Work Text:
i.
Agatha gave birth on a Good Friday.
Rio did not particularly pay attention to holidays, especially religious ones, in the human sense; what she garnered from holidays was mainly pattern recognition. For example, humans were more likely to drink themselves into a fatal stupor on the day they considered to be the end of the year. They are less likely to between the days of Ash Wednesday and Easter, as many give up liquor for pious reasons. Rio did not know the intricacies of her patterns until Agatha had explained them to her.
So it did not escape Rio’s mind that Agatha begged for their son’s existence on the day humans acknowledged Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.
(Rio had led Jesus into the afterlife, actually. He was a real man, after all. But just a man. He did not appear rolling back the stone a few days later as the tales like to supposedly recall. Rio cannot undo the inevitable consequence of death.
Well, not without a pair of desperate blue eyes, at least. And Christ’s, like Rio’s, were brown.)
When Nicholas Scratch entered into the world, Rio was in the Ottoman Empire, guiding a teenage boy who had been trampled by a horse. After Rio wordlessly agreed to giving Nicky more time— nonverbally answering seemed less traitorous to the rest of the world and humanity, somehow— Agatha ordered her, Go far away from here. I cannot have the presence of Death near my boy.
Is he not also my boy? Rio asked.
Gods rarely get to meet their children, had been her soul tie’s answer.
Rio could feel the strings of the universe unfurling and plucking at her heart methodically and worryingly, when Nicholas took his first breath. Even then, Rio could only think of how she wished she could see Agatha hold him.
ii.
For the first year or so, Rio mainly got glimpses of Agatha. She usually walked in the aftermath of her wife: the carnage, the corpses, the battered shelters and missing supplies. Rio knew better than to try too hard to find them, as Agatha would only cloak herself even more if she did. Rio wished she had the ability to dream so she could dream of Agatha’s hair, and her eyes, and during the couple of times she actually got to Agatha’s murderous streaks before she’d leave, she desperately tried to see which traits their son had inherited.
It got easier when Agatha lived in a small cottage with Nicholas for a few months during his early toddlerhood; they never stayed anywhere for long, but it was a roof over their head, and it was set up in a way that Rio would watch or guard them without her presence being noticed. The cottage was on the outskirts of Boston, far away enough that Agatha could keep some privacy but close enough to the city to scope out prey. It was not the cottage Agatha had shared with Rio; perhaps she found it too tainted. Perhaps she knew Rio would sit in it sometimes and comb through the notebook of pressed flowers Agatha had made from the bouquets Rio had given her during their courting.
One summer night, at an age where Nicholas’s babbles had slowly started to form semi-coherent words and phrases, Rio found herself watching him through the window. She had thought him fairly asleep until big brown eyes somehow found her and a sleepy voice emitted, “Heh-woah?”
His heartbeat was slow and calm. He was not scared of her. But Rio was caught red-handed. She had been using her cloaking magic, but maybe being of her descent, he could see her anyway— fear struck her instantly, and she whisked away into the forest that the cottage nestled in.
Rio’s son had her eyes. That was something she had not expected.
She ruminated long enough that a few hours passed by, and then she heard, “I know you are there.”
Rio shyly emerged from the trees. “I had no clue he was awake,” she admitted.
“You still cannot be here,” Agatha stated coldly. Even then, Rio thought motherhood looked good on her. Her hair was partially braided back, though some of it still curled wildly down her back. She was in her nightclothes: a simple linen shift that highlighted her curves. It made Rio notice how her hips had gotten wider from her birth. Rio wanted to eat her whole. “He said he saw a woman in green. He said she smelled like when it rained. You are not subtle.”
“I deserve to see him,” Rio told her. She stood on the small, dirt porch of the cottage. Agatha was close, leaning against the frame of the front door. It was the closest the two had been physically since Agatha had been pregnant. “I have never even felt the soft skin of his hand. I have never seen his smile up close.”
“What if the instant you brush his fingers, he collapses because of your magic?” Agatha crossed her arms protectively. “As his mother, I have to think of his safety.”
