Dark Waters Rising

Gifts

"How are you feeling?" Wesley asked as he noticed Andromeda starting to wake up from where he had placed her in one of the armchairs. She blinked heavily, watching him lug a bucket of fresh well water across the room.

"Alive," she croaked as he set the bucket down beside the cot where her son laid unconscious.

As Wesley dragged a chair over to Valentine's bedside, he glanced at the man's mother and asked, "What exactly happened to you?"

Andromeda blinked and slid her gaze down to her hands. What was once smooth skin and slender fingers had turned into bony and gnarled joints. Her skin had turned thin, loose, and dry with sunspots that danced up her arms and disappeared beneath her sleeves. She combed her achy fingers through the ends of her new silver mane and almost immediately felt the urge to find the nearest sharp object and hack it all off. She hated having long hair. It was nothing but a nuisance, especially in the water.

Cursing under her breath, she looked back toward Wesley and grumbled, "I've turned into an old lady."

"I can see that," he smiled softly, dipping a cloth into the well water before wringing the excess out of it. "Was that part of the plan?"

"Not exactly," she huffed, watching as he started to clean away the layers of dirt and grime that were plastered to Valentine's skin. "But I can't say I'm surprised."

"You knew this could happen?" Wesley cocked a brow.

"I had my suspicions," she said. When Wesley sent her a quizzical look from the other side of the cot, she explained further. "Surface magic is unlike what we practice below. It's more primitive and... hollow, I suppose. We are taught to borrow energy from the world around us and to give it back when we are finished with it. It's a natural flow that helps to maintain the balance in everything. Most surface magic, on the other hand, absorbs magic and keeps it. I thought I had compensated for the effects but I must have misjudged it. When my reserves ran out the spell dipped into my trace."

Wesley's brows furrowed when he heard that word again. She had mentioned it earlier, but he still wasn't exactly sure what it was. He couldn't hold back his curiosity as he asked, "What exactly is a trace?"

Andromeda looked at him, then to her son. "It's a person's life force. Or their soul. Essence. Whatever you want to call it. It has many names, but in short, it is the part of us that makes us who we are. It sets us apart on the ethereal plane and gives us a place for our magic to reside.

Wesley was concentrating on cleaning up Valentine's face, but he paused in thought when her words hit him. "Does that mean there's magic within me?"

"There's magic in everything, dear boy," Andromeda chuckled tiredly. "Life itself is the greatest magic of all."

Wesley let that sink in for a while as he focused back on Valentine's face. When he was a boy, he had been obsessed with magic. His father would tell him grandiose tales full of enchantments and miracles almost every night. It was something they bonded over in his early childhood. Unfortunately, he had stopped believing in fairy tales when Waverly died. He didn't believe magic could exist in a world that let his sweet little sister suffer as she did. Now though, after seeing what he had, Wesley began to wonder how much of the magic in his father's stories had been true.

With a heavy sigh, Wesley asked, "Are the effects permanent?"

Andromeda shifted in her seat a bit before saying, "I have a few theories for how to reverse it."

Wesley nodded. He ran the cloth down Valentine's arm, comforted by the sight of pale skin instead of the magical inky tendrils that had once brought upon his death. When he realized Andromeda was trying to stand, however, he dropped the cloth and moved to her side. The woman waved him off, though she was secretly grateful for the aid, since her frail frame was quite a bit more exhausted than she expected it to be.

She hobbled to the wardrobe against the far wall and started sifting through one of the drawers. Moments later she pulled out a pendant housing a small obsidian stone. Clutching it tightly, she whispered a few words to it that Wesley could not identify. Then, she held the object against her chest, right over her heart.

Wesley approached her in silent question. He was dying to ask what she was doing, but since he was beginning to feel like an annoying child asking too many questions, he held his tongue. Luckily, she answered anyway.

"I think it'd be best if I don't use my magic for a while," she said. "It will give me time to heal properly and replenish my reserves without accidentally depleting them. I've trapped my gifts in this pendant so I won't be tempted to use them. I must ask you to keep them safe for me."

"Me?" Wesley asked as she held the stone out to him. "Are you sure? I'm new to all of this magic stuff."

"You have a good heart," she smiled kindly at him, deepening the laugh lines and crow's feet etched into her face. "That's all you need."

Andromeda placed the necklace in his palm and folded his fingers over it so he would hold it tightly in his closed fist.

"I must leave for a while," she told him. "There are a few things I need to take care of subsurface and it is better if I do them while my magic resides with you."

"What about Val?" Wesley asked.

"I'm entrusting him to your care. Tell him what I've told you. Help him regain his strength. I will be back when everything is in order. Understood?"

Wesley nodded, clasping the pendant around his neck and tucking it beneath his shirt.

There was a war on the horizon, Wesley could feel it, and this. . . this was the calm before the storm.

And gods would there be thunder.

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A/N

If you could live a day in someone else's life, who would you choose?

Happy Wednesday,
-Mora Montgomery