It was true, and she had heard it from Amina before. Once, as an apprentice, she got all but one of her hazelnuts to flower, and she deemed it a failure. Amina talked to her at length about increments before she acknowledged it as a partial success.
“You laid a curse because of what, this thing about your brother moving out? Falling out with you, wanting space, getting involved in crime? He was a teenager, Zel, you idiot. Teenagers do that. That’s what they do. They’re dumb shits and they do dumb shit and you tried to stop him, so he just got even more dumb. It didn’t need the nuclear option. You didn’t need to break the guy’s life.”
“He took my brother—”
“No,” Amina cut in. A potato thumped into the bowl at her feet. “Nobody took your brother. He’s eighteen. He made his own choice. You disagreed with it, sure, but he still made it. Marius isn’t the witch in this equation.”
Jhazel went stiff, hands tightening. “No, I didn’t change his choice, I – I didn’t do anything! I swear, I never used my magic on him, not after – never again. He made the decision himself and I let him, I tried to understand, I tried to talk to him and he – he...he didn’t have to leave.”
The peeler glided around the potato like a journey around the world. “He didn’t have to leave or stay. He had to choose.” Amina’s voice is level and ruminative. “He chose. Your responsibility was to support him in his choices, even if you thought they were mistakes.”
“I can’t! How can I support him going to – to be a criminal’s accountant?”
“You support him, Zel. You look after him. You catch him when he falls.”
“Do I catch him when he dies?”
Amina’s next words died on her lips.
Small on the bed, Jhazel stared at her hands fisted in her lap, and shook with repressed emotion. “He’s dead,” she stated, voice quieter but no less desperate. “Marius took him for a lookout, and there was a gunfight. Denny was, he was the – he was the only casualty.”
Death was natural. It was part of life, the counterpart of life. Amina had taught Jhazel to accept and even treasure deaths in nature. They had watched the dead rot and return to the soil, and seen how that could nurture new growth. Jhazel had watched the wolves hunt their prey and kill it, and had nodded sombrely at the way of it. It was normal.
Guns, shoot-outs, and the murder of an eighteen-year-old apprentice accountant were not normal.
“I raised him f-for six years,” Jhazel said, her voice sharp. Her breathing was speeding up. “I did it alone. Six years, from when he was twelve, he needed me. Then he – I watched him go. I waited, I tried, I thought he’d realise and come back or at least reach out to me. I was patient, I swear. It was – it was almost a year of waiting before I heard, and by that point h-h-he’d been dead for months. Fucking months, because Marius didn’t want the police involved, he just didn’t t-tell me and my brother’s-s dead, he’s dead...”
The peeler fell into the bowl with a clang as Amina moved forwards. She wrapped the younger woman in a hug. For several minutes, Jhazel only shook, like the last leaf of autumn being shaken from its branch.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured in Jhazel’s ear, the way she’d done when her mother had died.
Jhazel heaved one great, cracked sob in response, and began to wail.
He turned at the sound of her footsteps, instinctively moving his satchel behind his back. She’d already seen it, the dim dawn light no barrier to her perception. “Denny,” she said. Her voice was light, normal. “Where are you going?”
“I have a job,” he told her. The mop of brown hair that hung over his forehead didn’t quite cover his guilty eyes. He fidgeted for a moment with the zip of his hoodie before admitting, “It’s with Marius.”
“Oh, Denny,” she said, moving forwards. She reached for his hand, and he pulled back sharply.
There was a pause, as she registered the motion. Hurt seeped into her carefully neutral expression. “Denny?”
“Don’t,” he said, his voice tight. It was his tough-guy voice, but thin, undermined by a tremble. “Don’t do your, your charisma thing.”
She raised her hands, eyes widening. “I would never,” she protested. “I just want to talk to you. Why are you trying to sneak out?”
Her tone was mild and beseeching, but he screwed up his face, turning away. “Don’t,” he repeated, terser than before. “I’m going, okay? Stop trying to - stop me.”
