Chapter Text
Waking up was always easy for you. You began your rigorous training to perfect your magic, which you were born into. Not just born into, though, blessed with, your bile sac must have been enchanted in the womb due to having more magical abilities come naturally to you than words. That was the best theory you had, even if it sounded off to your most convincing part of the brain telling you it had to be not simply luck. The morning warmth hit your face to remind you that the fire demons parade was beginning, also known as summer. Training starts early for you, every day, every month, every year. To be born with such power would be close to blasphemy not to use it. The Titan provided you with these abilities, so why not use them, perfect them, and truly earn your place as the next ruler of the Boiling Isles? That was your dream, the dream of power, the dream of security in riches. And the dream that one day the Isles would be allowed to use wild magic again, the current ruler, was the reason for that even to be a thought.
Hopping out of bed, you tested the last spell you tried during the previous training session, a spell to make any harm to your body pass through as if nothing had made contact. Modifying illusion magic had been burdensome, making your body turn into an illusion that would keep its form upon getting hit. It was a stretch of the imagination that a witch could muster up; however, it worked to your unsurprised mind. Plunging a knife into your hand did nothing; the blade passed through with a glow of blue magic surrounding the blade's entry. The spell lasted only thirty minutes, plenty of time to defeat an enemy, but not permanent as you dreamed. Testing the ability over and over during that time was not the most exciting; you could only run head-first into a wall and pass through so many times before knowing it would happen again. But the sensation of knowing the future uses of this magic was bound to lead to your victory over the Emperor’s Coven made the testing worth it.
Those bastards, those fucking bastards, who did they think they were, arresting your parents only a few years back, thirteen, you were thirteen, and you had to watch. How was that better than being a wild witch? Something had to be up with this system; it didn’t make sense to you. If only you had the power you had now, you could have stopped it; after all, how would they even hit you?
“Where are you?”
You whispered to yourself, your scroll somehow walking away from where you remembered putting it last. How did it end up on the opposite side of the room while you were asleep? The world will never know. You had to live in such a small room to keep yourself away from the eyes of Belos, but you could fit, so it was subpar.
Formulas scattered around your beige walls for the spells you have made to be truly unstoppable. Most had been taken down due to pure memorization, but the ones you weren’t a hundred and one percent certain about stayed up, for now. Though you didn’t write these formulas in the standard way most would write spells down, the school had taught you what they wanted to, but you made up your own rules. Being in the oracle track meant you had access to soul summoning and future reading, so why not use that to learn from the souls rather than controlling them? And the future telling, well, that just became part of your brain now; you could see future events as long as it was inevitable and wasn’t changeable. Nobody at Hexside knew, and it would stay that way as long as things stayed the same, but you couldn't help but wonder if you needed to protect yourself from them anymore. Three years of practically continuous training due to the arrest of your parents truly made you unstoppable to any Hexside attendees or staff. Today was a day off, so you didn’t have to worry about that as of now, today was shopping day, and the market was beckoning you. The oracle part of your brain was telling you today held something more severe in your path, not a hindrance but something you couldn't be sure of.
Quickly putting on your black and red themed outfit that most witches would find bland, you walked out of the one-roomed hut, looking back to remind yourself to buy a new mattress if possible. You pulled your hood up to ensure nobody could identify you if something went wrong, which never really did, but security is security. The dirt road under your feet was more softened by the summer heat, but not enough to feel like you lost an inch of height. Witches separated the closer you got to the market area because there'd been some talks of a wild witch being spied on in the market. As long as you avoided that one, you should be safe from attention, the thought repeated in your head to ensure it didn’t get lost in the subconscious. The market was so close you could already sense the greedy nature of the sellers; that was an ability you immensely enjoyed; nobody could scam you when you could tell if they were genuinely looking to sell you something worthwhile.
The market was not exciting, to say the least, everybody there was either selling you something at an overpriced amount or trying to find someone who wouldn’t do that, and nobody was there to chat, especially you. Finally, you approached a vendor who looked kind enough, and the items for sale were quite interesting too. He waved his hand over the inventory he presented as a type of showmanship, it didn’t affect your wanting of the items, but it didn’t matter to you.
