One's Core - Outlander Fanfic

3.

I thought about my and Fiona's conversation the day before as I stared out the window. I even thought about it so much last night that I barely slept.

"We're not that far off now Elena," Fiona said turning over her shoulder, her husband driving.

So far I have decided to believe all of what has been told to me, even though it directly contradicts all of what I believe in scientifically.

Closing the car door made it squeal shut, it seemed to echo as a filling silence settled. Uphill was a circle of trees, "that's it?" I asked.

"Sure is, let's get closer," Fiona said.

Fiona began to walk up the hill, and I hesitantly followed. A strange feeling began to creep from my stomach to my throat like my fight or flight was activating with every step.

At the center of the ring was a large stone with smaller ones at the bottom, "yeah, it doesn't seem like much but this place is, very powerful. You can almost feel it." Fiona sighed.

I tried not to seem skeptical, this place was that supposedly changed my mother's life forever. 'When I went back to Craigh na dun, I could feel something call out to me, like I'd awoken an ancient power beyond my comprehension...,' is what she wrote. But all I saw was a circle of stones.

I tried to feel whatever 'power' was here, and nothing. It only seemed to make me uneasy as I pictured my mother's hand upon the stone, begging it to take her back. 'I screamed at the stones that day, blamed them for the outcome of my life. Leaving Jamie, your father, behind...'

"Woah, don't touch it if you don't want to go," Fiona snatched my hand.

I blinked away my thoughts, I had let myself walk towards them absent-mindedly, my hand inches away, "sorry," I pulled away from her. "I don't get what 'power' is meant to be here."

Fiona raised a brow, "it is not for anyone 'to get,' it chooses who is able to understand it," Fiona reached a hand from her pocket and touched the stone.

"What are you-?" I found myself feigning a reach for her hand but quickly dropped it as nothing happened to her hand while it moved against the rock, and I scoffed, "So, it's not real?"

"It is," she said not looking at me, her eyes locked on the stone, "I am where I'm meant to be."

"Then why keep me from touching it?"

Fiona removed her hand and put it back into her pocket, "well, do you know where you're meant to be?"

I blinked in awe at her statement, slightly offended, "I don't care for you speaking to me like an old oracle from a book."

She laughed heartily, reaching a hand to my shoulder, "Fine then, let me show you my vast knowledge of Scottish ale."

I had no idea someone so small in stature could handle that much alcohol. "Jesus," Fiona huffed as she put down another ale, then pointed to the ceiling as a silent 'sorry.'

"How is it you don't even seem a bit pink either?" I asked, trying not to laugh at her actions.

"Could say it's something every Scottish woman is capable of," her words hung in the air for a few seconds as she gave me a certain look.

"You're so funny," I said as I rolled my eyes, "I'm not sure I entirely believe it all still."

She shrugged, "you don't have to. When you leave to go back home you could forget ever coming here, going to the stones, all of it. And spend the rest of your life ignoring it when it crosses your mind."