Anna's Favorite Grimm

Liliana sat in her shop in the little wooden chair in front of the round table covered in bright silk scarves, staring into the crystal ball. This would be a fairly normal thing for her to do, if there were a customer on the other side of the table. But she was alone. One of her regulars, Phoebe Wurstner, a very nice eisbiber soccer mom, was coming by at 11:00, but it was only 9:43. The steady tick, tick, ticking of her clocks filled her work space with grounding peace. Liliana loved clocks.

Phoebe was the one who first told Liliana about the newly awakened Grimm in Portland. Phoebe's husband, Bud, had spotted the Grimm, and warned the local wesen community.

At first, Liliana had been terrified. Her old childhood nightmares of Grimms coming to get her returned with a vengeance. Then, her worst fear had come true. The Grimm had come for her.

But that hadn't turned out at all how she expected it to.

Now, the Grimm had become her new hobby, she supposed. Possibly even a bit of an obsession. Liliana stared into the crystal ball to watch him every spare moment that she could. The ball was simply there for show, but it had become habit for her to look into it when she used her fourth eyes. Liliana was comfortable with habit.

She watched him. With her fourth eyes, she looked back in time, to see who this Grimm was, how he had become such an odd sort of Grimm. She witnessed the moment when Nick Burkhardt saw his first wesen. He killed a reaper before he even knew what one was. He was fierce and deadly, this Grimm, certainly no one to be crossed. But he was like no Grimm she had ever heard of.

She watched him befriend a blutbad that Nick first thought was a killer of children, the gentle wolf who had given her the sweater off his back because she was cold. The wolf trained with him, honed Nick's Grimm instincts and gave him knowledge he needed.

She watched the Grimm protect a hexenbiest from murder, even though he despised her. He rescued a lost and wounded blutbad child and returned her to her second mother. He befriended a reinigen boy, and asked the gentle wolf, Monroe, to mentor the boy since they shared a love of classical music.

She watched the Grimm's life, how he balanced his sense of justice as a police officer with the darker reality of a Grimm's duties. She watched him buy food for a young human girl and her brother, because he knew they were hungry. She watched as Nick tried to save a geier from a fiery death, even though she had tortured and killed young humans like the one he cared for. His compassion for human and wesen alike was boundless. This was not the sort of Grimm she had seen in other visions of the past. He judged all that he met, human or wesen, by the same fair measure. Mercy was his first instinct, not murder.

This was not the sort of Grimm the wesen world had known. This was the sort of Grimm the wesen world genuinely needed. With more Grimms like that, Liliana's customers, the wesen who trusted her to guide them away from danger, wouldn't have to live in constant fear.

Liliana saw something else, something Nick didn't know. She saw another reaper come, hunting her favorite Grimm while he was still raw and new to the life he inherited, still vulnerable. She saw the reaper kneel to the police captain who assigned Nick to all the wesen related cases. The reaper called him "your highness." The captain, who must also be a prince, sent the reaper away, missing an ear, and warned all other reapers not to come back to his city. The implication was clear. No reaper was to harm HIS Grimm.

Nick seemed completely unaware of the prince that watched over him, just as, Liliana realized, he was completely unaware that Liliana watched over him. Liliana decided that was okay. Nick needed protectors.

The wesen community needed Nick alive.

He fulfilled a vital function. He gave justice to the ones who had never known justice, save that which they could rip from their enemies for themselves with tooth and claw. Peaceful people like Phoebe and her husband kept their heads low and tried hard not to attract unwanted attention from the more vicious wesen. In Nick Burkhardt, Liliana saw what the Grimms were truly meant to be, a civilizing influence, a chance for wesen to live as people, not as beasts.

That was why she watched over him so carefully.

Of course, it didn't hurt that he had such pretty eyes. She stopped for a moment, freezing an image in her mind of Nick smiling, and felt herself smiling with him. Nick's eyes weren't the only thing about him that was appealing. Nick was …

The knock on the door startled her.

She looked at her clocks. 11:04. That would be Phoebe. Liliana had sunk into the past and completely lost track of current time. It happened to her sometimes. That was one reason why Liliana liked to be surrounded by clocks. They helped her to orient in the here and now.

Liliana invited her customer in with the usual graceful dramatic gesture.

"Oh, Madame Anna, I'm so glad you could see me."

Lilliana cocked her head to one side in confusion. Phoebe was a fairly ordinary eisbiber with blonde hair and a pleasant face. "I can always see you if I wish."

Phoebe waved her hands and chuckled, "Yes, yes, of course. I just meant I was glad you could meet with me so soon. I'm worried sick. You'll never believe what happened. You know that Grimm I told you about? He came to my house yesterday! A Grimm! In my house!"

Liliana nodded understanding, looking down at the scarves that made up her skirt. "Yes, I know."

"You know! Why didn't you warn me? He threatened my husband!"

Liliana sat at her usual place at the table. Without the usual preamble, Phoebe sat on the opposite side in one of the two customer chairs.

Liliana had never had more than two people come to her at once.

"The Grimm asked only that he and his beloved be left in peace, and that your husband and his friends stop telling everyone where they lived." Liliana had not remembered to use the singsong seer's voice, so her own flat intonation made it sound like a rebuke.

