Chapter Text
Deep in the woods sits a small cottage with a moss-covered roof. Upon that roof, no matter the season, one can see little pink flowers poking through the moss. It is known, though, that Nature will bend her own rules to signal the presence of a witch; She preens and shows Her beauty to its greatest advantage where a good witch has made her home, but where a bad witch roams, there will only be death and decay.
This cottage was built to house about seven witches, though they’re usually not all in at the same time. All seven have pledged their gifts to goodness, or at least vowed to keep away from mischief; such peaceful conduct is rewarded with flowers and blessings. From the outside, it does not look like it can comfortably house more than three people, but things are not always what they seem on the surface.
Ginger often grumbles about what a damn pigsty it is inside the house, and that if Mother Nature really loved them that much, She could at least reach in and do some tidying. If She can pay special attention to the laboratory, it would well suit her wishes. Only a mother, Ginger thinks, could go through the ordeal of putting all their flasks in order at the end of the day while maintaining a sweet temper. Ginger likes things to be nice, especially if she is not the one that needs to make them that way, but she finds that she's best suited to make them that way, as she is the only one who subscribes to her personal definition of nice. She dreams of a cupboard where all the ingredients for her potions are arranged in such a way that she can reach for a flask and trust that it contains what she needs without having to read the label, or at the very least she wishes that the labels would be facing outward when ingredients are replaced. She dreams of a laboratory where everything ends up in the cupboard at the end of the day, where books can find their way to their proper place once they have been used, a laboratory that appears as if it is kept by two women of reason rather than one excitable squirrel. She would also like it if empty bottles were put in the space she marked out for ingredients that need refilling, rather than simply being left out in the open where careless limbs can knock them over.
Katya doesn’t mind the mess, really, which is to be expected since she is usually the cause of it. She can remember where everything is as long as she puts it there herself, and trouble only arises when people move things without returning them to the exact spot she last left them. Ginger has to sternly remind Katya that while she may be deeper into medicinal magic than Ginger is, they use many of the same ingredients, and that they didn’t have the foresight to generate two laboratories when they first arranged the rooms in the cottage. There is no getting around the fact that they share the space, and it would be lovely if they could keep each other happy.
“What if we generate another lab now?” Katya asks, throwing her arms up in exasperation. It is the fifteenth time they’ve argued about this in the past month.
“Because we’ve used up all the extra space we have before the magic stretches out too far,” Ginger hollers. “Valentina needed a whole fucking greenhouse, remember? The fabric of our home can't take much more than that. I’ve explained this!”
“Can’t we rebuild if it collapses?”
“You can do that yourself,” Ginger snaps.
“Shhh,” Katya shushes, even though she’s no quieter than Ginger is. “We might wake Jinkx.”
Although they regularly fight about their organizational habits, Ginger and Katya are very good friends. A half-day’s silence is enough to have them peacefully sharing jokes and a late night snack before bed. Katya never fails to place the tonics and potions she’s made for the next day’s delivery in the basket Ginger carefully labelled for that purpose, can usually be counted on for cheerful conversation, and would really be a perfect lab mate if she would learn to organize the ingredients in a way that can make sense to someone who doesn’t live inside her brain. Life would be truly peaceful for the both of them if Katya could remember that because the two of them are the most active members of the household, they should do their part to keep things in order for everyone else, though Ginger has threatened to stop wiping the trails of earth Valentina tends to leave in her wake too many times to count. Sometimes, Ginger does manage to remember that even she is happiest when she can just let things lie where they choose to take their rest, that sometimes her doing her part involves shouting at others a little less about the areas in which they fall short. They all intend to do good, but that does not make them perfect.
There are seven little tea lights floating in seven little bowls on their mantle, which they can use to keep track of each other and their various housemates. As Katya seldom leaves home, her light normally burns green. Ginger is in charge of deliveries to the village, so hers will burn blue to show that she is away and in no immediate danger when she steps out. If a member of the household finds herself in danger, wherever they may be, the light turns red. Normally, the greater part of the household is represented by a blue flame. The only true outlier is Max, whose flame turned black when she stopped eating from the trays they left outside her bedroom door. She’s advanced far enough in her study of necromancy to have transcended the need for sustenance. The day she dies, her candle will go out completely, at which point it will be in their best interests to find another young witch to take her place. Witches have to cluster in groups of three or seven. It’s good for the balance of magic in a household, or so it has been said for thousands of years.
