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For generations, the Kiramman family line was rich with powerful women.
Matrilineal, Caitlyn's mother, like her mother before her and so on, had been raised to harness magic in its natural and unnatural forms. She had impressed its wonder on her young daughter and showed her the ways it could be beautiful and dangerous.
Caitlyn often delighted in chasing her mother's conjured moths in the meadow behind their house. She remembered them vividly: their unnatural colors iridescent in the sun, the wings gently fluttering to a stop as she coaxed one into landing on her finger. Looking back on it, it was a more likely tale that her mother had urged it to do so. Her mother never did seem all that impressed when she showed her.
She grew to adore the magic that enchanted the very ground on which she walked. The way she was taught to make flowers bloom at will, the way there was nothing a little levitation couldn’t reach, the way the house would move completely, from one place to another, in a matter of a minute.
A simple incantation from her mother and she would open the door to a new meadow, a new forest. Always out, just a little, from the nearest settlement.
As the summers passed, she was exposed more and more to the world outside of their forest. And more and more, she wanted to help people.
She began weaving lucky charms and healing draughts, wards and spells for those who asked. But her mother pinched her lips and told Caitlyn she should be careful. Not all townsfolk would be welcoming or accepting.
Tales from faraway villages hung heavy over the doorway, threaded bare with stories of those blessed by magic who had been run out of town, beaten, or murdered for their power. Caitlyn sometimes dreamt of those witches, their charred and bloody faces warming her as she shot up from sleep, gasping for breath and drawing her power close.
All of it built up. The sleepless nights, the midnight terrors, the threat of being found out. It left her steeped in her own fear and paranoia that she had no other choice than to leave her home. She left her parent’s home with a teared glance in her wake, settling for a tiny cottage in the heart of the woods, counties away from anywhere she’d ever been.
She traded her identity as one of the revered Kiramman witches for the little notoriety of being just Caitlyn. Caitlyn, the maybe-a-little-on-the-stranger-side most definitely human girl who lived out in the brush of the surrounding woodland all on her own.
Caitlyn, the medic. The herbalist that specializes in making concoctions of the flora, found and picked recently and locally, all for the benefit of the local townsfolk.
She wasn’t well advertised, by any means, but there was a visitor every now and again. At least a couple a week. Each time the door would open, a disembodied jingle would ring, as though some windchimes had been strung. Not that the visitor ever noticed that there weren’t any hung.
It was nice enough, being just Caitlyn.
It was freeing to abandon the bags and sashes that donned the coven’s emblem, and yet part of her couldn’t help but miss it as she carved it into the frame she hung above her bed.
For as quaint as her cottage was, she hoped that it was much more impressive than the exterior let on. She made sure that it was larger to boot.
She liked to call it a pitstop apothecary.
Whatever the main healer in the town couldn’t handle was sent here, for a more unorthodox remedy. And one that never failed, on that note.
The immediate interior of the cottage is set out just as any usual living area would be. A couple of seats and a table at the center piece. Though, the rest of the place seemed to deviate.
Beneath the windows, there are many shelves, some covered with books—on spells, of course, not that just anyone could read them—the rest, though, were packed with small trinkets and charms, all laid out or hung (if hung, by disappointingly mortal means, of course). Beyond those, small woven baskets were cluttered with amassed knick-knacks that Caitlyn had made over the years.
Caitlyn hadn’t made a habit of donning this area, though. It got much too hot and humid for her preference. Instead, she liked to spend her days sitting further into the depths of the cottage.
Weaving bracelets or enchanting yet another protection charm to hang by the window, spinning a dream catcher or carving runes into the wax of a candle. There are about a thousand ways that Caitlyn could spend her time.
Sometimes, she ventures out into the surrounding forest. The local sprites are friendly and generous, for the most part, allowing her to take her share of their home and use it for the better. She’s spent the better part of the past dozen or so months trying to befriend them to the best of her ability.
Caitlyn is certain that it’s going well. Especially when she wakes up to gifted twigs on the windowsill beside her bed.
(She doesn’t say thank you. You should never say ‘thank you’ to a sprite, or the fae, for that matter—it’s rude. But she does tell the open window that she appreciates it. In fact, with all of the ones that she has, she only needs a couple more before she can make a wreath to hang outside.)
It was just another day, really.
