Fait Accompli: An Unwilling Tutelage

[Sal]

“Imprisoned?!” Elke blurted, having been able to keep quiet until now through the combined forces of her wariness about their current surroundings and her admitted curiosity about the other ladies’ shared past. It was the stab of chill that followed the word that helped her find her voice; Millie had imprisoned Nevina once - what was to stop her from imprisoning both of them again?

Lowering her voice, Elke spoke in an urgent stage whisper, “Nevina, should we--?”

[Seperallis]

The girl’s panicked query cut off as the witch laughed...or rather more like a cackle so deep at the accusation of imprisonment that her chair groaned and popped as she fell against its backing for support, as much as her hunch allowed. Nevina, for her part, remained unmoved against either concern or laugh as a cocked eyebrow glared after her former tutor in anticipation of an answer.

“Prison!” The crone managed to work out her words between the fits and starts of amusement. “Oh! You were of course ​rather slow​ as a child, yes, but a prison...oh! Nevvy!”

“That is rather enough of ‘Oh Nevvy,’ Mildred. We are far too many years removed for that.”

Nevina’s deadpan delivery cut through the crone’s laughter, which died weakly before she took a deeply satisfying breath and returned her attention to her tea with a grin. “Heh-hm...you were never imprisoned, Nevina.”

“I was.”

“You could, and did, come and go as you pleased. There was no prison.”

“A cage is not requisite to a prison.”

“Not for some, no,” the witch stated with a matter of fact, “but there was no prison.”

Nevina’s brow furrowed over the course of the exchange, but now only half so much in annoyance as perplexity. Mildred, between them both, seemed incapable of betraying her own thoughts; though she freely emoted with a smile here or a wink there, it all felt like habits that had long outlived any source, a woman vainly drawing from the pump of an empty spring rather out of habit than any hope or expectation of an outcome. Sarcasm might be universal, but whether to take it with joy, malice, truth or deception? The woman put her emotives forward like an open book with no pages, which only reinforced the long list of reasons the elf had to distrust her.

“I had forgotten how insufferable you are.”

Millie gave forth another habitual chortle as she flamboyantly waved a hand in salute of her hovel, the motion uncovering her spindly, raven-feathered arm. “Comes with the home, my dear! Or maybe just the age, and the solitude.”

“You should have told me instead of wasting my entire childhood with a ‘lesson.’” Nevina shook her head in some notion of disbelief.

“It was a ​good lesson​,” Millie nodded, still wafting her tea, “and one I truly thought you would have learned sooner!”

“Are you still practicing for Veohr?”

Nevina’s abrupt change of subject - rather flatly tired of addressing a topic going nowhere - nearly cut off the witch, who paid it little mind as she addressed Elke directly, “Did I already mention she made that lovely garden trap you passed through to get here? Oh you should see it in the daytime to appreciate the irony.”

[Sal]

Elke’s head twitched back and forth to look between the two women as they bickered as if watching a fast-paced sports match. Her mouth opened a few times as if to speak, or make a request, or perhaps a protest, but the opportune moment for her to get a word in edgewise never seemed to arrive.

Visible once again, Elke jolted. “Um,” she squeaked. “No, I…. Veohr?” Another wave of cold washed over her as she thought about the witch’s question.

”She”? Does she mean…?

Elke turned her head toward to Nevina. “Did you--?”

[Seperallis]

Nevina kept her eyes on the witch and pressed ahead, rather pointedly interjecting, “I assume you are still practicing-”

“Ohh, of course I’m still practicing. Now and forever, as it has been and always will be. Why would I ever stop?” The witch bordered on annoyance as her eyes rolled over to the elf in her response, before completing the round to return to Elke. “Even if he doesn’t respond, dearie, he still needs his loyal little helpers working in his name. A little touch of darkness at the edges makes the light in our lives shine brighter!”

“Millie...”

[Sal]

Now pressed back in her chair as far as its physical properties would allow her to from both Millie and Nevina, Elke suddenly felt the distance between herself and her home.

“Um,” she peeped for a second time, a clear deficit of words befitting of the situation in her repertoire.

[Seperallis]

The witch continued, “A good lesson for both magic and life, child, hehe!”

“Mildred,” Nevina interjected again, with a twinge of something that seemed like growing concern as her brow furrowed further. “Do you know that werewolves have appeared again?”

[Sal]

“But Nevina got one of them,” Elke chirped quickly, seizing the opportunity before it fled. “I saw it; most certainly dead.”

