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slippinmickeys · 2 years

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Out of the Little Grove (18/18)

The work in its entirety can be found here.

“I must go back,” Samantha said, as they walked out of the Black Hills into a low rich valley with grazing bison dotting the vast expanse of green in the distance. “I must get back to Lake Skilak to ascend to the throne and tell our sisters what happened here.” Mulder looked stricken, but he nodded his acceptance. Samantha turned to Monica and Weera, who were helping Byers make his way gingerly down the path. “It is your choice whether to come with me or accompany my brother and his woman the rest of the way on their journey.”

“Will we be safe?” Scully asked. “On our own?”

“My mother’s spell, the one I sent into Alex Krycek, was ancient and powerful. No one will remember he even existed, nor those he hunted and why. No one will pursue you. Do you still have the Navajo ring?” She looked at Scully, who held up her hand, showing it. Samantha nodded. “Then you will have the protection of our clan. Help will find you if you need it.”

Monica stepped forward. “I will see them safely to Bowie’s Revenge,” she said. “And I’ll see their child brought into the world.”

Samantha gave her a warm smile.

“And I,” said Weera, standing tall next to Byers. “Will be staying with John.”

“I wish you both happiness,” Samantha said, and Byers, his arm in a white sling, looked at Weera moonily.

Thorcan had flown north ahead of Samantha, taking wing as soon as what remained of the group had stumbled out of the area where their balloon had gone down. Despite their injuries, they had all been eager to be away from the mystic hills and marched on through what remained of that day and into the night, settling before a fire only when the dæmons had once again found their voices.

Now Samantha stepped toward where Hendrick and Cassiana were sitting, side by side and shoulder to shoulder, a matching pair of spotted felines, Cass’s ability to change at will having left her in the form of what she was when Teena’s ancient spell died with her. She was now and would always remain a cheetah. Samantha crouched down before them and the three spoke in hushed tones.

Mulder lightly gripped Scully’s elbow, leading her down the path a bit more and away, affording them some privacy. They were a half day’s walk from the nearest village according to Bruno, who was riding the breezes in the air above them. Annie and Frohike ambled ahead in the lead of the group, Weera’s parrot dæmon Kinnick and Mia bringing up the rear, jumping from branch to branch in the treetops. Wishing to remain anonymous and away from other people until they settled at Bowie’s Revenge, when they reached the village, they would buy horses and whatever other conveyance was needed for the rest of the long journey south.

When Mulder glanced back over his shoulder a few minutes later, his sister was gone. Cass and Hendrick trotted towards them to catch up, and when she’d pulled level with her human, Cass looked up.

“She promised to take care of the dead,” the dæmon said, “to give them a proper send off in Lake Skilak.” Mulder nodded and turned to help Scully over a tree that had fallen across the path.

XxXxXxXxXxX

They traveled for weeks, months, always headed south, with new identities and papers that Frohike had acquired for them out of an abundance of caution; through the rest of New Denmark and further south, Scully lumbering and growing more heavily gravid with the weight of their child. They traveled until the mountains became plains, until the undulating hills were prickled with mesquite. On and on to a home where they would be safe.

“Texas,” Frohike said, when they passed over an unmarked border, and Scully felt something inside of her release. Still they pressed on.

When it felt like the interminable journey might never end, they crested a rise and finally saw it: Bowie’s Revenge, the ranch house as large and proud as its namesake.

The ground here was dusty and firm, the grass yellowish-green, abundant, stretching off into the horizon, only mottled with the scrub of sagebrush, which gave the air an earthy sun-baked smell, fragrant as a spring morning and dry as a moth’s wing.

The house sat on the prairie, a sturdy, proud building, timber framed and as brown as the mountains in the distance. Scully felt a kind of settling in her bones, a warmth that came from the earth.

From beneath them, the horses snickered and stamped their feet — they could sense the end of the road.

Mulder made a calming sound in the back of his throat and reached forward to pat the beast’s neck. Cass trotted on ahead of them with Annie. She could of course range far further than the others, and Frohike had to spur his horse forward to keep up with his dæmon.

“Look at this place!” Cass called out to Mulder, looking eagerly toward the house. “There’s no one here but us!”

Hendrick was walking slowly, as bone-tired as Scully, the feline shoulder bones of his frame trodding each tiring step. He slowed as Scully reined her horse and sniffed the air, scenting the currents.

“The boy will do well here,” Hendrick said to her, a contented look in his eye. “There is nothing but space and warmth.”

Scully sat up straighter in the saddle, her eyes casting over the horizon. It was a good place. Wild, free. Somewhere their son could grow without a care in the world. A place so far removed from the Magisterium, only the sky would be his limit.

She rubbed Albert Hosteen’s ring, her thumb catching on the chipped corner.

“I think so too, Hen,” she said.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The pains came on a Saturday, when Mulder and Byers were out in the south pasture, repairing a fence. Weera appeared at Mulder’s shoulder and put a gentle hand on his arm.

“It’s time,” she said kindly, giving him an encouraging smile.

He had stripped to his waist in the heat, and as her words registered, he grabbed his shirt from a fence post and tore across the field, Cass flying out in front of him like the very wind carried her. He was utterly winded and gasping for breath by the time he stumbled through the door to the house and into the large foyer at its entrance.

Frohike was making his way in through the kitchen to his left, carrying two pails of water he’d brought in from the pump and he proceeded to pour them into a large kettle that was steaming over the kitchen’s fire.

