Fait Accompli: An Unwilling Tutelage

[Seperallis]

"I believe you are right. Very well." Something nearing a smile approached the edges of the elf's face through a drawn-out, groaned sigh as she unwound her legs and found her footing. "Let us be off then."

..:: End Lesson Two ::..

[Seperallis]

Lesson 3: Conservation of Reality

The day continued onward, and the late-morning sun slipped and fell form the graces of the clear blue sky while the summer heat, continually stagnant, chased after to try and catch it as a thick but breathable mattress. Thankfully, travel all day fell mostly within the strands of trees beside the wide stream, though that small comfort didn't keep Nevina, pale cheeks turning as red as her hair, from shedding her robed layers down to her tunic and wrapping them as sashes around the cords of her pack. After a time, the stream the travelers followed rose back out of its self-imposed exile to the gully, leaping up from a step of small babbling waterfalls to return to a relaxed and shallow meandering through the trees and glades. Were one so inclined it might be possible to travel leagues hopping from one stone stone to another in a shallow branching of infinite pathways through the crystal waters that kept present company, had the air not sapped one of humor to do so.

Eventually, as always, the sun conceded its defeat to the darkening expanse above, painted now in gradients of pinks, yellows and purples as it graciously slid its way to rest beyond the great impossible expanse of an unfathomably distant "west," tugging at the edges of a heavy air blanket that resisted, snagged as it were upon an endless brush of branches and grasping reluctantly to every trunk. Shadows cast themselves longingly to some distant concert of the shapeless and macabre that welcomed them, though remained attached for now, hanging upon a solid sense of proud duty until the quitting light wrung them from their bondings in a muddled stampede across the landscape towards an otherworld of blue-grey shapelessness.

The two travelers and their crystal clear companion, under a royal sky of stars blinking themselves awake, came to another glade. This one though stood out from the grasses of the day as it bloomed forth in a brilliant array of shapes and supposed-colors, as if the heavens had presented a bouquet of love to its grounded companion. A sweet mingling of nectars fought for the right to beat down the slight-yet-unmistakable twinge of brimstone on whatever feeble attempt at a breeze passed by.

Nevina stopped short as the first whiff stung her nose. Peering into the darkness, she reached with practiced hand and unclasped the long container behind her hip.

If not for the window framed by a dull, popping glow of a fireplace, Elke would not have noticed the object of the elf's attention: a small cottage across the glade peeking itself sheepishly above the orgy of nature in which the girl stood. From this distance she couldn't make out details, though it seemed only large enough for a single room. Whoever lived there, away from the world and in such a small dwelling, must live an austere life.

Or maybe not. The people of the east were an odd sort...

"Miss Elke," Nevina murmured. By the tone of shortness and disappointment, she didn't seem particularly excited by this new discovery. "Please either wait here, or stay behind me and follow precisely in my footsteps."

---

1d20 rolled for a total of: 5 (5)

[Sal]

Under the quickly falling curtain of dusk, Elke could imagine the gnarled silhouettes of tree branches and amorphous, shivering dark blobs of leaves tossed in the slight summer zephyrs to, in actuality, be some sort of ancient beasts looming over them, waiting for the pure darkness of midnight to come to life and move about. She’d had similar visions as a little girl, although back then she would have described the transformation her mind put the nighttime landscape through as decidedly spooky. A bare tree limb scraping against her window as she tried to sleep was the bony avian claw of a harpy coming to snatch Elke up to feed to her hatchlings. Now, much older, she wasn’t afraid of something as silly as the dark shape of a poplar against the blazing indigo of the night sky, but she still liked to let her imagination wander and bring the trees to life as big, leafy giants.

Nevina’s bristling at an unseen threat was almost visually imperceptible in the dark, but the way her footfall stopped all at once, the rumpling of the textiles of her bag ceasing in unison, was salient as it was immediate. It sent a chill up Elke’s bare arms, and she suddenly became aware of how cold her sweat had turned - was that an affect of the night, or fear?

A very present honeyed floral scent distracted her from the imaginary tree people that now stretched their woody joints as they stood to their full height and doubled in size in her mind’s eye. It was sweet, almost sickeningly so in the way that the town square always smells in the days following the vernal equinox festival when cartfuls of cut hyacinths and woven crowns and necklaces of crocus lay rotting in the gutters of the main thoroughfare, their purpose served and their usefulness withering away with their beauty.

There was something else, too, though Elke couldn’t name it. Sulfur, maybe? She’d smelled it once when her father had brought some home for a patient’s medicine - distinctive, like hen’s eggs boiled in a hot spring. Maybe this odor was something different, but it made her nose scrunch up the same way the sulfur had.

