Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After her mom died and her dad disappeared, Stiles new that everyone in the village was feeling pity for her, but she still felt distanced, at least to a degree. Everyone kept giving her these looks, and she would be the first to say that she took full advantage of them, but a consequence of that had been that she was adopted by the Argents out of the “goodness of their hearts” and she had been putting up with them for the better part of a decade now.

Stiles wasn't one to take things for granted, a hard life isolated from people had taught her that and she had known a bit even before that, but she didn't think that she would ever end up here. Ten years before this, Stiles would have laughed like a loon if anyone so much as suggested that something like this could happen to her.

But here she was.

At the edge of civilization.

At the start of the forest and the hills.

And going into the wild.

No one had ever returned from there, it was where people went to die. Sties would know, her parents were some of those people, at least, she thought they were.

(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)(‘O’)

Stiles stood at the foot of the gigantic, green, and densely populated hills of the forest. Squinting against the harsh mid-day light at what must have been hundreds of thousands of trees, contemplating what massive mistake she must have committed for her life to lead up to this point.

She guessed it was all because she wasn't like the other villagers. Because she didn't have a family. Because she didn't want to dress up like all of the petty people in her town thought she should and talk about insignificant things while sitting around and doing nothing.

But at least she was nice, she was certainly much better company than more than half of the crazy townspeople that had taken a secret lottery (although she suspected that they had actually voted) and had decided that she would be the ultimate sacrifice for the beast because apparently, offering up a “virgin maiden” was the only way to appease the gods and to calm the wrath of the forest's beast.

It’s not like it was her fault that she wasn't pretty, it certainly wasn't her fault that 9 years of living with the psychotic Argents had made her disposition slightly acerbic, and it definitely wasn't her fault that due to her less than stellar life she had learned how to see straight through people and could tell that a lot of people in town were bad news.

But anyways, she thought, at least now she wouldn't have to face Kate and tell her that she had accidentally lost her “special pink sash” the last time she was washing their clothes at the communal creek, the gods only knew what Gerard would have done once he’d found out.

Stiles braced herself, took one long breath trying to calm herself, and took a step forward. Then another. And another. And another after that. And she kept going until she was so far inside the forest in the hills, that the land she was standing on was no longer level, rather it was sloping at an angle and was filled with trees packed so tightly that she got scratches all over her arms and legs and face every time she took a step forward. The intertwining tree branches above her face making it impossible to tell how much time had gone by, so she kept walking, going up the steep hill in her simple, white chiffon dress and earth colored sandals. Watching the ground to make sure she didn't trip over any of the half-invisible roots or slip on the twigs and leaves scattered all over the forest floor.

Stiles continued to walk until she was too tired to keep going and sat down, sitting up against a fallen tree trunk, after she figured she must have been walking for hours, though it was hard to tell since she couldn't see the sun though the trees, and she didn't have an hour glass with her.

Stiles reflected on the events of the morning, how she had been dragged away from the well in the middle of her morning water pick-up for Kate’s bath. How she had been stripped and shoved into the flowing white dress she was wearing after a bucket of freezing water had been dumped on her head. How she had then been very rudely pushed by an excitable mob, until she was at the edge of the village before Harris, the evil bastard that he was, had smirked at her before telling her that “she would serve to pay off the debt that the village had and that she had been chosen to be given over to the beast.”

Fed up with her thoughts, Stiles stood back up and kept walking, Harris had told her that she would have to keep walking, in as straight a line as she could, until she found a clearing—where she would most likely die, since that was where they figured the beast would be, but how they knew this, Stiles didn't even want to think about—and once at the clearing, she would offer herself to the beast. For this reason, Stiles decided to go sprinting to the right instead of to keep going straight, since she would rather get lost in the woods and hopefully delay her death, than to literally walk until she met her maker.

This is how Stiles ended up reaching the clearing that she had been trying to avoid, stumbling to a stop at the edge of the forest -- and hills, which she now saw were more like mountains— which ended at a cliff that dropped off to a valley that wasn't as crowded with trees. There Stiles stood looking out into the open space, trying to catch her breath, now that she could see the sky, it was obvious that it was night time. It was the night of the full moon, but there were some clouds obstructing the view of the silver sphere in the sky and just as they started to clear enough for Stiles to really take in the sight before her, she heard a low growling sound start off to her left.

Oh,SHIT, Stiles thought, just as she saw a massive, hulking monster emerge from the shadows near the trees she had just exited from. She couldn't see clearly because of the clouds still obscuring the light of the moon, but she could see enough to be terrified.