Rio’s dam of a throat broke as her next words were choked. “And what am I?”
Agatha’s eyes momentarily held a moment of guilt, and if it was not Rio who had been locking her eyes with Agatha’s own, it would not have been caught. It was gone as fast as it had appeared, anyhow. “There is a reason Heracles has tales of glory and not of spending the day with his father,” Agatha reasoned. “Nicky could have my magic prowess. What if you reach out and he unintentionally siphons from you? He would die instantly. And that does not even cover the…” Agatha scowled as she waved her hand dismissively. “The other part.”
Rio only focused on one part of Agatha’s spiel. “You call him Nicky?”
A shorter version for a little mouth to wrap its tongue around. It made sense.
“Rio,” Agatha said, and even though Rio could tell the way she spoke it was layered with numerous conflicting emotions, it was the most beautiful sound to hit Rio’s ears.
“I miss you,” Rio pleaded.
“I have no idea why,” Agatha sneered, and she stepped out into the warm, buzzing air as she closed the door behind her. It meant she was just that much closer to Rio’s own fleshy body. “You watch us quite frequently.”
When she was out here, Agatha’s face hit the moonlight more directly, and Rio was enraptured by the way it danced across the sharp angles of her cheekbones. Rio felt her tongue grow thick as her mouth dried. She was a newborn fawn the way she stumbled over her words. “Agatha, you are my first love. I had no idea I was even capable of feeling so human until I met you. You and Nicky are the only occupants of my metaphorical heart, and you will be the only ones. I would make you two literal occupants if you asked.”
Agatha’s lips twisted into a pained frown as she mocked Rio’s begging. “‘You are my first love, Agatha.’ Meh meh meh.” She scoffed. “You are not the inventor of such a concept. You are not special.”
“But you are,” Rio argued.
Agatha shot Rio a look that was layered enough for Rio to believe Agatha actually wanted her. And then she said, “You are going to have to learn to live without us.”
“How is that fair to any of us?” Rio stepped closer. Her arms, which had been tucked inside her cloak, stretched out tentatively. Her fingers danced in the inches of air between her and Agatha, and when Agatha did not move, Rio took the subtle invitation and grasped both of Agatha’s wrists in her hands. She pressed her thumbs into the wrists’ tendons. “Why do you want to live in such pain? … It is painful to you, right?”
Agatha stared at Rio’s touch before glancing back up at her. “Of course it is. Do you think I find joy in avoiding you?”
“You should not have to force yourself to live in such sorrow,” Rio said. “We could work something out. Nicky deserves it. You deserve it.”
Agatha let out a wet laugh. Rio’s brow furrowed as she realized Agatha’s eyes were pricking with unshed tears. “You are biased, love. I doubt the victims of the witch killer would string such a sentence together.”
“Don’t cry,” Rio murmured. Her hands moved to wipe away the tears before Agatha’s body could even push them out. “You know, that word sounds good in your mouth.”
Agatha huffed, her face now cupped in Rio’s hands. “Which one do you speak of?”
“Love.” Rio felt Agatha press their lips together. They had rarely gone so much time without seeing each other, even when Rio was busy and her visits had to be sparse, and Rio realized how much she missed kissing Agatha. She could spend an eternity doing it, and she was one of the few creatures in this universe who knew what an eternity actually consisted of. A part of her wished Agatha wasn’t human so they could do this forever— so Agatha didn’t need to take small breaks for breathing.
But, no, Agatha could never not be human. Being human is what made Agatha, Agatha.
Agatha gripped Rio’s wrist and led it down to the apex of her thighs. Even with her nightgown covering her, Rio could feel Agatha’s heat emanating from her groin.
“Agatha,” Rio whispered into her wife’s ear. “You missed me?”
“My body misses you,” Agatha moaned, and Rio growled at Agatha’s characteristic loophole: she didn’t quite answer the question, but she didn’t not answer the question.
