la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

23

TW: Slight gore, kind of self harm. Take care of yourself, skip this chapter if you need to. I'll also include an ** before and after it so you don't read it by accident if you might find it traumatic! Please, let me know if you think this chapter was unnecessary. I wanted to give a more in depth look at the process of Minerva's magic but I can redact the more explicit parts if it's out of place. As always, your votes and comments warm my dead, little heart! Thanks for reading!
Page numbers: 4-6

The crossover was upon her before she knew it. It woke her up in the middle of the night. A soft green illuminted the room as her eyes open and she sighed deeply, squeezing her eyes closed and pressing her face into the pillow. The light persisted. After all, it was an internal light not an external one. Behind her eyes the green was all she could see. A glowing reminder of her inability to be normal.

It was morning before she knew it, she spent the night with her eyes squeezed as tightly closed as she could get them. A look in the mirror before her shower told the whole story.

The Iris of her eyes was no longer grey, instead a swirling emerald green stared back at her. Her skin was slightly different too. A pallid shade of green, the slightest change only slightly more severe than when she was in an extensive healing process. She was halfway to Gumby, for fucks sake.

Minerva was exhausted, no amount of coffee could get her brain out of the fog. She had things to do. Even still, she took all the time she could. Carefully, she dressed herself in many layers. It was particularly cold day in Forks Washington. The solstice, the dead of winter.

It wouldn't bode well if she chose today if all days to slack on her responsibilities. Hecate was a fickle goddess to say the least. Her feet were heavy as they carried her to the old bowling bag in the corner. It had been a month since she'd picked it up.

There was a time she needed to do this practice at least once a week to keep herself going, to keep her tank from hitting empty. She didn't use as much gas now of days. She slipped into her boots, snow had fallen enough to go up to her ankle which would make this much less favourable.

Flurries swirled around her pallid face as she set out into the woods, bitterly cold with every step but she'd be warm soon enough. She went deep into the woods, pacing deeper and deeper. If she hadn't picked one direction and stuck to it, she'd surely be lost.

Minerva found an adequate clearing and sighed, dropping the bag at her feet. She slipped her mitten off her hand, immediately wincing at the biting cold. She held it ahead of her, taking a deep breath as the snow began to melt. An intricate, familiar shape took form. First the outer circle formed, followed by the careful curls of the inner maze that connected to a centre circle which contained a slightly twisted six pointed star.

There was a time she would have smiled at the sight, a symbol of her power. Now it was the symbol of her exile. There was a time she loved what she was, relished in it. That time was long since gone.

She knelt down, letting the bag drop next to her as her knees pressed into the snow. Carefully unzipping it, she drew the candles first. Tall, white cylinders of wax. She placed them along the outer circle, as soon as they left her hands a green flame danced on the wick. She placed six, one for each point of the star.

As she placed the last candle, she was returned to the bag. There was one other thing in the bag besides a small first aid kit. An old, extremely ornate carved box. In spite of its sturdy appearance, she handled it like it might crumble in her hands. Gingerly, Minerva opened the box. The inside was an ancient velvet, mercifully free of dust as it housed. The draw wasn't the interior though. It was the long, ornately carved blade. An Athamé with an hefty obsidian handle. The carvings were symbols too old for her to recognize but she knew what they meant, only by the memory of her grandmother's explanation.
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