“I’m not,” she insisted, still confused. “I’m not, I’m just talking, Denny. Please tell me what’s going on, why are you pulling back like that? Did... Did Marius say something?”
He opened the door, then hesitated. He glanced over his shoulder, suspicion and guilt chasing each other across his boyish face. It was a cocktail of emotion too severe for someone so young.
“He didn’t say anything,” he told her. “He hasn’t even met you. What would he say?”
She blinked at him, and sighed. “I don’t know, I... I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I’ll see you later?”
For a moment, guilt won out over the suspicion. He swallowed. Jhazel was holding perfectly still, hands raised, pleading silently for him to explain.
He turned away. “See you later.”
She watched him go, down the path, around the corner, and disappearing behind the brambles. She watched for a minute more, heart heavy with foreboding, and she forced herself to shut the door behind him.
Jhazel waits in the car. Denny doesn’t want her to come out, and though she dearly wants to meet Marius officially, she respects his wishes. She knows she’s liable to cramp his style, and the man he’s recently started meeting up with could potentially hire him for an apprenticeship. She wants to make sure he’s above board, of course, but recently he’s been insistent on getting more space from her...so she sits in the car, arms folded on her steering wheel, watching.
Across the car park, Denny is standing on the top step down from his college building. His backpack still looks so big on him, but she’s not allowed to comment on it. She smiles to herself, remembering his first day of secondary school. Their mother had been alive then, and Jhazel was the one in college, and Denny had grinned all over his freckled face at the idea of being with the big kids.
The freckles had faded with age, she reflected sadly. The big grin, too. The backpack is battered now, but it still serves its purpose.
Opposite Denny is Marius.
He isn’t a tall man, but he is big, heavy with muscle. Jhazel has nothing against that in principle, but she doesn’t like the way he holds himself. His shoulders are always squared, his stance always wide, and his gestures are large. He takes up space. Denny, shorter and perpetually scrawny, looks like he’s being pressed against the banister just by Marius’s sheer presence.
Jhazel’s eyes narrow as Denny speaks, his expression pulling into discomfort, his nose wrinkling. The bridge of his nose is the final bastion of freckled skin, and Jhazel doesn’t need to be close to know they are scrunching up into the creases of the expression.
Marius’s response is a bellowing laugh, loud enough that two heads turn elsewhere and Jhazel can hear it from where she sits watching. He reaches out and roughly musses Denny’s hair, responding confidently, shaking his head.
Denny looks uncertain, and then Marius adds something else, and the expression melts into hope. Jhazel’s heart sinks as she watches him brighten, his eyes widening and his mouth twitching in the beginnings of a smile. Marius keeps talking, and Denny starts nodding along, hanging off every word.
The next time Marius reaches out to bump him, Denny doesn’t flinch. He perks up further. His expression is all hope, hope without an awareness of its own fragility.
She doesn’t like this. She doesn’t like it at all. Marius talks, and Denny nods, and Marius talks some more, and Denny agrees and agrees and looks more and more enraptured.
Marius seems not to notice. He sends Denny off with a slap on the back that makes him stumble, and leans against the banister as Jhazel’s brother walks towards her across the car park. She sees the secret, shy smile Denny thinks is hidden on his expression, and the bounce in his step he isn’t aware of.
She sees, too, the way Marius smiles differently behind Denny’s back, smaller and more calculating.
Then Denny is opening the door, and she leans back, letting the intensity of the moment dissipate. “Hey,” she greets him as he thumps into the passenger seat, scuffed backpack dropping between his feet.
“Hey.”
“How was your day?”
“Fine.”
“And the meeting with Marius?”
“Good.”
She glances over, and he’s staring out of the window. He’s not even looking at Marius, so concerned is he with seeming disaffected.
“Okay...” She starts the car and pulls away. As they breach the main road and start the drive back to the village, she offers, “I saw the end of it. He seemed to like you. Don’t you think?”
