Legacies of Blood

Elaina woke to the sound of running water, birds chirping, and the warmth of a midsummer sun through the trees dancing across her body. Her head rested along a soft but firm surface wrapped in silken fabric. As she opened her eyes, a pair of fingers gently pushed some errant strands of hair out of her face.

“Ye’ve been sleepin’ for quite a while, darlin’,” a familiar female voice with a thick Caledonian accent whispered gently to her. “Thinkin’ maybe it’s about time ye’ be wakin’ up.”

Bearded Irises, lilac, and vibrant cranesbills filled flowerbeds surrounding Elaina as she struggled to get her bearings. Sunlight reflecting off the pond in front of her dazzled her, forcing her to squint as she sat up and turned around. There, sitting comfortably amid the flowers and clover, was her mother. At least, the version of her that hadn’t made her life a living hell.

“Mama?” Elaina muttered, her throat dry and scratchy. “How did you get here?”

“I live here, dear,” the woman chuckled, motioning vaguely around. It was then that Elaina realized where she was: the grounds of Ashreach in Caledonia, the generational home of the Woodlocks. “Yer the one who came to me.”

Elaina smiled, loving how the lilting accent of Caledonia sounded coming from her. It was thicker than Kaethe’s by a fair amount without becoming dense to the point of incomprehensible. “I don’t think so. I was on my way to Tenebre Dontae when---.”

The memories of the fight with Royce came rushing back to Elaina, arresting her speech and sending a shudder of sorrow and fear through her. Tears welled in her eyes as the sudden rush of emotion overwhelmed her. “Oh gods, Mama. I think I fucked up.”

“Shh, shh,” her mother said soothingly, reaching up to wipe her tears away before they got too far from her eyes. “It’s alright, darlin’.”

“No,” Elaina objected, grabbing the older woman’s hand and pushing it away. Emma Woodlock looked a lot like the older image of her daughters, with Elaina bearing a heavier resemblance to her than Kaethe. Her hair was the same ginger shade, and her eyes the same emerald green. Wrinkles had begun to crease her face around her eyes and mouth, but the older woman hadn’t lost much of her beauty. She was in her mid-forties but was already beginning to manifest streaks of white that heralded her transformation into an old woman in the near future.

“It’s not alright. You’re not really here,” Elaina sniffled, leaning away from the woman. “We were never like this. It’s not real. I have to be dreaming.”

“Aye, that’s a sound conclusion,” Emma agreed serenely as she turned her gaze to the glittering surface of the pond. “Whose dream, do ye think?”

“...Uhm,” Elaina murmured hesitantly as she took stock of her surroundings once again. Not only was there a lot of visual detail, but there was plenty for the other senses to latch onto as well. The smell of the garden and the water, the sound of the birds, and the gentle breeze that shifted the leaves of the tree overhead. “Mine?”

“No, darlin’,” Emma corrected with a smile. “Yer in mine.”

“You’re too far away for me to pull you to me with dreamwalking,” Elaina argued, shaking her head as she got to her feet. Only then did she realize that she was wearing a vaguely similar dress to the older woman’s. Whereas Emma’s was different shades of emerald and forest green, Elaina’s was teal and white.

“We’ve actually had this conversation before, believe it or not,” Emma said without taking her attention off the water. “Ye just don’t remember it. I must say, yer abilities have grown since then. It’s quite impressive.”

“We have?” Elaina muttered, her eyes darting around suspiciously. “When?”

“A few times since ye’ve left,” the woman answered. “But such is the nature of dreams, I suppose. To address your earlier concern: this isn’t ye doin’ this, it’s me. That might be why yer memory of it isn’t the best.”

“You?” Elaina gasped gently in disbelief. “You can dreamwalk?”

“I can,” Emma replied, finally turning her gaze toward Elaina. “Ye seem skeptical to the fact. Why?”

The swordmage shook her head as she pursed her lips. Her brows furrowed as she struggled to remember any previous time that she had spoken with her mother on the fact---either of them, really. “Isn’t it a trait handed down from my fae ancestry?”

“That’s right,” the older woman nodded expectantly. “Yer other mother was quite a nasty one about it to ye, but failed to ever mention that it was passed down from her side and not yer father’s.”

