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Hidden 2 mos ago → 2 mos ago Post by MaeB
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⊱ 𝐍𝐲𝐨𝐭𝐚 “𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐚” 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐝 ⊰


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Crickets. Fireflies. Owls hoots ping-ponging from branch to branch. The brushed cymbals from the canopy of leaves overhead, giggling at the whisper of winds. It was a crisp evening. The kind where the air feels brittle as bone. Nothing disturbed the ominous peace of these forests at this hour. Not a thing feels out of place… Yet should someone, hypothetically, be wandering the depths of the Winnow Forests at this hour, they may stumble across a young woman in nothing but a simple linen dress, muddied and creased at the waist. Should that someone get close enough to sharpen the image, they’d see this sparsely dressed young woman sat cross-legged beneath a fir tree, fallen needles poking through the linen and pricking her pillowed thighs. Dull white chalked markings are etched over her skin; A single brush stroke tracing from her hairline to her pointed chin. The swatch of chalked paint stretches down the bridge of her button nose, over her lips until finally disappearing down her neck. Symbols in the same shade, with the same artisan brush strokes, are scattered across her bare forearms like tattoos. Thanks to the stark contrast against the markings, Nora’s eyes only glowed brighter, two embers in the dusk-riddled forest. Her hushed tone bleeds into the crackle of wind-buffeted leaves, the Witch utters a series of undecipherable chants. They are spoken with hardly a whisper, barely there, a secret exclusively shared with the bark and the dirt and the mud and the stream…

Her almost-translucent eyes are fluttering as an animal does when dreaming, the dark brown eyes hidden beneath, flicking rapidly from side to side. Nora points an index finger and begins tracing symbols midair, slow curvatures and quick flicks, like calligraphy. Here, alone in the forest, the Witch practices her most truest magic undisturbed and alone. There is no interruption from her fellow Sisters, no Coven commitments, no intrusive background noise. It is just her, commanding the night, a thread of Magic pinpricked through her heart and pierced through the moon that shone unashamedly above her. That thread hums with relief as the Witch continues her spell, the chants increasing in volume gradually as she builds layer upon layer. Casting like this, truly connected, is a feeling most adjacent to lucid dreaming. There is a detachment from the physical planes, fractured from flesh and muscular tissue, yet a Witch will seldom experience such unadulterated connection as when she is in this state.

Nora’s nightly rituals ranged from strengthening the Waxing Circle’s protective Wards to blessings for the Sisterhood. Each night she challenged herself to focus more than the night before, feel the thread more viscerally and more purely, growing the Magic that inhabited every fibre of her. Submitting to her energetic self, that non-physical energy, Nora departed from the shell that sat cross-legged in the wet leaves. As she detached from herself, she felt the Earth around her breathe a sigh of relief. Forefinger and thumb pinching the magical thread, she too released a breath she hadn’t realised had been trapped within her. The air rippled around her, as if a stone had been dropped in a stream. Yet as that Magic pulsed outward from her core, spreading out into her forest entourage, Nora sensed a chink in the armour. She breathed again, exhaling, her breath and her power radiating outward in another ripple of energy. There it was again. An uneven heartbeat. A blank space in the sheet music. Something off-beat. The Forest was not the same tonight… And despite spending her evening reinforcing the Wards, something or someone had penetrated them.

Snapping back into her body, Nora reeled from her sudden return. She wiggled her fingers, arched her back, cracked her neck. Her bones tingled with the sudden resurgence of physical form. It felt like a rebirth every time. She doubted she’d ever get used to that feeling. Through her eyes, blinking away the fogged edges of her vision, the Forest seemed undisturbed at its surface. But Nora’s magic had told her otherwise. So she rose, slowly and shakily, to her feet. Bare soles crunching against the leaves beneath them, the daughter of Luna Gravesend - Mother of The Waxing Circle, crouched alert as a hunted fawn. Her widened eyes, pupils dilated like ink in water, scoured the tree-lines. Scanning the shadows, Nora postured her right hand to reconnect with her inner thread. Flashing a few consecutive symbols in an array of poses, fingers flicking through the night air, the Witch drew upon those shadows and commanded them to reveal its secrets. At first? The darkness resisted. Nora struggled to maintain her grip, the shadows slipping through her grasp like sand, thread thinning as her eyes narrowed in concentration. Then, she found it. Bending the Forest’s vision to her will, the Witch asked and the darkness answered. The Shadows showed her a figure in the distance, a few minutes out from where she stood frozen, travelling on horseback. The image swam through her mind, watery and faded, but clear enough to know the stranger in the woods was no Sister.