She was humming, flicked a finger to open one of the rear windows, and for once, opted to sit in the living area, allowing the breeze to flow through. Her mother had sent her a new book – another one detailing some more of the Kiramman’s most infamous spells – so she needed to catch up on her reading.
The morning passes without incident, for the most part.
She covers the contents of about three different spells to encourage another person to bend to her will. Silently, Caitlyn files them away into the category of things that She Will Never Use and turns the page.
She’s about to start another when there’s a poignant three-interval knock at the door. Caitlyn immediately stands from her seat, shutting the cover with a sharp snap before slotting it beneath the coffee table with esteemed ease. There's a brief moment where time seems to stop for her, just enough for her to brush out wrinkles and get the lay of her hair right before she reaches for the door and pulls it open.
It's hard not to gasp because a profusely bleeding mercenary with eyes like rainfall is not what she expects to see.
The mercenary smiles (crooked, exhausted, and incredibly endearing) and leans a little against the doorframe. Her armor is patchwork and eight kinds of scuffed, fitting ill over her broad shoulders as one of her hands presses firmly to a wound in her side.
“Good afternoon, I was told-” she sucks in a breath with a clenched jaw and eyes screwed shut, “-I was told there may be someone here who could help me.”
Caitlyn is momentarily struck dumb by the way the mercenary's pink hair falls over her eyes.
“Yes, yes of course,” she says, darting forward to offer her own shoulder as extra support.
Together, the two of them manage to lower the mercenary into Caitlyn's spare cot. She gets to work right away at removing the armor made for a body smaller than the one that wears it, careful to set the pieces aside for cleaning later. The clothes underneath are even less impressive. Stitched tears and ancient stains tell a story Caitlyn could read with her eyes closed if she were so inclined.
She had seen soldiers and warriors, thieves and bankers, farmers and merchants and all of them bore their stories plainly. The eyes that follow Caitlyn as she shears around the wound and takes care to clean it will only tell her more about who this mercenary is. The eyes will tell her the things she tries to hide, the things she thinks are private. Caitlyn averts her gaze. Those eyes are not for her.
“What creature made this?” she asks. Her hands fly over the jars on her shelves to pull what she needs.
“A lady usually introduces herself before a conversation.”
Caitlyn stops dead at the teasing tone.
She turns and even though the mercenary is sweating and her eyes are heavy, she smiles with– with–
Interest?
What in the green earth?
“When your condition isn't balancing on a knife's edge with moments to influence its direction I will tell you. I ask again: what creature made this wound?” She tries again more forcefully, ignoring the way her ears prick and the way the mercenary's smile widens.
“A boar, or six. Some with maybe poisonous tusks.” Caitlyn finds the corresponding jar on her shelf. “And don't think I won't hold you to that.”
The mercenary passes out from the blood loss and pain a short while later, plunging the hut into diligent silence for Caitlyn to work. She cleaned wounds, stitched what needed it, applied salve, and dressed each one, ensuring the wraps were taught without being tight.
She didn’t let herself get distracted. The mercenary may be all bright colors and sharp angles with undeniable magnetism, but Caitlyn is focused. Her concentration is legendary. But the injured woman sleeps the day away, allowing for Caitlyn to putter around her house, working on potions and refilling the materials she had just used.
Over the next two days, the pattern stays the same. Caitlyn goes about her day as the mercenary sleeps heavily in the cot, only waking for a few minutes at a time to partake in food, water, and light flirting with her savior. Caitlyn doesn’t think her face has ever been so red as when the woman looked at her, half delirious with wide eyes and said, “you’re too pretty to be real.”
It is safe to say Caitlyn keeps her distance where she can.
On the morning of the third day, she tends to the squash in her garden, checking for discoloration and insect damage as the sun bakes the land around her. She feels just like the flowers that line her house, nourished and warm as her home blooms with life hard built and full of love.
While the sun is warm, it’s not yet at its peak, flush with a soft kiss against her skin, much too meek to threaten a burn. She stands, only for a moment, eyes closed, face turned towards the sky, feeling the heat brush against her face.
There’s never a better start to the day.
Caitlyn’s just about to open her eyes, mid-way through a plan on what flavor of tea she’ll make to enjoy in the sun when a voice cuts through.
