Chapter Text
Angela Zeigler was running out of time. Already, she could hear the fire crackling and the villagers' angry shouts.
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Earlier that day.
Even if the day was to be spent mourning a man who deserved not to walk the earth, the atmosphere still seemed sullen and the sky extra grey. Angela Zeigler stood in front of a full body length mirror, struggling to clasp the back of her necklace.
“Here, let me.” Two warm hands covered her own and just as soon as they appeared, they were gone. Leaving behind the cool metal of the necklace.
The blonde scowled, “I can’t believe he brought me this, I mean, you would think he would know that I’m sensitive to gold.”
Warm lips pressed into the back of her neck as two strong hands framed her hips. “Maybe he just thought gold was fitting of an angel?”
Relaxing into her lover’s hold, Angela sighed a slight blush painting her cheeks. “You won’t leave my side, correct? No matter what the townsfolk say to you?”
A scoff, “Of course not.”
“Good.”
Spinning around Angela draped two pale arms over Fareeha’s shoulders, rubbing at the soft skin at the nape of her neck. “That suit looks good on you.”
Indeed, a suit looked quite well on Fareeha’s sturdy physique. Still, no matter how Angela looked at her she couldn’t see her as a man, instead looking at the places she knew feminine hips hid under padding, or small delicate breasts under a tight wrap-
“Are you feeling alright? Your face is quite red?” Fareeha asked, either knowing perfectly well the effect she was having on the witch and ignoring it, or she was completely oblivious.
“Y-yes,” backing away slightly from the woman in front of her, Angela busied herself by making sure everything she wanted to take with her was placed carefully in her satchel. “We should get going if we wish to arrive at a decent time.”
Fareeha followed her out the door, the house still quiet in the early hours of the morning. When they got to the kitchen area, a candle blazed to life and Ana Amari’s figure could just be seen sitting in a chair in the living room.
“So? Has it been done?”
Angela looked over at the older woman, turning back to Fareeha with a sweet smile on her face. “Take my things to the horse?”
Turning her back, the witch watched as the soldier dutifully walked out the door of The Hut and to where Hammond was tied.
“And, yes, it has. Fareeha has officially undergone the oath and become my familiar.”
Sighing, the older woman sat back more fully into her rocker. “I feel as though I no longer possess a position in which I am allowed to be mad at you.”
Angela felt a certain tension in her shoulders ease but one in her chest tighten. “And why is that?”
“Fareeha may be my daughter by blood but I’m not so certain she wouldn’t sever that connection if she could.” Angela moved so she was sitting across from Ana, still a distance away. “I’m not certain you’ve noticed, but my relationship with my daughter is quite...strained. And I’m afraid I’ve done nothing but push it to be so. Most of my young adult life I spent hating the man I married, hating the man who gave me a child, hating the child he gave me. I spent so much- too much -time thinking of Fareeha as another piece of him; that I never looked at her as her own person. She was- is -as much her father as she is her mother, and I...I believe I missed that. I spent so much time training you, training Emily, looking after Mei and Satya and Amélie and Lucio that...that I never noticed her. I paid no mind to my own daughter, my own flesh and blood, growing up, that I blinked and she lost her patience with me. I missed all the time she spent wrestling with Brigette in the fields, or the times she caused trouble with Jessie. I missed the nights when she went to Ingrid crying and confused about the ways her body was changing. I missed Reinhardt and Torbjörn teaching her to fight and sharpen swords. I missed her falling in love with you…”
Angela didn’t know what to say, a part of her always knew, understood that Fareeha and Ana though mother and daughter hardly spoke. But to see a mentor, someone she looked up to, cry and seemingly fall apart-well, Angela was speechless.
Looking up at her, Ana continued, “I missed out on so much of my daughter’s life, Angela. She waited for me, never once begged for my attention, just waited. But even the most patient people in the world grow tired, and eventually Fareeha couldn’t keep her life on hold for me. I-I may not like you making my daughter your familiar, but I feel as though I can’t stop either of you, nor do I deserve to. All I ask is that you-...just notice her? Pay attention to her, make her your first thought when you wake and the last when you fall asleep. Make her your top priority, treat her like you don’t deserve her; because trust me you don’t, but neither did I. Angela I’ve always told you I see myself in you, but please, be wiser than I. Your magic, it isn’t the most valuable thing, all I ask is you don’t use Fareeha as a means to gain power because that girl would try to freeze the world in place if you asked her.”
