RP:For The Good That I Would Do

From HollowWiki

Part of the Through A Glass, Darkly Arc


Summary: (This RP is an IC secret and for OOC knowledge only.) At the request of Hudson, Uma and Valrae create the potion that will turn Larket’s mole into an identical copy of Valrae to be executed in her place. After the potion’s success Hudson and Valrae say goodbye again.


Abandoned Warehouse

The ritual is to occur in one of Hudson’s black sites, an abandoned warehouse by the water that presently was awaiting demolition. Uma is there first, babysitting her cauldron, which as it bubbles away awaits certain critical final ingredients: a lock of Valrae’s hair, a vial of her blood, the sound of her voice. The air is humid with magic, the only sounds for a time in the cavernous room the soft noise of a water’s boil and the slow click of Uma’s heels as she waits. Her delicate blouse is clinging to her figure, laden with moisture, by the time Valrae joins her.

Right on time. Together, they draw a circle with sand and light candles to make a five point star. They add what’s needed and join hands to speak the words.

There’s a thunderclap that puts the fire out.

Joanie is at the door. Joanie and men Uma’s never seen before, carrying the slumped body of a woman with no tongue, who cannot speak. Who has bloodied stumps wrapped in cloth for hands.

She is unconscious but tied to restrict movement. Joanie lifts her chin to the bubbling cauldron.

“Is it ready?”

Uma nods, and puts on a pair of gloves and safety goggles. She looks to Valrae to continue.


Valrae managed to arrive on time. She slipped into the warehouse and gave Uma a tense smile. It felt morbid and somehow wrong to be smiling. Her painted lips slipped back into a morose frown. The witches slipped into the craft work in the echoing quiet of the warehouse.

The vial of blood was emptied. The hair was cut near the base of her neck. The words were whispered and the magic was completed… But the rush of power that killed the fire failed to make her heart sing with triumph.

When Joanie arrives the dread that had fisted coldly in her chest tightened painfully. In the dim light Valrae looks toward the pitiful woman who will soon be made into her likeness. Her stomach turns and a wave of nausea slams over her as she looks away.

“It’s ready,” Valrae whispers as Uma nods.

Fighting another wave of sickness Val approaches the subdued woman. She anoints her with sacred oils and paints runes on her forehead. The men have to hold her still as she thrashes and weeps. She waits for Uma to pour the contents of the bubbling cauldron into a chalice. She forces the woman’s mouth open without flinching, even when she sees the jagged place where her tongue used to be, and taking the chalice from Uma she pours the potion in.


Uma feels she has gone outside herself. The true horror of why they’re doing this has slipped from her mind. It’s easy to focus on the work instead.

So they do.

But then the hostage woman wakes, and has to held down, and Uma too feels sickness. She wants this to be over as soon as possible. She lies, tells the woman not to struggle, that all will be well. It doesn’t help, and so Uma gets her wand and murmurs the words that keep the woman’s mouth pried open by force for Valrae to finish pouring. Any sputtering is too late for the brew to not take effect. The woman’s body is quaking with magic, her features blurring as they rearrange themselves into someone else’s: Valrae’s.

The men hold her still as she completes her transformation. Uma uses a bit of magic to take the cauldron out, sees to it that its contents touch no one else and are poured down a storm drain. She discards her gloves and goggles, feeling well and truly like a criminal. She is surprised she hasn’t thrown up yet. She’d rather have nothing in her stomach than this unyielding feeling of perpetual sickness.

When she’s returned to Valrae, the men are taking the woman away again. Hudson arrives to oversee it.

“Amazing,” he says, beholding the bound and gagged woman, who is an identical copy of Valrae.

“It was brutal,” says Uma, her voice fraying, only now feeling on the verge of tears because he’s here. Because his presence reminds her that this wasn’t her idea, that she has no real power. She realizes that she’s become what she feared her husband Fitz would become: utterly complicit. She hugs her body. She hates that her composure is now evading her. She was fine moments ago with just Valrae.

“It’s for a good cause,” says Hudson. He wonders when he became so calloused. “You have to come to the hand off.”