“You’ve got a nice place out here.” The voice startles her to jump, but before she can say anything, she continues. “I meant to say that when I first got here but, you know, didn’t have my manners about me.”
The woman whose wounds she’s been tending stands, half-shaded in the doorway to the cottage. Her face leans out into the light, skin supple and she breathes in the light as if it’s giving her new life.
“You shouldn’t be standing,” Caitlyn says, eyes flitting down to the hand that rests against her hand. “Healing doesn’t happen in one night, you know.”
“It’s– hold on. How long have I been here?”
Caitlyn bends to observe another leaf that she supposes she missed. With a soft word, she urges a small caterpillar to find some food elsewhere. “This is the third day.”
“Oh fuck-”
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t use such vulgar terms around them.” She makes a gesture to the plants around her. “They can hear you.”
“Listen, you’ve been amazing but I really have to go.”
“Places to go? People to see?” Caitlyn asks, once more standing and turning towards the woman.
“Yeah! See, you get it, now if you could just-”
“Unless the place you’re going to is the afterlife,” Caitlyn cuts in. “Then I strongly suggest you go back inside.”
As if to usher her in, she draws her plans for tea in the garden to a close and steps towards the cottage, past the door. The woman, without a choice but to step out of her way, is unwillingly led back inside.
“You don’t understand-”
“Oh, I understand well enough,” Caitlyn insists. “And I know more than you ever could that you are in no condition to be traveling right now.”
“Is there no quick fix?”
None that would leave both of us fully intact, she wants to say.
“I’m afraid not. You’re just going to have to deal with your body’s natural healing process for now.” Even if it wasn’t really her body doing the healing, there was only so much that she could do in a day without straining herself.
“Shit.”
“Language, please.” Caitlyn gestures to yet another plethora of potted plants sitting on the windowsill. “Could I at least know your name?”
Vi takes a step further inwards, only to have it not set right with the half-healed wounds and grabs her side as she stumbles into one of the counters with a wince.
“I told you so. You’re going to have to rest,” Caitlyn says.
“The name’s Vi. Yours? You did promise me, if I remember.”
“You can call me Caitlyn,” she says.
It’s on instinct that she leads Vi back to the cot that she had previously been set up in, her face somehow looking like the cat that got the mouse.
“Lift your shirt,” Caitlyn instructs, having pottered around the room for a multitude of vials and a couple of bundles of dried herb.
Vi gives a laugh. “Not everyday that a beautiful woman asks me to take my clothes off.”
Caitlyn purses her lips and chooses not to answer that. She also ignores the fact that Vi hikes her shirt up higher than she needs to.
The wound that cuts across skin, muscle, and all else looks good. There’s no sign of infection as far as she can see and the fresh bandage she’s applied before bed the night before had no traces of blood, indicating a well-closed wound. Of course, the slightest wrong movement could absolutely disrupt that.
“Looking good,” Caitlyn sighs as she goes to collect another set of fresh dressings.
“I know right? You should see my arms.”
When it comes down to it, Vi is charming. She’s funny, has a soft smile, and is full to the brim with confidence. Her clear come-ons would have been atrocious and insulting from anyone else. But now, as she struggles to hide the pain from a wound she earned clearing away animals that would surely ravage the nearby towns, Caitlyn just finds her cute. Her clothes are clearly borrowed, stolen, or from seasons long past that draw tight around her shoulders and hips as the boots are worn thin at the soles. Everything about her speaks of a bone-deep earnestness.
“I should see you healthy.” She turns quickly to hide her face and Vi laughs softly to herself at how transparent the gesture was.
“Okay, okay. Tell me, please, Caitlyn; how long will you recommend I stay here? Since you won’t let me leave,” Vi asks, somehow teasing despite her clear exasperation. She stays still as Caitlyn works on her, not even flinching when the antiseptic makes contact.
“At least another week. Give or take a few days.”
Vi lets out a long, slow breath. It doesn’t take a genius to understand she’s frustrated.
“A week. Okay. That’s fine. A whole week. No problem,” she grumbles.
“I have many books and can escort you for short walks around the cottage–” Caitlyn begins to offer, but Vi cuts her off with a short wave of her hand.
“No, thank you. I should be fine. That’s just…a lot of time,” she sighs and drops back against the pillows. “I have, you know, obligations and whatever. Things I need to do.”
