WHO: Phoebe Wu WHEN: Very early in the morning of November 17 WHERE: Her bedroom SUMMARY: Phoebe has a particularly awful dream and finds that she brought a physical change with it. WARNINGS: None of the events from the memory are actually written out, but the violence and mutilation from it is alluded to quite heavily. Very heavy in general. Obviously spoilers for the ToG series, if you're worried about that.
It was hard for Phoebe to tell just what had woken her -- the phantom pain that seemed to linger in her every extremity or simply the shock of the images that had just played out in her subconscious.
She didn't want to relive the memories. Even as she lay in her bed, curled on her side with her knees pulled to her chest and tears wetting her cheeks, Phoebe struggled to keep the images at bay. For as plagued as she felt by most of the memories that she saw of Asterin, she was usually able to weigh them against the goodness that she felt existed within the woman -- her loyalty to the Thirteen, her love for Manon, the joy that she felt as she flew through the skies. They didn't erase some of the more gruesome acts that she, along with the other women that she so fiercely cared for, took part in, but they were something that she could focus on.
Now, though, there was nothing good to focus on. There was only pain and loss and shame that threatened to bury her alive. Even the happy memories of the hunter left her feeling hollow.
Phoebe didn't know how long she laid there, her tears freely flowing onto her pillow before she found the strength and will to roll over onto her back. She raised one of her hands to wipe the tears away, only just registering as Narene moved, her large head coming to rest on her leg. To the left of her head, Piper shifted on the pillow she was laying upon to nuzzle in a bit closer to Phoebe's shoulder. They were little bits of affection that she hadn't realized she needed and they gave her the courage to move her hand below her blankets and under the tank top she'd worn to bed, her fingertips grazing the very place on her stomach where the phantom pain was the worst.
Part of her expected to find her skin slick and sticky with her own blood, but she knew from previous dreams of Asterin that it was just her mind playing tricks -- at least, she could only hope that they would continue to be nothing more than illusions of the mind.
And in this case, it mostly was. Though her fingers didn't find the blood that she was worried about, nor did she feel any sharp bits of rusted iron in deep wounds, they also didn't come up empty. Phoebe felt her heart squeeze and her stomach drop as her fingers found raised scar tissue. They traced the scar, her eyes closing against the darkness of her bedroom. She didn't need to be able to see the scar to be able to visualize the path her fingers took.
U
Phoebe swallowed hard, dread filling her as her fingers moved to the next bit of raised skin.
N
The tears started again, silent as they fell from her eyes as she forced herself to continue.
C
Again. And again. Her silent tears turned to real sobs as the letters came together, forming the word that the Blackbeak Matron has carved into Asterin after beating her within an inch of her life, then throwing her out to the wilds. If it hadn't been for Vesta and Sorrel, she very well may have perished. But there was no rush of gratitude or peace as Phoebe's thoughts brushed by the two members of her coven. There was no room for it.
Her fingers moved again, a surge of desperation making them move. Phoebe drew in a long, shaky breath.