Title: The Moon and Samantha
Author: DianeB
Summary: A post-ep for "Sam in the Moon" (#91). Samantha recalls that enchanted time so long ago, when she visited the moon. We assume for the sake of the story that the moon she visited was Earth's.
Rated: PG for content regarding sexuality and a young girl's coming of age.
Author's Note: The very end of this episode spoke to me so much of Samantha's magical history that I just had to fill in a blank. Inspired by Laurell K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake" novels. Thanks to Arfies for helping me with the BW canon, and, of course, to my Mighty Editor Goddess, Brenda. Minor adjustments have been made since this story was posted on Arfies site.
Samantha, lying in bed beside Darrin, waited until she heard his breathing become deep and even, before she turned her head to gaze out the window at the bright, full moon. She never cared for evading Darrin's questions about her life before she met him, but this particular memory was so personal and so very much about magic, that she knew it would be better in the long run (both for her sanity and Darrin's, too) if she did not share this with him, instead covering it with a very mortal "There are some things a wife should not tell a husband."
Should not tell, indeed.
Closing her eyes, she could picture it as if it were yesterday. . .
"Samantha!" Her mother shouted from the other room. "Hurry up, dear! If we're not ready to go when Arthur gets here, I'll never hear the end of it." More to herself than to her daughter, she added, "Now where is that tiara?"
Samantha, just 47 days past her twelfth birthday, heard her mother's question about the tiara and wondered what all the fuss was about. It wasn't as if she didn't know what was going on, it was just that she felt like her mother, as usual, was making entirely too big a deal out of it.
She had woken this morning, in her room on Cloud 9, ready to spend the day with Aunt Hagatha, going over some of the more ancient potions from her aunt's equally-as-ancient Book of Shadows.
Instead, she woke to vague feelings of discomfort somewhere around her stomach and went to ask her mother if she could skip the lessons today. Endora took one look at her and exploded with glee. "Forget Hagatha's potions today, my darling. Put on the blue dress with the cape. We're going to Paris!" Almost as an afterthought, she added, "Let me get you some tea." And then, taking both of Samantha's hands gently between her own and looking deeply into her eyes, she uttered a strange spell, but it didn't really sound like a spell at all.
"My magic child, you are quicksilver, a fleeting shadow, a distant sound. Your life has no boundaries beyond which you cannot cross. You live in music, in a flash of color. You live on the wind. . .and in the sparkle of a star."
And then she was gone, to fetch the tea and, apparently, the tiara, leaving Samantha to get dressed, pondering her immediate future.
She was a very bright girl, a witch-in-training since she could remember (since the day of her conception, actually, according to her mother), but she could not escape her biology. She would age like a mortal until she attained physical maturity and would remain only mediocre at casting spells until she reached the time of her menses.
It had only been in the last year that she'd even learned what "menses" was, but she'd obviously reached it, even though her undergarments revealed nothing of what she had been told to expect. Samantha sighed and continued dressing, wondering how much this "momentous event" (her mother's words, of course) would really change her.
Samantha had had no idea what her mother was up to, but got a clue when Uncle Arthur arrived.
Driving a chariot.
Made from what looked like stardust.
Pulled by twenty miniature winged horses of every hue imaginable – and a few hues beyond that.
"Oh my stars!"
As her mother fitted the glittering tiara snugly on top of her blonde head, Samantha realized she had never seen her mother smile like that ever before. They boarded the chariot, sitting on blue velvet cushions that hung suspended in air at just the right height for comfort. Arthur cracked what looked like a lightning bolt over the heads of the horses, the sound of a hundred sleigh bells accompanying the action, and the horses rose from the cloud without so much as a jiggle to the chariot.
"To the moon!" Arthur shouted, and Samantha turned in surprise to her mother.
"Mother! I thought you said we were going to Paris."
Her mother affected her more-familiar smug smile, and then patted Sam's hand affectionately, all traces of smugness gone, replaced by pure love. "I realized Paris wasn't good enough."
So, Samantha thought with an excited thrill, they were going to the moon.
Their trip through the darkness of space was uneventful, if slightly chilly, and Samantha was glad she had the cape. Since it was obvious a spell around the chariot protected them from anything else that space might have to affect them, Samantha sat back and enjoyed the ride.
Witches' and warlocks' place in the universe had been established many centuries earlier, along with countless other creatures of both darkness and light, and since that time, only a handful of mortals ever learned of their existence. Samantha thought that was too bad, because she knew it meant that mortals missed out on displays such as this.