Katya rises with the sun, a little before Ginger does, and spends some time stretching her sore limbs outside. Whatever she’s been doing to herself in her sleep needs to stop, she is getting very tired of waking up with aches and pains every morning of her life, though the stretching is nice for its own sake. She sees Ginger off every morning, and is there to greet anyone who drops by, or say farewell to a sister as she goes forth on whatever journey calls to her. She likes to dedicate a portion of her day to wasting time, and finds that it's best to do this is when nobody’s home. When there is company to be had, she likes to savour it. Before Max started spending most of her time confined to her room, Katya didn’t know what it was to truly be on her own for very long periods of time. She has found that it isn’t all that bad, and if she really dislikes the silence in the cottage she can make friends with some woodland critters, or talk to herself. It’s nice to hear someone’s voice, even if it’s her own. Twice a month, she goes down to the village with Ginger to add some spice to her days and maybe personally administer a healing spell. She used to go more often.
Katya didn’t choose a more retired life out of hatred for mingling with the common folk, and was well-liked, but bottling her spells has led her to a more peaceful lifestyle. She feels like she can understand Jinkx better when she thinks of how tired she gets after a day talking to people about their ailments, and doing her best to help them. Jinkx is clairvoyant, her gift alone drains her energy so that she will usually be in town reading fortunes until she is too tired to continue, at which point she returns home and sleeps for weeks. Katya’s situation is different, but the ease with which she handles people hides how much energy she expends in the process. Sometimes, peace can drive her to a deeper level of insanity than she already claims to inhabit, but she feels lighter throughout her days.
Katya looks forward to Trixie being home more than any of the others, though she swears she has love in her heart for all of her housemates. Trixie complains that she struggles to compete with the only other witch specializing in musical magic in their immediate area. She says it’s unfair that she is not part siren, and cannot make her voice as compelling as nature allows her competitor to do. Her tenacity drives her to travel farther with her instruments, as it is in a performer’s nature to seek out ways to share her gifts with a wide range of people. Katya likes her dark sense of humour, contrasted with the brightness of her appearance, and the way she knows to send a melody to follow her around when she’s feeling blue. She wishes her gifts complemented Trixie’s better, so that she could enjoy her company more often. She can’t begrudge Shangela her luck at being Trixie’s most natural travel companion, though. An illusionist and a musician make a whole lot of sense as a team, more than a musician and a medic. When they’re together, though, Katya wonders if she will ever find the kind of closeness she feels to Trixie in another being.
When Katya was younger, she never expected to stay put for so long. She used to think she had a wandering soul, yet she never did much wandering in the end. She soothes herself with a reminder of how loose the threads tying her to her little corner of the woods actually are. If she wants to, she can walk the earth until the soles of her feet wear down, and she will always have a home to return to. For all she knows, she’ll be on her way to a million faraway destinations after her midday nap. Maybe she’ll see if Trixie and Shangela will let her take a holiday with them. She can dust off the tambourine she bought on impulse the last time she went to market.
She usually ends up in her lab, bottling spells to combat the most common seasonal ailments, and fulfilling the orders Ginger brings home for her attention.
***
In retrospect, the queen realizes she should have taken care to use exact words when she wished for a beautiful child.
She did love the child at first, delighted in how similar they were in appearance, and was certain that they would be great friends. Pregnancy had not agreed with her, and she carried on with the assurance that though a prince would have made the kingdom happiest, a princess would have to do if that is what they were given.
Her little Violet was her pride; every day she grew into her beauty she felt like her own mother must have felt watching her grow. Violet had been born with a natural grace that never ceased to impress anyone who met her. She was noted for her intellect, and the fire with which she undertook every task presented before her. What she lacked in warmth, she made up for in self-assurance. From childhood, she carried herself as every bit the princess she was, and there was no doubt that she would one day become a great ruler. While Violet was still a child, the queen never thought about what the future would bring her. Violet was the perfect little girl in her eyes, an extension of her own perfect self, and there was nothing the queen loved more than her own reflection.