Uma nods, feeling a lump in her throat. “Yes, don’t worry,” she agrees in an steadying exhale. Her gaze cuts between Valrae and Hudson. Joanie has just come to stand beside her, both of their brooms in hand, and Uma realizes that he’s just excused them. She nods again, letting Joanie direct their path outside.

“You good?” Hudson asks Valrae once they’re alone.


Valrae doesn’t hear Uma speak. She doesn’t hear the echoing sounds of the warehouse or the men who try to settle the woman before Uma’s magic can subdue her. She doesn’t hear the sound of her own hissing voice as she curses and pinches the other woman’s nose closed so that she has no choice but to let some of the potion go down or die fighting.

When it’s over the chalice is tossed from her shaking hands. Valrae watched the magic change the terrified features of a stranger’s face into her own. It didn’t help. She could still see the other woman’s face. She might always see it. Her own was cold and unflinching as she watched them haul her away.

Hudson’s arrival brings her back to the room. Her face doesn’t change, doesn’t soften. It doesn’t occur to her that the false, broken and terrified face that the mole wore might be more familiar to Hudson than the one of stone she hid behind. She listens to Uma and his exchange without comment, her eyes fixed on the door the men had taken the woman she’d just helped sentence to death. She doesn’t wave or smile at Joanie. She doesn’t offer a goodbye to Uma.

But when the warehouse is suddenly empty but for herself and Hudson, she crumples and wretches onto the dirty floor.


Hudson watches Valrae vomit the contents of her stomach on the floor. He doesn’t attempt to clean any of it. Someone else will do that, maybe. Instead he moves to grab a nearby crate and pulls it near to sit down.

“Hopefully that helped,” he comments, watching her for any indication that she’s going to vomit again. He doesn’t love the slowly wafting smell of vomit, which is gradually infiltrating the mugginess of the room, but he’s not so phased by it. People soil themselves sometimes in his line of work. Vomit isn’t uncommon. Even beyond the work it’s hard to be bothered by it if you’ve got young children at home. He’s in charge of anything gross that happens.

No further vomiting appears imminent. “You can leave it, someone will get it,” he tells Valrae. He considers her. He’s in sweats, it’s the best he could do at this hour. He’s trying to minimize how much he disturbs Alvina. “Well,” he begins, frowning. It’s still hard to associate the Valrae he knew with the body seated across from him. “I think this is probably goodbye. This is where you disappear. I can make some educated guesses about where you might go,” i.e., into Lionel’s arms, “but that’s your business. I know things have been messed up with us for a while but I wish you the best, and I’m glad we’re on the same team.”


Valrae pushes at the damp curls of hair that cling annoyingly to the sweat that’s beaded on her forehead and neck. Her mouth taste like vomit and it’s all she can smell. When she closes her eyes she sees a strangers crying face. She doesn’t answer Hudson’s remark.

She drops herself onto the offered crate unceremoniously. Without the eyes of other witches or Hudson’s goonies Valrae has allowed herself to come apart. She pulls her knees close and presses her damp forehead against them. For a while she just breathes. He lets her. The warehouse’s quiet echos.

“Yeah,” The witch shrugs her shoulders and straightens herself again. She doesn’t look at him though, not yet. Her hands can still feel the woman struggling for air. She wanted to remember why she’d done this thing. Instead, Hudson’s voice pulls her out of her own head and she snorts. “Goodbye,” Her tone was sardonic as she repeated him. “It’s always goodbye.” The witch stands and brushes at her dark pants. She looks at him now. Her eyes are dark and a little empty. Her face is a careful mask of apathy.“I know. I… You too,” Something strangled and sad crosses her face like a dark cloud. “Thank you,” She leaves him without a smile. There was no force in the world that could move her lips now. His words followed her as she walked into the darkness of Cenril’s side streets and echoed in the hollow place her heart used to rest.

Val walked until the sky lightened and the first golden rays of sun speared into the darkness of the sky. She thought of her people. She thought of the Alliance. She thought of all she might do in the world and the good she’d wanted to put in it. When she crawled into the bed she sometimes shared with Lionel over the Whaler’s Bar her hair was damp and smelled of the night and secrets, of sea salt and sand. In the emptiness of the dawn bright room she wept and wondered if the end would justify the means.