“You can’t do anything if you’re bleeding out.”
Caitlyn looks curiously at Vi for a moment. What things must she have to get back to? A job? Friends? Family? A wife? She flinches at the thought and shakes her head. It’s only been a few days and she’s already jealous of a potentially fictional woman? Absurd.
“Good thing I’ve got you to take care of me.” Vi’s smile is wide and genuine and her eyes sparkle with something deep.
“Quite.”
Caitlyn decides it's best to busy herself with dinner, even in spite of the small smile that seems to manifest itself whenever they lock eyes. The meal is taken in relative silence, though the air between them isn’t awkward in any way. It’s comfortable. The kind of comfort that comes from familiarity.
And Caitlyn hasn’t felt like this since she left home.
She can’t help but feel the quiet weight of Vi’s gaze on her for the rest of the night. The feeling of her eyes on her back, even as she bids her goodnight, even as the sheets of her bed close around her. Caitlyn just can’t forget the fleeting, hearty feeling of being watched by Vi: something fluttering yet weightless.
It’s almost adjacent to magic itself, she realizes, when the feeling finds kin in the memory of an incantation to make you light on your feet, efficient and brisk.
The next morning comes with plants to tend, errands to run, and dressings to change.
There are a few things that are a little more desperate than others and, with Vi’s wounds sufficiently treated until the evening, she sets to work out in the garden.
While the morning isn’t hot, it’s certainly pleasant. Sun bright but not blaring, birds out in the fringing woods singing loudly, the breath of the wild coming in waves over the wind.
Caitlyn breathes it in once, and exhales with a content sigh. All is as it should be.
She hikes her sleeves up to her elbow, crouching low to the ground – eye level with the new growth.
“Someone’s looking well,” she says, as if complimenting an old friend. She turns over a leaf, large and broad, basking in the sun. Beneath it, there’s the growth of yet another golden yellow flower, a bulbous green bulb at the base of it.
Her face breaks out into a smile and she drops to one knee.
Caitlyn takes the flower between her two hands, saying a few select words, the palms of her hands glowing with unseen light in the iridescent morning. In her very hands, the bulb begins to swell, slightly larger now, about the size of a run-of-the-mill tomato, only it’s still greenish, just turning yellow. Definitely not a tomato.
The leaves around her seem to be enthralled, a much livelier viridian.
“That should do it for now,” she says to herself, brushing off her hands and rising to check the next plant. Routine checks on the growth and leaf damage and general wellness.
One of the larger pumpkins catches her eye and she makes sure to give it a healthy pat before moving past. It should be ready for harvest within the week, what with a couple of extra spells here and there.
She prunes where she can, giving a select few plants—the youngest of the bunch, she notices—an extra bout of help. Just a little spell here and there to help them along with their journey towards the sun.
With each, she thanks them for their help and cooperation in the garden, their contribution to keeping her living.
Just as she moves to check if any of the low-lying berries are ready for harvest, a voice cuts through the air and Caitlyn feels herself freeze, mid-crouch.
“So you are a witch.”
The word spoken so suddenly from her left sends a full body thrill down her spine in the worst way.
“No,” is out of her mouth before she can even think about it. How fast can she do a memory spell? She's only practiced them once because her mother had impressed on her how dangerous and rude it was. But she could easily pretend she found Vi bleeding in the woods. No one would know–
“I just saw you do like, four spells in a row on your basil,” Vi challenges with a quirked eyebrow . “And I don’t mean to be that guy but you’re literally growing full pumpkins. And it’s barely past midsummer. Doesn’t take a genius to know that ain’t quite right.”
Panic bubbles in Caitlyn's throat and she jumps to her feet, tightly gripping the small bundle of flowers she'd picked for her table.
“No, no, those weren't spells—”
Her face is red hot and she's going to have to wipe the memory of someone she maybe liked.
“Caitlyn, Caitlyn, I'm sorry.” Despite her injuries, Vi shoots out of her chair and crosses the distance in no time at all. Her hands reach out and cradle Caitlyn's as her voice drops to a soothing tone. It’s like she knows . “I wasn't trying to scare you. Really. Your gift...it's...you and what you're capable of is beautiful, Cait. You shouldn't need to hide it. One day this country won't persecute magic users. I'll make sure of it. Because it's amazing. You’re amazing.”
