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“There are other things I can do though…”

Sure enough, that ember of hope in her gaze flares back to life.

“My power resides within the domain of healing and fertility.”

The hope I see igniting within her fuels my own. In healing her, I am also healing myself and all the parts of me that once needed saving, even if that’s not the reason I’m doing it.

This woman has done horrible things to the man I love, and no amount of suffering will excuse it, but it also doesn’t mean that inflicting more suffering upon her would be the answer.

Though I am well aware that there are plenty of people roaming the realms whose death would be justice.

This woman, however, isn’t one of them. Like Lorne, the fae male who had both protected me and brutalized me, I only see a wounded soul when I look at Seraphine.

Akashhas blessed me with a power, a gift, to heal. Not to harm. And if ever I have been given an opportunity to heal someone in need, it’s now, with this broken woman who has experienced much of the same torment as me.

“Would you like me to show you, Seraphine?”

Tears slip down her cheeks as she nods.

“You’ll need to lie down in the grass.”

She doesn’t hesitate and I kneel beside her, sitting back on my heels. Her dress has ridden up and my eyes catch on the gun holstered high on her thigh. Her breath hitches when she realizes I see it. A flare of anger burns in my chest as more tears stream down her cheeks and she pleads in a tremulous whisper.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t want to. I just want him to love me again.”

Even though I’m not even remotely surprised, I have to stifle my anger to focus.

“I understand.”

She doesn’t stop me when I unholster the gun and for a moment, I see the uncertainty in her eyes: she doesn’t know whether or not I plan to shoot her with it.

Even so, she doesn’t move.

Setting the weapon behind me I place one hand on her chest, and the other on her head, which reminds me of the wig.

“I’m going to remove this now.”

She nods in assent before lifting her head, so I can pull the wig off to reveal her shaved scalp.

Placing my hand atop her crown, I close my eyes and settle into the energy of my heart and connect to hers. Familiar pinpricks alight in my hand as my magic begins to pour into her. Tendrils of my power twine with the neurovasculature of her body, threading its way around the vagus nerve to calm her heart and deepen her breath. Beneath my touch, her heartbeat slows and her diaphragm expands.

As my magic spreads throughout her body, where so much of her trauma is stored–buried but all too alive in the muscle, fascia, and limbic brain. Somatic memories rise and her body begins to release them in small twitches and other voluntary movements as tears stream down her cheeks.

A choked sob escapes her as my magic presses onward, restoring balance to all the various glands in her brain and body responsible for regulating stress hormones, all of which are poised to respond to a threat that is no longer there–and hasn’t been for many years–but remain suspended in a constant state of panic regardless.

As each muscle of her body relaxes and I feel the tension finally drain from her body, my magic shifts to stimulate hormones responsible for feelings of love and euphoria to help heal and soothe her mind, body, and spirit.

I feel the gentle, phantom sensations in my own body as hers resets and finally releases fear and hypervigilance.

Onward, my power strives to stimulate her pre-frontal cortex, awakening the seat of her reasoning and self-awareness now that it is no longer suppressed by her amygdala–essentially her mind and body's alarm system–that’s kept her living on the precipice of fight or flight.

My magic hasn’t, nor could it, change what happened, take away her trauma, or its painful memories. Nor would I wish it to. As with anyone who has survived any form of trauma, it’s a part of what gives us the capacity and inspiration to help and heal others in our own ways–no matter how small. One seemingly insignificant act could change the course of someone’s life forever, and everyone that they encounter going forward, and so on.

The trauma that haunts you is the very thing that enables you to be the person for others that you wished you had yourself in the darkest moments of your life.

Whatever this woman has been through, it’s more than she deserved, and despite all the strife she has caused, my heart aches for her.

As I finish my work, my magic withdraws from her body, and she rolls onto her side, curling her body toward me as I continue to kneel beside her. My hands stroke along her back as she weeps, and my own tears return.