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simplytheevebest · 2 years

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Fate Season 1 Appreciation Week, Day 6, Aug 12th- Favorite Location: Farah's Office

Author’s Note: A couple snapshots of moments in Farah’s office over the years, from pre-Fate to years beyond. A little bit of angst but mostly fluff. The first one is when Terra, Sam, and Sky are younger; the second is Sky and Stella's first year; the third is canon time; the fourth is post-canon time; the last one is years into the future.

Characters: Farah Dowling, Saul Silva, Sky, Bloom Peters, Aisha, Stella, Musa, Luna (mentioned), Andreas (mentioned), Rosalind (mentioned), Sam Harvey (mentioned), Ben Harvey (mentioned)

Relationships: Silrah (eventual), Skloom, Farah as a maternal figure, Stella/Sky (briefly)

Warnings: References to Farah’s nap/recovery, references to Luna’s A+ parenting, references to drinking

The door opens and closes but Farah is already out of her chair to catch the upset child reaching for her. Terra wipes uselessly at the ceaseless tears coursing down her cheeks, sniffling miserably as her aunt whisks her over to the couch for tissues and tea, letting the girl get her tears out before she asks after their origin. Farah’s well-trained to look for injuries, and she’s satisfied there aren’t any, which means whatever’s brought her niece to tears is not so easily fixed as a bandaid and a sweet for being brave.

By the time Terra’s tears have faded to sad little hiccups, Farah’s accumulated a decent pile of tissues on the coffee table; she waves a hand, dismissing them to the waste bin beside her desk, where her paperwork lies half-finished and ready to be returned to, but not until the little girl at her side has left with a smile.

“I’m sorry. You’re busy,” Terra murmurs quietly, “Your door was shut.”

“Not at all,” Farah replies smoothly. “I’m never too busy for you, sprout.”

Now that Terra, Sam, and Sky are old enough not to be minded every hour of the day -not that that stops Saul trying- there has been the addition of rules for the three of them to keep them from causing general mischief and mayhem. Don’t go outside unless they’ve told an adult first, absolutely no going into the kitchen without Doris’ express permission, all specialists’ weapons and equipment are off limits -and yes Sky, that means no swords to vanquish make-believe dragons, use sticks- and when Farah’s door is closed, it means she’s not to be disturb unless it’s an emergency. The last one is necessary, but it brings Farah no joy to know the children can’t come to her when they need her, and even when they don’t. She didn’t think she’d miss the days Terra would rush to find her with some new plant to show her, or gently fend off Sky’s muddy hands when he shows her a frog, because she never expected those days to reach an end. But Alfea is still a school, and Farah its headmistress, and at the end of the day, though she’s no less important or special to the children that roam its halls in the summer months, they’re not truly hers. Equally unfortunate, that means the time she’d gladly have given them must now be returned to her duties and the hours of endless paperwork.

Though it hurts her heart to have to wipe away Terra’s tears at all, she’s cheered just a little to know the girl still trusts she can come to her aunt to wipe them away.

“Sky and Sam wouldn’t let me play,” Terra reports miserably, “They said they wanted to play ‘just the boys.’”

Ah, well. Sooner or later, it was bound to happen that the boys wouldn’t want to play with Terra anymore, but before Farah condemns their choice, she has to know if it was made will ill-intent.

“Did they say it’s because you’re weak? Or because they think boys are better than girls?”

“No,” Terra picks at her sweater; Farah gently stops her so she won’t make a hole, “Just that they didn’t want to play with me right now.”

“Did they say they’d play with you later?”

“Yeah,” the little earth fairy admits, and Farah huffs a breath she hopes doesn’t sound as amused as she feels.

“I know it hurts terribly to feel left out, but it doesn’t sound like they did it to be mean. Do you think they were being mean on purpose?”

“No.” Terra’s eyes are big and watery as she looks up at her aunt, lips pursed in a pout, “But I just want to play too.”

Farah draws the girl into her arms, smoothing tousled tawny hair from her forehead, “I know my darling, but they’re allowed to play games without you, just as you’re allowed to play games without them. As long as they weren’t mean about it, or because they think lesser of girls, do you understand the difference?”