Vi’s ears then catch up with her mouth because her face suddenly matches her hair with alarming accuracy. Caitlyn can only stare back in open bewilderment. She's about to murmur an awkward ‘thank you,’ and go silently back to work when she notices the flowers trapped between their clasped hands have bloomed brighter and wider than ever before.
She needs to disappear now.
“That magic, too?” Vi asks, a goofy smile spanning her lips.
Caitlyn fumbles for something to justify it, before she finally lands on, “I – uh – can’t control it. Sometimes. It just…happens when I feel something too much.”
Vi looks down to the flowers, giving Caitlyn’s hands a gentle squeeze. “What are you feeling?”
A ball of warmth manifests in Caitlyn’s chest. The hot, searing validation of acceptance: the exposed, raw emotion of no longer having to hide from her. There’s something about that silly look on Vi’s face that sends Caitlyn’s heart soaring.
As she opens her mouth to talk, she could swear the flowers open even further, brighter, more vibrant. If that was even possible. Maybe (hopefully, save Caitlyn’s embarrassment) it’s just a trick of the light.
“It means that I’m happy,” she responds simply, letting the feeling of her fluttering heart beat like a pair of flighted wings in her chest.
Caitlyn spends the rest of the day floating on a cloud (metaphorically, but she can conjure a rideable cloud if Vi asked).
She didn’t have to hide it anymore.
From her earliest memories, she had fear ingrained into her by her mother out of loving concern and self preservation. It was always ‘don’t do magic where others can see,’ or ‘the villagers won’t react favorably,’ and ‘we have lost many ancestors to carelessness.’ It simply isn’t like that.
It’s freeing: like a bird spent so long in captivity, finally taking open flight into the endless skies. Having someone witness her, being observed by someone who isn’t family, is definitely something that Caitlyn needs some time to get used to.
At her apology, Caitlyn had expected complacency from Vi at maximum—the acceptance of having to coexist with someone who just so happened to use magic. And yet, Vi continued to surprise her, day by day.
She’s sitting openly in the lounge area, feet curled beneath her as she thumbs her way through yet another one of the Kiramman’s spell books that she’d yet to commit to memory.
“Whatcha doin’?” A voice asks over a shoulder. A voice that shouldn’t be out of bed.
“Studying,” Caitlyn says, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth before flicking over the page. Why are so many of these so…unethical?
“Studying what?”
“Spells,” she mutters, eyebrows drawing together. “A family necessity.”
“Your family use magic too?” Vi asks. Then, Caitlyn feels the presence of her guest, suddenly behind her. A hot breath beside her neck. “Woah, what language is that?”
She inhales rather sharply, a little more gentle on the exhale. “Not a language per se. Simply a coding of runes in place of letters to stop the information getting into the hands of anyone with less than savory intentions.”
“Oh.” A few seconds. Then, “Could you teach me to read it?”
Caitlyn turns to look at her, having to lean back so that her vision would focus. Close.
“I could, but that would take a while. There’s more than a few intricacies that still trip even myself up, on occasion,” she says.
There couldn’t be much harm in it, right? It’s not like Vi would even remember it, not without intensive practice and repetition (Caitlyn distinctly remembers crying with her father at the kitchen table, trying her best to decipher even the most basic sentence).
“I could show you how to write your name?” Caitlyn offers. The whole thing would be, mayhaps, a little risky. Better safe than sorry.
Vi takes this as her cue to hop over the back of the seat, landing next to Caitlyn with a soft wince.
“Would you be careful,” Caitlyn says, legs uncurling as she turns towards her. It’s instinct that she shifts her eyes to stare down at Vi’s abdomen, as if the fabric of her shirt is about to become laden with fresh blood from a newly reopened wound. “Else you’re going to end up staying for even longer.”
There’s a glint to Vi’s eye. “Maybe that’s not so bad.”
Caitlyn’s hands grip the book just a little harder. She closes the cover with a thud and replaces it beneath the table. Instead, taking a blank piece of paper she’d previously used as a sheet to list all of her creations over the course of the year.
With a flick of her hand, there’s a small wind – a sudden gust – and when it dissipates, a feather quill falls down into her hand.
Vi’s eyes never leave it and Caitlyn doesn’t miss the way her lips part in surprise.
