The crimson light of Dathomir's twin suns painted the planet's surface in shades of rust and blood. Ancient trees twisted toward the sky like grasping fingers, their bark the color of dried wounds. This was the Nightsisters' homeworld—a place where the Force itself seemed to pulse with darker, primal rhythms. For six hundred years, their particular branch of Force-wielders had claimed this red world as their domain, suspicious of outsiders, hostile to intrusion.
Yet here sat a woman whose red attire echoed Dathomir's palette, though anyone who knew this world's xenophobic traditions would recognize the strangeness of her presence. She rested in a small clearing, cross-legged, eyes closed. Her breathing matched the whisper of wind through twisted branches. Scarlet energy flickered faintly around her fingertips—not the green ichor of Nightsister magick, but something else entirely.
Two small figures crept from behind a gnarled tree trunk, moving with exaggerated stealth. They pressed fingers to their lips, exchanging conspiratorial glances. One pointed. The other nodded. They darted to the next tree, froze, then scurried to another, closing the distance to their target one careful step at a time.
The woman's lips twitched. She kept her eyes closed, but her fingers curled ever so slightly in her lap.
The girls reached the edge of the clearing. They crouched low, coiled like springs. Three... two... one...
They pounced.
"Got you!"
Scarlet light flared. The two girls hung suspended in midair, limbs windmilling as crimson energy wrapped around them like ribbons. They struggled, pushing against the magical field, but it held them as easily as a hand might hold soap bubbles.
Wanda Maximoff opened her eyes fully, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "Did you really think that would work?"
"Wanda!" Illyana's protest came out half-laugh, half-whine.
"You said you'd let us win eventually!" Merlin added, her face flushed with exertion and the peculiar angle at which she hung in the air.
"I said no such thing." Wanda tilted her head, letting the scarlet energy rotate the girls gently until they faced her upside-down. Blood rushed to their heads, painting their cheeks pink. "What I said was that you needed to get better."
"That's not—" Illyana's words tumbled over themselves as the world spun around her. "—fair!"
"Please?" Merlin tried, giving Wanda the wide-eyed look that occasionally worked on their guardian.
"Please?" Illyana echoed, catching on.
Wanda's smile softened. With a flick of her wrist, the girls flipped upright and touched down on solid ground. They swayed immediately, the world still spinning behind their eyes, and collapsed onto the moss-covered clearing floor in a tangle of limbs.
"Better." Wanda leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "But not good enough. You telegraph your movements. I felt you coming from thirty meters away."
"How?" Illyana groaned, pressing her palm to her forehead.
"Because you were trying so hard to be quiet that I could hear your heartbeats racing." Wanda reached out, brushing a strand of hair from the girl's face. Her touch was gentle, but her eyes held that particular mix of power and sorrow that never quite left them. "When you want to surprise someone, you can't want it so badly. The wanting creates tension. Tension creates noise."
"That doesn't make sense," Merlin mumbled into the moss.
"It will." Wanda's scarlet energy flickered again, not threateningly this time, but playfully. "Eventually."
"Wanda, no—" Illyana barely got the words out before Wanda's magic found the ticklish spots along her ribs.
"No? No what?" Wanda's fingers danced through the air, conducting her magic like a maestro. The scarlet energy ghosted across both girls' necks, under their arms, along their stomachs.
Laughter erupted. Merlin rolled away, trying to escape, but Wanda's magic followed. Illyana curled into a ball, gasping for breath between giggles that she couldn't suppress.
"To—the victor—" Wanda's own smile widened as she watched them squirm, "—go the spoils."
"Can't—breathe!" Merlin wheezed.
Wanda relented. The scarlet light faded, and the girls collapsed again, this time into a heap of exhausted, happy laughter. She moved closer, settling onto the ground and gathering them both into her arms. They came willingly, snuggling against her sides like puppies seeking warmth.
Merlin tucked herself under Wanda's chin, her small horns—heritage from her father's bloodline—pressing gently against Wanda's collarbone. Illyana climbed halfway into Wanda's lap, wrapping thin arms around her neck and resting her head on her shoulder.
"What do we do now?" Merlin asked, voice muffled against Wanda's sternum.