“Easy, son,” the older man said to him, giving him a bemused smile. “Catch your breath. Wash the dirt from your hands and face. Perhaps put on a shirt. The babe is not yet here, and you’ve hours to go helping your wife get through the birth.”

Mulder leaned over and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. He saw the sense in the man’s words and washed himself quickly over the sink in the kitchen before pulling back on the light linen shirt. Cass stood next to him, practically dancing with impatience.

Frohike handed Mulder a towel to dry his face and hands, and said kindly: “They’re in the back bedroom.”

When Mulder and his dæmon walked into the room, Scully rolled her head on her pillow and smiled at him, reaching out a hand, which he took. Monica was sitting at the foot of the bed, just pulling down the hem of the old nightgown Scully wore.

“We’re getting there,” the witch said, giving Mulder a warm smile. “But she’s going to need you.”

“I’ll be here for every minute,” Mulder said, leaning down to press a kiss to Scully’s damp forehead.

And need him, she did.

It was a long labor, and he walked Scully on circuits through the house, pausing to dig his thumbs into her back, the weight of her low and pendulous, the strength of her apparent in every wracking contraction.

Finally, with the two cheetahs watching from the corner of the room, Scully settled back into the bed and Monica carefully checked her. The witch turned to Mulder.

“I need you to either hold her knee or her hand, wherever Dana would like you best.”

“Hand,” said Scully weakly, reaching out to Mulder. Hendrick drifted over to stand at her other side, Cass standing back respectfully.

His son was born after the sun set on a late spring day, with a cool breeze gently fanning out the gauzy curtains that covered the window. He praised Scully and marveled over their child, shook Frohike’s hand entirely too hard and twirled Weera around the foyer until her feet lifted off the ground.

He ran outside and shouted the news to the empty prairie and Kinnick flew off joyfully with tidings of the birth, headed first to Scully’s family in Maryland and then on to Lake Skilak.

When Mulder finally came back into the room, the baby was wrapped in a bright white blanket in the crook of Scully’s arms and she gave him a dreamy smile. Monica wiped her hands on a cloth and backed out of the room with a silent, happy expression, closing the door behind her.

From outside came the lonely yipe of a coyote.

Mulder pulled up a chair and sighed blissfully, running his fingers through the hair at Scully's temple.

"How about we name him William?" he finally said, feeling like he couldn’t possibly be happier.

"No," said Scully, nuzzling the baby’s soft head. "I want to name him Lee."

Hendrick and Cassiana stood on the other side of the bed, looking at the child and his tiny dæmon, who was curled on her side in a tuck of blanket, covered in fuzz and barely recognizable as that of an infant hare.

“And she,” said Hendrick, bending his head toward the little creature and glancing once at Cass, who nodded at him, “will be called Hester.”

THE END

“Out of the little grove, away from the baffled Spectres, out of the valley, past the mighty form of his old companion the armour-clad bear, the last little scrap of the consciousness that had been the aëronaut Lee Scoresby floated upwards, just as his great balloon had done so many times. Untroubled by the flares and the bursting shells, deaf to the explosions and the shouts and cries of anger and warning and pain, conscious only of his movement upwards, the last of Lee Scoresby passed through the heavy clouds and came out under the brilliant stars, where the atoms of his beloved dæmon Hester were waiting for him.”

― Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials

#the x-files #his dark materials #fanfic #my fic #msr #au #prompt #out of the little grove

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a2zillustration · 8 months

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And then Gale showed me a magic trick and I went to bed.

[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

#I saved the druid grove SO fast bc I thought I was on a timer #turns out this should not have been like #the third thing I did #and these interactions probably would've made more sense if I was on hour 18 instead of 8 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 spoilers #croissant adventures #gale #halsin #wyll #lae'zel #shadowheart #astarion #he was such a little baby in this dialogue it was so funny #Y'ALL I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE KARLACH YET I DID NOTHING BEFORE THIS #tav #comics #gale dekarios

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ride-a-dromedary · 7 months

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Just thinking about the implications of this, but Halsin's way of indicating that his family has long passed is: "save for [him], [his] line perished a long time ago".

Aside from it being a decidedly more old fashioned and more eloquent way of indicating what happened (as is shown in shades in Halsin's speaking patterns, which is likely trying to illustrate his age as well as push the "wise mentor" angle), by stating that his line has ended with him, practically, it means both sets of grandparents are gone, both parents are gone, and either Halsin is an only child (unlikely considering Wood Elves, but possible), or any and all of his siblings are gone, too. And if you stretch what you consider part of a line, rather than just keeping direct, that could extend to aunts and uncles and cousins as well (though it's hard to say concretely what Halsin includes in a familial line).

So it leaves me to wonder what happened to reduce an entire elven line to one elf, when Halsin himself is only just approaching middle-age and he pointedly says it happened a long time ago, so it wasn't a recent event, and the lot of them likely didn't die from old age/natural causes. Was his entire village wiped out at one point? Disease or a raid or orcs or a wildfire or what?