It was then that Elke, the taller of the two, felt exposed in the clearing. She swallowed thickly and froze, pulling her arms in against her body and half-crouching, subtly making herself smaller and trying to match Nevina’s more diminutive form.

“What—“ she’d almost asked. What is it? But the elf spoke first.

“I’d like to go,” Elke answered without much delay. “I’ll stay behind you.”

What was the threat? It just looked like a cottage. Of course, the concern rested probably with the occupant, and not the dwelling itself. Still, Elke had a hard time imagining anyone occupying such a quaint little cottage other than a grandmother - perhaps a cantankerous one to live this far from everyone else, but she probably made great cakes.

The only other cohort that, according to childhood storybooks anyhow, tended to live in an unassuming little hideaway in a deep and lovely wood were—

“A witch?” Elke half-spoke, half-mouthed, her eyes becoming round as full moons with the realization. “Is it a witch?”

[Seperallis]

She is a witch," Nevina corrected in low and hushed whispers, stifling the squeal in her "s." She added tersely, "and she can hear you."

Nevina withdrew her flute from its long sleeve before once again capping it, holding the instrument delicately in one hand with the mouth piece away from her. She plucked one of the flowers with her free hand, and then several more before stuffing them into the opening. Passing a glance in the declining light to her erstwhile protege, she surrendered a soft exhale of concentration, mouthing a string of words while vigorously rubbing the pads of her thumb and middle finger together until a small flame arose from the latter; cupping the light with the rest of her hand, she touched the flame to the packed flowers and sharply, rhythmically drew breath from the flute's end as one lights a tobacco pipe.

Satisfied with the steady string of white fumes adding a note of cinder to the honeyed aromas around her, the elf vigorously shook the small flame from her lit hand as her finger began to protest its abuse. She then held the instrument aloft and steady in both hands before exhaling completely, then inhaling slowly and deeply through the impromptu smoking pipe, twisting her face and her neck while visibly choking back the urge to spit out the vile vapor for the better part of a minute.

Finally, relief came as she softly exhaled the fine mist, and then continued to exhale endlessly while cautiously setting forth through the field of flowers.

The sun and its last rays disappeared fully beyond the horizon minutes after, yest despite only having the stars to guide them, Nevina's footing remained measured and solid, always scanning ahead and viewing their course as if in broad daylight.

This leg of the journey took close to half an hour to traverse the maybe quarter mile (or so it seemed, judging distances grew difficult in the lack of light and detail) to the apparent cottage, much of the time spent zigging this way and zagging the other, doubling and redoubling through an almost-maze, the duo on a ship and Nevina its captain through a floral sea. With each twist and turn Elke could swear she could see the faintest of sparkles, maybe even a dim string of faerie lights playing off the thin cloud from the elf's nose and mouth before being abruptly, if very carefully, led away.

Onward and ever closer the pressed before finding themselves at the front stump - or really the only stump - of the cottage. Even up close, Elke could only be certain of three things: the cottage was a small sight larger than first appeared, it was really very quite old and slightly too ventilated, and a person definitely moved within, if barely so. With goal in hand, Nevina took the thankful moment to manage several deep and well-needed breaths, and expelling the last wisps of smoke.

Before much else could be done or said, a quaking voice with an owlish timbre crowed from within the hovel, "Well don't just stand outside my door like a rogue Nevvy, get on in with you. And bring your friend, I do so love company!"

---

Nevina 1d20 rolled for a total of: 15 (15)

[Sal]

Picking her way through the field of flowers and setting her feet exactly where Nevina’s had just been proved challenging in the blue wash of nightfall which seemed to mute greens, yellows and oranges into a blur of violets and indigos. Elke’s eyes strained as the crisp distinction between shadow and highlight bled into something fuzzy, and she found it necessary to strike a balance between rushing to place her foot down before the bowed heads of the blossoms that had crumpled under Nevina’s weight sprung back up and taking her time enough to not misstep. The thought of what may happen if she wasn’t precise enough for the witch’s liking was enough to distract from the saccharine smell that lingered, at least.

Elke had noticed Nevina’s use of the flowers and her instrument, and was curious to know more. The occasional twinkle of warm spots of light from the end of the woman’s flute was something novel — no one had ever explained this to Elke. The mage-in-training deduced that it was some sort of magic cast to provide additional clarity, maybe revealing physically booby-trapped areas of the garden, maybe revealing enchantments cast on the flowers, or maybe more simply amplifying Nevina’s ability to see light in the dark. She would ask, but not now. Now, the sense of danger was imminent, and Elke at least knew enough to be quiet.