“What a harlot,” Rio seethed, and Agatha whimpered at the insult. Rio didn’t necessarily like using such profane language to describe her wife, but she knew how much Agatha liked it, and that’s what aroused her in the end. That, and the fact that no one could make Agatha feel the way Rio was able to. “You can get high off of the lifeforce of hundreds of witches, but nothing beats the high of me handing you a few orgasms, hmm?” At Agatha’s responding mewl, Rio said, “Turn around.”
Agatha’s hands braced themselves on the stone of the cottage as Rio pressed her front to Agatha’s back and lifted up the other woman’s skirt. “I can already smell you,” Rio cooed, and Agatha sighed as Rio sunk two fingers into her from behind. Rio’s other hand gripped on her waist for a few moments before traveling up to the lower pouch of her belly. That was new. Rio realized it was a physical reminder of Agatha’s grueling entrance into motherhood. She dug her nails into Agatha’s flesh, feeling the velvet-soft stretched skin underneath her touch as her other hand entered yet another finger, dragging her finger pads along the spongy parts of Agatha’s vaginal walls until Agatha began to tremble.
Rio stuck her nose into the crook of Agatha’s neck, inhaling deeply so her senses could be filled with Agatha’s sweat and that particular sex stench. “Mine,” she growled.
She could tell Agatha wanted to say something smart so Rio twisted her wrist into her next pump and a grunt came out instead. Rio smirked as she bit into the junction of Agatha’s neck and shoulder.
“God’s tits.” Agatha’s release gushed out and dripped down Rio’s wrist. Rio kept moving her arm until Agatha reached her own back and stopped Rio from moving. When Rio emptied herself out of Agatha, the younger witch sighed and turned her head to glance at Rio over her shoulder. Rio still held onto Agatha tightly, as if she had the ability to run away at any second.
Which, for the most part, she did. The sleeping body lighter than a sack of potatoes was probably the only reason Agatha didn’t indulge in fornicating and running.
“The longer you stay here, the more likely he is to see you again,” were Agatha’s next words.
“Would that be so bad?” Rio whispered, her words felt by the back of Agatha’s gooseflesh-ridden neck.
Agatha’s eyes hardened into ice. “Yes. You cannot see him again.”
“I will cross him at least once more, at some point,” Rio argued.
Her voice was not hard, but its honesty must cut through Agatha like a knife anyhow, because her electric eyes narrowed. “How dare you.” Agatha pushed Rio away from her, backing up until Rio would not be able to reach her, even with outstretched arms.
“I only speak the truth.” When Rio reached out for Agatha this time, she stepped back several inches more. The rejection stung. “And you know that, regardless of how much you try to hide it.”
Agatha’s tongue ran over her teeth. “You broke one rule. What’s a few more?”
Rio’s brows knit together in an almost exasperated manner. “Agatha, it’s not just one rule. Every second he is alive is a rule I snap over my leg like a twig. Can you not see that? What I do for both of you?”
“If you really cared, you would stay away and keep the hounds off our scent,” Agatha bit back, though the glance she made to Rio’s lips made the words feel moot.
Rio’s heart still beat against her chest like a bird in a cage, anyhow. Staying away from Agatha was not something she was very good at. She was the compass, and Agatha was her true north. The “hounds” Agatha spoke of were Rio’s cosmic siblings: Eternity, Infinity. If they had even an inkling of what Rio was doing on Earth, they would be down here in an instant, most likely.
Rio, as Death, was really the only one who was ever down interacting with humans. It was the designated grunt work.
Agatha didn’t have to tell her to leave for Rio to know that was the message, but she said it anyway. “You should go.”
“Can I…” Rio dipped into Agatha’s personal bubble, her lips inches from the witch’s.
Agatha nimbly moved her head to the side. “Do you think you deserve it?”
“A kiss from the woman I’ve handfasted with?” Rio answered Agatha’s rhetorical question with one of her own. And subtly throwing Agatha’s words back at her, Rio asked, “What’s one more?”
The kiss was fierce. When Rio went to cup Agatha’s jaw, Agatha was able to feel the still-drying slick on Rio’s fingers and moaned. Tongue was instantly added. Rio felt a fire build in her gut; it was so base she swore it may be the exact same one Prometheus stole to give to humanity.
