Post by Esmeralda on Sept 13, 2008 10:34:53 GMT -5
Friendship...and The Seer
by Esmeralda
by Esmeralda
Dedicated to my wonderful betas, Primrose, Aurora and Silverstar03. Could NOT have done this without you guys!
"It is done."
The Seer whispered the words to herself as she watched the new Source of All Evil place his hand on the Grimoire and say the words symbolizing the fact that he had accepted both his position and his power. A shiver of anticipation ran up and down her spine as this moment arrived. She had served many Sources in her long, long life, seen many coronations. Although this one’s reign would be one of the shortest, at its end she would finally reach her ultimate goal--possessing all of the power she had ever desired.
She smiled at the woman standing next to him. This young woman, once part of the most powerful force of good the world had ever known, would be the reason why she would have so much power for such a long time. Within this woman, this Charmed One, was a child with all the powers of a Charmed One blended with all the powers of The Source. Thanks to the potion The Seer had given to the woman and the tonic she would continue to feed her, that child would ensure that his mother remained evil for her so-short life, also ensuring that his father would, as well. Then, when the time was right for her, The Seer would bring that child into her own womb, becoming the next Source herself and then the power behind the throne of the most powerful, the most evil Source that had ever lived.
The newly crowned Source turned and walked up to his Seer, his hand linked to his queen's. He lifted the other hand to The Seer. In it laid the strangest thing—a small glass snow globe. Inside, the figure of a man held a blanket-wrapped baby in one arm, his other arm wrapped around the figure of a woman. "For you,” and he handed her the globe. “In gratitude."
The Seer's large, dark, unblinking eyes stared dumbfounded at the foreign object in her hands, her forehead furrowing as she tried to understand the full meaning behind this gift, the very first time any Source which she had served had shown any form of appreciation for her services. This was nothing she could have foreseen.
"Thank you for helping me have Phoebe as my queen and our son as my heir."
The Seer looked up at the words, staring at him, already knowing that she was going to betray him, yet felt a brief ting of something--friendship perhaps--but if so, it had to be squelched quickly. She would have to find her tonic of pure evil as soon as possible and take a sip of it herself.
Looking down at the gift again, she realized that Cole Turner had been around humans too long. No Source was supposed to have friends--it required too much humanity. The thought made her smile, thinking that this Source, standing before her now, would not even exist were it not for her own friendship with a demon named Elizabeth.
Closing her eyes, she drifted back to her earliest memories--those of growing up on the shores of the island of Jamaica. If she concentrated hard enough, she could almost hear the waves gently lapping onto the beach; smell the salt in the air, feel the grit of the sand beneath her feet and the warmth of the sun on her skin. On the outside, it appeared to be a peaceful, carefree childhood in a tropical paradise. Under the surface, however, it was a completely different story.
She was the only daughter of one of the island's most powerful voodoo practitioners and grew up with the name of Zulu, a name she had long since abandoned. Now she only went by "The Seer", an allusion to the gift of visions that she had possessed ever since she was a very young child.
"A rare and precious gift," her mother had called them. But to the young child, this gift at times seemed to be more like a curse, making her feel like even more of an outcast than she already felt. It was a lonely existence.
Few people, save for the very desperate, ever made their way to her mother’s hut. In school or at play, the other children kept their distance from her out of fear. She watched them playing together, whispering together, laughing together. They each had friends. She had none. She was always alone. This went on for years and she continually shrugged it off, pretending that it didn't hurt, but deep down--it did. Then came one sunny day when things suddenly took a very different turn.
It started as just an ordinary day after an ordinary day at school. Her mother was busy performing her strange rituals, so nine-year-old Zulu found herself standing by herself on the white sands of the beach that lay behind the grass hut that had always been her home. As usual, she was throwing the flat rocks she had found into the waves, trying to make them skip. Not as usual, she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. That in itself wasn’t unusual, as they might have been the footsteps of one of her mother’s few clients, but these footsteps were different--they weren't just any footsteps; they were the footsteps of a child. That alone was a rarity--most of the children in the nearby town took great pains to avoid walking anywhere near her home.
Turning her back to the waves, preparing to throw the rock at any one who might mean her harm, she saw a young blonde girl walking down the path in her direction. The girl’s bright hair--the color of the sun--along with her sky-blue eyes and milky-white skin fascinated the young Jamaican. She had never seen a person whose skin and eyes and hair weren’t as dark as her own. This newcomer most definitely wasn't from around the area. But Zulu didn't care--this was a chance to start fresh and maybe, just maybe, make herself a friend in the process.
That girl was Elizabeth. For the first time, Zulu met someone who wasn't afraid of her or her gift, someone who had gifts just as powerful as her own and who could show her how to properly use her visions. That someone introduced her to the dark side of magic and its leader, The Source of All Evil. The Source promised her that if she served him, she would be greatly rewarded with things she had only dreamed about, things that Elizabeth already possessed and would show Zulu how to use. Zulu quickly agreed to become one of The Source’s tools of evil.