Nora cut the thread. Her hands dropped to her sides. For a moment there was nothing but the chirps of crickets and the Witches’ short breaths. Her chest beneath the wafered linen rose and fell in quick succession, heart knocking at the doors of her ribcage. Icy air hissed through her teeth. Skin frosting with fear. An intruder. How long had it been since someone had breezed through the Wards? Too long. Who rode through the Forests this deep at this hour? Someone tracking the Coven? Someone scoping out the efficiency of the Wards? Her mind was a busy highway, clogged with thoughts bumper to bumper, none of them sticking long enough to become wholly coherent. She tried and failed to quieten her mind. There was no volume dial. No off switch.

Then came the sound of hooves, wet and dull against the muddied path. From her vantage point on the mossy verge, Nora spotted the saddled figure. Auburn hair folded into a braid, spine straightened, hips rolling in sync with the horses steps. She could run. Flee. Naked soles could thunder across the Forest floor and Nora could return to the Coven. She could raise the alarm. Inform her Sisters. Shake her Mother awake from her slumber. Or? She could wait. Watch. As a precaution, the Witch summoned the shadows once more. This time, she drew them across the moonlit grasslands, weaving them toward her ready to weaponise them against the intruder. The shadows curled and intertwined, coiling and creeping at her command. These shadows could rise up. They could wrap themselves like chains around the neck of this rider. They could pierce skin. But for now they remained poised, flat against the Forest floor. Nora edged forward. From the path, the figure on horseback would certainly spot her. The Witch remained crouched and readied, eyes locked on to the moving target. One hastened move and she’d release the darkness. Until then? She waited.
Hidden 2 mos ago → 2 mos ago Post by Ruby
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She had been out of the foothills before sundown even truly began, the end of an ordeal of nearly five days stuck in the mountainous woodlands that lined the western coast of mystic lands, leaving behind fog and haze for deeper, quieter, older woods that seemed to sink into the night itself as she approached. Even her mount seemed ill at ease when they hit the border region between the two, Sirossa taking the time to stop and find a good place curtained by a ring of trees.

Darkness began to come swifter here, it seemed to her, as she watched the sky descend from sunsetting to sun gone to darkness in just a portion of the time it normally took the world and heavens above to dip to black. Not just darkness, but black, the moment they hit the forests of the Witchwood. Sirossa edged off the road again and dared the forest to test her, and the dapple grey palfrey, soft-footed and smooth gaited beneath her.

Momentum beckoned her forward, but the appalling strangeness of the woodlands around her gave her very real pause. Magical energy stirred, mystic energies flowered in fits, matted and beaten down in places in the Witchwoods. It felt to her as if the witches badgered and manipulated magic into their bidding, while the wizards droned and explained, using logic as their crutch to have magic abide them.

It all resulted in ‘muddied waters’ to a sorceress of her talents.

The pale grey palfrey trotted slow through the wooded opening, the canopy of trees above thick in places, open in other places, the path below covered in a thin layer of half-dried mud. At the sight in the middle of the path, the palfrey gave a snort and a shake of the head. Sirossa damn near followed suit, surveying the scene and the witch with a nonchalance as the horse came to a tired halt at a sprouting just off the path. There she lifted her right foot over the horse and allowed her body down, her feet hitting the ground with a weary weight to them. An apple, glossy and green, appeared in her hand as she spoke soft to the palfrey, giving the horse a treat with her left hand, patting and petting its head with the right.

“Good evening, good witch,” Sirossa spoke out to the woman, her eyes and attention still otherwise on the horse she cared for, “you can relax the shadows, we only mean to travel through, and quickly. No trouble from us,” she finished, her voice with a sing-song quality, using the words in half-song to soothe the horse she patted and smiled at, green eyes finally sparking up to the witch.
“If that would be alright with you?”