The black beast launched itself at Stiles just as she was taking a step back, and the next thing she knew, Stiles was falling. She had stepped off the edge of the cliff without noticing, after trying to retreat from the creature that had been stalking towards her.

Chapter Text

Stiles woke up groggily to the sound of people arguing and to the feel of a pounding headache. She could vaguely hear the sounds of what must have been several people discussing what had happened.

"I thought Harris told everyone to walk in a straight line. Do you know how much time I had to waste looking for her?" An irritated voice spoke while Stiles started feeling around to see where she had been placed.

"Well, based on when they were supposed to release her, and when you actually found her, I would say that you lost at least six hours and-" the somewhat disinterested voice that was speaking was cut off by what sounded so much like a growl that Stiles couldn't stop an involuntary shiver and a whimper from escaping her.

The people in the room must have noticed it because all sounds stopped and all Stiles could hear was her own breathing, until someone else - a woman, Stiles thought, if the motherly concern in her voice is anything to go by - spoke.

"Hello, honey. Can you hear me? Are you awake? If you are, I need you to open your eyes so I can check you over, okay? You had quite the fall," the woman spoke in a slightly questioning and concerned tone that reminded Stiles of her mother, though she couldn't recall much of her since she had died when Stiles was very young.

She shifted, and as she was about to open her mouth to speak, she heard another pseudo-growl -because that's what they must be, no one could actually growl, Stiles thought- and someone else, the irritated person, spoke.

"No, don't wake her."

"He's right," a calm voice spoke, "I'll sedate her and check her over, she's due her pain medication, anyway -" and all sounds faded away again.

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Stiles woke up feeling well-rested, if a bit sore. Her eyes blinked open, and Stiles squinted in sleepiness as she looked around at the room she was in, proving that whoever had been discussing her before was now long gone. But, as she was sitting up, she heard someone clear their throat behind her. She turned slowly and saw a dark-skinned man with a shaved head standing a few feet away from the large settee she had been laying on.

He made sure he had her attention before he spoke and said, "Hello, Stiles. I am Doctor Deaton, and I will be here while you heal up from your fall. You have some very serious bruising, but you didn't fracture anything. You might be feeling a bit sore, but you should be fine in a few weeks.

He paused to make sure she was still listening before he continued.

"My assistant, Scott, will also be here, especially if I am not able to supervise-" he started to say before seeing Stiles' slowly darkening face and quickly corrected himself, "accompany you. After you are all healed, he will take you on a tour of the town. Now, why don't you go clean up, there should be something in your size in one of those drawers over there," he paused while motioning to a dresser on the other side of the room, "and the bathroom is right there," he motioned to the door next to the dresser. "I will wait here." He said all this with a neutral tone, less like a question or suggestion and more like a statement.

Stiles did what he said mechanically. She wondered if everyone here, wherever here was, was as odd as Dr. Deaton, and how he had known her name to begin with.

Chapter Text

Then, as she started to undress herself, after getting a change of clothes and closing the restroom door, she saw that she had what looked like a faded bite mark on her wrist. She resolved herself to ask him after a quick bath, during which she found that he had been right about the bruising and the soreness. She was surprised that she had even survived what looked like a 100 foot drop, and she couldn’t help but worry about what it meant that she had gotten off so easy.

After she exited the restroom, Stiles saw that Dr. Deaton was still standing where he had been before she left the room, and prepared to ask what she had been wondering.

“So, Deaton…I mean, Dr. Deaton, I noticed that I have what seems to be a bite mark on my wrist, which looks distinctly red and swollen, while the rest on my bruises look blue or purple. Want to tell me what that’s about?”

“As you said, Miss Stilinski, it just looks like a bite mark, but it is definitely a bruise, and one you got while falling.”

“Are you sure? Because -”

“Yes, I’m sure. It looks a different color because it was more intense than the others and will take longer to heal, which is why it is still swollen and red. I am a doctor after all, I would know.”

“You would, wouldn’t you,” Stiles said suspiciously, “so how do you know… my name?”

“We always request information before we agree to house the guests from Beacon Valley or any other town.”

“Wait, guests?”

“As you should have guessed, this is Beacon Hills. But before you ask anything else, I should tell you that I am about to leave, I got called away,” a door opened by where they were standing and a boy around Stiles’ age came through, “and my assistant, Scott, will keep you company. Goodbye Miss Stilinski.”

“What, but -” she didn’t even finish speaking before Deaton reached the door and closed it with finality.

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Stiles’ days passed like that, waking up soon after sunrise with Deaton replying cryptically to her questions about the town and leaving after a few minutes, leaving her alone with Scott. Scott and Stiles became friends quickly, she liked his innocent puppy attitude, despite how little he would tell her about the town.

