Title: "Hansel is dead"
Author: Hecate
Fandom: LOST
Rating: PG 13
Spoiler: set post – season 1, going AU Pairing, Character: Shannon (Shannon/Sayid, Shannon/Boone as background)
Summary: The witch took Hansel but the sister will find him.
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money made.
Note: Thanks for the beta goes to autiotalo.

When Shannon closes her eyes and listens closely she can hear Boone breathe beside her. Soft snores and hitches in the beginning, deep and slow in the middle of the night. She can feel his warmth as well: she knows he lies close, the distance between their skin so small that she can almost feel his hand against her hips. Just a slight move and his fingers would touch her; just a deep breath and she would be close enough.

Shannon holds her breath at night.

Boone is gone when she wakes up, but she is used to it by now; and so she turns and edges closer to Sayid, his arms wrapping themselves around her like a blanket. She goes back to sleep. She doesn't expect Boone to be there when she wakes up again and he never is. Sayid looks at her, worry lines creasing his forehead, and she wants to tell him to stop before he gets all wrinkled. She doesn't. That's something the old Shannon would do.

Shannon loved fairytales when she was younger, really young, before boys and money and the lightness of her hair started to matter to her. She loved the old ones, the cruel ones, those who taught you how to kill the witch and slay the dragon and how to turn around and forget about the blood slippery and wet on your skin. Shannon dreamed of swords and arrows at night, and she woke with a smile she pushed away later because the boys didn't like it. She never was the princess in those dreams.

You need to cut the dragon's tongue out to prove his death.

One day, Boone vanishes as usual and doesn't come back. One moment he was there, the next he isn't - and Shannon wants to scream at the other people around her because they don't seem to care. She cries instead, and Sayid hugs her long and hard: but he doesn't mention Boone, so she slips out of his arms and runs away, further into the jungle. Her brother is annoying but he is better than this, better than the silence and the ignorance, and she has to find him to prove it to them.

Shannon looks for signs he might have left for her, traces between the green of the jungle and the yellow of the beach. She doesn't search near the ocean because that reminds her of… something: of prayers, the smell of fresh earth, blood and the sound of the water nearby. Something she can't grasp and she never really tries to. She has to find Boone first.

She can't find Boone and she knows it can't be her fault. She searches hard enough, hard enough for a sister and a lover together. But she doesn't find him, and she knows the witch must have him. Shannon knows all about witches and the ways to kill them -

Cage them and burn them and slice them open!

- and she is willing to do anything to get Boone back. Anything. Everything.

She hears someone shout her name in the jungle but she doesn't answer. A voice in the back in her mind whispers frantically that she should answer, that she knows that voice, but she pushes it away. It's not Boone shouting for her and nothing but Boone matters now.

She needs to find the witch.

Children and knights kill the witch. Because they are smarter. Because they have to. Because love is waiting for them after the blood has been spent.

She needs a weapon.

Shannon enters the caves at night and creeps through the shadows. Her things are where she has left them and with them are Boone's clothes. And the knife Locke had given to him. She takes it quietly and leaves, treading softly through the sleeping forms of the others. A ghost among the lost.

She speeds up once she's out of the caves and soon they are behind her, the jungle between her and the others. She's surrounded by whispers and she stops to listen to them. It's hard to make out the words but after a while she can.

The knight will have help with slaying the witch.

Shannon follows the voices, lets them guide her deeper into the jungle. She knows Boone has been there; she feels his presence in the ground under her feet, naked now; in the trees around her and in the voices. The voices are clear now, soft and promising, warning her of stones in her way, and her body and head feel lighter suddenly. Like she isn't really there anymore, like she is gone -

She is the hero of this tale, a hero that lost her past on her way to the future

- and she knows she's going to find Boone. She just has to kill the witch first.

Enchanted blades never miss their aim and their blow is always deadly.

She stops then, the voices an ocean in her ears, and sits down.  Waits, because she has to; waits, because the witch will find her. The witch isn't satisfied, she wants more, needs more and her hunger will lead the witch to her -

to the knight

- and she will be ready then. An enchanted blade for a cursed wound and then she will find Boone. She sings quietly in the jungle to the sound of the voices around her.