Somewhere in the Witchwoods, magic echoed magic, as spells cast lingered in forgotten layers of creation, building an undercurrent of latent mystic energies that Sirossa could feel and breath in like a cold air at night.
Hidden 2 mos ago → 2 mos ago Post by MaeB
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⊱ 𝐍𝐲𝐨𝐭𝐚 “𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐚” 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐝 ⊰


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When a guard dog is alerted to an intruder, it will bark and snarl, heckles raised, ears flattened. Maw foaming, fangs exposed, a rumbling growl in its throat. Nora Gravesend, in this moment the protector of The Waxing Circles parameters, had the same proprietorial defence as a guard dog. But that fear, that urge to defend and protect, resided entirely behind the emotional veil she’d pulled over her face. She’d ironed clear any signs of visible alarm, her pupils the only diagnostic. Her Mother would’ve wanted her to flee, to raise the alarm. But some breed of stubborn determination rooted her bare feet to the ground, still crouched and braced for the intruders first move. Her Mothers nagging tone (always soft but undeniably nagging) rang out in her mind. Nora shook her head gently, to rid herself of the additional narrative she simply didn’t have space for. Already her brain was busy with an array of escape plans, attack plans, combat sequences, offensive magic… The shadows continued to coil and ripple at her command.

Then, she watched as the mysterious stranger summoned a shining golden apple. From thin air. A bolt of adrenaline shot down Nora’s spine. That was why her magic net had snagged on this stranger’s arrival! She was blessed by Magic’s hands. This was no ordinary philanthropist admiring the nighttime scenery. Her steed gladly chomped into the apparition, skin cracking, juicy flesh bubbling around the horses bridled muzzle. Nora noted the softness with which the intruder looked upon her horse. There was an easy gentleness in the way her hand petted the generous mane. Suddenly, the redheaded woman looked up, body still facing the palfrey. It was difficult to decipher their colour from the verge, but those eyes had a crystalline luminosity that pierced through the forest haze.

“Good evening, good witch,” she called out with a melodic lilt, accent difficult to place. “You can relax the shadows, we only mean to travel through, and quickly. No trouble from us… If that would be alright with you?”

Nora’s head cocked, fluffy brows arching in surprise, as if it had indeed been the horse that spoke. The Witch, moonlight dappling across her porcelain skin, didn’t immediately dispel the shadows.

“Good evening, Sorceress” she called, voice almost spitting out the word.

The title felt fat and blasphemous on her tongue. Her sibilance stained the air, only accentuating the hiss with which Nora spoke. That was a rivalry established in the womb. The classism between born and learned magic was age-old. It was bred into Witch genetics, a disdain that bordered on hatred. Nora couldn’t swallow back the venom that immediately catalysed in her throat, a sneer threatening to pluck at her upper lip. Sorceresses didn’t stray to Witchwoods; They had entire societies abundant they dwelled in. Exclusive and bourgeoisie. Nora’s humble form adorned in the simple linen dress and naked toes juxtaposed the Sorceresses’ lavish tailoring. Leather gloves, leather boots, golden thread hemmed daintily at the cuffs of a rich tunic. Her cheeks were full. Blushed with a healthy pink dusting. She looked… Almost regal. This only added to Nora’s confusion.

“Forgive me,” she drawled facetiously, eyes narrowed across the moonlit stream. “But I’ll keep the Shadows readied for now. We seldom see the likes of you round here. It would be unwise to lower my defences so quickly. At your command, no less? Not likely.”

Nora angled her hand, flashing a quick symbol that commanded the Shadows to delve deeper, to comb through this Sorceresses essence. They snaked across the dirt path obediently, caressing the edges of where the Sorceress stood. They didn’t touch her. They didn’t need to. Darkness knows darkness. Dark recognises dark. And if this Sorceress meant any harm, if she were something of a danger, the Shadows would be able to tell her. Yet as they trailed toward the intruder, they seemed to recoil at her presence as if hitting an invisible barrier. Once again, Nora’s brow furrowed with confusion. This was most unusual. She’d never come across this. Her Magic was potent and well-versed. The Shadows had an omnipotence that was powerful if wielded effectively. How had this Sorceress repelled such an energetic force? With seemingly no spell casting. No chant. No hand symbols. Nora huffed. She supposed that was a perk of being inherently magical. This Sorceress did not have to chant nor learn spells or incantations. She could simply summon an apple and shield herself from the Shadows.

“Travelling through?” Nora echoed, her dark eyes scouring the Sorceress. “A Sorceress beyond the Walls of her kingdom? Slumming it with us in the Winnows?”

Her tone was clipped. Defensive. Despite this woman’s calm exterior, her power was undeniable. People lied. People deceived. Especially those from born magic. They were notoriously slippery. Nora kept her protective shield raised, taking a few more slow steps towards the Sorceress by padding along the verge.

“It is not for me to grant you permission to pass. The Earth decides who walks,” as Nora began to close the distance between them, she noticed that those radiant eyes were bright green. Like the moss atop the bark behind her. “However, I will tell you that you have crossed into Warded territory… But you knew that already. You would’ve sensed that when you passed over our threshold.”