“I’m on orders, Stiles, please don’t make me tell you. Dr. Deaton won’t be happy, and he said you’d find everything out at the right time, please,” Scott pleaded before tilting his head and looking at her with sad puppy-dog eyes.

“Alright, fine, but as soon as I can walk around without my bruises really hurting, I want a full tour of the town.”

“Okay,” he said happily, tilting his head again and giving her a dopey grin.

Which was how, a week later, Stiles found herself sneaking out of the house she had been staying in. Scott had wanted to wait another few days to make sure she was really fine and to make sure they had Deaton’s permission, but had finally relented after almost an hour of Stiles’ pleading.

Once they were outside of the house, Stiles saw Beacon Hills for the first time. The place was amazing, nothing like the small town on the other side of the mountains she had fallen from. She could see most of the town from where she was and she finally figured out why Deaton had said what he had said about the town’s name. The house she had been staying in was about halfway up a hill, at the top of which, there was a large acropolis. Lower on the hill, she could see many other houses built similarly to hers, but each with their own differences in structure and with differently styled gardens. She could also see a large stadium near the bottom of the hill, and a large wall encircling the town, with several gates to allow the villagers to go out and tend to the crops outside the wall. She even saw a fairly-sized river at one of the gates, with a small port and some boats.

All in all, Stiles was completely blown away by the size of the town she was in, which was vastly different from her own. She had no idea how all of this could be hidden away behind a few mountains or how the people in her old village had been convinced that there was some kind of evil beast on the other side of the mountains. This seemed like paradise.

After standing in awe of the sheer size and beauty of the town she found herself in, Stiles urged Scott to show her around like he had promised. They made their way slowly through the town, which -despite its size- didn’t actually have that many more inhabitants than Beacon Valley did.

Scott showed her to some of the other houses, signaling out the ones that had teenagers around their ages, and soon Stiles knew a bit about everyone in the town. There were Erica and Vernon, who preferred to be called Boyd, they were around their age and had been together since they showed up in town a few years prior. There was a girl called Lydia that lived with her parents and was in charge of the food stores and their distribution. There was also a boy called Jackson, that made Scott wrinkle his nose and squint after not being able to come up with anything nice to say about him except that he was a bit older than them and liked participating in the games and matches held regularly at the stadium. Scott told her about a few other teenagers, including an orphan boy named Isaac that had been taken in by the Hale family, which lived nearly at the top of the hill, and about the Hale siblings.

After the tour of the houses on the hill, they went to the lower part of town, where Scott said he, his mother, and his step-father lived. Apparently, Melissa –Scott’s mom- had taken John in when Scott was still young and they had fallen in love and gotten married, which was good because Scott finally had a caring dad again. Scott then showed her the small cluster of businesses in the square, showing her to his mother’s remedy clinic, Lydia’s storage house, his step-father’s station near one of the gates, Deaton’s clinic, and a small public house that served food and drinks.

They were trying to be discreet because they were never sure where Deaton was and they didn’t want to be seen outside by the wrong people, but when they got to the last place, Scott made a big deal about going in. Once inside, Stiles understood why Scott had been nervous and insistent about entering the pub, behind the counter she could see a pretty, dark-haired girl with an easy smile and dimples in her cheeks. It was also obvious that Scott was completely smitten with her from the way he stared at her from the entrance until Stiles nudged him with her elbow and forced him forward. This drew the girl’s attention and prompted Scott to speak, “H-hh-hey, Allison,” he finally said with the dopey smile that Stiles had come to associate with his happiness.

“Hey, Scott,” the girl responded before turning to Stiles and greeting her as well.

Allison and Scott made stilted and slightly awkward conversation with Stiles interjecting every once in a while until some other people entered the public house, and Stiles looked away from the adorably awkward interaction happening in front of her.

What she saw had her frozen to her spot. At the front of the public house stood a group of teenagers in armor. The first one she saw was a tall, curvy girl with blonde hair and a tough looking exterior, beside her was a muscular dark-skinned boy with a shaved head and a neutral expression. Then there was a tall, lanky boy with honey-colored curls and an unsure expression, next to him stood a slightly more muscular boy with spiky, dirty-blonde hair and who had a condescending expression on his face. Behind all of them stood another guy, one with spiky black hair, eyebrows that seemed to radiate annoyance and the most startling green eyes.

Stiles could have sworn she had seen those eyes before. The memory was hazy, despite all of the adrenaline that had been running through her system at the time, but she was sure that she had seen those eyes when she had been trying to escape from the beast in the woods.