Chapter Text
She didn't need to breathe to live, but she took that breath anyway. That scent. It was sickly sweet, clogging all her receptors and leaving her tongue with an unpleasant aftertaste. Suffocating, causing herds of nasty goosebumps. A scent that was one of a kind. Indescribable to a mere human, but Rio knew it well enough. The scent of approaching death. That's precisely what made her turn around and freeze in shock. It was coming from Agatha, who was quickly approaching her. Rio didn't even have time to understand anything when soft lips touched her own.
Agatha was persistent, immediately pushing her tongue into Rio's mouth. It was such a foreign, but such a familiar feeling. Their tongues seemed to know what to do without any command from a brain. Muscle memory played its role, and Rio did not notice how she irrevocably plunged into this pool of pleasure. So many years had passed since their last kiss, but both women remembered it as if it was yesterday. Rio grabbed Agatha's wrists, hoping not to give her the opportunity to pull away, but she did not intend to.
They did not hear the thunder, which was drowned out by the heartbeat pulsing in their ears. Through their closed eyelids, the flashes of green lightning were not visible. They completely forgot about the existence of the world around them. Now this kiss was the only thing that existed.
But as abruptly as the kiss had begun, it was destined to end when Rio sensed that something was wrong. Her chocolate eyes snapped open, and her fingers, wrapped around Agatha's wrists, instinctively tightened. The black cloud of magic around them made it clear to her what was happening and how to prevent it, but Rio had to act quickly. Closing her eyes again, she stopped concentrating on the kiss, letting Agatha do all the work. Rio had to save a life now. Even though she was usually categorically against it. Even though this was another manifestation of special treatment towards Agatha. No matter what, she was going to save her life again.
Concentrating on her own magic, Rio slowly began to draw it back, gradually pulling it out of Agatha's system. She couldn't afford to make any sudden movements, but she also couldn't hesitate. One mistake could only hasten Agatha's death, so Rio had to be very precise and careful. It was like playing operation; one wrong move and you lost because of a stupid ankle.
She heard Agatha moan into her lips and how the witch began to twitch, trying to break away from death's grip, but Rio wouldn't let her. Even if her hands were bruised, even if Rio broke her bones in the process, she wouldn't let go. This was a matter of life and death. This was about the life or death of the love of her life.
The black veins that had spread like a spiderweb across Agatha's pale face began to slowly fade away, which was a good sign, but far from the end. It was necessary to continue until all the deadening magic left the witch's system.
It was a very strange, unique feeling. Neither of them had ever done this before, but now they had to. Luckily, Rio noticed it early enough to prevent the inevitable. After all, she was no ordinary witch, and Agatha had no control over her powers. No one had control over those powers; even Lady Death herself sometimes struggled with them.
Rio heard a strange rustling sound from the side and would not have paid attention to it if she had not known that Billy was standing there. Dare to interrupt me, and I will be killing you for long and painful days. You will suffer more than Jesus did if you try to do something stupid. I am trying to save her life, and if you do not help me… The sound stopped, and Rio involuntarily exhaled. She needed a few more seconds. Luckily for her, Agatha stopped twitching in her grip and began to simply await her fate. It no longer resembled a kiss. Everything became more like a magical CPR in which both parties no longer cared about pleasure.
Rio felt a specific moment when she needed to stop. It was like a punch in the guts when you realise you can't breathe anymore. The magic inside her body tried to physically push away from Agatha, sensing the approach of something foreign and unwanted. When the first drop of Agatha's magic entered her system. The first drop of her purple.
A final flash of lightning blinked before the green hurricane that had enveloped all of Westview dissolved as if it had never been there. The grip holding Agatha in place loosened, and the woman staggered back, taking in ragged breaths. Unlike some, she still needed to breathe.
"Are you fucking nuts?" Was the first thing Rio asked, looking down at Agatha, who was bent over, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. "Were you going to sacrifice your life for him?" The woman screamed, throwing her hand in Billy's direction.
“Hey! Am I not worth dying for?” Billy asked, walking up to Agatha and offering her hand. The woman looked up at him in surprise, then grimaced and waved the teenager away, straightening up. He just sighed heavily and looked at Rio. Her clenched jaw and flaring nostrils let him know that his stupid comments were out of place.