A quick arch of her brow.

“Which, evidently, you ignored.”

The horse whinnied, tossing its mane, those heavily lashed hazel eyes watching the Witch approach. Hooves stamped nervously. Nora’s eyes softened as she eyed the steed.

“Be still,” she hushed, tone switching to something like honey and cotton as she implored the horse to relax. “I’m not going to hurt you, pretty one.”

A cool breeze rushed through the woodland branches, whipping Nora’s jet black locks across her shoulders. A strand remained across her face, so dark against the white paint that divided her angular features in half.

“The same can’t be said for you, Sorceress” Nora mused, eyes flicking across her form. “Be candid. Why do you wander here? Your people don’t travel. You certainly don’t travel through Witchwood. So why? Why is it that you venture so deep into the thicket?”
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She liked the chill of the night air, her gaze lifted, her red hair shadowing dark in the shadow of the canopy of branch and leaf overhead, and in the glow of the nearly full moon light it seemed to sparkle, the softness and care taken obvious, her short nailed fingers running through her hair in mild, otherwise suppressed, distress.

Why am I running for my fucking life? Why, just let me stop and tell you all about it, witch.

Sirossa wanted to grump, but instead, she sighed, just letting all of the tension leave her body. Green eyes were jade, but hardened and chipped in the moonlight from an irritation she was unable, or unwilling, at the moment, to simply hide. The posture of the woman, the tone of the woman…on second glance, all it brought forth from Sirossa was a deep feeling, down in her gut, that rolled quickly and effortlessly to her lips, then aloud; a laughter so deep and genuine it was unstoppable, a good long moment before she finally regained some measure of herself, and held up an open palm in peace, “Apologies, people saying ‘my kind’, showing anger to me…I never really get used to it.”

And it’s either laugh or cry…

“Um,” she began, an audible pause as her mind caught up to the rest of her, understanding the woman starring at her, requiring, for whatever ungodly witched out reason, an explanation, “well, for starters, more people should. Witchwood is lovely in the autumn, you know.”
Her hand gave a tiny little motion, for gentle emphasis, like a friend sharing a secret. The grin that crept along the corners of her mouth like the witch’s shadows crept betraying the fun Sirossa had, and could have, even when her life was in grave danger. As if her life wasn’t always, hadn’t always, been in grave danger.

There was kindness, Sirossa told herself, in gentle lies, a mercy in managing the truth, “I am a political prisoner on the run. So when you say ‘you people’, I would like to thank you, kindly, for lumping me in with the same people who decided who my parents were meant I didn’t need a childhood, but a prison sentence. WHY do the Magisters of the Arcanaeum, including those representing YOUR PEOPLE, decide such a thing? They don’t exactly tell you. Very dangerous people just come for you in the middle of the night. No courts, no appeals to the local lord or lady, just the end of life as you knew it.”

The smile that her lips bore now was more dangerous than any wand she might have pulled, and sharper than any dagger, “I don’t know if you could stop me, please don’t make me find out,” Sirossa said, sadly.
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They stood a mere stones throw from one another now. The Waxing Circle Witch had edged closer and closer to the Forest intruder, tip toeing as if the ground were awash with rose thorns and flame. As Nora watched the Sorceress from between narrowed eyes, she barely blinked when the laugh tumbled across the forest floor toward her. It rolled through the dirt, sullied and cynical, lacking the honey of joy and devoid of any real emotion. Save for its pointed hysteria, the laugh rang vacuous, scattering hibernating birds in the canopies. Fractured, exposing. A laughter laced with a private joke Nora couldn’t possibly understand.

“Apologies, people saying ‘my kind’, showing anger to me… I never really get used to it.”

Nora scoffed. Her slender brows threaded together, a cavernous lightning bolt of a wrinkle appearing between the two, disapproval whetting her pores. Rose petalled pink ironed into white as she pressed both lips together, whistling breaths sharply inhaled through flared nostrils.

“No, I’m quite sure you’re a stranger to disdain for your kind, Sorceress” the Witch said coolly. “Your Kingdoms in snow globes and bell jars are very well immune to resentment from us lowly Lear-ned Magic Users… A design fault, I’m sure. Nothing purposeful, right? Just Nature’s Natural Order - keeping Born and Lear-ned apart. ”

Sarcasm sharp and piercing protruded from Nora’s syllables like pincushions. The needle-pointed observations of Society’s failures would surely glide off the Sorceress’ duck-feathered back. How could she possibly understand the impact of marginalised Witches from her ivory tower? She’d surely lived a life of abundance, wrapped in cotton clouds, blinkered to the goings on beyond those walls. It remained unclear as to what, exactly, had lead her here. What disaster had forced her out from beneath velvet sheets and shining chandeliers?