When Agatha cut the kiss— way too soon, by Rio’s standards— she pressed her fingertip to Rio’s lips. “Since it will be quite a while until you get your next one.”
“Only because you push me away,” Rio complained.
“I only bring forth the inevitable,” Agatha warned. She closed herself off physically, wrapping her arms around herself. “Now I suggest you make your way. I’m sure your time spent here has clogged your duties.”
“It is always worth spending time with you,” Rio told her genuinely.
A look crossed Agatha’s eye— a soft one. One that was maybe a little surprised and relieved that Rio still felt such a way. But it didn’t necessarily make Rio feel any better. No, this would be like if Agatha felt relief at the way the sun rose in the east. What Rio wanted was for Agatha to feel convinced. It was not enough, as Agatha gave Rio one last look before going back into her cottage and shut the door.
And Agatha had had a point. Rio had, quite literally, hundreds of souls to ferry now that she’d spend a few hours in the Harkness sphere. And who could blame her? It was addicting, and now there was one more to add to the mix.
That cottage only lasted a few more weeks until it burnt down. When Rio visited next, it was ashes and stone. The fire wasn’t magical, so Rio did not know if the cause was Agatha or someone after her.
Rio knew the chances of the two of them finding something permanent were slim, but it still hurt her to watch Agatha live a life on the run. She’d build a fortress with her bare hands if she didn’t already know Agatha would never take it.
iii.
As her boy grew, Rio wondered what it would be like to truly love Nicky.
She loved the concept of him. A tiny human she helped create? Rio had never had the privilege of experiencing such a thing. She was so used to her creations and humans being in two separate categories: her creations were not human, and her humans she ferried to uncreate, in a way. Nicky had carved out an interesting nook of a Venn diagram in the chambers of her heart and had made a home there.
But when Rio watched him and Agatha sleep cuddled into each other, she wondered if what she felt was love. She knew she loved Agatha because she contained a lot of knowledge about Agatha, and Agatha contained a lot of knowledge about Rio in return. But Nicky did not know things about Rio. Rio knew Nicky would eat blackberries until he was sick if Agatha didn’t pry him off the bush herself— did he know Rio felt that way about hibiscus? Rio would watch Agatha comb her fingers through Nicky’s hair and she had found a new envy for Agatha’s fingers. She wanted to know what his hair felt like.
When Nicky was four, he scraped his knee and refused to cry. He just clenched his chubby little cheeks and glared, even when Agatha soothed him. It reminded Rio so much of Agatha her heart ached. Agatha had given Rio many new human experiences, including thinking organs could hurt metaphorically, and she gave even more to Rio when she made Rio a parent.
Rio wanted nothing more than to “truly” love Nicky, and maybe that was a type of love in of itself.
It was still a different type of love than the one Agatha experienced. Was Rio jealous of Agatha, or of Nicky? She truly did not know. Maybe it was possible to hold envy for both. Not just because of the time they got to spend with each other, but because neither of them could hear the clock ticking.
iv.
In the spring of the year the humans called 1755, Rio spotted a boy walking on a dirt road. She knew instantly he was hers.
There were a couple of reasons. One, his magical essence was unique and not entirely human. It was also an abomination— if any of Rio’s immortal siblings happened to get bored or drunk enough to wander down to Earth and got within two thousand miles of him, they would instantly be able to sniff him out.
Two, he was a mix of Rio’s facial features and Agatha’s confident grin.
Rio asked him, “Why are you alone?”
Nicky sized her up before he said, “My mother says I’m not allowed to talk to strangers.”
“You are already talking to me,” Rio pointed out.
Nicky outwardly cringed as he realized his slip up. “I didn’t mean to go against what my mother says.”
“I don’t think you did,” Rio comforted. “My name is Rio, if that makes us less of strangers.”
“I guess so,” Nicky decided. “I won’t be telling you my name, though. My mother says I should always keep a leg up on people.” Nicky used the phrase like he didn’t quite understand what it meant, but he trusted his mother in that it must be something important. He gave another look at Rio. Not as piercing or analyzing as the woman he got the expression from, but it certainly made Rio feel as if she were a book getting her pages sifted through. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Rio noticed he was clutching something in his tiny palm. “What are you holding?”