“Vi,” she says aloud, adjusting her hold on the quill before she stills, slowly thinking out the symbols.
Just as she’s about to make the first mark, Vi interrupts. “Violet. If that’s any easier. My full name is Violet.”
Caitlyn glances over at her. Of course, adding more characters only made it more difficult, not that she was going to tell Vi that.
And then, Caitlyn begins to draw out the symbols. On one line, she embellishes them with her own signature curls and whips. The next, she writes them out plainly. The two, she realizes, look almost nothing alike.
“Try and copy the second,” she instructs, handing the quill to Vi.
It takes a good few tries, considering the fact that Caitlyn kept forgetting to tell Vi the correct stroke order and that Vi kept getting too big for her boots and trying to mimic Caitlyn’s own handwriting.
Vi looks extremely proud of herself when she finally gets some semblance of a handle on it.
“How do I pronounce it?” she asks.
“What?”
“How do I say my name in witch?”
Caitlyn blinks. “It’s not a spoken language,” she responds carefully. “Only written.”
“Huh.” Vi looks down at the paper in her hands, one of her fingers tracing over the runes. “Looks like it’d be fun to speak.”
“I suppose, though it would be mostly futile, I fear. There’s simply no need for it to be spoken.”
“Interesting,” Vi says wistfully. “I didn’t even know that it was a thing.”
“That is, indeed, the point, dear.”
Vi’s head snaps to look at her. “Dear?”
Caitlyn clears her throat, suddenly standing up. The quill dissipates. “I mean, oh dear , I need to go and - uh - water the…cat! Yes, the cat.”
She leaves the room before Vi can ask any further questions.
Vi’s good-natured laugh might chase after her, but Caitlyn is committed to finding the things that make Vi tick.
Apparently, one of the things that fascinates Vi to no end is the kind of magic that appears in some form of semi-physicality. Some of these entities draw onto facets of different elements – gentle concoctions of earth, wind or even flame in order to form itself as a physical thing. Something to be seen.
These spells, while not the hardest, are sometimes hard to come by. Caitlyn was lucky to find the one that she did: it had been tucked away into one of her family books, only the inserted sheet was crumpled and worn, heavily frayed at the edges. It had been the kind of sheet that she’d worked on a couple days at the least, ensuring that each thing she read was absolutely correct.
All this to say: Caitlyn can summon a small, extremely concentrated ball of light at will. Dense enough to feel its weight in your palm, and yet not quite solid enough to feel its outline.
It’s hovering above her head - a conveniently placed reading light, when Vi takes a jab at it with her finger.
Then, she pokes at it again. “Is that fire?”
“No,” she responds simply, gaze shifting to the small ball of light. The whips of light seem to wind and crash over and around a much brighter core. She wonders, idly, if mortals like Vi can see the essence the same way she can.
“What is it?”
“It’s my reading light.”
“Oh.”
Something about the look on Vi’s face tells Caitlyn that she isn’t exactly satisfied with that answer. Brows furrowed, staring at it as if she’d never seen anything like it before. Maybe she hadn’t, Caitlyn considers.
She clears her throat and, with a gesture, the small ball hovers towards her before falling weightily into her hands. “It’s a small ball of light that I conjure. You can use it for anything, really, but I like to use it for reading in the dark,” Caitlyn continues.
Vi perks up, a little. “Can I hold it?”
Her face lights up with delight the moment it settles in her hands. Sure, the light is warm and pleasing over her sharp features, but it’s the smile that rounds her out and makes her eyes glow something special.
It’s that reaction she thinks of when she’s making dinner the next night.
With a single word, the carrots, parsley, and mushrooms begin hovering in the air around her. Occasionally one will do a haughty little jig as it throws itself into her pot. It’s a style of cooking that keeps her hands free to tug Vi closer when standing against the wall and watching in complete fascination becomes just not enough. Vi watches the spoon scooping the broth from the air and Caitlyn watches her.
Even in the garden, things change.
Vi kneels in the dirt beside her as the early evening clings to the noon’s heat. Caitlyn drops a potato into the basket at her side and watches the mercenary in her peripheral vision. After a moment of silence, she decides to wait, let whatever thought urged Vi to join her loosen her own tongue. There is no need for her to force it to the surface like an unwelcome thorn.
