( open post ) genius? yes. psychic? no.

[afieldsmedal]

leave me stuff ♥

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im leavin u stuff

[vitriolics]

[aggressivelys]

for: dramaticsigh

[afieldsmedal]

( magic is no different than any other skill — it is learned through hard work and discipline; through study and trial and error. and while once upon a time it may have been taught by masters, that practice was as outdated as the early european witch trials. probably because of the trials, actually. now there was no hogwarts, no brakebills; no platform nine and three quarters, no magic school bus. if one had the luxury of being born to the magically inclined, they probably received some sort of home school education on the do's and don't's of wizardry, but otherwise?

it was kinda just a crap shoot.

which means lydia martin of beacon hills, california — with decidedly normal parents, and uninspiringly normal friends — has spent a great deal of her early adult life trying to learn about herself. which meant a lot of reading, a lot of dusty old books, a lot of guesswork, and a lot of time alone. she's fallen down so many rabbit holes on Internet forums, and spent so much money on different types of candles and herbs, and for the most part she's been alone in this frustrating endeavor to reach the bottom of whatever murky powers lived within her. that is, until two years ago, when she'd turned around in a dark park and watched a dog turn into a man. familiars had been a superstition she'd written off after reading margaret murray's unofficial anthology on them, but something that made absolute sense after touching derek hale's face had caused all the street lamps to snap, intensify, and explode along the beaten pathway. and having him around had helped — not just in the magical ways.

no, sometimes it was just nice to know she wasn't alone.

they'd bonded. emotionally, and then quite possibly for life when she'd accidentally burnt matching triskelions into their shoulder blades with a celtic spell gone wrong. it'd hurt a lot, and while there hadn't seemed to be any immediate negative effects — only positive ones, like that little window that's opened in their minds that allows jumbled thoughts and emotions to be shared nonverbally — lydia had still resolved to be more careful in her experimentation. if not for her own self, than at least for him.

it's a weight in the bottom of her stomach that twists every time she thinks about possibly hurting him, about losing him. it grounds her. and prevents her trying any dangerous spells. at least, when derek's around.

which is why she'd sent him to the store. sent him with a list as long as her arm, ranging from body wash and eggs to frog legs and lavender roots, and then settled down in the living room of her small apartment, crossed her legs and lit a candle. when she closes her eyes and starts to chant rhythmic latin under her breath, the world goes dark. she's swallowed up by it, feels like she's melting through the threadbare carpet and sinking through a cold, suffocating emptiness. it feels like hours that she's dragged down, hours until stocking feet touch stick wet earth, and when she opens her eyes on the astral plane of the dead, she's standing in a muddy pit with a door inlaid in the rock around her. there's no handle on the door, no hinges, and it takes all of her strength and resolve to cross to it and push. it's made of old, rotting wood that ought to splinter under the battle spell she sluggishly casts, but doesn't. and so she tries, tries again until the weight in the air and exhaustion have her on her knees.

and it's only when she knocks faintly, in one last attempt to shove, that the door finally shudders, creaks, and swings open like it's well oiled and light.

inside, there's darkness. but in that darkness, something's alive and moves and breathes. it moves, and fear sets in to lydia's tired bones. this adventure, this learning experience suddenly feels like a huge mistake, and she tries to stand, tries to reach back up into her physical body on the planes above, but — can't.

whatever's breathing inside that pitch room is moving closer, grunting with the effort and emanating something... something evil, something wrong, something disgusting. and she can't move, can't flee, can't pull the door closed. can't do anything except kneel and stare until whatever is back there whispers —

thank you.

and then something white hot and sharp cuts across her chest and she screams and screams and screams until the walls around her shake.

back on earth, back in a tangible reality, it's probably been around twenty minutes. when derek returns from shopping the candle is still lit, the sun is still streaming through the windows. but that's the only thing that looks peaceful, as the rest of the apartment is in disarray, with books flung from their shelving, tables and chairs upturned and broken, and lydia sprawled on her back with dark, wet mud oozing out her nose. )