Not quite knowing what to say after such a speech, Angela simply nodded once sharply and then proceeded to join Fareeha.
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The ride through the forest’s rough undergrowth to reach the path found Angela clinging tightly to Fareeha’s frame, praying to a plethora of gods she didn’t believe in that the damned horse wouldn’t throw her off. Once they reached the beaten dirt of the path, Angela relaxed- slightly -and leaned her head onto Fareeha’s shoulder.
“Ready for this?” the other woman asked.
Angela sighed, “No, not really, but...I asked the choir to sing and I suppose it’s time to listen.”
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The funeral was full of guests who obviously didn’t wish to be there
-Angela didn’t blame them
However, the Shimada family cut quite an intimidating figure with their wealth and ruthless business tactics.
Just beyond the town’s sturdy shoppes and homes, past the point where the old stone paths turned to dirt roads, even further than the last farmhouse and accompanying field, the townsfolk gathered as a mass of black cotton and silk. At the edge of the graveyard, Fareeha pulled Hammond to a stop and swung a long leg off his back before turning to Angela with a smile and extended hand.
From afar Angela could see the old twisted willow whose weary branches covered the two stones she knew were stationed there. She let the picture overwhelm her, the way the old tree seemed to loom longingly from the earth, swaying slightly in the rain and shrouded in mist. She let her eyes stray to the shadowed headmarkers of her parents’ graves.
The tears flowed easily now.
“Ready?” Fareeha asked her. Angela could only nod, taking the arm offered to her. Fareeha even managed to look sullen on their walk to join the others. Standing at her placed, Angela managed a few particularly painful sobs that had a few women turning into the arms of their husbands.
No one wanted to see a widowed wife.
The preacher said a few words, although the grimace on his face was easy to see when he talked of Genji as a man of God. Surely he thought of those two bastard children born of whorish man and young, willing maidens. And then a few men were lowering his casket into the ground, Fareeha even stepping forward to do so, claiming “he was a good man, he made he happy,” to which Genji’s father clapped her on the back for; they shared a nod of solidarity.
Angela wondered how Ana had such a hard time realizing how great her daughter was.
Once all the dirt had been replaced onto the expensive casket people started to disperse. Women clinging to the arms of their husbands, feeling the air that seemed fit for funerals and the like. Maidens pawed at the hands of their friends, walking through the wet grass holding up the hems of their dresses. Lanky boys followed after them, offering to hold their umbrellas. Angela stayed, with Fareeha by her side, until it was her and the Shimadas.
The two eldest Shimadas, Genji’s grandparents, took the youngest and only remaining heir by the arm and led him away. (To his credit he didn’t look bothered in the slightest that he had just witnessed his brother’s funeral)
“Fara, a word?”
Fareeha’s head turned when her “name” was called, nodding and shooting a look at Angela before following Genji’s father.
The witch stood, hands clasped in front of her, staring blankly at the upturned dirt in front of her. She didn’t turn when she felt Genji’s mother walk towards her, and didn’t move when she felt the woman place a hand on her shoulder and lean towards her ear.
The witch felt the air around them was different, charged .
When she spoke it sent shivers down Angela’s spine, more than the rain that made her hair cling uncomfortably to her cheeks and forehead.
“I’d watch your back, witch .”
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Hammond’s hooves thundered on the road beneath his feet. The rain stung as it hit her cheeks but Angela didn’t turn away from it, just squeezed Fareeha’s sides and yelled “Faster!” over the wind.
The pair (and horse, a trio) tore through the treeline, the rain still soaking their faces and clothes even through the canopy of leaves.
All throughout her life, Angela had always thought that the woods- The Wilds -looked more like a jungle than a forest. But today, they looked every bit the dark forest they were known for. It seemed the sun had decided to take a day off as the sky was unusually dark, casting strange shadows out of the trees. Before Angela could really think about it they were at The Hut, Fareeha pulling on Hammond’s reins and the horse standing in the air to come to a stop. Angela was throwing herself off his high back, sprinting through the old door and continuing her mad dash to her room.
