heard pain tell love, she said 'where would i be without you?' 

Chapter 1: losing blood; i'm gonna leave my bones

When the ice melts, when the magic comes pouring back into the walls, breathing tremulous life into the castle, reversing the effects of the magical death of the grounds and its occupants, it meets the emptiness inside of her and she collapses.

(Magic is an organic thing; it lives and breathes and grows at its own rate. It cannot be forced along, can only be nurtured or confined and repressed, and although it grows, although it regenerates, it cannot be manifested suddenly out of the aether. It’s fundamental magical theory, really.

And it's for that reason Hecate lies, slack-jawed and frightfully pale, in the infirmary for five days before regaining even a whisper of consciousness.)

Or, the magic at Cackle's takes some time to recover, and Hecate has some personal demons to battle in the meantime. Follows Hecate across the ~6 months after the events of The Big Freeze as she navigates her recovery of both her magic and her way of life - with a great deal of help from her support structure.

Content warning (for the entirety of the fic): ableism (ableist thoughts from the disabled party, and references to a history of ableism in the workplace). non-sexual intimacy including nudity (bathing, hair-washing). self-sabotage but it gets fixed bc Hecate has a support structure, however limited. non-explicit sexual content.