So she continues on with her potatoes, unearthing them, clipping sprouts and roots, and brushing them off before depositing them in the basket. All the while, the silence grows thicker and harder to ignore. But Caitlyn is a Kiramman, and Kirammans do not break awkward silences.
“Hey.” Being a Kiramman is the only thing stopping her from groaning with relief. “How does magic…work?”
‘Work’?
“Work? How do you mean?” Caitlyn drops the potato in her hand into the basket and turns to face Vi full on. Her visitor’s face is scrunched in frustration and her eyes are locked on the dirt.
“How do things just happen? How come some people can control it and others can’t? We don’t get taught a lot about it at home,” Vi elaborates, her fingers brushing over a parsley leaf.
It takes a moment for Caitlyn to formulate a response. For most of her life, it hasn’t been something she actively thinks about, especially not once she mastered the basics. Only when things happened that she wasn’t planning for did she have to engage something like control.
“Well, it’s the directing of energy, around you and in you. As someone who can I couldn’t possibly explain why people cannot, but there are certainly stories of those who thought they couldn’t and could. I imagine it has very much to do with a thorough knowledge of yourself.”
The explanation feels lacking and she twists her mouth in dissatisfaction, but a better idea doesn’t fall off her tongue and illuminate Vi’s world, so she sits back and waits. All the while, Vi’s frown deepens.
“Could you teach me?” The question catches her almost as off-guard as the fact that Vi suddenly turns to face her, eyes wide and earnest. It knocks the denial from Caitlyn’s lungs.
She places her hands flat to the soil around the tiny stalk of a growth and murmurs a quiet word. On command, the soil around the plant dampens. Vi copies the posture and pronunciation and nothing happens. Again nothing happens. A third time, nothing happens. Vi scowls and opens her mouth for the fourth and Caitlyn mumbles it under her own breath. The dirt grows wet and Vi whips around with a radiant grin, childlike in her ecstasy.
Again and again, Vi thumps Caitlyn over the head with her enthusiasm and acceptance. Her genuine curiosity and interest warms Caitlyn’s heart and makes magic leak from her fingers.
The worst, of course, is when she takes Vi to her meadow. Because it’s there that Vi chooses to kiss her for the first time and the evidence of Caitlyn’s affection is spread across every flower surrounding them that miraculously blooms to full life. She can only sigh dreamily and lean into Vi’s secure embrace. Her heart swells and overflows into the world around her, vibrant and alive.
But good things don’t last and Vi hesitates in the doorway on the morning she’s meant to leave. There’s no more excuses. No more reasons. Vi has things, ‘obligations’, she needs to return to, and Caitlyn can’t keep letting herself believe a week – no matter how good – is enough to keep someone in one place.
And as the mercenary leaves the witch’s hut, she considers that the end of it.
For two days, Caitlyn feels awash.
Her little hut, for the first time, feels empty. She wakes up and her eyes snap to the corner where a little cot had been.
Now, there’s no cot and no mercenary.
Some sentences in her books she begins to read aloud before her jaw clicks shut and her cheeks flush with embarrassment.
She avoids the meadow that only just lost its riotous color. She does not think about the kiss she had there. She does not think about the rough hands that brushed her face with endearing delicacy. She does not think about the sigh from Vi’s mouth when Caitlyn pulled away for air.
On the third day, she loses herself entirely in gardening. It’s almost time to harvest the carrots and if she lets it go another day, they may slip past ‘perfect’ and into ‘overripe’. Such a failure would be unacceptable under Caitlyn’s extraordinarily green thumb.
The carrots are perfect when she pulls them from the dirt. Color, smell, and firmness are all exactly where they need to be. She works so long that the sun slips from its position in the east into the low horizon of the west. After all, so many plants, so little time. In fact, Caitlyn is so taken by her little plot of land, she doesn’t hear the soft plodding of hooves through the forest or the meadow. It isn’t until a voice spoke, confident, comforting, and oh, so familiar.
“Good afternoon, I was told there may be someone here who could help me.”
Caitlyn can’t have risen to her feet faster if she used magic. Only. It’s not right.
