Chapter Text
She finds him bleeding out in the forest, half-dead.
After dragging him to the cottage using his own horse, she sews up his wounds and treats them with blessed healing paste. The goddess probably won’t shine upon this brute, but Taylor tries, because she hasn’t seen another human face in more moons than she can remember.
He sleeps for a full week. Taylor feeds him broth, slowly and carefully, and changes his dressings twice a day. On the seventh night, she’s awoken by a loud grunt coming from the cottage’s sole bed, occupied by the stranger. She watches, blue eyes used to the darkness, as he heaves in pain and exhaustion, trying to keep his eyes open, trying to see his surroundings. He passes out before he notices her.
On the eighth day, he awakens as she’s positioning pillows under his head to feed him. His hand could span her forearm twice over, and it grabs her tightly. She stares down at him levelly, unafraid, though her heart is racing. When his eyes focus on her face, the grip loosens until the limb falls heavily aside. He’s in too much pain to speak, but manages to stay awake while she feeds him. His gaze is unsettling, Taylor finds. Too intent, too intelligent. She wonders if this will end with her tied to a stake.
She whispers a prayer to the moon goddess so that he may heal quick and right.
The next morrow finds her waking up to forest green eyes trained on her. The sweat on his brow and the labored breathing reveal his pain, he struggles to remain awake. He tries to talk to her, but his words are unknown. English, perhaps. Taylor can speak 5 languages, but that’s not one of them. She figures the easiest for him to pick up on may be High German, so she sticks to that around him. It’s clunky on her tongue, which has not moved for anything other than eating and praying for a long time.
Slowly, but surely, he improves, both in health and communication. The crucifix that dangles from his neck stares at her each time she bathes him, a promise and a threat. Taylor fears the day he will be able to rise on his own. And yet, his smiles crinkles the corner of his eyes in a way she has never before seen. The christian brute, she finds, has the kindest gaze she has ever known.
One evening, he runs his hand over his beard and says “cut” in broken German. Taylor has no razors, but she owns knives, and so she leans over the man's ailing body and shaves his beard. She collects the hair carefully so that she may use it for blessings during the full moon. As she’s rising, he grabs her wrist loosely and speaks. It takes longer than it should for her to realize he’s giving her his name.
“Travis,” she repeats back, and he grins. Her heart leaps in her chest.
Because she knows how powerful names are, there’s a momentary hesitation on her part. “Taylor,” she tells him, and the name flows perfectly from his tongue on the first try. She smiles, satisfied. They spend most of that evening teaching each other words they can use to communicate. Taylor learns the man she saved, brought into her home, is a soldier. She tries not to think too much about that.
By the time full moon comes, he’s spending most of his time awake, and can make his way around the cottage with her help. Taylor refuses to skip her rituals, and even though he watches with curious eyes as she prepares herself, she makes no attempt to hide any of it. When the moon is high on the sky, she strips, her back to him, and goes out into the night.
His word for her when she’s back alongside the sun is one she knows well, even if it is English.
“Witch.”
But his tone does not drip with disgust. His expression lacks anger. His brow furrows and he looks at her as if he’s lost and she will guide him home.
“Yes,” she confirms, her English broken, but clear enough. “Witch.”
He shakes his head at her, then extends a hand. Lacking good judgment, perhaps, Taylor steps closer and takes it. He speaks, but she does not understand. She holds his hand and listens, then she changes his old dressings and cooks lunch, which he at least can now eat by himself. His eyes follow her around the cottage, slightly wary, perhaps concerned. Taylor should be terrified, but she’s not. There’s something about him that puts her at ease. He’s the largest man she has ever seen, she thinks. He’s Christian, and he knows she’s Wiccan. And yet.
Later, after his daily walk and supper, she does not blow out the candles to undress. The moon’s energy sizzles beneath Taylor’s skin still and the craving for warmth and touch is too overwhelming to deny. He watches her take off her coat, her dress, her underthings. She stands before him and lets him look, the dip of her collarbones, her turgid nipples, the curve over her womb and the mound of her sex.