She had thought for a moment about casting a light-producing spell of her own, but in noticing how Nevina had incorporated the blossoms from the garden, wondered if using the garden against itself was requisite in this case. Elke had been hesitant to just pluck one of the flowers, even if it was one of the variety that Nevina had used. And she’d felt equally hesitant to use one of her own charms if she couldn’t be sure it was safe in this environment, although stumbling around in the dark didn’t seem a great deal more favorable. By the time she’d decided that a simple light-casting spell couldn’t be that harmful, Nevina had took the pleasure of making the decision away from her and had set them off toward the witch’s home.

As they approached the structure — which was only summarily true; sometimes, they moved away from it, but in general, they had taken more steps toward than away from it — Elke tried to take in its details in the moments where Nevina paused. In what must have been a trick of the shadows, the cottage seemed to be morphing ever so slightly each time Elke looked at it: at one point, it was tiny, barely the size of a curing shed. Another glance and it could have contained no less than a kitchen, a bedroom, and a sitting room. One time the window was centered on the wall, and another it was offset to the left. Elke didn’t trust the amorphous, fluctuating thing, and didn’t trust that her eyes were taking it in correctly, finally deciding that it was best to keep her vision mostly on Nevina’s footsteps.

She hadn’t expected to have to remain so silent for so long given how close they’d already been to the far side of the garden when they’d stumbled upon it, and the voice that sliced through the night caught her so off-guard that she let slip a brief squeal before she was able to clap her hand over her mouth.

“Nevvy?” Elke thought, turning her wide eyes to her companion.

“You know her?” she whispered to the elf. “Can we trust her? Should we go in?”

---

Elke 1d20 rolled for a total of: 4 (4)

[Seperallis]

"No, we shouldn't," Nevina huffed in a breathy sigh a she cleaned the few straggling embers from her flute and replaced it within its case, though the reply probably came as annoyingly vague given the lack of clarity as to which question it answered: the second? The third? Both? Certainly not the first at the very least, hopefully? Not that there actually existed any time to clarify on the front stoop of a witch's home, like asking if it's safe to leap from a ledge while falling, or growing curious about the contents of a stew after the first bites.

"Millie," the elf frowned audibly and pulled on the door, which gave easily before snapping back closed behind her on its lazy spring and rattling the distressed planks of its bowing frame. "You never enjoyed company."

The interior of the cottage revealed the lie of its external shape, a single squarish room filled to near-bursting with knicks upon knacks. No wall lay bare, what spaces not claimed by a mounted assortment of gardening and building tools and utensils over (and sometimes under) hastily contorted scribblings played host to rows of ceiling and floor-mounted cupboards long rendered into truth-telling shelves when their once nobly-crafted fascades fell away after an unknowable age of woodworm and ash rot, exposing vials filled with absolutely unhealthy hues, and smallish boxes of assorted-yet-unusual dimensions tied and tagged with such names as "Mourning Tears," "Sanguinella," "Whispered Bondbark (shake, never stir)," and "One-halfing Twinning Tonic (the better bitter half)," among many more. Scattered amongst the clutter of containers, draped from eaves or hung from many wood knots sat bundles of forage and pouches of detritus gathered and tied in yards of twine; though nearly all these specimens lacked tag or label, a trained observer might recognize a hanging bushel of Elf's Ear, a stack of Rusted Redcap, or even a scattering of Doran's Morel amongst the shelved and hanging chaos.

A sunken bundle of hay wrapped hastily in yards of flannel and stackes with various bolts of cloth demarked a bed of sorts in one corner furthest from the door and dangerously close to the slate-stacked hearth whose glow provided the room's only significant illumination. The centerpiece of the room was a heavy oaken table, worn from many generations of use, upon which assorted alchemical apparati, their delicate forms out of place in the primal mess of the room, intermingled in the jungle created by stacks of ragged, burnt, browned and beaten books (many held open by thrice-busted bindings showing stained pages), upon which sat clusters of half-used candles whose waxes coalesced in the lettering of covers and the creases of pages. Unused and unloved by the door, the table's matching chairs contrasted with their organic surroundings in their geometric square stack, though bundles of webs tried their best to blend the edges.

A single hooded figure apparently known as "Millie" bundled in untreated wool stood before the hearth, mixing a bubbling kettle in long, slow strokes, the occasional waft of vapor from within its rough irons drifting through the room and endowing it with the fresh tingle of licorice, mint, and...a faint hint of copper shavings?

"Yes," the voice of the figure quivered and crowed, "and your garden saved me the trouble of them until now. Who is your friend? Step in, girl, I've already eaten this week. Ha!"