“… For starters, more people should. Witchwood is lovely in the autumn, you know.”

The red-heads hand gestured to the fallen golden leaves in moonlight, the spindled branches, the shedding bramble. Nora’s eyes flickered.

“Witchwood’s autumnal beauty is a secret best kept between those that protect it,” the Witch snubbed.

Despite Nora’s guarded hostility, despite her hesitancy, the Sorceress sported a smile. She was either immune to the disapproval or ignoring it completely. Still, the smile pinched at the Sorceresses cheeks. Perhaps it was smug. Perhaps, like her explosive laughter, it was empty. But the Witch sensed that there was much more hidden behind the veil of strawberry blonde. It was so small coincidence she happened upon Witchwood at night. She’d not simply taken a wrong turn and wandered these winding, undisturbed dirt tracks.

“… I am a political prisoner… They don’t exactly tell you. Very dangerous people just come for you in the middle of the night. No courts, no appeals to the local lord or lady, just the end of life as you knew it.”

As she spoke, Nora beckoned for the Shadows to retreat, to rest on their laurels. A political prisoner was undoubtedly far more concerned with remaining hidden than disposing of a disgruntled Woodland Witch. It would be unwise of this Sorceress to waste energy unnecessarily, risking exposure. She was outnumbered, after all. Despite her apparent power, the Waxing Circle rested just a 10 minute jaunt away, collectively wielding the magic of many practiced years. Besides, there were bigger battles this woman was fighting. The one within the most prominent.

“I don’t know if you could stop me, please don’t make me find out…”

Nora lifted her dainty chin, defiant and challenging.

“Your threats are wasted here, Sorceress” she hissed, voice hitched with warning. Her darkened eyes flickered with the flint of something other than suspicion. “Spare me them, even when they’re wolves dressed in wool, I don’t fear you. Lest you forget. The borders were laid down for a reason. It is my right to ask you why you trespass in my garden. Forgive me if I didn’t assume you were merely admiring the autumnal scenery…”

The horse tossed its mane, hooves shuffling on mulch. The whisper of a smile twitched at the corners of Nora’s lips.

“Besides. An enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Once again, the wind whistled through the trees and with it, it tossed fallen leaves like confetti. Those flecks of amber whipped and danced around them both, twirling and pirouetting on the breeze. The Sorceress was right about one thing - Witchwood was indeed a marvel in autumn.

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“I wish you wouldn’t have said that,” she said, sadly.

The breeze was just the closest facet of the greater whole; a system of systems, layered, built upon the other. All magic felt the same to her, Sirossa would’ve had to admit, if pressed, and she had been before. Covered with the dust and dirt of the road, and worse, the off-road game trails she had taken from Blackglass, otherwise known as the Town-Between. There you could find witches and wizards rubbing any number of things; elbows, magic tomes, coppers, or just a pint at one of the shadowy inns about the place.

A flick of her wrist, and her simple leather riding gloves were held off to the side, palm up. Just the right hand, it was all she needed to conduct the instruments into a single line of creative will and expression. It started with silence, with the very breeze and chilled wind that cut like tiny, icy, daggers just...stopped. The air stilled the very moment her hand moved upward, taking the energy of it, the very spells and enchantments that weaved within that wind, and slowed it to nothing.

“If I should decide to leave, I SHALL.”

Everything changed after she paused, after the word ‘leave’; she grew, feet, and feet more, towering near eleven feet in height, her voice deepening as the light of the evening around them drained away, the shadow around her and under her thickening so fast, so much, there was nothing BUT the giant red haired sorceress with eyes that shined like rubies in firelight. Eyes that shimmered, glittered, even as Sirossa whispered something past hearing to something, someone, past understanding—a whisper that returned in a chain reaction, like a scared voice in a hollow, haunted, vault.

“See me.”

It was an invitation. To look, to look away, was a choice that very little of Nora’s focused mind would make. No, Sirossa knew, with magicks such as the wild and untamed of a sorceress unshackled, the best choices, the only choices worth listening to, were the quieter ones that the mind made without active participation. Nora talked to that girl, not that girl. Nora liked her tea this way, not that.
Sometimes Nora would know why, sometimes she wouldn’t.