#BG3 Musing #Halsin Posting #Halsin #or am i over thinking this and halsin's mention of familial line only means like he was an only child and has no children #and his parents are dead?#wood elves are largely polyamorous AND the most populous of the elven races #their families in high forest are often pretty big - and i would assume there would be multiple parents - so it's just a little curious #anyway catch me trying to decipher halsin's dad lore #wood elf villages often take council from druids in the area and they are highly revered - maybe halsin being one of the only elves left #was taken in by whomever it was giving his village council and that's how he ended up in the emerald grove #and then as a young druid he went traversing out and about #halsin's had to bury two families is what i'm saying no wonder he wants one - he is survivor's guilt squared #and if experiencing death is a milestone in how elves emotionally mature - halsin is likely an example of premature maturation #like i wouldn't be surprised it halsin's emotional maturation was screwed around too like astarion's he's just healthier about it #anyway tell me your secrets elf man or at least larian let me read more of halsin's journals

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robo-dino-puppy · 7 months

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the throne room

#horizon forbidden west #hfw #hfw memorial grove #hfw little details #don't look toooooooo close at the last pic lol #it's two shots sloppily merged together #because i couldn't get what i wanted in one shot #these are taken from the roof btw #so i guess this is technically #hfw out of bounds #out of bounds exploration #because it's a pain in the ass to get up there especially now #'cannot enter this location' oh yeah game? wanna BET?!

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duskbats · 2 years

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heidi’s little home in henford ⛅

#so i realised how much i'd altered the groves preset to make it more gameplay appropriate #but man i was missing out #this preset is STUNNING i totally forgot #also i'm so happy with her little blue bedroom #i plan on decorating the rest of the house similar to it when she gets more money #lot by sofythesim #ts4 #the sims 4 #simblr #ts4 gameplay #ts4 legacy #*v legacy: g2 #also very sad bc she's not gonna be able to stay here long :(#considering how big of a family she rolled forf

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lurakha · 9 months

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BALDUR'S GATE 3 ー scenery (1 / ∞)

#starting to figure out scenic shots a little i think #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate #bg3 #baldur's gate iii #scenery #gamingscenery #dailygaming #emerald grove #screenarchery #gamingnetwork #larian studios #game screenshots #video game screenshots #vp

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hassianlovebot · 4 months

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im thinking about reth/hassian...

#like on one hand lots of great opportunities for humor #on the other hand Lots of great opportunities for angst...#ough.....#im thinking of reth constantly going out to bahari bay to drop off packages and hassian always seeing him and being like.. the fuck?#and maybe it starts off a little enemies ish where hassian is like You Work For The Cartel You Freak #but eventually it progresses to reth breaking down and admitting that its all for tish and that hassian Cannot say anything #and if there's one thing hassian understands its familial love and loyalty #hassian still doesnt Like reth but he understands and he's not gonna rat him out #they form a reluctant friendship.. tau Loves reth and reth is always giving him treats...#hassian starts dropping off chapaa meat at the inn... reth starts giving him meals in return...#hassian eventually offers his grove as a resting place on days/nights that reth is making his rounds #oh man... hassian wanting to protect reth... OUGHHHHH #worms in my brain!!! get out!!!!!#and if i wrote a little reth/hassian drabble... what then...

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jacqcrisis · 3 months

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Sometimes the dialogue for Ronan is just *chef's kiss* exactly what he would say

Precisely. PRECISELY what this quiet bloodthirsty dragon man would say to someone he just spent a day in a swamp looking for an excuse to murder

#look at him. him handsome. love his little tendril goatee #this fight went well. wyll kept getting ensnared and ignored #and ronan had to help his rogue out of some vines we love to see it #you know that was a tense six seconds of combat #and he had to keep him from dying. again.#ronan's job in battle is the three B's #bonk. buff. bpick up astarion from the ground #i also like the idea that astarion started complaining about going back to the druid grove AGAIN #until ronan was like 'we're going to help with a change of leadership'#and suddenly actually yes going to the emerald grove sounds lovely this time of day why didn't you say #bg3

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the-woman-upstairs · 4 months

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Christopher Nolan’s decision to frame the initial meeting between Groves and Oppenheimer as a flirty meet cute should be enough to net him the Oscar.

#to anyone who thinks i’m reaching or projecting with this…pls rewatch that scene #and take note of how the camera lingers on Matt Damon as his eyes shift from distrust to reluctantly charmed #that’s not even mentioning the push-and-pull of their body language #christopher nolan #oppenheimer #don’t even get me started on cillian murphy pulling out that little smile #when it’s revealed that groves DID protect oppenehimer from pash #an underrated aspect of this film is how many absolutely insane relationship dynamics nolan manages to cover

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dent-de-leon · 10 months

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Hey!!! I just wanted to throw some Kingsley positivity your way because I love that tief so much. I hope we get to see him in liveshow! I want to hear about his adventures as Pirate King. I want to see how his relationship with Fjord and Jester has evolved over the years! I bet they visit him all the time. Getting up to all kinds of Darktow shenanigans. And if Beau and Yasha have kids now, I bet they think he’s the COOLEST uncle!! And he probably loves those kids soooo much because they’re Yasha’s kids and Yasha is his bestie. <3 Anyways ah I am always always thinking about Kingsley. Love him.

Aw thank you for this it made my day ;; MAN I DIDN'T EVEN THINK OF KING MEETING BEAU AND YASHA'S KIDS!! THAT WOULD JUST BE!! THE SWEETEST THING!! Thinking of how King gave Beau and Yasha flowers on that day he first woke up, how as Molly he tried to do a little magic trick to cheer up that one firbolg child and gave him one of his moon charms. Molly taking such good care of Toya...