Nicky proudly outstretched his palm for display. “Strawberries.”
“They look kind of bruised,” Rio commented, and a small pang of guilt hit her chest when Nicky looked at the fruit in his hand and, seeing Rio must be right, sulked. She hadn’t meant to make him feel bad. “Here. Can I help?”
Nicky’s brow furrowed, but he brought his hand closer to Rio’s.
Agatha’s words from years ago echoed in Rio’s mind, and for that reason, she did not brush their skin together. She did, however, point a finger at the strawberries in Nicky’s palm and used her green magic to fatten them up a little bit. She may have also doubled the amount in his hand.
Nicky’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates. “Wow!” And then a thought struck him. “Wait, that means you’re a witch!” Another realization and his posture crumpled a bit. “Oh, Rio, I have to tell you a secret. My mother is a witch, also, but she has to protect us from other witches. If she sees you, she may hurt you. And you’ve been kind to me. I don’t want to see that happen.”
“I’ll give a secret back to you,” Rio said. “Would you like that?”
“I love secrets.” Nicky gave a gap-toothed smile. Some of his baby teeth were missing.
“I know who your mother is and she is unable to take my power,” Rio told him. “It isn’t allowed. But I will leave, if only to calm your worries.”
Nicky’s smile turned into his jaw dropping. “If my mother can’t take your powers, you must have a lot of them.”
Rio shrugged humbly. “I have enough for what I need to accomplish.”
Nicky plucked one of the now-plump strawberries and bit into one. It was so fat it spilled juice onto his face, and he shamelessly licked his chin with his tongue to try and catch it. In actuality, he mainly just spread the mess around. But his brown eyes, so much like Rio’s she felt as if she was looking into a mirror of sorts, were serious when he asked, “Can I ask you an odd question?”
“Ask away.”
A pensive look crossed the boy’s face. “I don’t really get to talk to a lot of witches that aren’t my mother. And the ones that I do hear talking…” His bottom lip jutted out just a tiny bit. Oh, and that’s where Rio saw Agatha. “They say really horrible things about her. They hate her.” He glanced up at Rio through his lashes, open and vulnerable. “Do you hate her, too?”
Rio’s chest was a tree, and her heart splintered wood. “No. She has wronged me just as much as she has wronged others. But I could never hate her. I know her too well.”
Nicky tilted his head, another bite of strawberry in his mouth. “You say you know her—”
“Chew with your mouth closed,” Rio suggested, and Nicky covered his mouth in embarrassment as he finished his bite.
Then he continued. “She hasn’t ever mentioned you.”
And that would hurt if Rio didn’t know exactly how Agatha worked. “She has, but sometimes when your mother speaks, you have to look through the cracks to understand what she really means.”
“You think she’s lied?” Nicky wondered.
Rio shook her head and quickly shut that down. “Not to you, and certainly not to you intentionally. But she has been hurt a lot and she had to learn how to love.”
“How do you even learn how to love?” Nicky asked.
“When there aren’t people in your life to teach you as a child,” Rio said, “you have to learn as an adult.”
Nicky frowned at that, the concept of an unloving mother so foreign to him Rio was sure that, even now, it wasn’t crossing his mind.
Before he could ask another question, Rio continued with, “It would be wise to not let her know you know some of these things. She would want to know where you heard them.”
“But I want to help her,” Nicky protested.
“You can still do that,” Rio assured him. “Being kind to her. Telling her you love her. Helping her prepare food. You can show your appreciation in small ways.”
“I already have to help her prepare the food,” Nicky admitted, straightening up at the brag of him doing such an adult task. Though in a whisper, he added, “She isn’t very good.”
Rio’s laugh was warm. “If it makes you feel better, she was not very adept at it when she cooked for me, either.”
Suddenly defensive of his mother, Nicky specified, “Well, she’s probably gotten better.”
“I believe you,” Rio replied.
