Ilinca: Urban Witch

[Ehver]

???

She was not certain how long it had been. Long enough that the cold and the damp and the terror had sunken equally deep into the very marrow of her bones. Long enough that she had become accustomed to the tremble of fear that coursed through every nerve in her body. Long enough that she began to doubt her own beating heart - for surely she was dead already. Surely she was a but a pitiful spirit, caught amidst the swirling fog, bemoaning its fate and endless in its wanderings.

If she had been alone, it might have indeed ended so. But the reflection of firelight in her companion's wary and weary eyes was enough - most times - to anchor her. And the electric trill of magic, ever-present at the very tips of her fingers, was enough to remind her of who and what she was.

She could not be certain how long it had been, and eventually, she stopped wondering. The Mists were fickle with its prisoners, and they passed eternal seconds in a fugue of exhaustion and the struggle of survival. They found things - and places - and then lost them again in the next tread of their boots. Sometimes they mourned, but mostly they trudged on, avoiding the shadows of figures and the whispers of voices carried to them on the still air.

They were Watched, but not by eyes, awaiting the day the Mists saw fit to release them, or kill them, and equally eager for both.

[Ehver]

[Redacted]

[Ehver]

Present Day...

"Wake up, little witch."

She was awake in an instant, jerking upright and instinctively throwing her hand out as the cat that was no cat landed feather-light upon the edge of the bed. He dodged her blindly grasping fingers, slipping beneath them with an impatient hiss, his voice cutting through the haze of sleep-riddled thought.

"Calm down. He is not here, and I have not harmed him."

She drew a shaking breath, hand retreating to scrub instead at her gritty eyes. She felt dirty and unsteady, and it took her longer than she would have liked to admit to remember where she was. Sometimes she felt as if the mist still had her, and everything else was but a dream.

The room was wide and, while sparsely furnished, nonetheless comfortable in its setup. The cat was correct - the second bed, pressed up against the opposite wall, was empty. He must have left some time ago, and quietly too, as not to wake her. She supposed that was kind of him. She had not been sleeping well of late.

Wane sunlight filtered in through dusty curtains, and she could hear the faint sounds of urban life pushing past the thin walls. Oxen hooves clacking on stone, wooden wheels creaking behind them. The general murmur of voices mixed so thoroughly together as to become indistinguishable from one another. The laughter and shouts of children dashing through narrow alleys. The distant bark of a dog and the crack of a door being slammed shut.

"You slept like the dead. And don't look much better for it, either," the cat remarked, his luminous eyes narrowed. She lowered her hands from her face, resting them wearily in her lap as, finally, she turned her attention to the familiar creature. She had not seen him often, of late, and she was not certain she wished to see him now. As if sensing her reluctance, his maw pulled back to reveal small, sharp fangs, another hiss rumbling up in his throat.

"Wake up, my mouse. There are things to be done. You cannot remain like this forever."

He was right. They were all right. But she did not know how to be anything but what she already was.

She pushed the blankets back, throwing her legs over the edge of the bed, her toes grazing the floorboards.

"First things first - another bounty to collect."

[Ehver]

Present Day...

The scent of crushed herbs filled the room - tea leaves and chamomile, dried orange rinds and honeycomb - and the sound of stone against stone, pestle against mortar, echoed in her ears. The routine was familiar, calming, her wrist twisting with each grind, her chest rising and falling with the slow, even draw of her breath. She wasn't in a hurry. There was nowhere she wanted to go, and no one she wanted to see. She simply wanted to be - to exist in a quiet moment, to let her thoughts settle, and the painfully erratic flow of her magic with it.

He could probably smell it - the cat that was no cat. Smell the magic on her, bubbling in her veins and racing just beneath the layers of her skin, aching for release. It was difficult to calm the torrent when her emotions were so unsettled, and there was no outlet here to ease the build-up. She could only endure. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Until it faded, dulled.

"What happened, little witch?" She was surprised to feel the cat brush against her. He almost never touched her directly, always just out of reach, watching her with the sickeningly yellow orbs of his eyes. Her hand stilled, fingers wrapped around the pestle, gray-eyed gaze flickering to the creature. He settled next to her, so close that his fur brushed her knee, pupil-less eyes turned up towards her.

She felt a shudder run through her body, starting at the center of her heart and radiating outwards to tingle in the tips of her fingers and toes - a surge that crackled in the air around her, a few small sparks born and swallowed again in an instant.

She didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to remember. Even with the infusion of herbs so close at hand, she could still smell the acrid odor of burning flesh and hair clinging to the insides of her nose. The screams, the wet thuds and screech of metal had faded somewhat, muted in the back of her mind, but the scent remained. They hadn't needed to die. But perhaps it had been a mercy to kill them, sparing them a fate far worse. She didn't know if that made it alright.

She didn't know if her familiar could read her thoughts, either. Sometimes it seemed like he could, the way his preternatural gaze pierced her all the way down to her cowering soul. She didn't want to know what he would say, if he had seen what she had done. She didn't want to be praised for this.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. The rising tide of her magic had become so strong that she could feel every tendon in her body drawing taut, goosebumps rising against her skin, hair standing on edge, the air in the room statically charged to such a degree that the cat that was no cat drew his maw back to reveal small, sharp teeth, hissing.

"Go away," she whispered, pleading, begging. Her control was so thin, she was afraid of what might happen if the familiar pushed her, as he so often did.

"Go away." Not asking anymore, but pressed through their bond. It was, perhaps, the first time in their many years together that she had commanded him so. He did not bend to her will easily, and she had never quite dared to test him.

He was gone by the time she had drawn her next breath, melting into the shadows as if he were made of them, at least partially, himself. She bent over the mortar, breathing deep the sweet scent of dried herb, crushed and ground, until the pain subsided and the tightly locked muscles in her jaw loosened again.

She was tired. So tired.

There was nowhere she wanted to go, and no one she wanted to see. She simply wanted to be.

[Ehver]

Dearest Mother,

How long has it been since I last wrote you? Two years? More? You must think me a dreadfully unfaithful daughter, after all this time. Forgive me, please. It's not that I've forgotten you, truly. Things have been so strange, so unbearably strange, that I've simply not had the words to describe them. For a time, I thought I might have gone insane. Maybe I have.

I don't mean to be morose, Mother. After so long, I should write to you of happy things, of what I've accomplished, and what I hope to accomplish going forward. But I can think of none. Everything I have attempted to build has crumbled, and all of the broken pieces have lost their glimmer of promise. They look plain. Pointless. I don't even have the energy to try to pick them up and put them together again.

I've never felt this listless, this useless, in the entirety of my life.

I wish Mister Ceryn were here. I feel like he, at least, would have an answer to everything. Every question, every worry, met head-on by his level gaze, his careless shrug, his resolute words. But he is not, and perhaps that is for the best. As you have always said, no good is to come from relying on men.

I must do something, Mother. I don't think it matters what. I'm drowning. I'm suffocating. I've nothing to grasp, nothing to hold me above the rising waters. The Mists have stolen something from me, and I fear what I will become if I do not steal it back.

I must do something.

The letter ends abruptly, unfinished.