It seemed almost like the old house hated her, the hallways seeming longer than she remembered. Throwing the door to her room open, Angela all but ripped the black dress from her body, tightening up the corset and drawing up the long leather stocking she wore underneath. Grabbing her hat from the edge of the mirror the witch placed the item on her head before scanning the room desperately for her staff.
“Angela.”
The witch turned at the voice, frazzled and breathing heavy to find Fareeha in the doorway. The soldier extended her hand, handing the staff to her.
Exhaling, “Thank you.” Angela turned back to her room, slower this time, more precise in her wandering eyes. “...they’re going to burn me at the stake.”
“I know.”
“We’re- I’m -going to have to run, the hounds can’t find this place.”
“I know.”
“They’re going to kill me... hunt me like an animal .”
“I know.”
Frustrated, the witch turned to her familiar, her soldier, her lover. “Are you not afraid? Go! Leave me, run. Save yourself…”
“No.”
“ Excuse me? ”
Fareeha stepped forward, “I made an oath to you, Angela. I’m in this- with you -until the end. Not because I have to, well kinda, but because I want to, Angela. You’re not alone.”
A moment of silence before the witch threw herself at the other woman, pressing their lips together in a bruising kiss.
“I love you,” Angela spoke through tears, real ones this time, and closed her eyes. Drawing herself impossibly closer to her lover.
“Vana ahbak aizal.” ( I love you too-Arabic ….hopefully)
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Exiting The Hut, Fareeha untied Hammond, slapping his flank and telling him to “ run ” which he eventually did after some hesitancy.
Angela admired him for it.
Together, they ran through the bramble and undergrowth, away from the village. Angela allowed herself to be pulled along by Fareeha trusting the other woman to guide her away, to steal her away in the night. In fact, if Angela closed her eyes and pretended hard enough she might have been able to convince herself that Fareeha was taking her away in the night. Stealing her like a poor boy steals his loving maiden from her family. But then the shouts started and the howls of the hounds could be heard, echoing off the thick (thicc) bark of the trees around them.
Suddenly, figures broke through the darkness around them, close enough Angela could reach out and trip them. Risking a glance to see which of her neighbors had turned to her hunters, Angela was shocked to find Emily running beside her. Looking to her right, Amélie.
The witch felt new, fresh tears prick at her eyes.
Torches lit up her peripheral and out of the corner of her eye Angela could just make out Satya stopping and turning, her hands moving in that elegant way they always did when she conjured something. Orbs of fire sprung from her fingertips, three ravens flying around her, beams of fire shooting from their beaks. Satya’s specialty had always been summoning things, conjuring items at her will.
When the barking got closer Angela felt a nip at her heels and heard a *snap* as sharp teeth missed their target. From somewhere to her right Mei turned and made a slip-n-slide (not that anyone would know what that was yet…) where two dogs slipped and collided into each other. On her left she could see Lena stop and pull Emily into her arms, giving her a hard kiss before turning to a dog and facing the three hounds that came her way. Angela looked away when Emily ran to catch up with tears in her eyes. Looking over her shoulder at Mei one last time Angela was just able to catch a glimpse of Mei encapsulating herself in ice before a wall was blocking her view. Mei’s last words being a shouted, “GO!”
Angela pushed onward, her lungs stinging and heart pounding from both the effort and feeling in it all. There was an ear curdling howl of pain, and for a moment Angela feared what beasts may be out within The Wilds before recognizing that it was the howl of a dog. Emily had an accompanying wail of her own, Angela felt tears prick the corners of her eyes.
Clouds of thick black smoke gathered around their feet and Angela only spared it a glance before Moria was joining them, something Angela never thought she’d ever see. The redhead stopped and Emily rushed to her side. Together, the two stood back-to-back, wisps of smoky energy shooting from their hands, clouding around the first few figures that broke through the trees nearest them.
It dawned on Angela then, that she had never really seen Emily’s magic, and the thought of the situation surrounding her, that now was the time, made her heart clench. She found it oddly fitting as much as it was strange that Emily and her Aunt shared magic in such a similar form.
Shouts, human , shouts were starting to surround them, the trees alight with their torches. A flash of purple and Sombra was winking in front of her before Amélie stopped and turned, seemingly able to see the figures before they got anywhere near them dropping them where they stood. Purple light lit up the trees around them, Angela had to squint to make out Sombra and Amélie dancing in the middle of it. The blonde had always found it beautiful the way Amélie cast her spells, the way she danced through a ballet number only she could hear, her wrists flicking whenever a wordless spell tumbled from her lips.