Rio didn’t tell him that Rio ate everything Agatha gave her with a smile on her face, though, because technically anything was edible for her. She ate roasted meat as hard as a rock and mushy vegetables and blackened bread and had no idea it was a failure until Agatha would try a bite and her face would scrunch up in that cute way. But Rio knew that Nicky would not be able to eat these things. If anything, Agatha was probably better at cooking for him than she had been for Rio.
At this point, Rio knew the time she was getting to spend with her son was cutting close. At some point, she was sure Agatha would start looking or calling for him. And if Rio was here when that happened, nothing good would happen. “I have to go now, Nicholas.”
“Oh.” Nicky’s shoulders slumped. “Will I see you again?”
“At least once more,” Rio answered truthfully. “And when that happens, you’ll know.”
Right before she disappeared, she heard Nicky mumble to himself, “Wait, how did she know—?”
v.
When Nicky took Rio’s hand into the next step, Rio learned his hand was warm, soft, and incredibly trusting.
+ i.
A couple of weeks after the fact, Rio stood at the pile of rocks Agatha had put over Nicky’s corpse. It was smart; it kept the large predators from scavenging for him. Agatha was always several steps ahead.
But Agatha could not keep the earth and its inner layer creatures from their son. Rio could tell that Nicky’s corpse was already in the beginning stage of active decay. It was information that would probably scare most humans, and while Agatha was one of the few unaffected by the fear of decayment, Rio knew that this specific case was not one Agatha would desire to be privy to.
Rio had heard Agatha crying out their son’s name the morning after Rio guided him, but she had not seen Agatha. She figured she had waited an appropriate amount of time to visit, but when a branch cracked and a familiar tone hissed, Rio realized she may have not waited long enough.
“Get the hell out of here,” Agatha’s voice greeted her.
Rio whipped around unnaturally silently, too shocked to make the rustling sound a human body would, and saw Agatha glaring at her with the most amount of hatred Rio had ever seen contained in those blue eyes. She understood, in that moment, why poets would use the word shrivel to describe how a heart could feel.
“I wanted to pay my respects.” Rio spoke softly. Almost a little calculated, like one would do to walk on eggshells.
“And what respect do you even have for him?” Agatha’s throat sounded raw. “For me? Leave this place or I will place up wards against you.”
Rio laughed, not from joy, but from incredulous hurt. “And what kind of wards would keep me away, exactly?”
“There are ways,” Agatha said vaguely.
Rio almost threw her hands up in the air in frustration, but she somehow managed to refrain herself. How she, as an entity, had been molded into something so human by Agatha’s marionette strings, she was sure she would never be able to find out. Magic, maybe. “Like, what, the Darkhold?”
“If it cloaked me from you,” Agatha said, “I would partake in it.”
“You do not have to do all of that,” Rio reasoned. She stepped closer to Agatha, and while her wife did not step back, she did straighten her spine in a closed-off manner. “We can work through it together.”
“We are a tragedy,” Agatha stated dismissively. “Nothing more.”
“We are real creatures with free will,” Rio argued. “I may not be able to work against the machinations of universal law, but I will always choose you, Agatha.”
“Cry me a damned river, Orpheus,” Agatha hissed. “Poor Death— poor Rio Vidal— cursed to love a mortal who despises her more than anything.” Agatha stuck two mean fingers into Rio’s chest, which was solidly flesh and muscle. “I am going to stay clear of you, and what? You will always chase me? How pathetic.”
“I am nothing without you,” Rio sobbed shamelessly. She felt her face drying, which meant it had gotten wet somehow. “I have tried to understand your grief. I have grieved him since the moment he was born. I knew I would outlive him, just as I will you.”
“If you want to wax poetic, find a Greek choir to back you up.” Agatha waved her hand in a blase manner. “I will not hear it.”
A whimper crawled out of Rio’s throat: slow, pleading. She grabbed Agatha’s wrist in an attempt to get through to her. “I just want my wife.”
“Wife?” Agatha barked incredulously. She ripped her arm from Rio’s desperate grip. “You stopped being my wife the moment you killed my son.”