[dramaticsigh]

[Derek Hale has known he was a witch's familiar since he was a child. It ran in the family, to be honest, although not every member of his family was a familiar. There were a few regular humans in amongst the Hale pack, and they always viewed the others with a mixture of relief and jealousy that Derek has never been able to pick apart to properly understand. For some witches, the witch-familiar relationship is almost one of servitude: the familiar is beneath the witch, a tool to be used to focus their power, useful only when they are immediately doing something but otherwise ignored. For his family, however, and his parent especially, the opposite was true. The witch and their familiar were like two pieces of a whole, only useful when they were together and equal, and so Derek had grown up secretly longing to find his own witch so he could feel the same sort of peaceful joy he saw in his parents' faces every day.

When he was fifteen, he thought he had found her. That turned out to be a horrible mistake.

When he was twenty-one, he did find her, but the fact that she was sixteen was enough to make him balk and try to deny their bond. He didn't want to become the woman who nearly ruined his life, who nearly murdered his entire family in their beds, humans and witches included.

There's only so much denial a person can live with, though, and although it took a few years, he eventually found himself glued to Lydia Martin's side like a burr stuck in his fur, waking up more often than not with her slim fingers curled in the fur of his neck, her long coppery hair caught in his mouth and ruffling on every exhale. When she was in college, her bed had been almost too narrow just for herself, forget two hundred pounds of canine muscle as well, but they'd managed to fit, and even the squeeze had been delightful. He'd been so happy to have found her, so happy to have what he'd been wanting his entire life, that the discomfort of trying to fit together in a narrow dorm bed was well worth it.

After college, Lydia found herself an apartment with a proper human-sized bed, but he still hasn't stopped sleeping curled up against her. He also hasn't stopped acting as her errand boy, although he makes no effort whatsoever to stop his eye rolls when she imperiously orders him to fetch something for her. Just because he loves her, just because she's the other half to his soul, doesn't mean he can't find her obnoxious sometimes. But, because he loves her, he ignores whatever bratty moods she gets herself into and dutifully takes the shopping list he's been handed before heading out the door in his human form, jeans and a jacket and boots on his feet feeling strange and confining as he heads to the car.

Lydia has grown used to his penchant for nudity, but the rest of the world isn't quite as understanding.

The items she apparently need span nearly the entire breadth of town, and Derek finds himself spending over an hour traipsing from store to store, neatly crossing each thing off his list as he collects them before he returns to the car and heads back home. His enhanced strength means he can carry every single bag in one trip, but that means that he has to open the door by leaning on it, the spell she'd placed on the lock recognizing him and undoing the bolts and latches without him having to use his fingers. It's incredibly useful when he's in dog-form, but it also comes in handy in times like these.]

I don't think we're gonna have to go shopping for a mon—Lydia!

[The bags go crashing to the floor as they fall from Derek's numb fingers, and even though he can hear something shatter in one of them, he doesn't pay it any attention, rushing to Lydia's side and ignoring the detritus strewn all around her. He kneels to place his head on her chest, listening to her heart flutter beneath her ribs even though he could hear it all the way from the door, and curls his fingers in the fabric of her blouse.]

Lydia, no, no, no, no. Please. [Patting her face with a gentle hand gets no response, and the slackness of her features and the mud oozing out her nose makes him whine, high and distressed in the back of his throat.] What did you do?

[He's not sure he can follow her like this, wherever she went without him, having not been present for the casting of her spell. What he wants to do is call his mom — surely she'd know what to do, having had to deal with her idiot husband's lack of caution when it came to casting spells — but he doesn't want to let go of Lydia for long enough to dial his phone, so he just gathers her carefully into his arms and smooths her hair out of her face, his hand fluttering indecisively when it comes to the mud on her face before he smooths that away too. Lydia shouldn't look dirty, that's just wrong.

The instant he touches that mud, though, there's a sickening swooping feeling under his diaphragm, and he has just enough time to gasp out a dismayed oh no before he feels himself yanked out of his body and sent hurtling towards another plane.]