They were starting to reach parts of The Wilds Angela had never seen before, though Fareeha seemed to know where she was running altering their course accordingly, never once breaking a sweat.
Loud thundering hooves pounded in Angela’s ears before Hammond jumped over a root, landing next to them still running with Ana and Ingrid on his back. It was shocking to see the two witches together, both dressed fully in their robes. It was terrifyingly beautiful, poet and strange all at once. Together, the two slid off Hammond, standing their grounds with their hands outstretched, positions of all colors strapped at their waists.
The light and sounds coming from behind them made Angela run a little faster, not quite sure if it was the townsfolk or her mentors that scared her more.
Then more shouts were calling from the trees around them, torch fire blinding in the darkness of the night. Angela found it unbelievable. Just how many people had been gathered for this hunt?
Before she could finish her train of thought Angela was being lifted into the air, reins pressed into her hands.
“W-what?” The blonde looked down, Fareeha was tying her bags to the back of Hammond’s saddle. “Fareeha?...” The soldier looked up into her eyes and Angela didn’t like the glint she saw there. “Fareeha...no, no please, Fareeha!” And then Fareeha was yanking her down by her collar to give her a quick kiss while pulling her sword from its sheath.
Angela could only turn and watch was Fareeha stood and faced the people, not a power of her own. Not a spell, nor ability to help give her an edge, even Lena could somehow warp time. Just as the witch opened her mouth to shout, call out, anything , a branch hit her in the face and that was all.
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When Angela woke, it was to the sound of a crackling fire and warm blankets around her. There was humming as two big hands gently brushed the fringe out of her face.
Slowly, Angela opened her eyes, almost afraid of what she’d find.
“Ah, Angela!” A loud, booming voice woke the rest of her foggy brain up.
Reinhardt.
“R-Reinhardt?”
A laugh that could warm even the coldest of hearts greeted her, “You’re awake!”
She couldn’t help but laugh herself, “Yes, I suppose I am.”
Growing up, Reinhardt had been that metaphorical German uncle she had never met until arriving at the hut. She only wished she could have introduced him to her father when she was a teen before her father’s passing. Just as Angela was about to say something to the big man, she stopped, sitting up.
“Where, has anyone else arrived?”
Angela looked into Reinhardt’s old kind eyes, surrounded by laugh lines that were weathered by the years. It was the first time she had ever seen the man look sad.
“It...there was just you, slumped forward on a horse. I’m surprised he didn’t buck ya.”
Getting up from the bed, Angela took in her surroundings. She was in a proper hut, this time. With thatch walls and ceiling, matted dirt as the floor. The place appeared to be rounded, with a fire pit diagonal to the door, with a table on the right side and bed on the left. Angela turned back to the giant of a man, question on her tongue when she gasped. Stepping forward Angela gently cupped his face with her hands that seemed comically small in comparison. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before, the scar that marred his left eye, which was now milky in comparison to his right.
“Reinhardt…” The words came as a whisper, and the big man closed his eyes, mouth forming a hard line under the white hair of his beard.
“The wars...it...they have taken their toll on me…” Reinhardt looked at her then, “I am no longer the spry young man you knew me as, Angela.”
Angela felt a pull in her chest, “W-why are you out here? Why not come back?”
Reinhardt laughed, not a boisterous as usual, “There is no place left in the new world for an old war dog like me.”
“What do you mean? Of course there is! We’ve missed you! I missed you! Ana missed you!”
Smiling, the big man lowered his head, “Do you know how you got here?”
Angela furrowed her brows, not sure where their conversation was headed. “No…?”
“That horse, his name is Hammond, no? He took you here. How?”
The way he spoke was not unkindly, however, it left a certain air of knowing that made Angela feel clued out. “But that horse is...is Fareeha’s…”
Nodding, Angela looked back to Reinhardt, “It seems everyone ends up here at some point. Fareeha and I, she never saw me. But I fought alongside her, and carried her here when she took a nasty blow to the head. As far as she knows, she woke up in the swamp with ten stitches in her head and more bandages on her body than a dead king in Egypt.”