Yeah, he'd definitely look after their kids for them. He absolutely brings them gifts whenever he visits--interesting little flowers and seashells and shiny trinkets that catch his eye. ALSO LUCIEN BEING SO SOFT AND HIS HEART MELTING AT THE SIGHT OF HIS NIECE FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME?? Yeah. Kingsley would be so good with kids actually and I can see Yasha and Beau making him really feel a part of their family. I need to see King in the Reunion just for him hugging Yasha and telling his Love how much he missed her alone--

And you're right it would be just so fun to see King with Jester and Fjord again! I can't get over the fact that they all sailed together for years, have spent longer together at sea than the whole of campaign 2 lasted?? That's wild to me?? They definitely have some stories to share-- AND HIS REIGN AS THE PIRATE KING! Would do anything to watch Tal play as King Kingsley, I just feel in my heart that he would portray this dashing royal rogue exactly the same as Molly pretending to be Duke. That alone would be just so good.

And then...god. The fact that it's a oneshot to rescue Caleb and Beau, how Molly specifically had such an important bond with both of them, couldn't help growing so attached to them so quickly. Getting himself killed in the Lorenzo fight because it was Beau he was trying to save, because getting cut down when all he desperately wanted was to live, be happy, be loved--it was all still worth it as long as he made sure Beau specifically got away.

Seeing her and Caleb getting attacked in the Lucien novel causes him an agonizing physical pain, because he just can't bear to lose them. The moments when his Magician reaches out to him over and over and briefly shatters Lucien's control, reaches back to Molly's tormented soul. Lucien taunting Molly over and over, gloating to him, "I've won" as the Eyes start to brand Rumor and Magician. "Your Caleb and Beauregard," he says. Threatening to take away two of the people Mollymauk cares about most.

Molly holding onto the memory of a forehead kiss in his most painful moments, seeing Caleb as "Softness and light." Still flirting with him as Kingsley. He held onto the journal Beau gave him, afraid to open it at first, but--he still kept it. For the day when he's finally ready "to visit and learn," to slip away to Beau and Yasha in the middle of the night and ask them about Molly, because he's scared he might never get the opportunity. Beau and Caleb just mean so much to him, even though he's not quite ready to admit it.

But still, for them, for the Nein--he wants to be good to them. Do right by them. Be a better person for them:

"I've been told that the best thing you can do is do just slightly better than them. And that's...Honest to the gods, that is actually what I'm trying to do. I don't necessarily know what it's going to look like. I have thoughts. Some that I think that either one of them might approve of, that you might approve of, and I want to make sure that you know that if nothing but out of respect for my family, for my parents, we always have a fair deal."

"Well, I've been thinking about it, and I've been trying to figure out where the other two went wrong..."

"I've realized, at the beginning, that I was running from everything that had happened before, and that's something that the other two had done and so it was probably something I didn't want to do again, which is why I'm asking..."

"I try and be a good person, or whatever I think that is."

I can't see King confessing all that to Beau and then not immediately running to her rescue. I can't see him not rushing to Caleb's side when he hears the man he saw as "softness and light," the one he called out to right after Yasha, the one first cast the spell to bring him back to life--I could never see Molly/King abandoning him either, in any life.

I understand why Decues would be an interesting choice too--and honestly I would be down for seeing Tal play them both if that's possible--but. I feel like he could also be very involved in the solstice in his own way, whereas King running back to the Nein makes more sense to me? From a meta standpoint, Cad has a whole arc of growth and a family that loves him, a reason to stay. An entire story. And King? Absolutely breaks my heart when he looks at the Nein and says things like, "I hope I deserve to have woken up surrounded by such people." "Maybe those chains will find some quiet in piracy." And perhaps the most damning, "What else do I have?"

He loves the Nein. Died twice over for them and wholeheartedly believes in cannon, "It was worth it. It was worth it--" Even as he tries to cope with all these painful memories and messy feelings, tries to keep a bit of distance and tells himself he has nothing to lose like the rest of them. That's not a character that's in a good place, a happy place. Tal specified at the end of C2 that he throws himself right into piracy as an escape, a way to quiet the nightmares of screams and chains. (King also visits Deuces! Because it seems like he has these little doubts. Fears. A pain that haunts him, that he tries to forget--)

He never had the chance to really grow, or change--but he's starting to. And it's so fascinating, it would be such a shame if that got cut off when there's really the perfect chance for him to finally do what he always struggled with as Mollymauk--not run away from the past, no matter how terrifying and painful it is. Yes, Kingsley is born from a Divine Intervention. Yes, Lucien is fate touched, and Molly was born under a Ruidus flare in the Savalirwood. All of that makes him such a narratively fitting choice for the Reunion to me.

But I still think the most compelling reason of all is that King finally has the chance to own up to the past and realize what he did in his final moments as Molly, as Lucien--he loves the Nein too much to keep running away. He has them, not nothing--and they're worth all the pain and grief of his haunting memories.

