All Good Things

Chapter 24 - In Need of Sanctuary

Victoria

Poppy was right. The sanctuary was far too quiet given the amount of beasts they had brought in over the recent months. The silence was eerie, as if the entirety of the property had been cast into a giant Muffliato. Tori imagined that if they had approached the area from anywhere other than the floo flame, they would have noticed the strangeness sooner. She took Poppy's hand, ensuring the smaller witch stayed behind her, their wands out and at the ready as they made their way further out into the field that sat behind the cottage. As she looked around, she noticed the beasts were all still physically there in their individual areas, yet the two witches were unable to hear even the sounds they made as they slept.

"Well, it's certainly not the beasts that are the problem. They all look fine." Tori mumbled the words over her shoulder, keeping her eyes trained on the area in front of her.

The field wasn't terribly large, allowing the two of them to traverse the flat terrain while keeping their surroundings within their sights. Yet as they got closer to the center, a lullaby-esque humming began to penetrate the silence, the echo it caused sounding eerily like a siren luring sailors out to sea. Poppy had begun to tense, her fingers wrapping tightly around Tori's hand, hard enough to feel her pulse quickening. Tori gave a firm squeeze back, pushing Poppy further behind her as she made her way toward the source of the lullaby.

The sight in the center of the empty field made Tori roll her eyes, the reason for Poppy's tension becoming visibly apparent. The tall, elvish woman was sitting with her legs folded out to one side, running her fingers through her hair as she hummed. Her eyes glowed with teal undertones, her pale skin sparkling as if she had been born from the silver light of the moon itself. Sure, she was beautiful, stunningly so. But all Tori felt for the woman was a kind of disdain that made her want to pummel her into the ground the way her muggle brothers would.

"You must be Eliza." The woman stopped humming at the sound of Tori's voice, her eyes snapping up. "Wish I could say it's a pleasure but..." Tori released Poppy's hand, striding forward and flicking her wand between her fingers. "We both know I'd be lying."

The blonde stood from her place on the ground with little to no effort, as if she were made of nothing but pure light. She stood almost as tall as Tori herself, her long legs making up the majority of her height. She pulled her own wand from its place against her hip, tilting her head and sticking her lower lip out in a pout.

"Oh Poppy, I was so hoping you would have come to visit me alone. I have so missed your presence, darling." Eliza stepped forward, stretching one hand out beckoning to the brunette. "Come with me, darling." Her eyes flashed a bright green, her voice taking on the airy tones of a loving partner.

"Y-you have no power over me, Eliza. Not of that kind." Poppy's voice was shaking from her place behind Tori.

Tori watched Eliza's gaze flicker between the two of them, her eyes narrowing slightly as she dropped her hand back to her side. The air shifted, Eliza's aggression becoming more and more evident as she glided smoothly towards them.

"You've done something to my delicate little flower. Turned her against me." Her gaze was firmly pinned on Tori.

Tori scoffed, smirking as she once again firmly gripped her wand. "A flower? Yes. Delicate? Not in the slightest. I don't know what Poppy you've seen, but my Poppy burns with the most incredible flames of dragon fire I've ever witnessed in my entire life." She stepped forward further toward the blonde, distancing herself from Poppy and keeping Eliza as far away from her as possible. "You turned her against you when you broke her spirit. And if you lay even a single finger on her, not even Merlin himself would be able to bring you back from the pits of hell."