Terra sighs, her little face scrunched thoughtfully in that way that makes her appear wise beyond her years, “I think so. They wanted to play together, and that doesn’t mean they don’t want to play with me ever again, just not right now? But they said we’d play later. I don’t like being left out.”

“I know you don’t,” Farah offers a smile, and is rewarded with a bigger one from her niece, “But sometimes it can’t be helped. Someone will always be picked first, and someone will always be picked last, and sometimes, you won’t be picked at all. And that’s okay, as long as it isn’t done out of ill intent. When I was younger the boys didn’t want to play with me either, but that was because they did think girls were weaker.”

“So what did you do?”

Farah hides a laugh behind clearing her throat at the memory, staring into the innocent face of her niece waiting for a good story, “I proved them wrong. Sometimes in life, you have to take the high ground.”

It’s not technically a lie.

“You tricked them into falling into the lake,” a voice calls from the doorway, and Terra hides her giggles behind her hands as Saul shoves off the doorframe to enter the office properly, “Though I suppose that did put you on the higher ground.”

Farah tries and fails to stifle a smirk, recalling a sputtering, enraged Andreas vowing revenge and poor Saul, guilty by association but not by true fault, wiping pond muck from his forehead with such disgust it’d taken an egregious amount of self control not to burst into peals of laughter.

“Well in that case they needed to be taught a lesson,” she acquiesces. Saul chuckles, coming to lean against the back of the couch. He wipes the last of Terra’s nearly-dried tears with a sigh.

“Sky and Sam are sorry they made you upset, but they did promise to play later.”

“I know,” Terra sighs as well, folding her arms and hanging her head, “But I wish later was now.”

“Well I’m sure we can find something to keep us busy in the meantime,” Farah offers; she flicks her wrist subtly, and the paperwork still strewn across her desk stacks itself neatly to the side for review later. The beaming smile she gets in return from her niece and the tight hug the girl wraps around her middle makes it more than worth it.

“Why do you keep it so bright in here?” Saul gripes, tall frame laid out across the too-short couch and hand settled over his forehead. He paints a comical picture, legs bent awkwardly over the armrest and dangling towards the floor, and Farah feels her lips twitch with an amusement she doesn’t let seep into her tone. She strikes a grammatical mistake in the essay in front of her with more force than is strictly necessary.

“If you have a problem with the lighting in my office, you could choose to go elsewhere.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Saul grumbles, and Farah is treated to his huffing and puffing for the next five minutes as he tries to get comfortable, all while protecting his eyes from what barely registers as a warm glow, but he’s already denounced a “harsh glare.”

“Why did you drink so much if you knew this was going to happen?” Farah scolds lightly, shifting the finished essay aside to carry on with her marking. It’s not the first hangover one of them has nursed in this office, and it won’t be the last. Still, for Saul to drink on a school night, and enough to get hungover the next day, is out of the norm for him.

“I barely had anything, it’s Ben and his damn brew. That’s the last time I’m trying anything he makes, mark my words.”

“Consider them marked,” Farah replies flippantly, setting aside the last essay and capping her pen with finality, elbows braced on the desk, “But you said that the last time.”

“Well this time I mean it.”

“You meant it the last time too.”

“Are you just here to torment me?”

“This is my office Saul, I’m here to do work. You’re the one who chose to come here, to my cramped couch and glaring lights, to nurse a hangover.”

Taking pity on him, and now concluded with her work, Farah rises to brew a pot of tea, dimming the lights as she does, until it’s nearly almost the stained glass windows alone that offer any sort of brightness. Saul sits up when he hears the tea being poured, kneading at the space between his brows.

“Why aren’t you recovering in your suite?” She asks curiously.

“Sky,” Saul answers plainly, taking a sip of tea before elaborating, “He’s got a date tonight with Stella and he wants my advice.”

“So give it to him,” Farah tucks her legs beneath her as she settles in the armchair beside him.

“What do I know about dating?” Saul scoffs, “Besides, it’s not a date with just any girl, this is Luna’s spawn we’re talking about. If he doesn’t show up with crystal roses it might be over before it’s begun.”

“You think too little of her. Stella’s not proven to be as … difficult as Luna. We’ve got to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“She changed outfit three times on the first day and she did that thing, you know, the one stuck up little snobs do where they give you the once over and make that face?”