“Agatha…” Rio’s voice was low, coming through clenched teeth.
“I wasn’t planning on dying. Not for him anyway.” The woman snorted in response. Billy threw up his hands and walked away from them, muttering something under his breath. “I had a plan.” Rio raised her eyebrows, waiting for the brilliant idea that came to the woman. “I thought that if I kissed you and absorbed your powers, my physical body would die, but since I had unfinished business here, I would turn into a ghost. That way, you would get the promised body, Billy would stay alive, and I wouldn’t have to…” Agatha interrupted herself mid-sentence and blinked a few times, trying to switch her focus. “Just imagine how great it would be to be able to pester Billy forever, and all the other people who ever irritated me… Well, yeah, all people in general… But they wouldn’t be able to do anything to me.” The smile on the woman’s face grew wider with every word she said. If the stupid humour was the woman's defensive reaction, Rio didn't appreciate it at that exact moment.
“We need to talk about this. About us and… About the three of us.” She blinked several times, trying to suppress the unwanted emotions, and opened her mouth to continue, but was interrupted by joyful shouts from the house.
“You’re alive!” The squeaky notes of a very familiar voice sounded, attracting the attention of both women.
On the veranda, strewn with shards of glass broken in the heat of the battle between the lovers, stood four women whom Agatha had previously thought dead.
"You're alive?" Billy's voice came from the other side, and Agatha nodded mechanically, agreeing with his surprise. Rio just snorted in displeasure and rolled her eyes. Of course they were alive. She would have told Agatha if this kid had killed them unintentionally. "Oh my God, you're really alive!" The guy said, finally believing his own eyes, and rushed to meet the rest of their coven.
Agatha also took a step towards them but felt a familiar pressure on her wrist. She did not turn around, only lowered her gaze to the ground. She no longer had the strength to look into those bottomless eyes. She needed to make up her own mind first before she could look at the love of her life without the sorrow that formed in place of anger.
“We’ll talk about this… About everything. The time has come, no matter how much you deny it.” Rio whispered and released the woman from her grip. Agatha turned to tell her… something. An excuse, a plea, or a declaration, but was met only by mesmerizing eyes the colour of earth after autumn rain. “Te veo.” And she vanished…
Vanished for Agatha and other people, but not for herself. Sometimes it was her biggest dream. After all, even among the dead, she could not find peace, let alone the living or her sisters...
“Finally! She decided to show up…” Speaking of sisters. “You know the rules. Show up every 5 days! Why is this so hard for you? We’ve been following these rules for the last hundred years, and you still won’t follow them…” A pleasant but loud female voice complained. The blonde woman, a few centimeters taller than Rio, stood in the middle of the massive room, her arms folded across her chest. Home, sweet home. Rio thought, silently walking past her sister, not paying any attention to her. “I’m not asking you to pour out your soul to me. I’m not asking you to communicate with me at all. Just show up, show me that you’re still alive, and go back to whatever you were doing!” Rio sighed heavily and fell onto the long leather sofa that was located in the middle of the room, closing her eyes. “Of course… Of course you’ll now ignore me.”
"Come on, Lin. She's only been gone a week, and you're already causing such a panic. I mean, been worse." Another, more cheerful and positive voice rang out, and Rio smiled automatically.
“She could have been dead for a week and we wouldn’t have known!” Lin persisted.
“I think Rio can be forgiven. She was definitely in such good company that she forgot about the passage of time. Isn't that wonderful?” The girl squealed happily, clapping her hands. Rio didn’t see what was happening, but judging by the sounds, one of her sisters, and it definitely wasn’t Lin, was jumping up and down happily. “Who were you with? Tell me! Were they cool and fun? Will you introduce me to them?” The couch next to Rio suddenly dipped, causing the woman to finally open her eyes. Sparkling honey eyes looked back at her. “What were you doing? Were you at the cinema? Maybe you saw giraffes?” The girl continued, bouncing slightly on the couch. “I still can’t believe they actually exist. With necks soooo loooong.” The woman continued, drawing out the words like a child.
“Sorry, Dada, but we didn’t see any giraffes.” Rio said, lowering her gaze, looking at the black, white, and yellow stones that formed a pattern. As if she didn’t know every crack in the floor by heart.