“I dunno. Maybe.”
Talk to me, she pleads silently. Let me be part of this with you.
“Do you think you’ll work for him?”
“I dunno!” His voice rises sharply. “Leave me alone, I’m tired.”
That stings. You weren’t too tired to talk to him.
He slouches down in his seat, arms folding, nose scrunching up in his sulk, and Jhazel lets the silence fall.
Thank you @comfy-whumpee!! I was so excited to write this and get to borrow Jhazel!! Mariano would do anything for her, it turns out, and no one is surprised.
TWs: violence, human shield
Heart Racing | On the Run | “We’re being watched.”
It was always nice to visit Jhazel's cottage whenever they were in the area. The forest was beautiful, and the air always felt healing. How much of that could be chalked up to Mariano's increased sensitivity to magic was still up for debate, but he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Jhazel was wonderful company, too. She'd welcomed himself and Bastian into her home when they'd first met, helped get a deep wound tended to, and didn't ban them when the people who'd caused it showed up again. She understood what it felt like to have a history that you were trying to improve past.
Naturally, this meant that when they visited, Mariano and Bastian insisted on helping out as much as they could to make her coming weeks a little easier. Cutting firewood, helping prune the garden, helping with any canning that needed to be done, the mundane work was safe and familiar. Both of them took a sense of peace from it.
That didn't mean they were oblivious though, even surrounded by the safe, nurturing magic of the forest.
Mariano saw the subtle shift in Bastian's posture as himself and Jhazel worked in the garden. The set of Bastian's shoulders became firmer. His rhythm of splitting wood only slowed just a hair.
Mariano felt it too. A prickling at the back of his neck that sent tension creeping up his arms. "We're being watched." Mariano whispered as Jhazel nodded. She closed her eyes, and the smell of her magic--and the forest's--began wafting through the air.
In an instant, Mariano saw ten figures descend on the little cottage. "Get the witch!" They declared, triumphant and eager.
Mariano jumped to his feet, pulling his sword from his sheathe. He couldn't light his blade up with his magic, not here in the forest. Bastian couldn't shift either, not without risking harm to the trees and plants. That was alright though, he thought as he parried one swing and rent a horrific gouge into the man's side.
He needed to stay close to Jhazel. His own armor wasn't the best, mostly being leather, but it was better than not having armor at all like their gracious host. "Get inside!" Mariano shouted to Jhazel, grunting as his sword's hilt caught another strike from someone new. "We'll hold them off!"
Jhazel didn't make a move for her door though, only standing as the earthy smell of the magic of the forest intensified further. The wind almost seemed to shift as someone fell, catching a thrown hunk of firewood to the temple. Her magic was powerful, far stronger than Mariano's could hope to be. It seemed to require so much focus--but she knew what she was doing. He had to trust her.
Howls echoed through the brush, distant but getting closer.
Mariano finally overpowered his immediate opponent, sending him stumbling backwards. One more slash of his sword made sure that he stayed down. The wind picked up, the birds going quiet. All he had to do was guard their host. He could do that.
Bastian barely had a chance to shout before magic crackled past Mariano's face. The hair on the back of his neck rose as the smell of pure winter whizzed just in front of his nose. A mage.
Mariano whipped around, locking eyes with the most dangerous opponent in that clearing.
As a third swordsman charged in, and three more converged on Bastian, the mage fired another blast. This one clipped Mariano's shoulder, pulling a breathless gasp from him as he was sent sprawling away from Jhazel from a sword swing. The winter's grip made it even harder to keep his hold on his blade, to keep his coordination. He rolled to his hands and knees, managing to block another swing before it connected with his neck.
Jhazel had the final two swordsmen charging at her when the howls pierced the air again. Massive shapes tore through the brush, flashing teeth and snarling as they leaped to intercept the attackers. The men were brought to the ground with shouts, pinned beneath the massive wolves.
