Chapter Text
I am so very tired.
It is the first thing Sarah Alder thinks after she steps out of the Mycelium. She is met with gaping faces that are impossibly young. Each in uniform and bearing an abomination: a silencing collar locked around their necks.
“Izadora!” one of the young women calls out and Sarah can’t quite recall that name. Finds it just at the edges of her memory.
A slender, pale woman runs into the room and blissfully, her neck is bare. She stops suddenly at the sight of Alder, naked as the day she was born, surrounded by a glowing cloud of wispy white mycelial spores, raven hair flowing wildly down her back.
“Sarah.”
Alder cocks her head. It has been so very long since she has had to communicate this way.
When Alder remains silent, Izadora approaches her slowly, holding her hand out.
“Sarah, can you hear me?”
She answers, as though testing the words in her mouth, “Yes.”
“Thank the Goddess. She was right.”
Sarah has no energy to question who she is. She has emerged because she felt a pull, one that had awakened her deep in the bosom of the Mother. A tether beckoning her to a world she does not recognize. Slowly, that tether had strengthened and grown, until its pull was impossible to ignore. Sarah is here to follow that pull and find its source.
Izadora thrusts clothing into her hands.
“We have to hurry, Sarah. We have to leave. They can’t find you.”
Everything feels painfully wrong. The lights, dimmed though they are, drill into Sarah’s eyes and the jarring physicality of her body grounds her, unwillingly, in this moment. She feels clunky in her skin, and the act of dressing feels both unreal and too real at the same time. As she changes, Izadora shoos the young women out of the room to give her privacy. Alder takes stock of her body as she dresses, flexing her fingers, moving her thighs, finding a long-dormant, innate sense of balance and physical grace that her mind had forgotten. Her body was as it had been long ago, before the modern world had dulled her fury with bureaucracy and politics.
She closes her eyes and focuses on letting her mind drop. Dripping down, peeling away flesh and bone and blood, until she finds her true core—tilts her head just so, until she hears the frequency that sits at the center of her. She reaches and stretches, exploring her tessitura, determined to find her capacity for Song and Seed.
When Izadora returns, she is greeted by a Sarah Alder she has never known. Alder is….wolfish, dressed in civilian clothes and a shearling lined jacket, surrounded by eddies of white and cloaked in the slightest hum of Work. Izadora has felt some of the most powerful witches of her age, has heard them lilt and croon and belt Songs that could destroy nations. The Sarah Alder before her is power manifest. Unchained. Wilding.
Izadora gasps as she meets Alder’s’s eyes for the first time. They are ghostly, wavering between white and crystalline blue. In the few minutes that Izadora has left her for privacy, Sarah has transformed into a predator before her. Proud. Potent. Steeled for what lies ahead.
Her voice is gravel but sure, “Let’s go.”
Izadora leads her through a passageway and suddenly they are outside in the snowy Massachusetts December. Alder stops. Looking at the sky she closes her eyes, embracing a winter’s cold. She missed this. Opening her eyes, she looks to the stars and knows with a deep-seated certainty that it is almost Yule. Alder watches her breath materialize in clouds of condensation. Hears quick footsteps approaching.
“They’re coming. Izadora, they know you’re here.”
Izadora grabs Alder’s arm.
“We have to go Sarah, now.”
“Who is coming, Izadora?” Alder questions, slowly letting her instinct for command seep and soak back into her mind.
Izadora tries to haul her towards the military truck that is waiting for them, but the older woman does not allow herself to be moved.
“We don’t have time for this. We need to leave. Now.”
Izadora’s frustrated, anxious demeanor irks her. But just as Alder is about sharpen her tongue, she sees who they are. A mass of men, perhaps twelve, heavily armed, all wearing those horrific corruptions. Those devices made from her daughters’ vocal cords. There are Camarilla. On her base.
Alder takes a step forward and Izadora whispers, “They control Fort Salem. Sarah, I’m begging you, we have to leave. While we still can.”
She can feel the fear in Izadora’s voice and in the witches that surround them. Alder knows that panic in her bones. But she has already fallen to the Camarilla, has felt the sickness of their plague dampen and quiet the song of the witches to whom she was bound. What more can they do to her? She has no fear of the past, nor of the death she might find again, nor of these shades masquerading as men.
Alder hears the defiled seeds that the Camarilla sing. Hears them demand that she submit to collaring and arrest. Before the mycelium, it would have been folly to try and combat even half this number of Camarilla—plague or not. Witches have died for far less hubris. But Sarah has changed. She has been tuned and tempered in the crucible of the Mother precisely to be here. In this moment. Alder steps forward and Izadora—unflappable, imperturbable Izadora—feels her jaw drop.