“She... didn’t fail to mention it. She actively blamed his side,” Elaina murmured as she recalled a few of the woman’s tirades over the years about how her father’s family had concealed it from the world and that she’d been tricked into sullying herself with fae blood.

“No, it’s most assuredly from the Mistsong side of things,” Emma laughed, tapping the side of her head. “Hence why I’m here. Dreamwalkin’ was somethin’ I played with as a girl but got out of as I grew older. There was too much goin’ on in my life to be bothered with it once I had a handle on things. But when you came into our lives, I thought it would be a nice way to stay in touch with ye’, seein’ as I can’t do it as much with Kaethe.”

“You can’t?” Elaina frowned. She hadn’t had any problems connecting with Kaethe.

“Aye, somethin’ about the state of her,” Emma sighed, waving her hand sadly. “The vampirism makes it harder to reach her most days. She has to be the one to reach out.”

“Oh,” Elaina grunted, looking around at the sprawling garden in the courtyard for a moment. It held a distinctly peaceful quality that she’d never enjoyed in her own home. “So we’ve done this before?”

“Many times,” Emma assured her, holding a hand out for Elaina to help her to her feet. The swordmage moved without hesitation, extending a hand to the older woman to pull her up. “Thank ye, dear.”

Emma brushed the dress off quickly before motioning for Elaina to follow her along the narrow cobblestone path that wove its way through the garden. “Did yer other mother ever tell ye anythin’ about the Mistsongs---of my side of the family? I’m assumin’ no.”

“Uh,” Elaina muttered as she struggled to recall anything substantive about Emma’s family. “You were a viscountess in the north, keepers of Graylight. The other you lamented how marriage to my father was meant to be a step up in the peerage but that it felt like a step down.”

“Charmer, that one,” Emma scoffed. “Yer father and I met at a tournament here. Rank and title had nothin’ to do with it aside from the opportunity it afforded him to compete. He was competin’ in the sword and cut a rather handsome figure, besides.”

Elaina’s heart swelled as she listened to Emma’s wistful recollection of her first meeting with Logan Woodlock. “That’s pretty different from my world, yeah. The other you was obsessed with rank and wealth. Besides the blood thing, she felt betrayed by what she felt was the squandering of the family wealth by my grandfather.”

“Oh, we had a bit of that as well,” the older woman laughed with her hand over her mouth. “But it worked out.”

“What happened?” the swordmage asked, pleased with the opportunity to learn about the family history she’d been so curious about.

“Harrison---your grandfather--- oversaw the restoration of Ashreach during his lifetime,” Emma explained, spreading her hands as she gestured back toward the keep and towers behind them. “He began when he was young and spent generously on it for decades. It was widely considered wasteful by other branches of the family and his contemporaries. But, as it turned out, his investment was almost prescient considerin’ the hardships we were able to weather in the years to follow.”

“Not to mention the boon to the economy of the local villages who’d been contracted to handle the work,” Emma added, holding up a finger. “It took time for the seed he’d sown to bear fruit, but eventually it did.”

“I would have liked to have met him,” Elaina remarked bittersweetly. “What happened to him?”

“Oh, he just got old,” the woman said with a little smile. “Happens to all of us eventually. He went in his sleep a mere two winters before ye arrived. Lyra was heartbroken, the poor dear. But he had no regrets. He was happy. I think he would have liked to meet ye too.”

“I still haven’t met Lyra,” Elaina noted. “She wasn’t at the castle when I visited.”

“No, she seldom is,” Emma shrugged apologetically. “Perhaps next time. She’s still quite spry and enjoys bein’ in the outdoors. She and Harrison shared a passion for nature and preservation.”

“Maybe she still feels close to him out there,” Elaina speculated, bringing a smile to Emma’s face.

“Why don’t ye tell me about what’s botherin’ ye?” Emma suggested as they took another turn around the pond. “I know I’m not yer real mother, but I am in all the ways that matter.”

Elaina felt a pang of guilt in her chest when Emma said that. It was a thought she’d had many times before, and it never stopped feeling terrible. Emma wasn’t her mother, but she was a much more pleasant version of her mother. She was the one that she should have had. “I don’t know, Mama. It’s all a bit....raw right now.”

“Ye’ve got to talk about it eventually,” Emma argued pointedly. “Is it about a woman?”