“No,” Farah lies, knowing full well what he means having been on the receiving end of that exact trick during her own days as an Alfean, “What look?”

“You know the one,” Saul furrows his brow, but when Farah raises hers in confusion he demonstrates, dragging his gaze appraisingly from her toes to the crown of her head, one eyebrow cocked in disgust and lips twisted in a haughty sneer. Farah has to bite down on her lips -hard- not to burst out laughing.

“Oh that one,” she answers shakily, dragging a stabilizing breath through her nose and letting it out in a rush to disguise her amusement.

“She’s no good for him,” Saul decides.

“Don’t discourage him, he’ll figure it out on his own, or who knows, she might be exactly what he needs.”

“I don’t want to share in-law duties with Luna,” Saul grumbles with such seriousness it sets Farah’s resolve crumbling and she snorts into her tea, tears of mirth brimming in her eyes while Saul innocently demands what’s so funny.

Sky doesn’t often stop by her office anymore, not now he’s a student at Alfea and busy with both training, schoolwork, and the increased expectations as the living embodiment of his late-father’s legacy. So it’s a surprise when he knocks on her office door and waits to be let in; there’s far too much to worry about these days, Callum is gone, burned ones are back, so Farah naturally assumes he’s there on “official” business. It takes her half a second to realize he’s come to her as a nephew to his aunt, not a student to his headmistress.

“I’m not making a mistake, am I?”

Farah opens her mouth, closes it, and tries again, “That’s difficult to say. To what are you referring?”

“I mean Stella and I…” Sky trails off, running a hand through artfully-tousled hair. Saul had bemoaned the day he discovered styling mousse, but at least the teen has found "less is more" to be acceptable: he’d looked dipped in oil last year, and Farah had covered many amused flare-ups behind coughs. It’s a wonder the children didn’t think she was dying. Farah waits for Sky to go on, already half-convinced this is a conversation she doesn’t necessarily need to participate in, nor even be here for, but to know Sky still trusts her enough that she’ll listen is a welcome balm to her fraying nerves.

“But then Bloom,” Sky adds, and Farah officially sets down her pen, because it’s one thing the boy getting back with the Solarian princess, but to now also be developing a crush on another girl? And Stella’s suitemate? She brushes aside a sense of deja vu and settles against the ornate backing of her chair.

“Stella is… a lot. But we’re so… in sync? Though not at all,” Sky contradicts, “It’s like she only needs me when she needs me. Or when someone else needs me. She says we’re alike but…”

“And then there’s Bloom,” Sky continues, beginning to pace in a way Farah is familiar with from years with Saul, “And she’s… different. You know?”

Farah doesn’t truly think answering will make much of a difference in this conversation, but she nods anyhow.

“I don’t think I need to do anything when I’m around her. I mean I don’t need to be… what everyone else wants. I can be me. She doesn’t expect anything. Does that make sense?”

Farah nods again, and Sky sighs.

“So am I making a mistake?”

“Have you done anything?” Farah questions, and Sky pauses in his pacing, brow furrowing in thought.

“No.” He straightens, “But I think I understand better. Thanks Auntie Farah.”

He crosses the office in quick, long strides to press a kiss to her cheek and then he’s gone, leaving Farah mildly amused and definitely bewildered, just as Saul steps into the office, staring after his son with a frown.

“What was that about?”

“I have no idea,” Farah answers honestly.

The knock at her door is tentative, and Farah presses a hand to her forehead at the sudden sharp pain that slices through her temple when she tries to read who it is. Her magic is… not what it once was, and going up against Rosalind twice now, technically three times but only twice in so few months, and after time spent six feet under as well, she finds any use of her magic, but mind magic particularly, leaves her pained and winded. It’s a slow healing process she’s impatient to end and absolutely cannot rush, or the damage to her magic core will be irreparably permanent, so says Ben.

Taking a steadying breath, Farah clears her throat, “Come in.”

Stella shifts only far enough into the room she is, technically, in the room, door shut tight behind her. She won’t look her headmistress in the eye, eyes downcast and shoulders hunched in a manner unbecoming for the heir to the Solarian throne.

“If you’re busy I can come back,” she offers quietly, but Farah motions to the couch in dismissal of her words.