The queen started to see her daughter as a separate being on the evening of her coming of age ball, on Violet’s sixteenth birthday. In the blink of an eye, her sweet little copy had become a beautiful young woman. She still resembled her then, but the queen had never before noticed that Violet has her father’s dark, imperious eyes.
Noticing those eyes made Violet’s face less lovely in the queen’s mind. She herself has deceptively soft features, which give her the appearance of a porcelain doll. Violet was shaping up to have a harder, but admittedly striking countenance.
The queen had not yet begun to see her daughter as a threat, but she did start to separate the two of them in her mind, and it can be said that this is where Violet’s troubles began. Every time Violet’s refined manners were praised, every time her inelegant laugh was professed to be charming, every time her pretty figure, or her excellent taste in gowns were singled out as the coming of a new age in beauty and style, the queen grew more envious.
It all came to a head on Violet’s eighteenth birthday.
Weary of the festivities, the queen decided to take the air in the gardens. There, she overheard a most distressing conversation.
“Isn’t the princess looking lovelier by the day? Why, she’s almost as lovely as her mother when she arrived. Do you remember how everyone had said, back then, that the queen was so beautiful she must have been an angel come from Heaven?”
“Oh, but of course! There was no woman in the world who could rival our new queen in beauty. It’s only fitting that her competition is her own daughter.”
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say she’s competition, our queen has not diminished in beauty.”
“That may be so, but the more our princess grows into her looks, the more I start to think that by the time she takes the throne she will be the most beautiful in the land. The queen can’t stay as she is forever, we are all ravaged by time in the end.”
“Just so…”
Not wishing to hear herself compared to her daughter any longer, the queen rushed back to her apartments.
She had covered the great mirror with the gold frame in a sheet when its constant assertions of her beauty started to bore her. It had been a parting gift from her godmother, and had mostly taken up space in a forgotten corner of her rooms. The queen liked being told she was the fairest in the land, but she didn’t need to hear it every day. That night, though, she felt like she ought to take comfort in it.
“Hello, old friend,” she said, uncovering the mirror for the first time in over a decade.
Her breath hitched. Something about knowing the mirror was entirely impartial, that it was looking at her as much as she was at herself, perhaps even more, made her feel small all of a sudden. She remembered when her godmother had first shown it to her, when it hung in its own room in her house.
“Be careful with it,” she’d said. “It can see into your heart.”
The mirror had never been the chatty type. No matter what she said to it first, it would only utter the answer to a question. Its silence made it more imposing. It was already sizing her up. She remembered that she’d covered it so that it wouldn’t look at her when she wasn’t seeking its opinion.
“Tell me, mirror,” said the queen, regaining her sense of authority. “Who is the fairest in the land?”
Nothing suggested that it had heard her, and it remained silent for a moment. This was normal. Then, a voice responded, loud and clear, but almost as if it was coming from her own mind.
“It is you, but only for a little longer,” it said.
The queen’s blood boiled.
“And who would dare overtake me?” she cried.
Again, it seemed to be thinking.
“Your daughter, the princess.”
She knew she wasn’t strong enough to break it, so she didn’t try. What was once suspicion quickly turned to hatred. She let that simmer until she thought she saw the first trace of a wrinkle on her fair face.
At that point, she knew that her daughter had to die.
***
Violet never noticed any of this as it happened. She had been distancing herself from her mother in favour of spending more time around her father, and taking an interest in his daily activities. While her mother was busy treating her like a little doll, her education had been based around training her to consider her destiny as a future ruling queen.
The responsibility has never frightened her, but she doesn’t want to be the kind of ruler no one will remember. It is her ambition to be truly great. In order to be great, she needed to learn her trade, and though she enjoyed the affection her mother showered on her as a child, the queen has never taught her anything of substance.
Violet has always been comfortable with her looks and about as vain as any young girl can be. She’s also aware that she’s expected to cultivate more than her beauty in order to fulfill the expectations she was born into. Her goal is to exceed these expectations, so she can’t be too narrow in her focus.