"This is my new-"

"No no no, not you!" The figure cut off Nevina and shook slightly in some kind of...motion beneath the bulk of its clothing, though it continued its methodical stirring. "No, you haven't made away with her tongue, have you? The girl can speak."

[Sal]

Having been just as happy to let Nevina navigate this conversation, Elke felt herself visibly tense under the scrutiny of the witch’s - Millie’s - attention. Why couldn’t Nevina simply just respond on her behalf? That would have been fine - preferred, even!

But no, Millie had called on Elke to speak for herself, and Nevina had put up no argument against this idea.

“I’m Elke Korraidhin,” she answered, half expecting a tremor in her voice and feeling quite pleasantly surprised by the steady tone she was able to maintain. Perhaps it was Nevina’s familiarity with this figure, making up for in disdain what it lacked in friendliness, that afforded her the ability to speak with some semblance of confidence. The two women clearly had a past, and although it didn’t seem to be the best one, the mageling could only assume that her tutor would have already had them fleeing in the direction from which they’d arrived if this Millie was someone too powerful to contend with.

It was a better thought than the consideration that they were simply too far into a trap of the witch’s to back out now.

“Nevina has agreed to take me under her guidance to learn more about magic.”

Elke’s eyes drifted beyond the woollen slope of Millie’s shoulders to a triad of cream-colored candles of various shapes and sizes, all lit and perched on the edge of a wooden shelf. One was a tall, thin taper that had bowed over from heat and age like an aged headmaster Elke had once known. The second was a fat pillar whose top had cooked down into a crater of liquid wax, its flame barely visible as it peeked over the edge of the cradle it had cooked for itself. The third was a stump of a dwindling tea light, its flame sickly soldiering on despite the way its wax and wick neared the end of their existence. The drippings from the three of them had pooled together and now hung in a forked stalactite like a dismembered crow’s foot from the edge of the shelf, all knobbles and claws.

There were many things in this place that Elke didn’t like, and as her eyes traveled around the room, lighting on minute detail after unsettling minute detail, she identified even more. But the ominous shape of the wax drippings made her particularly anxious.

She swallowed, tasting as much as smelling the fresh blood notes in the air in this place.

A few clusters of herbs, tied into bouquets and hanging inverted on a line of string between two of the exposed ceiling joists, looked familiar, like something that Elke’s father might have used in crafting poultices and herbal soaks for his patients. She found some slight comfort in that - that not everything here might be inherently bad.

But for those few clusters of herbs, there were a dozen other knick knacks and minutiae that screamed “inherently bad” from their mere presence.

Elke wasn’t sure what else to say. She considered explaining that the magic she used was not of the black variety lest the crone try and convince her to come study under her tutelage instead, but she didn’t want to offend the witch and decided that best a point to raise only if the witch made her pitch first.

She considered mentioning which academy she was from, but that seemed hardly more than a bragging right now. What did a witch care about the prestige of her academics? Did witches even study their crafts in schools?

Buttering up the witch was an option, but that could also land her in tomorrow’s stew.

Unable to come up with a good option, she simply looked to Nevina and hoped that her expression conveyed the request for help that she was attempting.

[Seperallis]

"There, she spoke," Nevina added into Elke's pause.

"Yes," replied the witch, chewing upon the word and rolling it over her tongue to extract its flavor while returning a ladle to its place on the busy wall. From above she retrieved an old clay kettle and, using a long handle fixed upright, carefully rotated the cauldron upon its cradle to pour into the new vessel.

"Yes," said Millie, "and she spoke nice and proper. Polite, too. You can't trust that."

"What a worthless judgement, you trust no one."

"Heehee...not true, not true! I trust you, Nevvy!"

Nevina, arms now crossed, sidled beside the wool-wearing lump of a woman. "That's hardly wise. I despise you."

The witch gave a deep inhale of the cauldron while letting it tip back upright, and released a satisfied sigh that faded into a chortle, "Yeh heh, yes, and that honesty is the mark of a trustworthy nature! Rather than the insincerity of pleasant smiles and kind words-"

"Stop."

"-while eyes search frantically for escape. Isnt that so?" Millie, having turned and faced Elke, seemed to regard her other visitor for the first time, though giving in kind the first detailed look at the crone: She stood a great deal shorter than even Nevina, likely due to the deep hunch that put her head squarely between her sloping shoulders. Fingers maybe two, three times longer than any human finger had any right coiled around the clay vessel now clutched close to her chest, their dark taloned tips clinking against it. She seemed to lack any substance to her, withdrawn skin accentuating every sunken hollow and joint of her visible face and hands. Wide-pupiled eyes scanned the novice independently of each other, pronounced within their caverns.