“Our son!” Rio was yelling now. “And I did not kill him… you know I am unable to do such a thing. I had just as much say in Nicky’s creation as you.” And then she felt a little petty; Agatha’s sculpting ended up having consequences. “One may argue I had more, considering I am the reason he lived long enough to take even a single breath. And instead of thanking me, you spurn me. I did what you asked. I gave you time. And now you spit vitriol at me over his grave.”
Agatha almost growled at Rio’s words. “You in no way gave me enough. You have lived as long as the universe itself. Six years is a blink of an eye to you.”
A realization smacked Rio right in the chest, as hard as if Agatha had backhanded Rio herself. “Would any time have been enough, Agatha?”
Agatha did not reply.
Rio huffed. “That’s what I thought.”
“I’m a mother, you cretin. Did you really think any decent mother would think outliving her child is anything but torture?”
“I hold no knowledge on the emotional scope of human mothers,” Rio explained. “I only know that when I gave you a child, I would be in that exact position sooner or later.”
“So you damn me to that same fate?” Agatha’s hand shot forward and clutched Rio’s throat as if it could wring some sort of sense out. Rio’s eyes must have instinctively darkened, because Agatha sneered. “Are you seriously stimulated right now? You are sick in the head.”
“I am what you molded me to be,” Rio stated.
Agatha let go of Rio’s throat and kicked her at the ankles. And even though if it had been anyone else, Rio would be standing as sturdy as a limestone column, she buckled under Agatha’s cruel touch and fell to her knees. Still a little gracefully for a human being, but she went down nonetheless.
“I will never forgive you for this,” Agatha spat. “I hope you enjoyed that choking, because that is the only kind of touch you will get from me from now on. And that’s only if I decide to grace you with the privilege of it.”
And then she did literally spit, right on the ground next to Rio. She’d probably missed and meant for it to hit Rio on the face or something. Rio could tell by the frown on her face.
“I have only ever done what you ask of me,” Rio pleaded. “But this time, I cannot. It’s out of my hands. Agatha—”
“You dare speak my name.” Agatha sounded so angry she was about to cry. Her throat must be raw. Rio’s felt raw in synchrony. “I want you to leave me alone.”
“Even if I wanted to— which I don’t—” Rio felt the need to specify, “unless you take up a new hobby, I will always follow after you.”
“At least have the dignity of waiting, then.” Agatha walked a few steps before she realized how that made her look in the argument. “Actually, you can go, now. You’re done here.”
Rio stood up, not dusting the leaves and speckles of dirt from her knees. Due to the light green of her dress, her knees, even though covered, were stained. Though Rio didn’t mind; and anyhow, it wouldn’t stay like that for long.
“I love you,” Rio told Agatha, but the younger woman was silent and her head turned. However, her face momentarily scrunched up in pain, and Rio had now been in the grit of humanity long enough to know Agatha’s pain was not physical. In a way, that was enough of an answer for her.
Rio walked, about half a mile until she reached the river nearest to her son’s grave. Her namesake. She stared at her reflection. All she saw was the face she built for Agatha. It was tempting to get rid of it, but no. She needed a reminder. In addition, Rio had also developed an affinity for these silly, fragile mortal beings who she collected like an obsessor would trinkets. She’d always loved humans, but it’d been the same way she loved any sort of creature. But now she loved them as one, and that was something she was not going to let Agatha take away from her, even and especially because her wife was mad at her. Rio actually thought of herself as Rio, now. She had an internal monologue.
And, deep down, Rio still knew Agatha loved her. Agatha would not have handfasted with her if she didn’t plan on doing so for as long as she walked this realm. That was what made this all more hurtful, she surmised. Did humans normally push away those they cared for? Rio would not know. Agatha was an anomaly in many ways, and this could be another. Rio was sure learning human behavior and emotion from her wife was like learning to paint with a barrel of gunpowder, but if given the choice, Rio would do it all over again.
Rio watched as her magic worked into her appearance— not her physical features, but her choice of fashion. The dye in her cloak muted and darkened to black.
She’d realized it fit her mood more, now.