When her father asks if she would like to take a ride in the woods, just the two of them, she readily agrees. She feels like she doesn’t require validation to hold herself up, but she likes to have her father’s attention, and to know that he will be at ease when he leaves the kingdom in her hands.
Her father brought a bag full of food, which has led Violet to believe that he intends to speak to her over a shared lunch. The usually jovial king, though, sits stiffly on his horse and appears ill at ease as they ride. Violet wonders if it’s acceptable to ask him about his troubles, or if she should wait for him to be ready. Her father is a cheerful man, but being suspected of any weakness can drive him into a rage, and Violet doesn’t want to be in a position of calming that kind of storm on this day.
They ride together in silence until they reach a spot that is suitable for rest. Violet secures her horse against a tree. She knows her mare will more than likely stay put, but she can sometimes startle easily. Violet can deal with this while riding, but if she’s frightened enough to bolt when Violet is not paying attention she will find herself in a fix. Her father hands her their lunch, and she turns to choose the nicest place to sit.
That’s when she hears the most horrifying sound. When she turns back to her father and their horses, her carefully studied composure is all that prevents her from dropping the bundle that contains their food.
In the time it took for her to turn around and walk but a few steps, her father had drawn his sword, and now her horse’s head lay on the ground. Her father’s stallion is in hysterics, while the blood of her mare dyes the grass red around where she was slain.
“When you are queen,” her father says, his voice breaking. “You will see worse sights than this.”
“Why have you done this?” Violet asks, her tone even. She holds her screams, of pain and rage at the senselessness of her father’s actions, for when she has the chance to be alone. She wouldn’t want to be deemed unfit just because she feels , as would be the case if she gave in. “What did my horse do to deserve the death penalty?”
“If I didn’t kill her, I would have had to kill you.”
All of Violet’s strength is diverted to the task of keeping her on her feet.
“Papa,” she breathes. “Is this a joke? Or is it a test?”
Her father looks at her. She can’t tell if it’s with sorrow, from the distance that he bids her not to cross.
“My wife, whom I love more than life itself, has asked me to do away with my daughter, whom I love as much as I need,” he says. Violet’s heart catches in her throat.
“Rather than present her with your heart, I will give her the horse’s,” he continues. “I ask that you treat this as a test. Whatever sin you committed against your mother, the kingdom will need you when I am gone. You are my one and only heir.”
Violet nods as she holds back involuntary tears.
“Violet, if you survive this trial,” he says, and she can finally hear the sorrow in his voice. “You will be the most worthy of queens.”
His last request is that she walk away, until he no longer has to look at her. She quietly acquiesces.
Soon, she is alone, with nothing but her strength to carry her. Fortunately, her strength has never once failed her.
***
Katya had given up trying to sleep until the first true burst of sunlight, so she fixes herself a cup of tea and decides to sit by the window until it starts to get light. Trixie brought this tea back for her once, earnestly telling her it was very good for her according to the witch who sold it. Katya has dutifully choked it down since, because it’s a rare little thing from a faraway land that her friend has given her. It’s disgusting, but it actually does help her wake up.
She doesn’t know if she’s obtaining any real health benefits from drinking it regularly, though, and hasn’t bothered to check. If she dies, she dies. Max says there’s no helping it when the time comes. Katya’s not exactly looking forward to death, but as she grimaces over the taste of her beverage, she wishes her time to get up had waited until sunrise. The arrival of the sun, long awaited indeed, works in tandem with the tea to help her come to terms with starting off her day.
As Katya becomes more alert, she begins to notice a figure slowly emerging from the woods. She sets her cup down, moves closer to the window so she can focus in on it. It’s not likely to be threatening, Valentina says she installed failsafes to protect against any intruder who would harm their coven. What Katya worries about is the slow, wobbly quality to the figure’s progress. A friend would be approaching more confidently. Whoever it is might be a person in need, and Katya would break the most important promise she’s made in her life if she did not help them.
They don’t make it to the cottage before they stop, sinking down into the ground. Katya springs into action.