“I- I don’t…”
“We-...I am but a relic of war. The shell of a bomb long since dropped. Fareeha, that girl is a rocket, do you understand? She got back up, has to keep going when she falls, but I...I am heavy and old. There is nothing left for me anywhere Angela. I have loved and I have lost. Given and taken. What more could anyone want from me? I direct travelers who get lost, help men who wander here away from it all to die. I am all that stands between this world and the next and I can’t say that I will be standing here for long.”
Angela let the silence wash over them, “So you’ve just given up? You’re content to sit here and wait out your days even while people still live who care for you?”
“It’s- you don’t understand, perhaps you are still too young yet to-”
“No, you’re right. I don’t understand. And I never will, because I won’t give up. You want to stay here? Fine. You do that, but I’m going to go save the woman I love, even if it kills me, because that, that is a fitting death. It means nothing to sit and wait, I thought you of all people would understand that.”
With that Angela attempted to blink away the tears in her eyes, quickly locating her staff, hat, and boots, taking them before storming out the door. She waited a moment, feeling lost and hopeless and every bit a child, tears streaming down her face while she listened for Reinhardt’s call, for her to wait and that he would join.
But it never came, and so Angela went.
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It was mid-morning, the fog of the swamp thick but the mud thicker still. Gnats buzzed in her ears and Angela grumbled, swatting at them lazily with her hat while struggling to free a pointed boot from the mud.
“Stupid horse...had to...take me to...stupid swamp...stupid, stupid, stupid-”
(I was going to write a little skit with a talking alligator but thought that would make this seem too much of an acid dream or like, something from Alice in Wonderland. Comment and let me know if you'd like me to put it in anyway. Basically, it’s just Angela meeting a few talking animals in the wilds while trying to make her way back, each kinda like a snake in the garden of Eden type of thing. Thanks!)
There was a neigh and Angela looked up to see Hammond standing at a bank in front of her. “Hammond?”
The horse neighed back, almost exasperatedly, and Angela had never been so happy to see a four-legged carriage of terror in her whole life.
Quickening her pace, Angela stood next to the horse in the black sand and smooth pebbles, mud caked up to her knees.
“Okay, I’m just going to er-uh ride you now...if that’s...okay…”
Hammond didn’t reply, but did turn himself broadside so Angela took that as an “okay, go ahead.” Trying to recall all the times she had watched Fareeha get on her horse, Angela placed her left leg in the stirrup, ignoring how awkward it felt, before swinging her opposite leg over and grabbing the reins to steady herself.
“I...I did it...Hammond! I did it! I got on a horse without any help!”
Neighing cheerfully Hammond jumped a little into the air, Angela felt herself grip tighten her grip on the reins and her heart drop to her stomach.
“P-please don’t do that ever again.”
Making a “pfft” noise with his lips Angela almost imagined the horse called her a wimp and then laughing about it. Before thinking that that was nonsense. Then she remembered just exactly whose horse she was riding on and thought that a possibility after all.
“Okay Hammond, take me to Fareeha.”
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By the time Hammond managed to take her back to The Hut it was midday day, nearing noon, and Angela knew she only had a couple of hours before they would start to do...whatever it was they were going to do to Fareeha at sunset.
Tying Hammond up, Angela reached for a nearby tree and gave him a few apples before opening the door, afraid of what would be waiting for her on the other side.
What she got was the battered faces of everyone she ever knew staring tiredly back at her.
“Angela!” Emily ran up to her, more limped actually, and pulled her into a tight hug. “You’re back! Where’s Fareeha…?”
Stepping out of the redhead’s arm’s Angela looked at Ana sadly, “I-I don’t know. She threw me on the horse and we got separated I-don’t remember anything after that. I think I got knocked out.”
Visibly, Ana seemed unshaken, and Angela guessed that to some degree this was the news the older woman had been waiting to hear her whole life, however, a certain mist seemed to creep into her eyes that left a pit deep in Angela’s stomach.
Surveying the room, Angela looked at the varying states she found her friends in.
Mei seemed fine, other than a few scrapes presumably from the brush. Sombra also looked relatively unfazed minus the small cut on her eyebrow. Emily seemed to favor one leg and had the opposite arm bandaged up as well as some bruising around her neck, but seemed too serious. Ingrid and Ana both looked exactly as Angela remembered them, and the blonde supposed there was something to be said about experience over youth. Amélie also seemed fine other than a bandage around her hand and bruising covering a closed goldeneye. Moira had a wad a gauze tapped over her left eye, while her right arm seemed to have been burned, not horribly, however.