1d20 rolled for a total of: 17 (17)

[Seperallis]

"She did?" The crone asked the question with a furrowed brow punctuating her uncharacteristically forward and bare concern. Her eyes shifted once between her guests, first to the half-petrified mageling, and then the long-staring elf who simply nodded in silence. Millie slumped back in her chair slightly as she took the news, letting it sink into her a moment before offering a disbelieving, "No...what was it like?"

Nevina huffed slightly. "I suppose much like a werewolf: a great gnashing and thrashing of teeth and claws, pained eyes too intelligent for a beast-"

"No, no, what did it look like," Mildred interjected.

"Well," said Nevina tersely and with pause, "after I finished focusing on not dying, I estimated about 20 hand height, a somewhat ochre pelt-"

"Oh, no! She didn't!"The old witch raised a clawed hand to her mouth with her exclamation, her visage awash with shock and anguish. "How could you? Oh! Poor sweet little Timothy! He was such a darling boy..."

It was Nevina's turn to be in shock, her eyes slightly wider and brow slightly raised at the with's outburst. Words failed her for a moment as a reply ground out in fits and starts before finding them with pointed hand movements from her temple for emphasis.

"Mildred, what-...why did you make a werewolf?"

"Why are you killing them?" It was Mildred's turn to flip the accusations. "Oh my beautiful baby boys, how could you be so cruel to them! Please tell me you didn't make them suffer?"

"Them? Mildred, I- what them? Oh by the- Mildred! Of all things, werewolves?!"

It was Nevina's turn to slump back, shoulders and arms flung in her own disbelief as her eyes wandered the floating miscellany. Mildred, with arms cross and chin tilted slightly, with all the confidence of someone well within the right. "And why not? Veohr made them to inhabit our world before they were so unjustly exterminated. I was returning balance to nature, before you murdered poor sweet Timothy."

"Mildred," said Nevina, chopping the table for emphasis, "Lycanthropy is not some simple plague you can spread into the wild to goad hapless villagers into buying your tonics; you live only one day from Myerleigh and you released dangerous magical beasts into the wilderness!"

"I've never heard of this 'Merlot,'" huffed the witch, "but maybe they shouldn't have put their home in my werewolf preserve!"

"Mildred- ugh," Nevina sighed hard at her old tutor's stubborn insistence. To just release werewolves in the wild! The years had been long between them, but this was far from the prudent and shrewd woman she remembered; this went beyond zealotry for her profession, and seemed far to reckless an act for something like the old Mildred she knew. Chest heaving with another sigh, she asked, "Mildred, even for you, this is too much. How many are there? Where did they go? People must be warned before this goes too far out of hand."

---

1d20 rolled for a total of: 11 (11)

[Sal]

"And why?" Elke echoed Nevina's earlier question. "Why make them? Why release them? Surely you had to know that someone would hunt them down? It's not as if humans and other..." she waved her hand vaguely in her elven companion's direction and continued, "...gentlefolk can peacefully coexist with a race who would like nothing more than to, oh, I don't know, eat the meat from our bones and slurp out the marrow when they're finished?! Of course we'd protect ourselves!"

[Seperallis]

"Pure selfish hubris, child." Mildred replied to Elke's sudden outburst with crossed arms, "The gods made them, and...and who are you to remove them because you don't like them? A world without werewolves is unnatural, and it is already a travesty that they have been absent for so long!"

"Mildred," Nevina said, trying to wrest control of the conversation, "where have your werewolves gone?"

"No."

"No?" Nevina's eyes narrowed at this simple, seeming non sequitur. "No, what?"

"No, I won't tell you and let you hurt these sweet boys." Mildred's arms and expression remained cross, and the candles, books, and other ends eavesdropping overhead lazily floated to vacant spots upon the once-cupboards-turned-shelves. The pot of tea, once hissing gently, calmed to a quiet pool while embers beneath is licked left and right, unable to find either home or exit. "They're good boys; I'm not going to just make it easier for you to kill them for the crime of existing."

"Whether I do it or not, someone will kill them," said Nevina, letting the words sink in as she matched the witch's gaze. At some point the end of the cylindrical case on her had become unclasped - or maybe, as far as Elke was concerned, it had been that way all along - and one hand rested upon the familiar etchings of the flute within. "If not myself, then they will live a life of fear and anguish spreading pain until they succumb to a prolonged and agonizing death; I will make it swift. The world will not suffer werewolves, and a handful of werewolves are not ready for this world."

"Then I will continue to work on their return, and the world should make ready for them," said Mildred, unmoving within her chair, though a brushing sensation casually began to slide up Elke's calves and back as she spoke, the glow of the fireplace and candles growing softer as the air began to press in like pillows. "And I will start with a replacement for sweet little Timothy."