His chest is bare, and she splays a hand over his heart. He circles her wrist with one hand, the other hovers over her hip before tracing the curve there. Taylor smiles at him and he blinks, bewildered. The bed is tiny, but she carefully straddles him, pushing the covers down. His modesty is covered with his underthings, which Taylor unlaces and pulls down and off, slowly, looking upon his face so that she may stop at the slightest hint that her attention is unwanted. It’s not the first time she has seen him nude, as she has cared for him for over a fortnight now. But it is the first time she has seen him aroused, his maleness turgid and pulsing.
She feels warm and slick between her legs as well, and she could take him inside, she thinks. But her craving is for skin, so she carefully covers his body with hers, pulling the blankets to cocoon them both. His breath is on her hair, her breasts press against the rough fur on his chest and her lower lips kiss his hard length. Travis grunts, almost a purr, and she sighs with relief, relaxing at last.
If her weight causes him pain, he doesn’t complain. Taylor’s hips move minutely, on their on volition, her core spilling sweet nectar over his pulsating sex. One of his hands burrows in her hair, the other finds her bottom and stays there, large and warm, accompanying the motion of clench and release as she stimulates her pearl with his flesh. It takes a gloriously long time until she’s trembling, then releasing, lathering him with her spent. Yet, Travis makes no motions to take over. He allows her to do as she wills to his body, and simply holds her close and pants against her hair, saying unknown, sweet words into it.
As languid satisfaction spreads over her limbs, Taylor takes pity on him and slips a hand between their bodies. He’s so hard it must hurt, she thinks, and he spills with only a few pumps, her fingers wrapped around him. His come feels warm and sticky on her skin, and she leaves it there. They fall asleep wrapped around each other.
He’s hard again in the morrow and so Taylor awakens aroused, his energy transferring to her. At his urging, she sits up, and he kisses her bosom breathlessly, whispering words she doesn’t know against her skin. She wants him inside, but his maleness is great and she has never laid with a man. Her body seems to refuse to let him in, so she grabs his hand, instead. He hesitates, but she pleads, needy, rolling her hips, and guides him to plunge her depts with one, then two fingers. They stretch her deliciously, reaching deeper than her own ever could, so Taylor rides them until she’s shaking above him, her very womb seeming to contract with pleasure. She wishes she could take him inside, feel him deep, let him plant his seed in her. Fevered, she wishes he could fit another finger, and another, until his whole hand were plundering her, his fist pressing against her womb, then his arm, his whole being. She wants to consume him and be consumed in turn. Her peak is so high she loses reality for a moment and returns to him caressing her hair and whispering in her ear. She wishes she could understand him.
With her guidance, he rubs his maleness on the v between her closed legs until he spills over her core and thighs. She cleans them both up, then teaches him the words for “grapes” and “oatmeal” as they break their fast together. That day, he walks a lot further with much less help. Taylor is glad to have shared her energy with him.
They release together again that evening, but Taylor dreams of him, still. She awakens so aroused she’s dripping, and she forces herself to take him no matter how much it hurts. He watches, confused and concerned, but doesn’t stop her. His large hands clench on her hips and she sobs with relief when their pelvises touch at last. She lays a hand over her belly and is surprised she doesn’t find the bulge of him, it feels like he’s in so deep. Taylor fucks herself painfully, bleeding from her torn hymen, and climaxes so hard she cries. The cloth she cleans them both with is put in a wooden chest on the goddess’ altar. May she take Taylor’s offering of seed and blood and bless them both.
His kind eyes are concerned when she returns to drape herself over him, as is now customary. She feels the urge to apologize. Instead, she thanks him for the gift he has given her the only way she knows how. Extending a hand to him, she helps him stand up. When he hesitates, she smiles softly, reassuring. As he accepts the invitation and towers over her, Taylor slowly falls to her knees before him. Usually, this would be a part of a larger ritual and performed only by a High Priestess upon a High Priest. But Taylor hasn’t had a coven since before she was a woman. And the ritual of connection they just shared feels sacred in its own right.