“If I were, you can be sure someone would be here to stop me.”

No one, Saul least of all, has been understanding nor agreeable to the idea of her returning to her duties as headmistress with the veracity with which she once tackled them. And no one, Saul especially, will let her work late into the night as she once did; it’s approaching the hour when the headmaster will come to check on her, just to make sure she isn’t overexerting herself, but Farah will be pleased to tell him she put away the paperwork long before Stella arrived.

The light fairy stands when Farah attempts to carry the teacups over; neither says anything about the faint rattling from unsteady hands, nor how Farah just-barely collapses in the armchair, exhausted. She hates feeling so weak, so unbalanced and vulnerable, but, as Saul has lectured her many times now, she has every right to feel this way, and every right to be allowed to feel this way, rather than push through or hide it, because there are plenty of people ready to catch her if she falls and help her when she falters. She doesn’t have to shoulder the burden of recovery alone.

“You are not automatically weak just because you’re not currently strong,” Saul had said, and he’s right.

“Has something happened?” Farah asks when they’ve both settled, and Stella shakes her head, staring forlornly into her cup, but then she grimaces and takes a sip to hide it.

“Nothing recent,” she explains, finally meeting her headmistress’ gaze, “I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking and I- my mother’s methods, they were wrong.”

She isn’t truly asking, but Farah nods anyhow, “Yes, they were.”

“And… and just because they didn’t… work, because I lost control… that doesn’t make me a failure.”

“It does not,” Farah confirms, “Failure of the method is not a failure of the person. You never could have succeeded in your mother’s eyes not because you are incapable of success, but because her methods never would have gotten you there.”

“She never would have been proud of me, no matter what I did,” Stella adds, another not-question, but she looks to Farah for an answer, either a contradiction or a confirmation, and Farah’s heart breaks because they both know which it is.

“Whatever your mother thought of you, however she made you feel, it is not a reflection of who you are, or who you can be. You are not the words she calls you, because they are only words.”

“But they hurt,” Stella whispers, and Farah shifts from the armchair to the couch, setting both their teacups aside to take Stella’s hands in her own.

“Of course they do, because they were meant to."

There are tears in the girl’s eyes, and she looks so lost, so much more broken than a teenager her age has any business being. Farah squeezes her hands.

“You are so much more than your mother’s expectations.”

Stella’s breath hitches and the tears begin to fall, sliding silently one by one down her nose and cheeks, then faster as the weight of the last few months settles too-heavily on her shoulders. She pulls a hand free to stifle the sobs working their way up her throat, other hand holding Farah’s in a vice-like grip.

“You never said a-any of this before,” Stella chokes out, voice breaking and tone desperately sad, “When she would say those horrible things to me, you never said anything, you stayed silent and- and I was used to her words but- but your silence said so much more.”

Stella frees her other hand to wipe at her tears, no longer stifling the sobs.

“I thought it must mean you agreed with her,” she admits and Farah’s own eyes sting as she gathers her close, lets the girl cling to her and cry, grieve the injustices her mother’s committed against her, that Farah has, unknowingly, committed against her.

“I’m sorry Stella, I’m so sorry. You have never failed me, nor disappointed me, but I have failed you and there aren’t enough words I could say to make up for hers.”

Stella cries harder, and Farah holds her tighter, tucking her chin atop the girl’s head, eyes squeezing shut against the tears that leak from the corners, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry my darling girl. I should have done better to protect you, and I didn’t.”

“It isn’t my fault,” Stella clarifies, and Farah’s throat seizes at the emotion threatening to choke it.

“Never. None of it was ever your fault.”

Her assistant hands over a schedule, color-coordinated in blocks of ink printed fresh from the new color-printer Farah hates. It sits in the corner of the outer office so she doesn’t have to look at it, or use it, or admit she can’t use it. That’s what she has an assistant for, again, and the young woman -a fresh graduate from one of the other world’s third-level institutions who boasted a year abroad in the first world at a university Farah’s never heard of- lifts her iPad -Farah successfully doesn’t wrinkle her nose- to double-check her to-do list.