Alder’s Song blazes through the darkness. Her Seeds are incandescent as she hurtles sharp frequencies at the bastards who have presumed to know the limits of her power. As her mycelial light pulses impossibly brighter, Izadora shields her eyes and hears brief, piercing screams before they are enveloped once more in darkness and silence. As she glances towards the Camarilla, she is shocked to see that there is only ash.
Alder smirks, turns to Izadora with a trenchant smile, whispers, “Let them come.” Setting her shoulders, she walks to the truck. She glances briefly back at the stunned woman and asks, “Are you coming?”
Izadora gapes at her a minute more before she is prompted to action. Slamming the door, Izadora starts the engine and waits as Sarah approaches the younger women, who she now realizes are no more than children, really. They crowd around her, hero worship clear in their eyes.
“A blessing on you, my daughters,” she says, cupping the cheek of a girl no more than thirteen. The oldest is perhaps eighteen and could have answered the Call willingly. Before. Now, her Song is stifled by that collar around her neck. Sarah’s hands itch to remove it, rip it asunder. She yearns to teach these girls that their Voices are more potent than any man’s.
“Sarah we have to go. Now. Before they find out what you’ve done.”
Sarah stares at these children and suddenly says, “Come with us. All of you, come with us now.”
Quickly Sarah pulls down the tailgate and helps them climb into the back of the truck. She pulls the fabric cover down to shield them from sight.
“Sarah, we can’t. We’ll be lucky if we make it out.”
Climbing in the passenger seat, she grounds out, “Just drive.”
Izadora ignores her and pulls a lighter from her pocket.
Sarah, furious, growls, “Absolutely not.”
Izadora ignores her and in moments, her face is replaced with that of a man’s, presumably a Camarilla agent. Izadora turns to her, lighter in hand and Sarah grabs her wrist.
A deeper voice sighs, and Sarah hears her friend’s inflection in a lower, foreign octave.
“Unless you’d like to wear a collar or blast your way through five times more Camarilla, you’ll do this.”
Sarah does not release the other woman’s hand.
“Sarah, if you want to get those girls out, this is the way.”
Sarah Alder’s face is consumed in flame and in its place appears the visage of an entirely unremarkable man. Izadora starts the truck and drives towards the exit gate. She slows as the guards approach them.
“Let me do the talking.”
A man approaches and asks, “Pass?”
Izadora produces a piece of paper. He squints at the document as well as their faces.
“They’ve got cargo back here.”
The man examines their pass again, frowning and putting a hand on his weapon.
“They’re not fucking cargo,” Alder mutters darkly, pushing Izadora back in her seat and reaching out with her right hand. Her false face sparks and cinders, revealing Sarah Alder and a scourge with an eerie mycelial glow stretches out and wraps itself around the guard’s throat. Alder pulls back and the man crumples, his head garroted from his neck. Before Izadora can do more than gasp in shock, she climbs out of the truck and approaches the other guard. She unfurls the scourge again but instead of slicing through his neck, it wraps around it. Alder hauls the man back to her and kicks his feet out from under him. She pulls up increasing the tension until he is grasping at the line around his neck. Alder shows no mercy as she strangles him, remembering how her mother and sister struggled on the gallows. Slowly, his motions slow, weaken, and then stop. She pulls tighter.
She doesn’t hear Izadora exit the truck, but she does feel a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“He’s dead, Sarah. Let him down.”
The mycelial scourge disappears and the body slumps to the ground. Sarah sees a truck full of girls staring at her. But instead of the horror she expects, the horror she has seen in so many sets of eyes when her vengeful side emerges, etched on these young faces is hope. She turns to Izadora and murmurs, “Let’s go.”
They drive in silence for a good hour before Izadora starts stealing glances over towards her.
“Whatever it is, say it, Iza.”
Izadora turns her face to the road and lets out a watery chuckle.
“Goddess, Sarah. It’s so unbelievably good to see you.”
Sarah smiles, head down, examining her palms. She sighs.
“The worlds is….different.”
Her tone trails up and she focuses her azure gaze on Izadora. The woman glances at her momentarily before fixing her eyes on the road.
“The world has gone to shit since you died.”
“Care to fill me in?”
Izadora’s tone is flat and hollow.
“Not long after you…died, Silver had Wade assassinated. He blamed the Army—blamed witches. Petra tried to fight him politically, but…” Izadora shrugged and shook her head.