Mariano didn't get a chance to see if they were spared. The opposing mage had started to close the distance with Jhazel, brilliant light shining at their palms. She was a powerful mage, but Mariano knew how strong of a spell that was going to be.
The man struggling with him knocked his sword from his hands, and Mariano only just managed to keep his balance and break away from his fight.
There was no time to think. She'd done so much. She'd been so kind. Mariano couldn't let her get hit.
He barely noticed the wolves sprinting towards the last two targets, he barely heard Bastian roaring as he smashed his third swordsman into the ground. All Mariano could see was the horrible shine intensifying and the tell-tale finger twitch of a cast being completed.
"No!"
In a flash, in an eternity, in silence, in cacophony, Mariano only just managed to get in front of Jhazel.
A cold more pervasive than even healing magic cracked through Mariano's body as the spell from that mage hit home. He couldn't even scream as it ripped straight through his leather armor and clothes without being buffered by any of it. It sank into his chest like the rush of an icy lake and latched its teeth into his lungs. He dropped to the grass, breathlessly curling into himself as his limbs locked up.
Two more wolves took down the mage and final swordsman. Quiet descended again. As quickly as it started, it was over.
The intense smell of forest magic eased. Hands that felt like they were on fire pressed to his neck. "Bastian, help me get him inside." Jhazel? That was her voice. She sounded focused. She sounded okay.
Bastian's worried voice sounded next, and larger, even warmer hands carefully lifted him up. "That was some awful spell--you have a cure or something?" He asked, and Mariano curled into his hold, voice stolen by how tense his throat felt.
Jhazel didn't answer, instead the clinking of her rummaging through cabinets filled the little cottage. "Toss some more firewood into the fireplace." She said. "There's no cure for cold magic like that, just like there are no cures for any burning that your fire causes. But we aren't helpless."
Water filled what Mariano dimly recognized as a kettle, and the smell of wood starting to catch filled the air around him. Mariano tried to open his eyes, catching the blurry shape of Bastian's hair sparkling around his face.
"Sit, Bastian, right there. That chair should get plenty warm when this fire gets going." Jhazel said, as calm and unflappable as ever. "We'll get some color back in him soon."
The gentle clank of the kettle being hung over the fire told Mariano that tea was probably getting made. Her footsteps left, as Bastian adjusted his hold on Mariano. His legs were draped over Bastians, and both of his dragon's arms looped around his waist. When a blanket was draped over Mariano and tucked in around him, Jhazel finally seemed to be satisfied.
She sat beside Bastian in her own chair, one hand reaching to tug the blanket more securely around Mariano's knees as silence fell. The crackle of fire and warmth slowly seeping back into Mariano's skin lulled him. He let his head fully rest against Bastian's shoulder, eyes drifting closed. Everything was still too tense, it was too painful to even think about moving more than absolutely necessary, but as the minutes wore on that began to ebb.
"That was...brave of you to do." Jhazel said, when she pulled the kettle from the fire and started pouring the tea into a mug. "Here, Bastian, help him drink." She said, and Mariano felt Bastian's arms shift. Warm, spiced tea was brought to his lips. As he sipped, it started to thaw out some of the ice that still seemed hell-bent on eating through his vocal cords.
He sighed when Bastian pulled the mug away, and one of Jhazel's hands patted his knee. "I would have been alright, if that magic had hit me." She spoke gently, as though she didn't want to discount what he'd done. "...Thank you, though, Mariano."
It was easier to look at Jhazel this time, even as his aching body protested the small smile he gave her. "...Always." He managed. "You kept...kept us safe before. Wanted to return the favor."
Jhazel laughed, so gently that Mariano almost thought he imagined it. "Next time," She said. "You can just get me some preserves from wherever you've been."
Mariano nodded, smiling despite the gentle chiding. He'd make sure to remember her request. It wouldn't stop him from taking another hit for her if it was necessary, but...a little gift couldn't ever hurt, either.
