Chapter Text
There’s something beautiful, yet sad about the time when autumn turns to winter. The world falls silent, as all the animals hide themselves away to slumber through the coldest time of the year, and the lake nearby freezes over, blocking the slow sounds of the water hitting the rocky shore until it unthaws again in the spring. Y/N can’t say she isn’t used to the intense sound of silence though, she has been alone since she was a young girl and winter will be no different this year than it has been every year since she last saw her mother.
It was spring when she had awoken to the empty apothecary run by her mother. She remembers these days well, even though they were so long ago. She remembers sitting in her mother’s lap as she categorized herbs in her leatherbound journal she promised would belong to Y/N one day, Y/N used to believe that journal held all the secrets to the universe, her mother wrote in it enough so it may very well have. She remembers drifting off to sleep to the smell of lavender and cedar as her mother worked on new potions late into the night. She remembers her mother guiding her hand as she practiced making sigils, her words of encouragement distracting from the arguably shaky and uneven lines Y/N was producing on the paper. She remembers admiring her mother as she went about her day, greeting customers with an air of confidence and kindness, how impressive she was when someone asked her a question about an obscure spell and she was able to just recall the information like it were a simple spell she used every day. Her mother was truly amazing. At least Y/N used to think so.
Now when Y/N thinks of her mother she is left with feelings of sadness, and confusion. She feels the sadness creep in with the loneliness she has felt every day without her mother, though if you were to ask she would swear she doesn't feel it. She would admit the feelings of confusion though, she doesn’t understand how someone could just leave their child if they supposedly loved them.
Y/N had spent her entire life up until that spring day studying the books and bottles that lined the walls, preparing to take over from her mother when the time came, but on that morning instead of hearing her mother muttering to herself as she mixed ingredients together in her cauldron or the chatter of a customer explaining the spell they wanted to order she was met with silence. She hadn’t been concerned at first, assuming her mother must have gone foraging for the herbs that they had begun to run low on after using up most of their stock during the long winter. However, when she walked down the spiralling staircase that led from the bedroom to the main living area her eyes had quickly zeroed in on a note sitting on the table in the small kitchen. Before this moment Y/N had never truly understood what pain felt like, had never really had to contemplate it in her young life, but as she read over the note left by her mother for the first time she began to understand. ‘The world is a terrible and cruel place and as your mother it is my job to protect you.’ Were her mother's final words for her. She doesn’t remember what she did immediately after reading the note, her next clear memory of that day is standing outside, still in her nightgown, staring at the thick walls of indigo mist swirling around her home, hiding it away from the rest of the world.
It took Y/N years to comb through all of her mother's books looking for an answer to why she couldn't pass through the mist or why it was even there to begin with. After about three years of a routine consisting of waking up, eating something, and then reading until she passed out she finally found the answers she was looking for. In an old tattered book she found nestled behind some of her mother's oldest astrology books she found a seclusion spell that when cast on a person or area would shroud it in thick mist, making it invisible to anyone who wasn't directly affected. In other words, to those looking at it from the other side of the barrier, all that could be seen was completely ordinary terrain instead of the beautiful apothecary she had called her home for her entire life. Those living in the village nearby may not be able to see the mist but they could walk through it, although it wasn’t often she sometimes would see people walking down to the lake to fish or swim, when she was young she used to try to call out to them, desperately hoping they would hear her but they never did.
Once when she was fifteen and out foraging she came across a man and a boy about her age walking through the forest, they seemed to be just talking but as they got closer she heard what the man was saying to the child, presumably his son. The moment she heard him speak she felt her blood run cold and only then did she realize the dark, murderous, red hue of his aura. When Y/N finally stumbled out of the forest that evening she looked up to find that the barrier was now a lilac purple instead of its previous dark indigo colour. To this day she doesn’t remember what the man said to the boy, she supposes her brain must have blocked it out due to shock, but she believes that it must have upset the barrier just as much as it upset her.
Y/N knew deep down that her magic was the thing that kept her alive, she knew that at eight years old without it she would not have been able to take care of herself. Of course, she would have probably figured it out eventually, survival instincts kicking in, but with the spells she already knew and the knowledge trapped in the many books her mother kept, it gave her a huge advantage. She had always been a quick learner and she supposed that the need to survive only amplified that on the days during that first winter alone when she desperately flipped through books on fire magic to try and figure out how to light the ornate fireplace which sat in the living room as she shivered and wondered if her mother was staying warm, wherever she was.
She shook herself out of her thoughts before deciding to venture from the apothecary. She makes a mental note in her head to collect the traps she left in the lake beside her house before the ice gets too thick for her to pull them out. She grabbed her wool cloak, throwing it on before heading out to start her day. “The air is getting colder again isn’t it Binnie?” She spoke to the sky as her breath danced in front of her face.
Before her mother had cast the seclusion spell she had had a friend from the village who used to come to the apothecary with his mother. She didn't know his real name but she had heard his mother call him ‘Binnie’ on the many occasions she would scold him for running off the play with Y/N without telling her. Now in the decade and a half that had passed, she would like to think she had gotten pretty used to the loneliness, but perhaps it was more that she just got better at ignoring the feeling. Those odd times that the feeling did manage to rise in her she liked to talk to Binnie as if he was there with her. This never did have the same effect as him actually being there would, but it did fill the silence. But as much as she hated to admit it she longed for an answer back, any answer. While she liked to believe she had bested the loneliness, she would give anything to hear another person, to speak her thoughts and hear other's thoughts in return. She used to try to talk to her mother the same way she talks to Binnie but it’s just too hard. After all, how do you make casual conversation with somebody you can’t forgive?
Her walk to the lake is a short one, when she gets to the rocky edge she casts a featherlight spell she had learned after falling into the water far too many times one summer when she was trying to set her traps in the water. Walking along the ice she makes sure to focus her magic into her feet. She makes quick work of the first couple of traps but as she reaches the deepest part of the lake and is about to teleport her last trap from under the ice to on top of it she hears a voice call out “Hey! Get off of there the ice is thin!”
Her head whips around so fast she feels dizzy. The feeling of fear immediately washes over her, people are scary enough when they can’t see you and she’s been plagued by nightmares of what might happen when they can since she was a child. Now it seems as though she’s about to live one of those nightmares.
Despite how impossible this whole situation should be there's a man quickly walking towards her swearing under his breath as he tries to avoid the thinnest parts of the ice. As she’s trying to make sense of the scene in front of her she forgets briefly to keep channelling her magic into her feet and she feels the ice beneath her crack. The man stops a few feet in front of her and as he’s about to speak again Y/N sees the world in front of her quickly jolt up and suddenly she’s submerged in freezing water. Seconds later she hears a muffled splash and then she feels strong arms wrap around her. His hands are rough, she assumes from years of hard work, and she can feel his heart quickly beating from where his chest meets her back. He’s holding her so tightly yet carefully that it almost feels comforting and Y/N’s head is still spinning. For the first time in fifteen years, she can feel the touch of another human being and all she feels is the ugly bubbling of dread creeping up her chest. She can’t explain why but something within her tells her that this man, while trying to do the right thing, has just doomed himself.