Also!! King literally being born in a dream of the Moonweaver, Sehanine saving both Molly and Lucien's souls?? Tell me this isn't the perfect chance to explore everything Tal had planned for Molly's relationship with the Moonweaver. Taliesin barely got to scrape the surface with Molly/King, and I get so sad whenever he expresses that he wishes he had more time with this tief: "I've been working on this [comic] so long. It's all that backstory that I didn't get to tell because I am bad at rolling." "Kingsley's different. Kingsley's a different thing, a different vibe. And I was sad that I didn't get to really get into...a lot of that last time. In two games--"

And again, I think Deuces could be doing fascinating stuff in the solstice, and it would be cool to see his side of it. But I would just love to see King spend that time with the Nein--and I honestly think Cad could have just as fascinating an adventure with his family back at the grove. Some Clay stuff from an Episode of 4 Sided Dive that I keep thinking back on in light of the Reunion (this was after the Uk'otoa):

"'Look I'm kinda stuck here working on a spell. And my house. That needs to be fixed. I wish I could help...' Caduceus is dealing with the fact that. Well. His house burned down 6 months ago, and--thank you all for helping--you did [help a little.] It was great. But Cad is actually in the middle of...Caduceus was tired. He's--he's in the middle of resetting the Blooming Grove, which also requires casting of Temple of the Gods, which takes every day for a year. You gotta sit. And do it. So getting away would have been a little tricky. And yeah. Getting him out of his house six months later would have been...[He's in the] same place. Every day. for a year."

"[It takes] the type of effort that someone who was originally going to live in this place for their entire life can do. But...getting away is possible, but it's very very hard, because then you have to have somebody cover. Somebody who can do that cover. And not fuck it up. So I was like...I cannot justify him buggering out of home 6 months later. He had already--well. He put in his time. He'll be back out again."

And right now Ruidus is shattering enchantments that have held for years, decades, eons. And I feel like that probably knocked out...all those wards Deuces painstakingly reset in the Blooming Grove...And there's going to be some fascinating new friends and enemies--like the ancient spirit Umudara--that'll be released from the chains that bound them for centuries. Creatures who are all going to flock right back to the site of Molaesmyr, and likely stumble right into Deuces' home.

My ideal personally very self indulgent dream: King in the Nein Reunion, and then another oneshot of the Clays confronting all the spooky things that crawl out of the haunted woods on a red moon night--

#tHANK YOU FOR THIS #every time i get a kind message like this just know i am very touched #sorry my head is full of kingsley tealeaf thoughts right now only #tal please bring my silly little tief home #hear me out what if tal just plays both cause king is visiting the grove during the solstice when he just starts gLOWING RED LIKE THE MOON #and he and deuces are both just standing there like ??? 'what the fu--'

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slippinmickeys · 2 years

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Out of the Little Grove (14/17)

“I think the first thing we should do,” Mulder said, adjusting himself on the bed so that he was lying back, “is just sit back and try to process all of this.”

Scully looked at him gratefully.

“And I don’t know about you, but I would really like to hold you while we do it,” he went on, opening up his arms, looking at her with hesitant expectancy. Scully shifted and eased herself into his embrace, feeling herself relax into his warmth.

She closed her eyes for a moment and felt the foot of the mattress dip. Hendrick and Cass had both jumped up and curled themselves into each other. Mulder sighed into her hair and she felt his fingers begin tracing patterns onto her back. She drifted off and when she roused to consciousness again, the door to their room was just closing.

She inhaled deeply and turned to look up at Mulder, who hadn’t moved. She was warm and pliant and ever so slightly dazed. “Everything okay?” she asked.

Mulder grunted an affirmative and took up running his hand over the plane of her back once again. “They brought up some food if you’re interested,” he said. Scully realized she was famished. She sat up and Mulder’s hand fell to her hip.

“How long was I out?” she asked.

“An hour or two,” he said, rolling up onto his elbow so that he could plant a kiss on her shoulder.

She smiled at him and ambled over to the table, looking over the tray briefly before just grabbing the whole thing and bringing it back to the bed. There was a small bowl of seeds and nuts and another of berries. On one plate was a selection of hard cheeses, which sat next to two ripe, round oranges that gave off a pleasant citrusy perfume. At the top of the tray sat a small bundle of greenery that was tied tightly with twine. Mulder reached forward and grabbed it, bringing it to his nose thoughtfully.

“What is it?” Scully asked.

“A bundle of chamomile, nettle and blessed thistle,” he said, setting it gently back on the tray. Scully ran her hands over the nubbly rind of one of the oranges, debating what to try first. He caught her eye. “They’re uh,” he went on, “a traditional pregnancy blessing.”

Scully felt her cheeks color and dug her thumbnail into the orange to cover for it. As she peeled, she eventually looked up at him once again.

“Are you happy, Mulder?”

He reached out and cupped her cheek. “I can’t believe you have to ask that,” he said earnestly.

“I don’t,” she insisted. “I don’t. It’s just-”

“All starting to seem real?”

She nodded at him, and popped a section of orange in her mouth, the juice bursting with sweetness. She wanted to tell her mother. Her sister.

As if reading her thoughts, Mulder let his hand drop. “We’ll get a message to your family,” he said. “Once we figure out our next step, one of the clan will send their dæmon.”

Scully nodded at him, chewing thoughtfully, then thought to ask a question she’d been wondering.

“Are all these women related to you?” she asked.

Mulder chuffed a laugh. “No,” he said. “‘Clan’ means something different to witches. Although…”

Scully turned herself more on the bed to better look at him. “Although?” she led, handing him the other half of the orange.

“I have a sister,” he said, popping a section in his mouth and continuing to talk as he chewed. “Much older than me. Young for a witch, but in line to take the throne when my mother… She was always kind to me, my sister. I haven’t seen her since I left to live in Brytain with my father.”

“What’s her name?”

“Samantha.”

“Do you think she’s here?”

“I don’t see why she wouldn’t be.”

“You’ve never mentioned having a sister,” Scully said, looking at him over another sumptuous bite.