Wanda pressed her nose to the top of Merlin's head, breathing in the scent of red dust and something sweet—the fruit they'd eaten for breakfast. "Now? Now we rest."
"But we always lose." Illyana's complaint held no real heat. She was already relaxing, her breathing evening out.
"Would you want to win without earning it?" Wanda stroked Illyana's hair, smoothing it down. "What would that teach you?"
"That you love us?" Merlin suggested hopefully.
Something twisted in Wanda's chest—an old ache, familiar now, but never quite dulled. She'd lost so much. Pietro. Vision. Her chance at a normal life, a real family. But here, on this hostile red world, she'd found something unexpected. Not a replacement—nothing could replace what she'd lost—but something new. Something worth protecting.
"I do love you," she whispered. "Both of you. But love doesn't mean making things easy. It means making you strong enough to face what comes."
Merlin shifted, getting comfortable. "Will you sing?"
"Please?" Illyana added.
Wanda's throat tightened. The lullaby her mother used to sing—back in Sokovia, in a life that felt like it belonged to someone else. She'd sung it to Pietro when they were small, huddled together in the rubble during the bombing. He'd always hummed it better than she sang it, his voice carrying the melody with an ease she'd never quite managed.
But he wasn't here. So she would have to be enough.
She began, soft and low, in the language of their childhood:
"We have been waiting,
Now that you've arrived,
More perfect than imagined.
This has become home now,
And wherever you are,
The sun will always shine."
The words felt heavy on her tongue—a promise, a prayer, a lie she told herself when the nightmares came. But the girls relaxed further, Merlin's breathing deepening, Illyana's grip on her neck loosening as sleep began to pull them under.
Wanda hummed the melody again, gentler this time, and let her own eyes drift closed. The red light filtered through the twisted trees, painting patterns on her eyelids. The Force here felt different than it had on other worlds—older, stranger, tinged with something that resonated with her own power in ways she didn't fully understand. The Nightsisters called what they did "magick," spelled with ancient affectation. Wanda called it chaos magic. Perhaps they weren't so different.
She paused mid-hum.
Something changed in the air—a disturbance, subtle but distinct. Not the Force, exactly, but something cutting through it. A vibration that didn't belong to Dathomir's natural rhythms.
Wanda's eyes snapped open. She scanned the twisted canopy above, following the sensation.
The girls stirred. Merlin lifted her head. "Wanda?"
"Shh." Wanda didn't move otherwise, but scarlet energy began to coil around her fingers again, ready.
Illyana pushed herself upright, suddenly alert. "What is it?"
"Listen."
They sat in silence. Then—there. A mechanical hum, growing louder. Not the organic sounds of Dathomir's predators or the whisper of Nightsister magic. This was technology, engines, something from off-world.
A dark shape descended through the crimson canopy, repulsorlifts whining as it settled toward a clearing fifty meters distant. The ship was angular, functional—not the curved elegance of Naboo craft or the brutal utilitarianism of Republic military vessels. Something else.
Wanda's breath caught. Someone had come to Dathomir. In all her months here, hiding from a galaxy that had branded her dangerous, hiding from herself and what she'd almost become, no one had found her.
Until now.
"Come on." She stood smoothly, depositing the girls on their feet. Scarlet energy crackled more visibly now, threading through her fingers and up her forearms. "Stay close. Stay behind me."
"Who is it?" Merlin whispered.
"That's what we're going to find out." Wanda moved toward her dwelling—a simple structure she'd carved from stone with her magic, reinforced with Nightsister techniques she'd learned from ancient texts. Not much, but home.
The girls followed, feet silent on the moss. They'd learned at least that much.
The ship touched down with a pneumatic hiss. Landing struts extended, stabilized. The hull was scarred, well-used. A ramp began to lower with a mechanical whine that echoed off the twisted trees.
Wanda positioned herself between the ship and the girls, hands raised slightly, magic ready. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Friend or foe? Republic, Separatist, or something else entirely? Had they come for her? Had someone finally tracked down the Scarlet Witch?
She set her jaw and waited, red energy painting her silhouette against Dathomir's crimson backdrop, as the ramp descended and a figure began to emerge from the ship's shadowed interior.