“Er, yes, but...” Elaina held a hand up to slow things down a bit. “How did you know?”

“Well, ye’ve got the equipment for it, darlin’,” Emma chuckled with amusement. “Only seems natural.”

“Mama!” Elaina exclaimed, scandalized. “That’s... not how that works, first of all. Second of all, I’d appreciate you not commenting on my equipment.”

“Tsh,” Emma waved dismissively. “Yer so self-conscious, dear. It’s rare, sure, but not unheard of. I had a great aunt like you if I’m not mistaken.”

Elaina’s hand shot out, grabbing the woman’s arm without thinking to turn her so they faced each other. “Like me? You mean---?”

“I’m fairly certain,” Emma confirmed, glancing down at Elaina’s hand on her arm. The swordmage released her quickly, her expression apologetic. “I would have to do a little research, of course. Back then, women courtin’ women were far less common, so she was very private.”

“But... what about everything else?” Elaina asked hesitantly, referring to her unusual anatomy.

“Well, she did have children,” Emma shrugged uncertainly. “They never spoke on it at length. Some thought she adopted and others assumed they perhaps had a priestess of Vida grant them a boon. But given what I know now, I’m fairly certain the children were theirs by blood.”

“Gods,” Elaina breathed, running her hands through her hair. It was the first time she’d heard of anyone else in the family being like her. But if it was Emma’s great-aunt, that meant there was no chance of ever meeting her. However, perhaps she could trace the woman’s lineage and see how things turned out. Perhaps she would find someone else with common ground in the bloodline. Did the children of someone like her all inherit the trait or did it remain an infrequent occurrence? “I can’t believe it.”

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Emma assured her with a gentle touch. “But it’s not entirely relevant at the moment. I want to know what’s troublin’ ye.”

Elaina sighed, shaking her head as she recalled the look on Royce’s face when she was holding her down. “It’s a long story. I don’t think I could get through it before I wake up, to be honest with you.”

“Well, ye’ve been asleep for a long time already,” Emma countered, resuming the walk around the pond with Elaina at her side. “Kaethe is lookin’ for ye along with yer friends.”

Elaina stared at Emma with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. Emma offered a bashful smile in response. “I’ve been keepin’ ye out of their reach for a few days now. I thought a little rest and time to yerself was in order considerin’ how stressed you seemed to be.”

“Thank you,” Elaina said quietly. “I didn’t know anyone was looking for me. I thought I was alone. I... suffered several wounds in the fight with Royce.”

“The woman?” Emma asked, growing visibly tense at the mention of the fight. Her serene smile became brittle. “You had a fight?”

“Yes,” Elaina replied shamefully. “I couldn’t allow things to go on. I tried to reason with her. I pleaded with her. I begged her. But she was hellbent on taking a darker path. I just didn’t know how violent she would get. She did something terrible...”

“What did she do?” Emma pressed, her brows knitting together in concern. Elaina didn’t answer right away, unsure of how best to sanitize the events in a way that didn’t further distress her mother. Emma wasn’t oblivious to the swordmage’s hesitation. “Elaina?”

“She hurt me, Mama,” Elaina answered, choking back tears again. “Bad. I don’t want to say it. I don’t think I can.”

Emma turned to face Elaina and wrapped her arms around the young woman, pulling her into a comforting embrace. “Alright, darlin’. Ye don’t have to.”

“I’m so stupid,” Elaina sobbed into her mother’s shoulder, a dam of messy emotions bursting under the soft touch of her mother. “I should have known. I was warned but I didn’t listen. I just wanted to be loved and be myself.”

“Yer not stupid,” Emma consoled the younger woman, rubbing her back with one hand as she held her. “Don’t say such things.”

“It’s true,” Elaina wept, reflecting on Resius’s warnings about Royce. Even Royce herself had warned her that it wasn’t a good idea for Elaina to become so attached to her. There was a small part of the vishanti who’d been looking out for her, and she still hadn’t listened. She’d barreled forward, allowing herself to get swept up in what she thought their relationship was rather than what it actually was. “She almost killed me.”

Emma’s embrace grew a little tighter, bristling at the harm that had been done to her adopted daughter. “Ye survived, and ye still have people who love ye. I love ye.”