“Yeah, well,” he said. “It’s not like I could ask for time off at work so I could attend her two hundredth.”

She gave him a small smile, and finally marveled out loud: “How is this produce so good this far into the arctic? It’s staggering.”

Mulder’s smile went all the way to his eyes. “Magic,” he said smugly.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The funeral pyre for Max Fenig had been set up in a large courtyard in the center of the palace, the sky above them the mottled gray of a dappled pony. Mulder’s mother had delivered a prayer and an ancient benediction and Mulder himself, as well as Byers and Frohike, had each said a few words as Max’s body was set upon the wooden structure by several clanswomen, the mood of the gathering as somber as the sky.

A funeral ceremony was a complicated affair, and Mulder had done his level best to walk Scully through most of the process before they attended, but there was still a lot of ritual that could be confusing without explanation.

“Afrikan dream root,” Mulder muttered into Scully’s ear. It was a relief to be fully open with her, with their Gunmen escorts. A part of him had unclenched when she met his mother, and he felt more like himself than he had in years. It was oddly soothing and freeing to share this part of his life with her. And for her part, Scully seemed interested in the proceedings, or at the very least respectful of them.

“It’s said to open the door between this world and the next, so that Yambe-Akka can escort you,” he went on, watching as a witch he had never met before was placing a bundle of plants at the four corners of the pyre. The body of Max rested peacefully atop a raised wooden platform, the witches of the Lake Skilak clan standing to one side of it and Scully, Mulder, Frohike, Langly and Byers standing on the other.

The witches’ dæmons were the only ones who seemed perfectly comfortable, the humans’ dæmons standing as far back from the pyre platform as their connections would allow. Cassiana stood back further still, joined by Jasper, who spoke to her as quietly as Mulder was speaking to Scully.

The witch attending the pyre moved to the next corner.

“Henbane,” Mulder muttered in Scully’s ear. “To envelop his spirit. Careful if the henbane smoke drifts towards you,” he went on, “it can cause delirium that’s said to last for days.” Scully shot him a look of alarm.

The witch moved to the next corner, a light breeze lifting tendrils of her hair.

“White sage,” Mulder explained. “To purify.”

Mulder watched Scully’s eyes follow the witch to the final corner.

“Blue lily,” he said, grabbing gently onto Scully’s elbow to pull her back several feet. They would light the fire in a moment. “For repair of the soul.”

Teena stepped forward then and muttered an incantation welcoming Yambe-Akka. Mulder muttered ritualistic words along with the gathered witches and bowed his head. A moment later he heard the whoosh of the pyre being lit, and Teena turned and walked into the palace, the assembled retinue following her wordlessly.

“We don’t stay?” Scully asked in a whisper as she took Mulder’s arm and followed the retreating mourners.

“He doesn’t need us anymore,” Mulder explained. “Now we feast in his memory.”

He had not attended many funerals in his time growing up with the witches of his mother’s clan – it was rare for a witch to die of old age or natural causes – but they had feuded and fought with another clan once when he was seven, just before the trip to Tungusk, and he remembered the funeral proceedings for the two witches his clan had lost vividly.

Teena turned into the palace’s great room, which had been lit with candles and set with more food than Mulder had seen in years. In deference to their human guests, fires had been lit in the two fireplaces on either end of the hall and the temperature in the room was comfortable enough that Mulder shed his jacket and helped Scully off with hers. They were seen to a long table nearest one of the fireplaces, and Frohike, Langly and Byers were sat across from them.

Mulder took a deep breath as Scully settled in next to him and reached for the wine goblet in front of him, taking a sip before he finally looked up and connected eyes with Frohike. Frohike reached for his own goblet and took a sip himself, each of them murmuring the clan’s wine blessing before setting their cups down and taking each other in.

“So,” Mulder said, finally breaking the silence. “I suppose I should ask what you consider your level of duplicity before I assign you one in my head.”

Frohike nodded at him. “You would be within your rights,” the little man said calmly, before looking over at Langly and Byers. “But I ask you to spare my compatriots. Byers had no knowledge of the details of my mission. He’s an old and true friend, who stuck with us out of a sense of duty and heart. Langly knew of my position with the Lake Skilak clan, but not of my assignment from its queen.”

Mulder digested this for a moment and then nodded at the two men. “And you?”

“I knew what I was doing,” Frohike said. “And I would do it again.”

“Is your allegiance to my mother so strong?”

“My allegiance is to mankind,” Frohike went on, his face taking on a fierceness Mulder hadn’t before witnessed. “And my life was and is dedicated toward its continued existence. That means that I will protect you, and her,” at this, he pointed at Scully, “and the life you’ve created until my dying breath.”

Mulder was a little taken aback by the little man’s fervor. Frohike took a calming breath. “I apologize that I wasn’t able to be completely honest with you. I promise that I will be going forward. You have my word.”

At this, he muttered a witches’ vow and held Mulder’s eyes. Mulder nodded once and leaned back.

“Going forward?” he said. “What will that look like?” Mulder was curious what everyone thought was going to happen.

“That,” said a voice behind him. “Is up to you and your woman.” A shiver ran up his spine and he turned around.

“Samantha,” he said, feeling a smile spread widely across his face. His sister’s crowned eagle daemon Thorcan flapped his large wings as he landed near Cass and touched his beak to her nose affectionately.