Shriveled lips parted to reveal pointed teeth and a black tongue as she spoke. "Tea, dears? I made some extra while you were-"

"Absolutely not," Nevina cooly interjected.

One of the witch's eyes rolled around to face Nevina behind her, though the other stayed facing Elke. She bristled slightly, tips of irridescent black feathers peeking from her hood and sleeves while she shuffled back to the hearth and placed the kettle upon a hook therein. "So very honest."

"That is not at issue," Nevina responded as the crone moved past toward one of the few cupboards clinging desperately to its hinges," we have business to attend."

"Business can wait for tea, it's well past sundown."

"Then the stars will guide us home after we have concluded."

"Tea and business can be taken together, these are not exclusive."

"Then I shall take my business while you take your tea."

"Oh Nevvy," sighed the witch, who returned from her cupboard rummaging with three soapstone cups only to find, somehow to her mild surprise, that the table was occupied already with far too many tools of her trade to be of any use. With a slow shake of her head she blew upon it, releasing a faint cloud of dust before, one by one, the various books and baubles rose to float amongst the rafters, leaving only the candles and much more room upon the table, where she began to set places; with a wave of one hand the kettle began to pour out three cups of tea, and with a roll of the other the stacked chairs tumbled and grumbled upright into their proper places "At least make yourself comfortable. It's been so long, you were still a child when I last saw you."

"Not long enough," retorted the elf, taking the seat facing the door and swapping the cup left for her with the witch's own before sliding it far aside. "I forgot you were in these woods, and thought time would have claimed you."

[Sal]

There was something nauseating about the witch’s house. Or maybe not something, but maybe everything. The wilted-greens hue that seemed to come from nowhere but fill the entire hovel, the unidentifiable bouquet of odors that described the presence of unseen rotting meat and burning sulfur, the general bog-like haze that had settled in the dwelling and the smoke of burning dried herbs that competed for air space. It made Elke think of squirmy things, slimy things, froggy-buggy-creepy-crawly-putrid things.

She’d bitten back a gag at the mention of “tea” and was honestly surprised to find that it did seem to be a simple case of herbs soaked in hot water. Still, she could picture a goat’s dissected eyeball floating to the surface all too easily and silently dismissed the tea as soon as it was placed in front of her.

To see the witch manipulate objects so easily as Millie, admittedly, was impressive. The crone simply flicked her hand a few mites this way, a few spaces that, and then the table was clear, and the clutter that had once filled its surface was suspended in weightlessness. Levitation of small objects, of course, was not an uncommon feat. It was, in fact, one of the first spells students at the university had been taught, and many with magic-oriented parents had come in with a pre-existing knowledge of levitation spells. It wasn’t the spell itself that had captured Elke’s attention, but it was the fact that the house seemed positively alive with magic. Here was a floating cup, there was a candle that rekindled itself after a draft blew out its flame, movement in the shadows, little flutters at the periphery of her vision. One or two small acts did not account for much required input, but to maintain these little twitches all over the home must have cost at least something.

Elke wondered - was that the explanation for the hag’s appearance? Did witches trade their beauty for magic energy? If that was the case, Millie must be one powerful being, indeed. That tongue. Those teeth. Ugh!

But maybe that wasn’t it at all. Elke didn’t know much about witches, or if they were even really different from mages like herself.

The talk of Nevina being a child caught in her ears like trout in a net. “You were here as a girl?” Elke asked, genuine surprise coating her question. For some reason, the thought of Nevina making a repeat journey to a place where she’d already visited seemed foreign; Nevina was a wanderer, and wanderers didn’t return to old haunts.

Or did they?

Elke didn’t know much about witches, and she didn’t know much about wanderers, either.

“What for?”

[Seperallis]

Millie the witch, unfazed by Nevina switching the cups, hissed a chortle through her teeth and into her tea as she attempted a sip.

The elf did not find the same amusement in the question. Sat straight-backed and upright in her chosen chair, she breathed deeply and sagged her shoulders in a long exhale. “I was,” she said, slowly at first as she found her words, and watching Millie. “I was sent to learn - of potions mainly, but also of other things - until I learned too much and learned she had deceived me.”

“Oh pish-posh, ‘deceived,’” said Millie with a dismissive curl of lip that revealed a few too many teeth. She set aside her cup and idly wafted a breeze across the too-hot brew. “Oh Nevvy, I never lied to you, if that’s what this is about.”

Nevina leaned forward slightly, folded arms resting over the satchel on her crossed lap. “You manipulated my confidence.”

“Yes, that was an important lesson.”

“You imprisoned me for a decade for a lesson?”