Satya seemed not to have the same look at her left arm was gruesomely burned, all the way up to her shoulder and continuing a little onto her chest and neck. Even from where she stood Angela could see the way it glistened.
“Where’s Lena?”
Emily sniffed neck to her before gesturing weakly to a corner of the room. Lena laid almost completely naked on her side, in human form. Her entire body from head to toe was covered in bites and scratches, a chunk missing out of the top of her left ear. The worst part, however, was the hole in her chest. It looked like a gunshot, and when Angela knelt down by her side she noted it when all the way through.
“Some bastard shot her close range, probably not even a foot away. She’s lucky Ana got to her, it didn’t hit her heart but...damn near everything else.”
Angela stood but stayed looking over the girl, her heart clenching whenever a breath was a little late. Turning to face everyone she felt a new determination set in her bones, “I’ll be back.”
Emily caught her wrist, stopping her with one foot out the door. She seemed to be the only one walking-er, well limping. “Wait, we’ll come with you, we’ll-I’ll help you!”
Looking into grey eyes framed by freckles Angela found herself smiling. Emily had become something of a little sister to her over the years, a bond she found she was quite fond of. “It’s okay, I’ve- you’ve already done so much, I can’t possibly let you do anything more.”
“But-”
“Stay with Lena, be there for her when she wakes up.”
This seemed to do the trick as the redhead loosened her grip and looked to the floor. Angela pulled her into a hug.
A nose tickled at her neck and she felt Emily’s breath as she whispered, “Please, be safe.”
Pulling away Angela took a step out the door, not daring to make a promise she didn’t think she could keep.
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Angela Zeigler was running out of time. Already, she could hear the fire crackling and the villigers’ angry shouts.
Hammond’s hooves cracked like lighting on the cobblestone paths of the village she once thought of as home. Looking towards the sky, Angela could see smoke billowing up in a mighty column, almost like a beacon of doom.
“Faster!”
When she rode into the town square no one noticed her, everyone far to focused on watching the pyre’s light up in front of them. Three huge masses of wood were built up almost four feet tall, all surrounding a wooden cross which Fareeha was unfortunately tied to.
Her head was rolled onto her shoulder, both of her wrists bound on the beams at her sides. Limply she hung there, shirt untucked from her pants, hat nowhere to be seen and her hair free.
Angela thought she looked beautiful.
Slipping off Hammond, the witch quietly guided him over into the shadows, telling him to be quiet before sneaking her way towards her love.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Today you are here to witness the burning of one wench not from our lands! She is to be burned for committing the crime of hiding a witch, helping a witch, and being the consort of a witch!”
Three pyres, three “crimes”...it made her sick to think about how many she'd have.
Pausing at the “consort” the witch thought for a moment, before remembering every familiar had some sort of marking, almost like a tattoo to show which witch they belonged to. Briefly, Angela wondered what Fareeha’s mark looked like.
Shaking her head to clear it, the witch continued to sneak forward, hand flexing around her staff as she got closer.
Without warning, the pyres were lit further with alcohol and Fareeha’s head shot up, looking towards the sky Angela was surprised at the serenity she saw on her face. Underneath the bruises and dirt, a look of peace graced her features.
“Stop!”
All heads turned to Angela as she stood in the center of the crowd, some stepping away, other drawing weapons. “Release her! She’s not a witch!”
Someone shouted, “But she was ah kissin’ one!”
Another, “She helped one!”
A third, “She was a dressed as a man!”
The shouting grew until Angela raised her staff, the fires died and she flew.
Huh, never flown before, I guess that’s the extra power from Fareeha. Thanks, Liebling (roughly ‘love’)
When she landed it was a simple spell, and Fareeha dropped to the ground, limp and unmoving. Figuring a jackal was easier to carry than a soldier, Angela quickly muttered the charm to turn Fareeha into her familiar form before whistling for Hammond .
There were many gasps of surprise when the large tawny horse came charging through the crowd, however, many men were starting to move towards the witch with their weapons raised.
“Stand back witch!’
“Put yer weapon away!”
Quickly, Angela lifted Fareeha-with great effort-onto the horse before mounting herself. As much as she wanted to fight back, she knew Fareeha wouldn’t want her to. So, digging her heels into Hammond’s side, the witch rode off into the night.