“He ordered her to surrender herself for arrest and detainment, but she refused. He called on the Camarilla then, to bring her in. She went down fighting—took out six of the bastards before the plague got her.
“After she died, he ordered every witch to submit to collaring. Old, young. Army, Dodger, Spree. Anyone capable of Song. He sent the Camarilla to Fort Salem as a show of force, said that they had to protect civilians. That they had to protect people.”
Izadora’s voice breaks, and Sarah lets her feel her grief. She has seen this happen time and again, has felt the world turn against them for their Gifts. She knows there is no comfort she can offer, knowing that the people you have tried to protect are willing to hang you, stone you, burn you. She lets Izadora grieve because sometimes that is the only thing left of the world you lost.
“We tried to hold them off, but there were so many of them. Those of us that could, we scattered. So many of us just didn’t make it.
“Afterward the Camarilla became the military. They conscripted any civilian man between 16 and 30 and they came for all of us. Collared anyone they could find. Murdered anyone who resisted. We thought—we thought they would actually do it this time….Drive our Songs and Seeds from the world once and for all. But it got so much worse. Sarah—I…”
Izadora is openly weeping now, tears falling freely down her face. Sarah is tempted to have her pull over to the side of the road, but if the situation is even half as dire as the other woman claims, then they need to put as much distance between them and Fort Salem as possible.
“The Camarilla like having the ability to do a version of our work. They like the power and the means of controlling who has access to it. But they realized quickly, that if they eliminated us entirely then they wiped out the source of their power too. So,” Izadora takes in a shaky breath, steeling herself for the last bit that lies ahead.
“They started coming after our children—girls who hadn’t been old enough to answer the Call. They had the Work in them, but never learned the Seeds. Couldn’t protect themselves. They’ve started gathering them, and once they turn 18—”
“They take their vocal cords,” Sarah whispers hoarsely.
Izadora, unable to speak, nods and drives. Sarah digests this new hellscape in silence. How in the Goddess has it come to this? And in such a short period of time.
“Goddess, Iza. How the fuck did things fall apart so quickly?”
“Quickly? Sarah—it’s been 10 years.”
Sarah pales, shocked at just how much time has passed. But as the shock settles, she studies Izadora and begins to notice the wrinkles and scars that are new, to her memory. Those girls in the back of this truck were tiny when their world fell apart. For three centuries Sarah Alder had held the world together, made a place for her kind, and in a single decade the Camarilla had hunted them almost to obliteration. And now? Sarah wants to retch violently at the thought that her daughters are kept and culled like cattle.
They drive for hours in silence. Sarah has nothing to offer in the face of such atrocities. About halfway through the night, Izadora pulls off onto a rural dirt road. She drives them through a maze of twists and turns, deeper into the frosty Massachusetts wilderness. As the sky lightens, she sees a group of cabins and slowly they pull to a stop. They are both exiting the truck when Sarah hears a whisper from a familiar voice, “Máà?”
Sarah turns and her heart is suddenly filled with bright hope.
“Ana?”
Anacostia is in Sarah’s arms in less than a heartbeat. She grips Sarah tightly as though afraid that she will fade away. The older woman cradles her head and quietly whispers, “I’m here, Ana.”
There were few people who understood the bond between Sarah and Anacostia. But for Anacostia it is simple. When her parents were killed and she was brought to live as a fosterling, Sarah had become her constancy. Slowly, she had opened herself to the woman’s practical love. The beauty was that Sarah was there, always. Dependable and sure. Her steadiness had given Anacostia a foundation on which to build a life, on which to ground her service.
Anacostia’s eyes widen when she sees the girls exit the truck.
“Never could do things the easy way, could you?”
Sarah laughs, free and loud, and the sound is radiant in the winter’s night. Anacostia’s face blooms into a grin.
“Now where’s the fun in that?”
Anacostia leads them inside the cabin quickly. It is cozy and looks lived-in, with a small Yule tree in the corner and a fire blazing. Sarah spies a small carved ornament on the tree, weathered with age, and her breath catches. Her fingers run over the small Alder wood sprite, and she examines the small etchings left by her father centuries ago.
“I tried to save what I could. After,” Anacostia breathes softly. “There wasn’t much time, but I needed to keep you with me. Somehow.”
Sarah turns to her daughter and whispers emphatically, “I am always with you. The love that I have for you is always here.” Sarah places one hand over Anacostia’s chest, pressing firmly. Anacostia nods, and Sarah wipes away a single tear that falls.