"Oh wow, she's talking!" Lin's voice was heard, but Rio didn't look up at her, preferring the cracks in the marble floor to her sister's angry face. "Unbelievable!" The woman waved her hands in disappointment and turned around, walking out of the massive wooden doors.
“If you haven’t seen giraffes, what have you been doing? Something fun, huh?” Dada’s cheerful voice sounded again, apparently choosing to ignore her middle sister as well. “Say yes. Please, say yes!” Rio took a deep breath, allowing herself a few seconds to collect her thoughts, and smiled widely, looking up at her oldest sister.
“Oh yes. I’ve had an incredible adventure.” The yellow eyes sparkled with interest, and Rio couldn’t help but feel a familiar but rare feeling these days, flowing in her soul like warm streams.
The conversation with Lin still hung over her like the sword of Damocles; she knew it perfectly well, but now she just wanted to distract herself. Not think about what had happened to her... to them. About what was to come next. Right now, Rio just wanted to talk about something that didn't concern the real world, Agatha, or work. The same story awaited them with Lin anyway, the same one that had been repeating itself with enviable regularity for the last hundreds of years. It was as if Rio didn't already know by heart what her sister was going to tell her. The same phrases, repeated over and over again, about how they needed to be more careful, that the world was dangerous and people couldn't be trusted. By people, she usually meant Agatha. The same words, over and over. Year after year.
But not this time. Every rule has an exception.
Rio walked along a massive corridor. The walls around were covered with emerald wallpaper with thin gold stripes, which, like a thin web, spread throughout the house, forming various patterns. The burgundy carpet covering the marble floors sank softly beneath her feet. The familiar yellow-purple glow was visible from the massive wooden windows, which no longer surprised anyone. The pictures that hung on the walls, painted by Lin, were the only thing that occasionally changed around there, but Rio did not even look at them anymore, and she knew the plot of the paintings too well anyway. Always the same: three sisters—a tragedy in three volumes. The eldest—a chronic child. The only one who, despite everything, retained her childish naivety and joy but was too frivolous to realise many things. The middle sister—a victim of love. Her intelligence was incomparable, but betrayal was able to bypass it. The one who never allowed herself to be naive again, turning into a hunted animal that always waited for danger from any turn. The youngest sister—a prisoner between two worlds. Having the opportunity to be both here and there, but not having the opportunity to stay anywhere forever. Together they are a circle of life. One gives the body, another—the soul, the third appropriates the fate. There is one but: for temporary use. Until the fate leads to the inevitable, where death meets the body and leads the soul to the distribution point. Then the cycle begins anew.
Lost in her own thoughts, Rio didn't notice how she reached Lin's office. With a habitual movement, she lowered the handle and entered, not even thinking of knocking. The massive door, from the force with which it was pushed, hit the wall with its metal handle, making an unpleasant bang, thus notifying the owner of the office about the visitor who had arrived. Rio confidently walked to the table, which stood at the opposite end of the room, next to the panoramic window, and fell onto a massive cherry-coloured leather chair. Lin was sitting opposite, her head lowered over a large fabric canvas. Her hair, the color of ripe wheat, was tied into a tight ponytail, and her lips were pursed into a tube, signalling that the woman was extremely collected. Anyone else seeing this picture would only laugh. The woman, with a worn cotton blindfold over her eyes, sat and carefully 'looked' at the empty canvas in front of her, sometimes running her fingers over random places. Rio watched her sister for a few seconds, then turned her eyes, the colour of a freshly dug grave, to the window. There still was the same picture. A yellow-purple abyss leading to nowhere. Here and there you could see a fragment or a small island drifting through the air. No birds, animals, plants, or people. No sounds. Nothing. Just emptiness. Rio used to think that someday something terrible would come to them from oblivion. Some monster with a lot of tentacles who will eat her and her sisters without even blinking one of its hundreds of eyes. But millennia passed, and no one came. This led Rio to only one conclusion. She and her sisters were monsters from the abyss.
“Why did you come?” Lin’s quiet and subdued voice, still keeping her head down from the cloth, rang out. This brought Rio out of her thoughts.