“How?” Elaina objected, pulling away from her painfully. “You haven’t even known me that long. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me---everything that you’re doing. But what if you wake up one day and realize you’ve just projected all of your unresolved grief for your miscarried baby onto me? What do I do then?”

Emma took a step back, steeling herself against the hurtful nature of the sensitive subject and the suggestion Elaina had made. She straightened her dress out and took a long, patient breath. She was the exact opposite of Elaina’s real mother in so many ways. “How much did I tell ye about that miscarriage?”

“Erm,” Elaina sniffled, wiping her eyes on the back of her sleeve as she realized how far over the line she’d gone. “Not much. Just that... it would have been me.”

“It would have,” Emma confirmed. “I had yer name picked out the moment I realized I was pregnant. I was over the moon. I personally saw to the smallest details of yer nursery. There was no indication of complications---things were normal. Then everythin’ took a sudden turn. Within a matter of hours, my strong baby girl was gone, and I was lingerin’ at death’s door, wonderin’ how I went wrong. What had I done? Certainly, the fault had to be mine.”

“That’s completely beyond your control,” Elaina objected, specifically ignoring the parallels Emma was drawing between them. “It can happen even when you do everything right. You didn’t do anything wrong, and someone didn’t do it to you. It’s tragic but not your fault.”

Emma pursed her lips and looked away, her eyes glassy. “No, Elaina. Lyra was the one to attend to me---she studied as a druid in her youth before choosin’ to go another way. But she’s highly capable. She knows a lot about midwifery, medicine, salves, poultices... and poisons.”

A chill ran down Elaina’s spine, her eyes still burning with the threat of more tears. “What?”

“I was poisoned, Elaina,” Emma clarified, stealing a shameful glance at her. “We never found out by who. Or why. But Lyra recognized the signs. She’d insisted for years that her children hadn’t perished from mere illness. We wrote her off as half-mad with grief. How could a mother not be? Then it happened to me.”

“Who else knows?” Elaina murmured in disbelief.

“No one. Just ye and Lyra,” Emma answered, wiping her eyes as well. “We kept it secret. We knew how disastrous it would be for yer father to find out. He’s an excellent swordsman, and he’s learned to become quite the civic developer like Harrison, but he is not an adept statesman on a larger stage. Attemptin’ to root out rivals would have been the end of our house at a time when we were already stretched thin. Tellin’ him now would feel like a cruel act of opening old wounds that have long since healed.”

“You don’t seem very healed to me,” Elaina argued hotly, feeling a similar rage for whoever hurt her mother as Emma had felt for her moments ago.

“I am not tellin’ ye this to garner sympathy,” Emma corrected her. “I don’t want ye gettin’ the wrong idea. I moved past it long ago. But I couldn't believe my eyes when ye walked in the door that evenin’ with Kaethe. My heart swelled with such joy I could hardly stand. Yes, a part of me viewed the moment as a second chance, but I quickly realized how absurd it was. Ye were a grown woman, not a child. The second chance wasn’t mine. It was yers. Ye had a second chance to have a mother and father who gave a shite about ye---to have a family that loved ye.”

Elaina’s gaze lowered in shame, straying toward the pond, needing something to look at. Emma’s love for her was never meant to satisfy her own needs. It was meant to satisfy Elaina’s. She was there for her because she needed her. Even in the moment, Emma had drawn the swordmage to her across a vast distance to comfort her when she was at her lowest. “I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t... I wasn’t thinking. I’m just so angry---so hurt. I didn’t mean what I said.”

“I know ye didn’t,” Emma assured her, placing a hand on her arm and squeezing. “If I thought ye did, I would have thrown ye in the pond.”

“Heh!” Elaina sputtered with a grin, wiping her nose and face. “Don’t make me laugh.”

“Sometimes, you’ll do everythin’ right, and things will still turn out poorly. Sometimes, ye become the victim of another’s malice for no other reason than ye’ dared to live life as it should be,” Emma explained, pushing some of Elaina’s hair back behind her ear to tidy her up. “Sometimes, like Harrison, it takes time to see the grander picture. We can’t say. It is the will of the Wyrd.”

“I didn’t take you for one to put much stock in that sort of thing,” Elaina remarked with a little sniffle.