When she hears other voices shouting through the jungle she thinks she should know them, should understand who they're calling for, but she doesn't and -

the witch is among them

- it's not really important anyway. She is almost ready now, she has the voices with her, the important voices, and the other ones can wait.

She gets ready, stretching her body and covering it in the brown of mud and the green of leaves. She opens herself to the voices, lets them fill her until her muscles turn to steel and her fists to stones, until she's a weapon and she's ready.

She moves fast and quietly, her long legs eating away the distance between her and the witch, until she's so close that she can see -

the witch

- and her hand grasps the blade harder. Another step and she's there, a fast move of her arm and the blade meets flesh and bones and her hand covers a mouth to quieten a scream. Blood runs over her other hand, warm, almost hot, but she holds on and the voices in her head are singing to the slowing rhythm of a heart.

A body falls down, the blade still in her hand, dripping red. She looks down and looks around and she can't see what she was searching for. She can't see it and she can't remember, but the witch is dead so it must be close. Close enough to find it and the voices will help her.

A sound to the left makes her whirl around, eyes seeing through the jungle, and there is someone else out there. Someone who had been with the witch. She steps away from the body and into the jungle, her feet caught in an almost-dance now, and she finds her way easily. She closes in on her prey and the blade feels alive in her hand. It's hungry and she will feed it with blood and life until her search is over and she finds… him. She thinks she searches for a man, maybe a boy, but that doesn't matter now. She will remember later.

She jumps, the hand carrying the blade stretched out, and again she strikes. A throat this time and blood spills out a slash while her hands snap a neck. Dead weight and she lets go, turning around already because someone is behind her.

"Shannon."

She remembers this voice, remembers this man, but it doesn't matter and her arm is a snake and the blade a deadly bite she will throw. Her search isn't over yet, the hunt not finished and -

It's always three sacrifices. Three deaths, three treasures to find, three ways the knight has to go.

- there is a sudden sound to her right. So very loud and pain blooms in her shoulder like a flower and the blade slips out of her hand while her body goes down to meet the wet soil of the jungle. She thinks that she might die.

But she doesn't.

Shannon wakes to pain in her shoulder and something like smoke behind her eyes. She tries to move but her hands are bound to the stretcher she lies on and her feet are bound together. She doesn't know why. She probably should.

"Jack? She's awake."

Shannon looks up and finds Kate staring at her, a gun in her hand. Shaking hands: and Shannon doesn't understand. Kate has never been afraid of anything. Jack appears besides her, pale and tired looking, and there is blood all over his clothes. Shannon knows then that something terrible must have happened, another death, and she wants nothing more than to sit up and to search their group for a missing face.

"What happened?"

Kate and Jack share a short look, silent communication passing between them. "You don't remember?"

 Shannon shakes her head: no, she doesn't, and Jack sighs and covers his face with one hand.

"You killed them." Kate's voice sounds as tired as Jack looks, and her hands haven't stopped trembling.

"I...what?" There is a humming sound in Shannon's head, like voices, and she knows that Kate said the truth. She killed them.

The witch. It was the witch, the witch, the witch…

She killed two men. "Who?"  Shannon's voice is nothing but a whisper and Kate starts to tremble harder and Jack doesn't say anything, his face buried in his hands.

"Who?" A bit louder now and Kate moves out of her vision and she can see Locke on a second stretcher not far away, dead eyes staring at her -

the witch, the witch, the witch

- and Shannon shuts her mouth hard to catch the scream that wants to tear its way out of her. There has to be a second body, she remembers a second body, heavy and dead, and her eyes wander through the cave until she finds a third stretcher. Another body, covered with some fabric but she knows the dark curls that spill out under it.

This time Shannon doesn't keep her scream inside and it fills the cave like thunder. Kate jumps up beside her and Jack finally looks at her again, his eyes so sad that she can barely bear looking at him.

"Oh God…"

There are voices in her head again, closing in on her, singing up a storm and chasing away the smoke behind her eyes. There is strength in her body again, a weapon returned, and she doesn't know these people around her.

It's always three sacrifices. Three deaths, three treasures to find, three ways the knight has to go.

Her bonds rip under her strength and her body is ready and her self is lost among the voices. She just knows that she has been searching for someone, that she has been close.

She remembers that her search isn't over yet.