"To get my weekly dose of scolding from my big sister." Rio snorted in response and reached for the photograph on her sister's desk. However, her fingertips didn't even have time to touch the wooden frame. Lin snatched the photograph in one swift motion and returned her attention to the painting. Rio snorted again and settled herself more comfortably in the chair.
“You were with her, weren’t you?”
“Oh wow, such impertinent questions and without a foreplay?” The brunette asked sarcastically, but there was no malice in her voice. “Yes. I was with her. And not only with her. But before you say anything, I wasn’t just having fun. I found the one who ruined the whole picture for you.”
“And you didn’t do anything about it.” Lin said emotionlessly. “Because Agatha once again distracted you from your duties.”
Rio sighed heavily and folded her arms across her chest. Lin didn't see it, but she definitely felt it.
"Agatha is once again the only thing that brings any meaning to my existence." Lin tensed at Rio's tone and opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted. "You know perfectly well that I have always chosen and will always choose her, so why don't you finally accept it? I mean, I know much time has passed and everything has changed, but not my feelings towards her."
“Because, Rio!” The previously serene woman suddenly jumped up from her chair, leaning her hands on the table and looming over Rio. “Because it’s dangerous!”
“I don’t care about safety! You keep repeating it like a maniac.” Rio’s tone changed as well, but she didn’t shout yet. “I don’t care about people. I don’t care about the cycle. I don’t care about the world that will collapse without me.” Rio rose from the chair to be on the same level as her sister. “I never stopped doing my job when I was with Agatha. I always sacrificed my life for our so-called work. But you still keep telling me the same thing. She’s not a danger to the cycle!”
“Not her.” Lin said loudly, but more so that Rio would simply hear her over her own anger. It worked. Rio froze and tilted her head slightly to the side, not quite sure if she had heard it correctly.
“Agatha…” Lin took a deep breath and sank back into her chair. Rio took the hint and sat down as well. “She is… A matter of taste, obviously…”
“You can't be serious. Have you seen her?” There was an awkward pause before both sisters burst into giggles. “That's my point.” Rio added through her laughter.
“Either way, she proved... even to me, that she wasn’t a threat. It took her many years to realise that; maybe I’m a little overprotective when it comes to my sisters.” Rio snorted, but Lin didn’t stop. “And I don’t want to stir up old wounds, but I will say that it has nothing to do with me blessing you post factum, after you two had already broken up. No, it’s not that. Even when you were together, I began to understand that Agatha wasn’t dangerous; I just, maybe, wasn’t ready to put my pride aside and say it out loud. However, the fact that she didn’t try to get back at you…” Rio snorted again, this time with offense. “Come on, those attempts were all childish plays and we both know it. Agatha could have done more damage to you if she wanted to.”
“Oh wow, and you are the one saying that?” With a smirk on her face, Rio managed to intervene in the monologue. “What about safety first and blah blah blah?”
“Her emotions were understandable, as was her desire for revenge.” Lin swallowed, feeling uncomfortable saying those words. Despite how many years had passed, it was still a painful and unresolved matter. They all had them, and who better than Lin to know that the lump in the throat would not dissipate with time. “Anyway, Agatha is not a danger, not to the circle, not to us. But he is.” Rio’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief. She hadn’t considered the fact that Lin could still be afraid, clinging to such a distant past. It explained her dislike and mistrust directed at Agatha.
“Oh, come on. How long has it been since the last time? 70 years? 100?” Rio asked, disgust on her face as she began to process what was happening. “Yeah, he’s disgusting as pubic lice and has a nasty tendency to come back… But he’s not a threat… Not to us.”
“Rio…”
“No, that’s enough.” Rio stood up, bracing her hands on the armrests, and looked at her sister seriously. “I understand, Lienzo, but that’s enough. You have to stop living in constant fear of his return. We’ve proven time and time again that he’s as dangerous as the dust beneath our feet.” Lin opened her mouth to protest, but Rio simply turned around, heading towards the door. “Love you. I’ll get you a new bandage; this one’s too worn out...” The end of her sentence was drowned out by the slam of the door. Or maybe Rio had simply shifted into the world of the living without bothering to finish her sentence.
She had work to do.