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As it turned out, Fareeha had bruised ribs, as well as a broken arm and foot. And given the girl’s lack of consciousness, maybe a pretty bad concussion too.
Angela sat in a rocker by her bedside, changing the herbal wraps around her torso when needed, as well as making sure her right foot stayed elevated. The mug in her hands was warm, and the bags under her eyes dark.
“Angela?”
Sluggishly, the blonde looked up to find Ana in the doorway, a strange looked on the older woman’s face. Without answering, Angela nodded her acknowledgment. Ana smiled then, but only a little. “You won’t believe who showed up at the door this morning.”
Not even a lack of sleep, it seemed, could deter Angela’s curiosity. “Who?”
“Reinhardt.” Ana was talking with her hands, something the blonde had never seen her do before. “Something about having a change of heart after all these years, can you believe it?”
A small smile made its way to Angela’s lips, “You don’t say?”
“Can you believe it? That old crusader is still alive!”
The witch stilled, she had heard the term before, of course, but somehow this time was different. “Crusader...as in, Jerusalem Crusader?”
Ana must have caught on to her train of thought, “Why yes, what else? How young do you think we are, child?”
It was something Angela had thought about before, Ana seemed to know the answer to anything, sometimes giving information a little too close to a first hand account. Ingrid was always very quiet, observing, but read people well, almost like she had spent lifetimes learning too. And then there was Mei, who looked younger than maybe even herself, but she knew for a fact the other woman was somehow one of the oldest beings there was.
“I-but he’d have to be nearly two-hundred years old!”
The smile Ana gave her then was even more unsettling, “Mm, tell me, child, do I look as old as you think I am?”
Angela stared at the woman, not quite sure she was seeing her correctly, as Ana now seemed to have smoother skin, and long black hair instead of grey. She looked every bit the woman Angela first met when she stumbled upon The Hut.
“I-...what?”
Chuckling, Ana turned and walked out the door, now back to silvery grey hair and weathered skin, “What? Did you think you would ever be done learning?”
It was true, when Angela had deemed herself old and well learned enough she had simply said so and walked out the door. In fact, Ana had laughed just now as she did then.
Grumbling to herself Angela sunk further into her chair, taking a sip of her tea. “Witches and their spells…”
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Two days later Fareeha woke up, proclaiming herself dead because Angela looked like an angel. Angela had smiled and laughed, kissing the girl on the forehead because “of course you’d wake up with a pick-up line on the tip of your tongue”.
They had had a celebration of sorts, when Lena woke up in the few days following, with Reinhardt’s presence the mood seemed even lighter. However, there were still tears even in these newly mended seams. Moira now wore an eye covering, much like Ana’s own, and Satya always wore something covering the entirety of her left arm. One of Amélie’s fingers now seemed to bend a bit more awkward than the others, and Emily seemed to have a slight limp that wouldn’t go away. Fareeha’s left arm was in a sling, much like her right foot was in a bandage but she would heal fine, other than a bit of an uneven landscape when it came to her ribs. Lena was by far the worst off, bone fragments were removed from her chest, leaving her with a garish looking dent in the center of her chest at back. And there was always a slight rattle to her breathing, the likes of which Angela knew disturbed Emily. Angela herself didn’t have many markings in the ways of combat, however, there was a tiny scar running from the top of her left temple to the start of her cheekbone.
And, a few years later after Emily and Lena’s marriage, which a boisterous Reinhardt was the officiant for, Angela and Fareeha moved out of The Hut and into a cottage just a magical, built by the latter of the two. Angela, however, had learned the spells from Ana. Together, the two made a place for the orphaned children of Gibraltar to stay, teaching them until they were either old enough to go out onto their own or somehow met people in the town who were looking for children.
One day, out of the blue, when there currently aren't any children under their care, Fareeha got down on one knee and asked Angela to marry her.
The witch had been hunched over a new spellbook, one borrowed from the large expanse that was Ana’s library, when the soldier had tapped her shoulder and stopped down on one knee.
“Angela, care to let me make another oath and vow to you?”
The witch had, of course, said yes.
And later that day, when they had been tangled between sheets, Angela learned that Fareeha's mark was a halo and wings marring the skin over her heart.