Such was choice.

When Sirossa saw Nora’s eyes snap shut, she knew the choice was made. Sirossa herself would only faintly be aware of what was shown; hard to say, it wasn’t a science, like wizards or witches wanted it to be. To a sorceress, it was an art. To a sorceress such as Sirossa, it was the echos of spells laid generations, one coming in magical arcs until it collided with another, sang the song of surreality and the natural world within, before cascading through her, little more than a lens with a choice to make of her own:

See me.

And so Nora chose. And so Nora saw.

Segments of memory, pressings of emotion, woven together for a clearer, rawer picture: The beaten orphan child, the servant girl, the nice conjurer’s child helper, and when the nice conjurer revealed himself to be anything but nice, the country estate with the gardens, and the bones, and the blood, and the basements, and the chains. The wizards and their tower, their training around the horrible white woods of theirs, the days of being driven to demonic possession, just so they could prove she was the liability they were convinced she was, and then when she stayed strong…the dagger, her hand locked to the table, her screams as she realized they were going to cut her finger off. The panic, the blinding white fear.

By the time Nora was back, she was saddled on the horse, the sorceress leading the horse on foot, towards the direction of her village, village walls peeking between gnarled witchwood trees in the distance. Her eyes down, her face heavy; sometimes when she awoke, between dreaming and awake, in that place between worlds, she still felt the cold sting of chains on her skin. Showing meant remembering. Remembering meant anger, pain, and sadness. The end of the path was always the same:

Why didn’t my parents want me? Did they even have the chance to?

Thoughts she kept locked, and hidden, forcing a little chuckle on her lips as the energy of the woman brightened, as she awakened, “Welcome back. Turn me in if you want. I don’t really care.”

She said it, as if she meant it.
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As the magic took hold of Nora’s mind, she felt the talons of forced perspective pierce themselves through her sockets. She staggered, reeling from the motion sickness. The forest around her melted away, blurring and swirling like engine oil in a puddle, reforming and reframing to create an entirely new landscape. Muddied memories and quick smacks of second-hand smoke emotions made Nora almost sick with intensity. They were rich, decadent visions and the Witch gorged herself, feeling her intestines stretch with the pressure of containment. Her skull filled with pressure, palms flush against her head, pushing as if pining for freedom. Nora blinked blearily, trying to make sense of what was being shown. She struggled to grasp the sands of memories, grains slipping between her fingers, Sirossa’s emotions coursing through her veins. After what felt like years, floating whilst suspended in the dream state, Nora returned to her own body with a jolt. She gasped for breath, clasping at her chest with shaken hands, the forest floor sliding back into focus.

“Welcome back. Turn me in if you want. I don’t really care.”


The Sorceress had the edge of accusation in her voice, her eyes narrowed and pointed like daggers. Nora said nothing for a moment, lowering her gaze as the sparks of Sirossa’s feelings still tingled beneath her skin. She hissed air through gritted teeth, shifting her weight from one foot to another.

“I’m not turning you in,” Nora whispered, softness rounding off the syllables. “Not after what you’ve just shown me.”


Her mind wondered to what the Coven would say, specifically what her Mother would say, if they were present for this conversation. Their sympathy wouldn’t stretch far. They’d take one look at the luxuriously-dressed Sorceress and throw her out in the cold without a second thought. But Nora took pride in thinking independently to her fellow Witchhood. Besides, they hadn’t seen what she’d just seen. They hadn’t felt the raw, unfiltered emotions of an orphan Sorceress, abandoned by her own kind. Hunted by those she may have once called family. This woman’s isolation plucked at the strings of Nora’s heart, melted her hardened exterior, made her really see who was stood before her. Suddenly, she was no longer an intruder in the forest. She didn’t even feel like a stranger. The window into a plagued mind that she’d just pressed her nose against had cured her of ignorance. Now, she looked upon Sirossa with new eyes.

“I’m Nyota,” she called out. “Nyota Gravesend of the Waxing Circle. And who might you-“


An introduction cut short. Words stacked like bricks in her throat. Shadows whispered, urgent nothingness hissing through branches, a foreboding chill rippled down Nora’s spine. The Forest was warning her once again. This time, there was a sense of urgency in the way the darkness called out to Nora. Her head whipped round, ears straining to hear what her Magic was telling her.

“Do you hear that?” she hissed at the Sorceress, inching closer to her and the steed that stood loyally by her side. “We’re not alone.”
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