“Hello, Fox.” She looked no different than when he’d seen her last nearly thirty years before. A mass of dark curls that flowed over her shoulder and the same narrowish hazel eyes he saw when he looked into a mirror. He rose and threw his arms around her, her skin cool, but her smell the same warm cinnamony scent that plucked at chords of memory. There was always a sense of harmony around his sister, who could be as fierce as panserbjørn , but had invariably shown him kindness, no matter the situation.

“Samantha,” he said again, pulling back. “I want to introduce you to-”

Scully turned and made to get up from the long bench but Samantha raised a hand. “Please keep your seat,” she said kindly. “It’s an honor to meet you, Dana.” She reached down and formally shook Scully’s hand, then turned back to Mulder.

“May I speak with you?”

Mulder nodded and they moved away from the table and to the side of the roaring fireplace, away from the witches that were still milling about the great room, not having yet taken their seats. Cass stayed where she was by the fire, talking with Thorcan who was nearly the same size as the fossa.

“What is it?” he asked without preamble. His sister was never one to beat around the bush.

“The heretic hunter. The prophecy pursuer. He is after your woman now.”

Mulder’s blood turned to ice. “What does Krycek want with her?”

“The child,” Samantha said.

Mulder swore, drawing the attention of a few nearby witches. He took a deep breath and lowered his voice.

“How does he know?” Mulder asked her. “How does he know about the child when even we didn’t?”

“The Magisterium,” Samantha explained, “in Geneva. They have a tool called an alethiometer that can tell you any truth, if you know what to ask it. Alex Krycek has a talent for asking the right questions.”

“So what do we do?”

“You’ll stay here,” said a darker voice. Teena was standing only a few feet away. She approached her two children. “You’ll raise your child here, where we can protect it.”

“Have you been inhaling henbane?” Mulder said viciously. He saw Scully turn her head curiously towards them, and once again lowered his voice. “Mother, there’s no way-“

Teena looked at him coldly. “Fox, you know the power of the Magisterium. You once wielded it yourself.” Mulder felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “The safest place would be here. With your people.”

“Absolutely not-”

Teena held up a hand. “This is not the time or the place. Yambe-Akka is in our courtyard. We will have this discussion another day.”

With that, she stalked off and sat at the head of the longest table.

Mulder inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself and turned back to his sister.

“Samantha, I can’t ask Scully to do that. To live out our days here. I can’t ask my own child to grow up the same way I did. It’s cold. And it’s miserable to be raised with expectations on your shoulders. Even if you don’t know what they are.”

“Oh, your son can’t know what’s expected of him. And he won’t.” Samantha smiled at him. “No, he will be raised far south of here. Under warm, limitless skies.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fox, Mother sees much, but not all. Never forget that I have powers of my own.”

Mulder peered at his sister closely, and she cocked her head to the side, looking at him fondly. “She is right about the occasion, however. We can all discuss it in a few days time. You’ll have to change your names. Your identities. We have only to get you there, and then the spells of our clan will protect you all.”

“Where?” he asked. But she didn’t answer, only reached out and handed something to him, which he took into the palm of his hand. It was the silver and turquoise ring that Albert Hosteen had given Scully. It was warm to the touch, though his sister’s skin was as cool as the air.

“How did you get this?” he asked, but his sister only smiled.

“Return it to your woman,” she said, closing his hand around it. “And keep it safe.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

Scully slid the ring onto her middle finger, sliding under the covers of the large bed in their appointed room.

“I thought I lost this,” she said, marveling. “It came off when we were attacked.”

“My sister has a talent,” Mulder said, climbing in beside her. The fire in the room was crackling cheerfully and Mulder came to bed wearing only his underwear, the skin of his long body honeyed in the firelight. It took her a moment to look away.

“A talent for what?” she finally asked.

“The unexpected,” Mulder answered.

“What did she want to talk to you about?”

Mulder shifted onto his side, propping his head up with his elbow. “My mother wants us to stay here,” he said, sighing. “Raise the baby here in the clan.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,” Scully hedged. “We’d be safe-“

“It would be. It would be so bad. Trust me. I’ve done it.” Mulder flopped onto his back. “And I couldn’t do that to you. To take you away from your life. Your friends, your family.”

Scully sighed. It was sweet of him to think that she had a whole life she would be leaving, but if she took out work and Mulder, there was surprisingly little left. In the years since she began working with him she’d lost touch with friends, neglected hobbies. Yet she lived her life without regret. She rolled toward him and tucked herself under his arm, throwing a leg over his warm hips.

“I would miss my family,” she admitted. “Desperately.”

He sighed unhappily, and she splayed her fingers into the wiry hairs of his chest, her hand like a pink starfish over his heart.

“I take it your sister has an unexpected solution?” she asked.

“She seems to,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

It still felt otherworldly to be held by him, to take comfort in his warmth and know that she could have as much of him as she wanted. She traced a lazy pattern on his skin, feeling complicit, like an accomplice in some vast conspiracy.

She turned her head and pressed a long, wet kiss into the skin of his neck, feeling him stir to life under the leg she had thrown over him.

She tried to pinpoint the moment when her life had changed, when she swung wildly from the path she’d been on since birth to whatever this was: filled with magic and prophecy and a love so blinding she hadn’t recognized her misstep, if you could call it that. Was it when she stepped off the zeppelin in Nome? Or before that, long before, when she left the halls of academia for the bullpen of the police force? Or had it been that wild moment when she looked up from her desk to see a dæmon in the shape of an obscure golden mammal and a handsome man holding out his hand in introduction, telling her that he was looking forward to working with her?