“Mistsongs are from the north. We share many beliefs and traditions with the elves and fae who live there,” Emma explained proudly. “But it also happens to be true. We have been given one another as a gift. Ye have been given the means to continue our line even when it was cruelly taken from Kaethe. I believe the Wyrd appears to be correcting these imbalances---these injustices.”

Elaina frowned at the thought, uncomfortable with a mysterious sentient force from another world taking a special interest in what was going on, specifically with her family. “Why us?”

“Who can say?” the older woman conceded. “It’s barely more than a feelin’ I have deep down. I could not explain it to ye if I had all year. But if ye need to come home and sort things out, yer more than welcome.”

“Elaina? Mother?” Kaethe asked uncertainly from down the path. “What’s going on?”

“Looks like I’ve been found out,” Emma muttered to Elaina with a little smirk. “Was bound to happen sooner or later.”

Kaethe looked up at the sun passing over them, smiling gently before approaching the two. “Have ye two been crying?”

“Yes, but everythin’ is alright,” Emma assured her, motioning for her to come give her a hug. Kaethe complied enthusiastically, warmly embracing her mother for several seconds before looking at Elaina.

“I’ve been looking for ye,” Kaethe informed her. “Yer friend Ryan is assistin’ me. But I guess we couldn’t find ye because ye were with Mother.”

“Maybe,” Elaina shrugged as she looked away from Kaethe, rubbing her eyes. “I’m injured and sleeping it off I guess. I haven’t been here long, but Mama says I’ve been asleep for a long time. I don’t know where else I’ve been.”

Kaethe shot their mother a look for clarification, but the older woman shrugged. “I couldn’t tell ye. I reached out to her because I felt somethin’ was wrong. But I don’t know where she was before that.”

“My body is in a church in Tenebre Dontae somewhere,” Elaina explained, trying not to let her mind venture toward the worst-case scenario. For all she knew, she could have been dead, and her mind had fled into the realm of dreams to drift aimlessly before Emma had drawn her in.

“There’s a lot of churches in Tenebre Dontae,” Kaethe sighed, exhausted. “Could ye be a little more specific?”

“No, Kaethe, I can’t,” Elaina snapped, shooting her a withering scowl. “I’m fucking unconscious, alright? You’ve got your prize, so you don’t need to pretend to care about me anymore. You’re free to go.”

“Excuse me?” Kaethe snapped indignantly. “I’ve been looking for ye non-stop for nearly a week! How dare ye say something so awful to me!”

“Elaina! Kaethe!” Emma interjected firmly, raising her voice to shut them both down before they could go any further. “That’s enough. I don’t want to hear this out of the two of ye, understand?”

The younger women began to object, only for Emma to jab a finger fiercely at each of them. “No excuses! I don’t know what’s happened between ye two. I don’t know who started it, but I’m finishin’ it. You need to put it to bed and act like adults.”

Kaethe and Elaina stole sheepish glances at one another before averting their gazes. Elaina felt immensely childish despite what she felt were completely reasonable things to be upset with Kaethe about. Though, for the life of her, she couldn’t understand why Kaethe was so upset. She’d gotten everything she wanted and only had the minor issue of cleaning up a slight mess.

“I’m sorry, Elaina,” Kaethe mumbled almost incoherently.

“Louder, Kaethe,” Emma instructed forcefully.

Kaethe rolled her eyes and moved closer to Elaina, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at ye, I’m mad at myself for being so wrapped up in this fixation of mine. It’s important to me, as ye know, but that’s no excuse for treating you like I have. Ye don’t owe me an apology. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No,” Elaina sighed, feeling a tremendous weight slipping from her shoulders. “I fucked up too. You’re not the only one to get so wrapped up in themselves. I did it, too.”

“See? Much better,” Emma chirped, clapping her hands together.

“Look, yer in a lot of danger,” Kaethe said, pressing through the warm moment before it even had a chance to take root. “As much as I’d like to spend time with ye here with mother, ye need to wake up. Yer vulnerable.”

“Royce already did her worst to me,” Elaina sighed mournfully. “I’m probably out of the woods.”

“No, listen,” Kaethe insisted, grabbing her sister by both arms. “There’s more. I can feel it, but I can’t explain how. Yer in terrible danger, and ye need to wake up right now!”