The Earth's sun, Sol, shone bright and hot, the stars brilliant around her. Far in the distance, a comet soared past, its tail miles long, and she imagined she could hear the sound of its passing. The moon, drawing nearer, with its uneven, asteroid-impacted surface, seemed unreal, a place filled with mystery and wonder. It was, in a word, magical.
She felt the chariot slow on its approach. They came in from the dark side, so as not to be blinded, and landed smoothly, the horses nickering as their hooves met the powdery surface.
The chariot came to a halt, and Samantha saw a circle of bright light a few feet away. Inside the circle stood a beautiful woman, dressed in a gossamer white gown, beckoning to her. Samantha gasped in recognition.
This was the Woman in the Moon.
"Go on, darling," her mother said, pushing anxiously at her shoulder. "She only has so much time!"
Samantha stepped carefully down from the chariot, the cape swirling around her legs, and walked through the powdery dust to the circle, which she realized upon closer inspection was made up entirely of fairies who looked to be about the right size to ride Uncle Arthur's winged horses. The fairies parted at her arrival and she entered the circle. The Woman in the Moon held her arms out to Samantha.
"Welcome, my child, to the beginning of your life. Come sit for a moment." The Woman took Samantha's hand and led her to a high-backed chair with a small stool beside it, and gestured for her to sit on the stool. "When you woke this morning, you were a little girl, and now you are a woman, about to enter the world to which you were born."
Over by the chariot, she heard her mother's squeal of delight, and then realized with a start that she had never heard her mother squeal quite like that before.
The Woman, who had remained standing, faced Samantha and, after carefully removing the tiara, placed both hands on Samantha's head, closed her own eyes, and began to chant so softly that Samantha could not hear her. But it wasn't long before she felt a strange sensation building in her, a sort of adrenaline rush that didn't subside, but grew in intensity, even as she felt the Woman's hands slide away from her.
Suddenly, all the spells that had been confusing, and all the potions that had turned to mud, weremade clear. All the skills and abilities she had seen in her mother and her aunts and had wanted for her own, became her own. She could feel the energy burning in her and recognized it for what it was: the formidable magic that was her birthright.
Samantha was unable to contain her joy. She leapt from the stool and launched herself into the arms of a very startled Woman in the Moon. The Woman took but a moment to collect herself, before bringing her arms tightly around Samantha. "My child, I don't believe anyone has ever hugged me with such intensity before. Thank you."
Though Samantha was unaware of it at the time, her unfettered outburst affected the Woman in a grand way. The Woman's understated expression of thanks was accompanied by a gift, a gift that would forever set Samantha apart from the larger community of magical beings.
She was given compassion. And from that moment on, Samantha was destined to become more than a self-centered, self-indulgent witch, like so many others were. By the time Samantha learned of the gift she had been given – a secret shared by her Uncle Arthur on the occasion of her one hundredth birthday – she'd already figured out she was unique among her kind. The confirmation from Uncle Arthur only made her more determined to live up to her destiny.
Samantha opened her eyes and chuckled softly, remembering her mother's stunningly over-the-top behavior towards her after their visit to the moon, and her continued outrageousness to this very day. Her mother, of course, had no idea that Uncle Arthur kept Sam well informed of Endora's ever-evolving feelings about that fateful trip, and Samantha never saw a reason to tell her.
Endora, though covertly pleased that the Woman in the Moon had singled out her daughter for special favor, tried every trick in the book to break Samantha of her distasteful mortal desire to be more of a caregiver than a hedonistic globetrotter. While she was successful up to a point, she was never able to completely extinguish it. The older Samantha got, the harder it became for Endora to argue her case for a wild and wicked lifestyle.
When Endora learned that the man Samantha was going to marry was not a warlock but a mortal, she finally threw up her hands in defeat, realizing there wasn't a thing she could do about the gift the Woman in the Moon had given her daughter.
Of course, that didn't mean she wouldn't stop trying. There was, after all, the thrill of the game, which kept her spells sharp and her conduct from becoming dull and boring. In her more reflective moments, Endora wondered if perhaps this hadn't been part of the Woman in the Moon's plan all along.
Samantha, her eyes again on the bright globe outside the window, reached out and gave her sleeping husband's arm a gentle squeeze. Sighing in contentment, she closed her eyes and quickly dropped into a deep sleep, dreaming of winged horses and comet's tails, her hand still resting on top of her husband's arm.
End.