A little over a month had passed since then. In human terms. Life had returned to normal for Rio. She would do her work for a few days, then return home to show her sisters that she was still alive. As promised, she bought Lin a new blindfold, but Dada intercepted her halfway to her sister's and convinced Rio to give the blindfold to her first. The younger sister sensed a mischief and happily complied. A week later, Lin was wearing a new blindfold, and Rio couldn't help but laugh every time she saw it. Eyes were painted on the light grey fabric. They looked very realistic, but that wasn't the fun part. Dada had somehow managed to accurately convey what Lin's eyes looked like when she rolled them in displeasure. They had as much fun as they could. All the ways they could.
Rio didn't leave her oldest sister without gifts either, bringing her various worldly sweets or new painting supplies time after time. After all, Rio was the only one who visited the human world with enviable regularity. It wasn't that her sisters couldn't do it; it was just that every coin had two sides, and Lin and Dada decided to give up fleeting joy in favour of safety and... And some other far-fetched crap. Rio had long since stopped caring about it. It was their choice of how to live, and she wasn't going to waste her energy trying to change their point of view.
However, besides the good, something strange had been happening to Rio lately. At first, she didn't pay attention to it. The changes were small and gradual and easy to overlook or ignore. Until they became too obvious. It happened in a rather strange and frightening manner.
Rio wandered through the forest, enjoying the singing of birds. A light breeze ruffled her chestnut hair and pleasantly blew on her face. The smell of pine mixed with the smell of death, which was not only a strange combination in itself but also caused an unpleasant feeling in Rio's stomach. She felt something similar only once. All thanks to Agatha. However, this time Rio was sure that no one poisoned her. And it felt a little different. Her stomach twisted, and this feeling was similar to fear, but more physical, or something. I'll have to figure out what's happening to me when I get back. Something is clearly wrong. After all, she was not sick. Never. She just couldn't. She wasn't even sure her kind had such a concept as immunity. Magic flowed through her veins in liquid form, so it was unlikely that there were leukocytes there. Besides, she did not eat, or rather, she did not need to. She ate only for her own pleasure. She didn't breathe or sleep. She didn't need all this. Before.
Rio froze. Two steps away from her lay a still warm corpse, partially gnawed by wild animals. His face was almost untouched, except for a bitten nose, so Rio could see that he was a young, attractive guy. The entire right side of his body was missing. Ribs and vertebrae stuck out of the body, with skin hanging here and there. The grass was covered in a layer of blood of different shades of red. All in all, the picture was not pleasant. However, for the Death, which had seen plagues, wars, and cataclysms, this was an ordinary Tuesday, if not for one thing. Acid rolled up in Rio's throat, and her vision blurred slightly. She swallowed and leaned against the nearest tree, trying to catch her breath and understand what was happening to her.
“What the f…” The surge of emotion was interrupted by a wave of nausea that Rio couldn’t stop.
In addition to all the different shades of red, the grass was now dyed black. Rio was vomiting magic and possibly stomach bile.
When the unpleasant urges finally stopped and the woman was able to straighten up and wipe away unintentionl tears, she finally felt all the changes in her body. She had started breathing some time ago. Maybe not constantly, like normal people, but she was breathing now. Her body began to crave different foods more often. She began to get tired and did not deny herself a nap. She sometimes had a headache, and in general, she felt as if she was not in charge of her own body. As if someone else was.
“No…” Rio whispered as realisation fully hit. “This can’t be.” The woman said with a smirk, hoping to convince herself of this. She remembered exactly the last time she had seen similar symptoms. It was so long ago, like a past, happier version of her life. This was… “No…” The woman said again, looking down at her stomach, as if trying to find answers. Obviously, she didn’t see any physical evidence of her theory, but she felt it. It was a barely perceptible tremor of alien magic. So familiar and so beloved, magic. “Fuck!” The woman growled, closing her eyes tightly. She didn’t want to believe the obvious, but she couldn’t. This couldn’t be a disease. This couldn’t be poison. There was only one option, and Rio knew it very well. Hysterical laughter echoed through the forest as images of herself telling the future father that she was going to be a father flashed through Rio’s mind. “Agatha fucking Harkness, the trouble of my life, you are the father.”