“We should get the girls settled,” Izadora presses gently.
It takes a few hours, but they remove the collars from each of the young witches. The three of them also see to the small injuries the girls have picked up. Sarah has to step away after healing a particularly nasty scar on one of the older girls’ backs. It will take more than a skilled Fixer to repair the damage they have endured. Sarah’s voice itches for violence, the way it hasn’t in over two centuries. Goddess help those shitty, shitty men when next she encounters them.
“We’ll get them out today. There are families, even civilian ones, that will take them. We try to split them up, keep the children as far away from each other as possible—that way the odds are better that some of them will be safe.”
The statement is bleak, and Anacostia’s face looks just as desolate. It’s clear that the choices she’s been forced to make have weighed on her. Sarah knows those burdens all too well. Knows how they force you to make choices you never thought you would. How you slowly become a person you don’t recognize. Sarah wants to comfort her, but she also knows that there are times when you reach a point of cynical practicality. When you’ve seen so much death and violence and careless brutality that hope wounds more than heals.
“We should head down to the kitchen—get them some food and figure out where they’re going.”
Anacostia and Izadora lead the girls toward a larger building, and while the sun has risen Sarah still feels the bite of the winter’s early morning. The light is soft but growing stronger and casts a golden hue as she feels the crunch of snow beneath her feet. Sarah hangs back, taking stock of this new world.
In this quiet moment, she is startled to feel…inextricably closer somehow. She isn’t sure to what, though. It could be to whatever has pulled her from the mycelium, but that tether has never felt this lustrous. Sarah lets her focus drift to that feeling and suddenly she is sixteen again, standing on the threshold of the house her father built. She has not been home in three centuries, but Sarah is staggered breathless at the sensation that she is approaching one. A place where she is loved, unconditionally so.
Sarah has not felt this…hiraeth for hundreds of years, this longing for a place that just isn’t real. Before her death, she had consigned herself to making do with Fort Salem. If not a home, at least a place where her kind could be safe and together. If not a home, then at least sisterhood. But the radiance of the sensation flaring in her chest assures her that place, that home, has been reified. That it’s somewhere close.
Stepping forward, Sarah pushes her questioning aside. As she approaches the cabin, she hears the din of conversation coming from the building. There is laughter, blissful childish laughter, and the sound of it makes her blaze with joy and suddenly she is forced to sidestep two small bodies racing out into the snow. She smiles as she takes a step inside and slowly hears the conversation die.
As her eyes adjust to the darkness, she finds familiar faces. Along with Izadora, Anacostia, and the girls, she sees Scylla, Adil, and the Bellweather unit. But Goddess, they are not the young, naïve witches they were. Then again, they have been tempered by horrors she had hoped to protect them from. Abigail somehow reminds her of old Jem Bellweather, standing together with Adil. There is an air of severity that has fortified the fire still evident in her eyes. Raelle still bears a pale white scar over her vocal cords, but what surprises Sarah is that Scylla now bears one too.
When her gaze sweeps to Tally, Sarah’s eyes widen. Tally’s face is remarkably guarded. The vibrant young witch she remembers is gone. In her place is a tenebrous woman with a dusky air of menace. Even though the woman must barely have reached her thirties, there are frown lines beginning to form and at once, Sarah wants nothing more than to see those youthful dimples and feel that joy thrumming through their connection again.
Tally’s eyes flicker up to meet hers and, in a moment, Sarah feels something begin to click into place. She feels that tether, like a single golden thread, leading right from her heart and straight to Tally’s. Sarah can feel an echo of the red head in her mind, the barest shadow of the link they used to share. The younger woman must feel something too, because her eyes widen and she lets out a puff of air. Sarah steps toward her, but Tally backs away and slams any hint of that bond closed.
She doesn’t have time to absorb how empty she feels because suddenly those two small, joyous bodies are rushing inside again. One small body runs straight towards Abigail and launches into her arms. Sarah’s eyes flicker back to Tally’s face, and she sees the oddest expression flit across it before she hears, “Mama!”
Sarah lets out a breath as she sees a child of no more than five stop in front of Tally Craven. A small child with wild, raven hair. With eyes the same crystalline blue as her own.
"Mama!" the child throws her arms around Tally's legs and the red head answers, "Yes, baby?"
Sarah’s heart stops completely when she feels that sense of home click entirely into place and realizes that her tether leads not just to Tally Craven but to her daughter as well. Sarah’s eyes meet Tally’s once more and Sarah knows.
Not just Tally’s daughter. Her daughter, too.
Their daughter.