Phoebe drew back from Liliana a little. "He said he would come back if we didn't do what he said. He'll come back and kill us all! I know he will. That's what Grimms do!"

Liliana stopped herself from reprimanding Phoebe again. Instead, she did what she was paid to do, she opened her fourth eyes and looked into Phoebe's future. She also remembered to switch to the customer voice with the soothing intonation that made customers more comfortable with her. The images she saw with her fourth eyes were flickery and uncertain. Nick might or might not return to the Wurstner's home. "The Grimm may return to your home one day, but if he comes, he will come as a friend, and an honored guest." In all possible futures where Nick might enter their home, she saw him only smiling or sad, and always welcomed, never in his role as the swift and brutal dispenser of the justice of a Grimm. "You have nothing to fear from this Grimm."

"What about Bud? He's been so excited about knowing a Grimm. I'm afraid of what will happen with him hanging around such a dangerous person."

Liliana looked into Bud's future, seeking any danger to him. An image practically leapt out at her. Bud screamed and screamed in horrible agony. He was tied and helpless as a masked figure burned him with a searing iron. Bud's screams died in an agonized gurgle. Liliana gasped and closed her fourth eyes to shut out the awful sight.

"Oh!" Phoebe covered her mouth with fear at Liliana's reaction. "What was it! What did you see?"

Liliana breathed deeply, fighting for calm, but she knew her hands were trembling. She had to be calm or Phoebe would panic. "Your husband is in great danger, but the danger is not soon. There is time to avoid it."

"I knew it!" Phoebe said almost triumphantly. "It's that Grimm! I told Bud to stay away from him."

Liliana very carefully opened her fourth eyes again, ready to slam them shut if she was assaulted by more visions of torture. She thought about Bud and Nick together, to see if that intersection was what caused Bud's danger.

An image made her smile and calmed her nerves. Bud hugged first Detective Hank, Nick's partner, then Nick himself, and thanked them for saving his life. "The Grimm is not the danger. He is the savior. Bud will die unless the Grimm saves him." She saw more bits of the future involving Bud and Nick. "Bud will present the Grimm to all the beavers. He will name the Grimm his friend, and the Grimm will smile and nod." Liliana sought specifically for any other danger related to Nick and Bud.

Three men ran in fear, with Nick on their heels. One man was Bud. Liliana recognized the eisbiber's sanctuary, their "lodge" inside the old dam. Nick wasn't chasing them, he was guarding their retreat.

Two reapers chased them. Nick sent the beavers to safety, and stayed to fight. "This Grimm is like no other. Nick will fight to defend your husband and your people from any danger."

Two reapers at once. Nick had so little training. Liliana was afraid to look, but she couldn't help it. She looked.

Nick fought valiantly. The two reapers fought as a team, overwhelming Nick's defenses. Liliana recognized one of the reapers, the one with only one ear. The prince's order to stay away had not been enough.

As Liliana watched, her favorite Grimm died. The reaper with one ear took his head. His blood spilled in a ghastly surge and his beautiful eyes stared at nothing, mouth open in a silent scream.

Liliana stood up from the table so quickly, she knocked over her chair. Turning her back on her customer, she fiddled with the scarves of her skirt. The silken feel of the fabric between her fingers normally calmed her, but nothing could calm her after what she had just seen. She twisted the soft fabric until it threatened to tear. "Nick will fight for Bud," she whispered. "He may die fighting to keep your husband and his friends safe." Liliana had seen Nick die, clear and close and very certain, but she would not say aloud that it would happen. The future wasn't set. Not yet.

"Oh my." Phoebe sounded stunned. "I had no idea. I thought …"

"That is all I can see today. I am tired." It was what Liliana said when she needed to end a session with a client who stayed too long. Phoebe had only been there a few minutes, but Liliana desperately wanted her to leave.

"Oh. Sure. Okay." She pulled money out of her purse and put it in the elaborate jar Liliana kept on the shelf beside the round table. "Can you see me again next week?"

The image of Nick's gruesome death consumed Lilliana's mind. Her hands shook as she ran the scarves through her fingers again and again. She barely even heard the question Phoebe asked. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that Nick would die.

She crouched in the corner in a little ball and rocked.

Phoebe left quietly.

Liliana had only just begun to know the compassionate Grimm. And already she had seen him die. She felt a surge of unreasoning anger toward Phoebe. Why had the stupid beaver woman made her look?

She opened her fourth eyes a tiny slit to look at Phoebe, half hoping she would see something awful happen to her. Instead, she saw the eisbiber sewing a beautiful quilt to give to the Grimm and his red-haired lady. And baking a pie as well.

It made the edges of Liliana's mouth twitch in something that was almost a smile. Phoebe's attitude toward the Grimm had radically changed. That future had not existed until Liliana spoke to her. Phoebe's future path had altered, as had Bud's by extension, and Liliana knew now that the fate of the beavers was intertwined with the fate of the Grimm. Liliana had changed the Grimm's future in a small way for the better.

She risked a quick glance into the future, but saw the same ugly death still waiting to claim her favorite Grimm.

Nick was still going to die.

Liliana stopped rocking and stood up.

Not if she had anything to say about it.