Or had it all been written in the stars, eons before?

“Where are we?” she breathed into his skin, darting out her tongue to taste him. “Where are we really?” She meant the question in every way; physically, spiritually, in every way that counted.

“We’re miles from home,” he whispered in her ear, moving over her.

She rose up like their massive balloon, ascending to a place beyond thought, beyond reason.

XxXxXxXxXxX

He thought of the clan he’d been brought up in. Of his mother, of the other witches. They might know magic, but they didn’t know this. It was deeper and more secret than any spell, more effervescent than any potion, older than cloud pine and truer than steel.

Where their other couplings were furious with need, this was slow, luxurious, the slit beneath her red thatch of curls gripping him like a steamy hand. He moved within her like the tide, easing and moony.

Already she felt different, her concupiscence taking on a rounded, fecund quality that drove him nearly breathless, even if it was only in his head. Oh, but he would enjoy this.

He pumped his hips lazily while she stared up at him with half-lidded eyes, the scent of chamomile wafting over them like a sleepy fog; someone had put a brooding bundle under their pillows.

He rested his forehead against hers, closed his eyes and knuckled her clit until she was purring. Mulder sometimes wondered why her dæmon had settled as the tall stately feline it did, but in moments like this when she was pliant and affectionate, graceful and warm — her truest self — that’s when he understood.

“Like that,” she whispered, running her fingers up his sides to strum along his ribs, and he almost felt like he was shipwrecked on some tropical shore, rum-drunk and happy. And then the little port-wench beneath him turned her face into his and breathed a hot pant in his ear and the glowing embers within him ignited into a flame that threatened to engulf him whole. He grabbed her hip with one hand, the other still rubbing the hot felt of her at their joining, and he surged up with renewed lust. That seemed all she needed, for a moment later she was coming apart at the seams, pulsing around him like a supernova, powerful and luminous.

She called out to the heavens and he followed her there.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Teena was having none of it, and Scully could tell that her partner was taking a perverse kind of pleasure in his mother’s dissent.

“I forbid it,” the witch snapped, obviously unused to her will being crossed.

The night before, Scully had sat down with Mulder and his sister and had listened to what Samantha had to say. She was not a witch who could foresee the things that were to come, she had said, but she was a dreamwalker, rare among her kind, and she was told in the dreamscape what their party must do:

“You must travel south,” she’d said. “Farther south than even New Denmark. The journey will not be easy or quick. On a prairie in this distant land, there is a house called Bowie’s Revenge. It is on an old cattle ranch and the property is large. A good place to give birth. A good place for a growing boy. The house belonged to a lover of mine, who willed it to me when he died. I bequeath it to you. There is a magic about the place. A good, kind magic. You have only to get there, and you and all who live with and visit you will be safe.”

When Samantha assured her that this included her family, Scully agreed to the plan without caveat. Mulder said he would support whatever Scully decided.

And so they found themselves sitting before the queen of the Lake Skilak clan, with all of the witches in attendance as well as their five human guests, watching the witch who would become queen go up against her predecessor.

At Teena’s outburst, Scully could feel Mulder beside her, poised like a coiled spring. She could see the fury building inside of him, could almost feel it.

“Mother–” he all but growled.

“Fox,” the queen said, her voice wavering. For a moment, Scully saw the raw desperation of a mother who thought she was doing what was best for her child. She put her hand on Mulder’s arm, and he calmed instantly.

Samantha watched the gesture and raised her voice.

“You’re not the only one who speaks with the beings who pass between worlds, mother,” Samantha said, and with those words, some of the fight seemed to leave the queen.

“How do you propose they travel, then?” Teena asked. “The Magisterium’s most lethal hunter pursues them. And you’re proposing a journey of thousands upon thousands of miles.”

“A cadre of witches will escort them,” Samantha said.

“As will we!” shouted Frohike from where he, Langly and Byers stood at the edge of the room. The other two gunmen nodded at his pronouncement.

“And you think this fellowship will be enough?” Teena questioned her daughter. Something seemed to pass between them, and when Samantha answered, she was a bit more somber.

“I’m certain of it,” she said.

Teena sighed and leaned back on her throne. “Which among you will escort my son and his woman through the southern heat?” she called out.

“I will,” called out Samantha, followed almost immediately by Monica, who stepped forward.

“And me!” she said, with a kind look to Scully.

Several other witches came forward, pledging their wits and their bows.

“That makes six,” Samantha said, looking around at the other witches in the room. “My dreams tell me that we’ll need a full coven of seven.”

There was muttering amongst the various groups, when Teena rose from her seat.

“I will be the seventh,” she said, and at her pronouncement, there was a bevy of shocked discussion. Scully got the impression that the queen did not often leave her palace.

Mulder stepped forward.

“We will not survive another trek on foot through the arctic,” he pointed out. “And I cannot in good conscience foist a journey like this on a pregnant woman. Certainly not when winter is coming.”

Samantha turned to him.

“We won’t be leaving right away,” Samantha said. “Journeys like this require preparation. But you need not worry. We’ll not be traveling on foot.”

Mulder looked at his sister. “How do you suppose you’ll get us there?” he asked.

“Simple,” Samantha said, smiling at him indulgently, but kindly. “We’ll get you there the same way we got you here. We’ll pull your great balloon.”

#fanfic #my fic #msr #the x-files #his dark materials #AU #crossover #out of the little grove

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