Shortly after that meeting with The Source, Zulu had a new vision, one she shared with Elizabeth. For the first time in her life, the young Jamaican knew the fun of sharing plans with someone, and then watching the plans come to fruition. As they watched the fire consume the hut that had been the local school and listened to the screams of all of those children who had shunned her for so long, Zulu knew that her new friend had helped her embrace her own true destiny, that of The Seer.
That was the last day she was known as Zulu, the last day she had seen her mother, the last day she had set foot on Jamaica. From that day forward, her home was in the Underworld.
Together, the blonde demon and the dark Seer served the Source: The Seer with her visions, Elizabeth with her seductive beauty and demonic powers. Then, many, many years later, after serving many, many Sources, The Seer had a vision of a man stopping a team of runaway horses, saving a wagonload of children, performing a great, selfless act that would cost him his own life but would earn him his wings—the man was not only a future whitelighter; he was also a future Elder. She had to stop this vision from coming true.
After discussing it with Elizabeth, her friend tried to seduce and corrupt Benjamin Turner, something she had done often, bringing many good men over to the side of evil. But despite being very interested, Benjamin wouldn't even sleep with Elizabeth until she became his wife. Elizabeth and The Seer found it amusing that an immortal demon could be married to an ordinary mortal. When Elizabeth became pregnant, they found it even more amusing, then amazing when The Seer had a vision of Elizabeth's son as the mighty Belthazar, future Source of All Evil, capturing and raping a future powerful witch, a Charmed One, in order to produce the most evil being who would ever live.
What The Seer couldn't foresee were the feelings that Elizabeth developed for the mortal while she carried his child. It was with careful guidance and utmost urgency during young Cole’s childhood, that The Seer finally convinced her friend to turn away from Benjamin, keeping Cole from his father’s corrupting influence in order to make The Seer’s vision come true. But no matter what she said, The Seer could not prevent Elizabeth from allowing Benjamin the opportunity to visit them. She could not forbid him from seeing his son, or herself from seeing him.
Then The Seer again had the vision of the man stopping a team of runaway horses, saving a wagonload of children, performing the great, selfless act that would cost him his own life but earn him his wings. But the man in her vision wasn't Benjamin Turner; he was Benjamin Coleridge Turner II--not Elizabeth’s estranged husband, but her son. The Seer knew that the change in young Cole’s destiny had to be due to his father's influence. The Seer could not let that happen. She had to work and work quickly. When she saw Benjamin coming to visit Elizabeth and young Cole, she managed to convince Elizabeth that Benjamin was a shape-shifter, coming to steal her child and turn him good. Elizabeth could not have that happen. Using her powers, she sucked Benjamin's life right out of his body, killing him instantly, and trapping his soul inside an energy ball. Only then did Elizabeth realize what The Seer had done and whom she had just killed. Try as she did, she could not free Benjamin’s soul, not without dooming it forever.
The Seer tried to convince Elizabeth that what she had done, she had done out of friendship. Had Benjamin remained alive, their son would become a whitelighter, an Elder. No way could The Seer allow that. Neither could Elizabeth, but each time she looked at her son, she thought of the husband she loved and blamed her friend for his death. The Seer in turn was upset because Elizabeth had turned away from a relationship that she considered a sisterhood of evil, something that should have been closer than the bond of marriage...to a mortal, no less.
Ultimately Elizabeth presented the energy ball containing the trapped soul as a gift to the current Source of All Evil, taking full credit and ignoring The Seer's role in its existence. The Seer’s visions and guidance were thrown aside as if they’d meant nothing --a true sign of what demonic friendship really meant--"It lasts only until I no longer need you..."
The Seer reminded herself of those words as she watched Elizabeth's son and his queen walk away hand-in-hand, as she had reminded herself each time a new compatriot had shown the possibility of becoming a friend.
"It lasts only until they no longer need me,” she whispered to herself.
Looking down at her gift, she shook the globe and watched the snow dance around the little family, the symbol of the family Cole assumed he would have, a family that could have become her friends. She glared at the globe, finding this unacceptable. When she stirred things up, bad events were supposed to happen, but, no, the tiny figurines just stood there, continuing to smile and mock her futile efforts. Opening her hand, she watched as the snow globe with its happy family shattered on the floor before she crushed the figurines under the heel of her foot. She knew what friendship could do: prevent her from reaching her full potential. As she had told Cole Turner not so long ago, there was no way she would allow an ounce of humanity to destroy a legacy of evil.
Thank you, Chaos! This one was done for a contest at a different site where the people in charge matched a number of guest stars from the show with words and we were supposed to come up with a short story from one of the pairs. The idea of matching The S4 Seer with Friendship intrigued me and my friends and we decided to use it to do The Seer's backstory while also showing Cole's family's backstory, while also having fun showing how much different Cole's life might have been had he had a chance to be raised by his father than his mother--an Elder despite being half-demon! We didn't do very well in the contest, but were still very happy with what we came up with.