There’s a person on a horse. The war horse is well-groomed and well-fed, stocky and strong. The saddle is made of supple leather and has embroidery and gold inlaid throughout its entire construction. The rider sits straight, showing off their rich breeding and how clearly expensive their clothing is. This is someone of consequence. An armed bodyguard on the horse behind them tells her it’s royalty.
But that’s not right either, because the rider has bright hair, blue eyes, and a familiarly crooked smile. Said smile tightens with nerves.
“Good afternoon, Caitlyn,” she says in the same voice she used just before she kissed a witch.
Caitlyn turns on her heel to her hut.
Damn the garden.
Damn the vegetables.
Damn the smile and the handsome mercenary who wielded it.
“No,” she declares as she slams her hut closed behind her.
There’s noise in her head and her heart and they crash and twist and pull apart and every piece of her is unerringly confused.
Vi is a poor, honest, mercenary. She knows that beyond the shadow of a doubt. This…person masquerading as her was a farce by some magical being to throw Caitlyn off her game and introduce hesitation and indecisiveness. But there was no one Caitlyn was in a disagreement with.
This isn’t right. Nothing is right.
“Caitlyn?” Vi’s voice floats through the wood of the door, muffled (and soft, but that is more down to her tone than construction). “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. That I hid so much. It isn’t fair to you after you did so much to help me, after you opened up.”
She can’t stop herself from ripping the door open, but she can’t make herself yell either. Vi looks like she’s been whipped, all agony and pain, stooped shoulders and teary eyes. Her shirt is richly embroidered and Caitlyn can’t help but wonder how long it took to make such a lovely garment. How many of these shirts did Vi have? Was this who she really was?
“You lied.”
“Yeah,” Vi sighs in resignation.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Vi.”
“Try again.”
“I am Vi. It’s just, that’s not all of me,” she rushes to explain. Caitlyn stares at her, desperate not to let her rage grow more than the explosion ripping through her. She can contain it. Vi finds a way to sag more against the doorframe that held her weight before. “I am Princess Violet: heir apparent to the Zaunite throne, Keeper of the Wood, Protector of the Realm. But I didn’t want that to be all I was so I started sneaking out and taking mercenary jobs. I liked it, no one treated me different. I was just Vi. I wanted to be just Vi. And to you, I was.”
The Princess is all kinds of exasperated as she runs a hand through her hair to ruffle it, a familiar gesture that spikes Caitlyn through.
“You should have told me,” she scolds, even though it lacks all sting and anger.
“I was a coward. It is inexcusable and I’m not here to ask for undue forgiveness. I only wanted you to see this.”
Vi holds out a roll of parchment that Caitlyn unfurls and reads.
And rereads.
And reads again.
“What is this?” she asks, her hands beginning to tremble.
“This proposal will become a law tomorrow morning granting witches full rights and protection under the crown. Any harm done outside the rule of law to a witch will result in severe punishment,” Vi explains as if she had the draft memorized. Caitlyn supposes she does.
“This is your doing?” she manages through her disbelief. Vi nods. “Thank you, I can’t– thank you.”
The parchment crinkles in her grip, tightening as she thinks of her family bouncing around, as she thinks of those witches who came to community events one year and not the next, as she thinks of the fear in the eyes of those she loves.
“You deserve more. This is just where I could reasonably start.” Vi flashes a self-deprecating smile and that’s the last straw. Caitlyn launches herself into Vi and throws her arms around her neck. She buries her face in soft linen and breathes in the scent of the mercenary. All the while words bombard her brain and slip off her tongue, none of them able to explain exactly what such legal action could mean. “I never wanted my leaving to be the end. I’m sorry how I ruined it.”
Vi’s hands flatten over her back and hold her tight.
“It doesn’t have to be the end.” Possibilities and what-ifs swim golden in Caitlyn’s mind and hope knocks dangerously against her ribcage. She pulls away just enough to look Vi in the face and see the way her brows furrow in confusion. “I have a spare cot for visitors. Sometimes people will stay the night here.”
The uncertainty and worry melts from Vi’s face and transforms into the loveliest, warmest smile she’s ever offered. The hope knocks against Caitlyn’s heart this time.
“You’d really make me sleep in the guest cot?” Vi teases as she takes one of Caitlyn’s hands and presses the knuckles to her lips.
“Not forever.”
In reality, the cot stays in the closet the next time Vi visits. And the next. All until, well, that was never really serious, was it?