“I’ve got all the letters for new students ready to be sent out-”

“Excellent,” Farah peruses the schedule, almost shaking her head at the “meeting with headmaster Silva” that’s been penciled in -or typed in- for seven tomorrow, as though it’s not just dinner with the two of them. Saul’s been not-so-subtly complaining not to have seen her lately, that this should be the time they get to relax, and "if he’d known officially acknowledging their feelings meant he’d still have to share her with her headmistress’ duties he’d have forced retirement on the both of them" -an empty threat and they know it. He’s so dramatic.

“-and the inventory is done-”

“Good.”

“-and a group of strange women asked if they could sit in your office so I let them.”

“What?”

Farah looks up from the schedule, all but shoving it into the girl’s hands and cursing age and scars as she hurries up the steps with less grace than she’s typically used to. She flings the door open, already on the offense, but the magic she’s seconds from throwing fizzles and dies at the group seated just inside. They halt mid laugh, turning with amused grins towards their headmistress, and behind her her assistant laughs.

“I’m kidding, I knew they were your old students. I’ve cleared your afternoon.”

Farah dimly replies with a thank you, then the door is shut and she’s reaching for her girls just as easily as they reach for her in a group hug she hasn’t gotten to share in since their graduation. Terra visits often, is in talks to take over herbology from her father, and it’s significantly more pleasant to go to Stella, now Queen of Solaria, than it ever was with her mother. Aisha has been a guest lecturer at least once a semester, and Musa she sees occasionally, as often as she does Riven or Sam or Sky, but it’s been a while since she’s seen Bloom, and the tightness of the redhead’s hug proves she’s been missed as much as she’s missed them.

“I didn’t know you girls were coming,” Farah wipes at her traitorous tears, but they’re happy tears, and the others do the same.

“We wanted it to be a surprise,” Aisha confirms, and Stella leads her to the couches like she isn’t the queen of the realm.

“Bloom’s just been telling us about all the amazing places she and Sky were visiting in the first world,” Musa catches her up with only a hint of sarcasm, and Bloom huffs.

“Yeah, well, it’s nowhere near as magical as here, obviously, but Japan was really cool and we both loved Ireland.”

“We get it, you’re sick of us,” Terra teases.

“And you’ve only been here five minutes,” Aisha adds.

“So how’s it being queen?” Musa asks and Stella rolls her eyes, ticking off a list of royal duties she finds tedious. Bloom settles beside her former headmistress.

“How have you been?”

“Well, and you?”

“Eh,” Bloom shrugs, “Homesick. Mom and dad are talking about moving here, and Stella said she can clear it with the proper authorities. And Sky’s not too keen on leaving, especially because of Silva and his knee. He was ready to pack it in when we got the call but Silva said it was nothing to worry about.”

She turns to look at Farah properly, “Was it?”

“No. Badly twisted, but not life-threatening. Ben says the limp is here to stay, and it was a nightmare trying to keep him on bed rest.”

“So you’re clearly meant for each other,” Bloom teases, and Farah chuckles, clicking her fingers to boil the water for tea.

“So we’re looking to stay for a while,” Bloom continues, “And Terra was mentioning there’s going to be a new curriculum for first world knowledge. She said you guys hadn’t found anyone yet.”

“And would you know anyone?” Farah asks curiously.

“Me, Miss Dowling, I meant me.”

She knows, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up. Still, she can’t help the beaming smile that lights up her face, and just as Bloom has initiated so many in the past, Farah wraps her former student in a hug the young woman accepts happily and readily.

“Oh good,” Musa pipes up, “You told her Sky popped the question.”

“Musa!”

Farah pulls back sharply, gaze drawn to Bloom’s hand, where sure enough Saul’s grandmother’s ring sits on her ring finger now clutched nervously around her other hand. If Bloom thought Farah would be displeased, she’s sorely mistaken; Farah wraps her into another hug the other girls are also quick to join, feeling left out. She lets her eyes close, reveling in the joy of the moment, absentmindedly reaching out to Saul through their bond.

“Come here please.”

Emergency?

“No, a surprise.”

A good surprise?

“Yes,” Farah thinks with a grin, “A very good surprise.”

Author's Note pt2: Kudos to you if you caught the Princess Diaries and Pirates of the Caribbean references I unknowingly added and only caught myself while editing.

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