His eyes are locked on hers, green on blue.
“Blessed be thy feet, that have brought thee in these ways,” Taylor proclaims, then kisses his feet, the right, then the left. Blood surges in her veins, her heartbeat speeds up and her skin prickles with power. She looks upon his eyes again, before saying: “Blessed be thy knees, that shall kneel at the sacred altar,” a kiss on the right, then the left. She’s breathless as she continues, her mouth dry. “Blessed be thy phallus, without which we would not be,” he gasps when she kisses him there, a simple, slow touch of closed lips, and yet, she can feel his pulse and smell his musk as she does it. Gracefully, Taylor stands up. Travis’ gaze is intent on her, so strong it feels like a physical presence. He does not move when she leans close enough that they touch from feet to chins. She has to hold on to him in order to reach his lips. “Blessed be thy lips, that shall utter the Sacred Names,” she whispers against his mouth, then kisses it. They both gasp at the surge of feeling it causes.
Taylor cups the back of his head and kindly directs him down, so she can reach him in full. “Blessed be thy third eye, that sees all,” her last kiss is pressed on his forehead, and Taylor pours all her desire, gratefulness and love upon it. She's thankful to the gods, for they brought him to her. She’s grateful to him, for staying even now, when he can walk better and better each day. His hand is in her wild curls when she pulls away. Her eyes glisten with tears over the intensity of the moment.
“Kiss,” he informs her, then presses his lips on her forehead. He does not know the words, so he doesn’t say them, but Taylor whispers them to the air as he presses his lips to hers, then to the mound of her sex, her knees and her feet. He does it wrong, but nothing has ever felt so right. When he’s finished, she guides him to the bed so that she can touch every inch of his skin and be touched in turn. Having him inside still hurts, but it’s also the sweetest thing Taylor has ever experienced.
The next day, he refuses to relinquish his hold on her, following her up and around when she must move, then gently, but firmly pulling her to lay against him on the bed in between. Taylor lets him, and they talk and talk to each other until she has learned more English than she ever thought she would and he has enough High German that he tells her about his family. A brother, with nieces, a sweet, loving mother and a good, hard-working father. He can’t seem to get enough of her, and rains kisses upon her skin at any given time. Taylor feels warmed and loved, so she does not tell him that she’s the sole survivor of her coven, all of which died on the hands of men like him.
Instead, she teaches him about the moon goddess. Speaks of nature and blessings. Whispers old secrets into his ears, knowing they shouldn’t be spilled to one like him. But she loves Travis, and he’s hers, so she does. The crucifix has not left his neck, and she plays mindlessly with it at one point. His eyes could melt butter they lay so warm upon her, and she tries to believe that, when she tells him she loves him, the words he returns are the same, even if she can’t be sure.
Almost a full fortnight later, when Travis is healed enough to help her chop wood and accompany her to the river for washing, they come. Taylor smells them before she sees them, the stench that seems to follow Christians, brought by the wind from the river. It’s evening and they are sharing a meal, but her eyes widen and she stands, spilling the food on the floor. The look she gives Travis is wild with terror. He stands up, immediately on edge, and takes the fire poker in hands.
Taylor was never with her coven long enough to learn to defend herself. She learned the blessings and the rituals, but she never learned the spells and poisons. To her shame, she cowers behind Travis when they break in and cries freely when he’s overwhelmed by men, subdued even with how hard he fights. She finds solace that they don’t seem to want to hurt him, but they do not have the same care towards her. The cottage does not hide what she is and what she does, and their faces are masks of hatred as they drag her outside, throwing accusations that should not feel like insults, but do. “Witch! Here’s the witch! The witch is caught!”