“How much for the healing magic book?”
Healing magic was a type of magic you hadn’t taught yourself yet, that and bard, so why not start on something new when you perfected everything else for the most part?
“Thirty snails. I'll throw in the recommended equipment for an extra twenty, though.”
His voice was high-pitched but not to an annoying level; the book was only worth twenty snails and the equipment he pointed to was entirely used. But you didn’t care about price, just functionality, and all the items would work. With your snail's spell, which created any amount of snails right into your palm and would disappear in a day, you didn’t have to worry about money. You had ensured they disappeared in 24 hours to ensure that you didn't accidentally cause inflation in snails. You reached into your pocket to pretend to grab the snails, conjuring the correct amount, only to hear a strange noise behind you. Was that music? It wasn’t traditional music, something was alien about it, but you didn’t dare look back once you noticed a crowd forming behind you. You heard sounds of wanting to buy the music-producing product and/or eating it; you handed the vendor the snails you conjured and did your best not to look behind you.
“I'm Eda, The Owl Lady, the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles!”
You turned now; you recognized that name, The Owl Lady, the wild witch with an enormous bounty on the Isles. The so-called Owl Lady wore a plain red dress with no sleeves, and she had extremely long gray hair and almost pure white skin. Was this the wild witch being spied upon? Why did she shout her presence like that? Was she inviting the fight? You could only see her standing over a crowd of buyers as she continued her shouting, but you saw a guard approaching the stand and knew what was about to happen.
“I am a respected, feared-!”
“Busted!”
You heard the sound of something breaking, and the music abruptly cut off; whatever the guard had broken was what caused such a disturbing yet intriguing sound. The crowd suddenly scattered, and you could now see three people standing at a booth labeled Human Treasures. The guard held up a piece of paper which you could only assume was her wanted poster. You couldn’t hear what they were saying now due to them no longer shouting, but you could tell The Owl Lady was not having it. Your eyes soon turned to another witch sitting near them. She had tan skin, short brown hair, and a weirdly colored shirt with a hood attached. With the angle you looked from, it did not let you see the rest of her outfit. She seemed different, but you didn’t overthink it, only watching from a distance. You turned back to The Owl Lady, whose arm was now in the grip of the guard standing before her. But you looked back at what seemed to be the teenager of the group; she was around your age, just a little younger, from what you could tell. But when your eyes locked onto her ears, you almost did a double take; they were rounded. She was not a witch.
Her appearance said she was of the same evolutionary design as yourself, but clearly, she was some different species. As you looked more curiously at this girl, she was suddenly ripped from her seat by the guard holding her by the hood. At that moment, you could get a complete look at the girl's outfit, which was not from the Isles. The hood and top part of what you could call a hybrid of a shirt were purple, and the rest were white. She wore dark blue leggings with gray shorts over them, but the shorts were made of material you had never seen before. Her shoes did look a little normal, but not entirely, white in color, and lastly, she was holding a book with a colorful cover.
You could only assume the guard was saying she would be joining The Owl Lady in the arrest for some reason; you were now too far from hearing any words. For a split moment, you considered helping, seeing such a display of false power from the guard over the two women. However, before you could do that, The Owl Lady swung her staff into the guard knocking him to the ground, and she quickly gathered all her stuff. They started to run in the direction you were watching from, not at you, but they were getting closer. Now that they were running towards you, you could see the girl's face well. You noticed that despite having a scared look, she was beautiful to your gaze; her brown eyes seemed so big and bright. They ran right past you, but as they did, the girl turned her head slightly and looked at you for just a split second. She obviously couldn’t see your face very well due to your hood, but you could tell she met your gaze for that short moment. Finally, they disappeared around the corner, and you saw the guard run and stop at the alleyway entrance, pissed at his failed capture.
Who or what was that girl you saw? You couldn't figure it out; you had the idea that you could figure out if someone were of the same species, but what was this? You pictured her face in your thoughts only to start to realize the memory of her face diluted everywhere but her eyes, Those large beautiful eyes that looked at you for just a moment didn’t leave your head, or they couldn’t. After pulling your thoughts together, you started to walk around the market again, letting the day pass you with every essential item you bought. Walking home, you began to forget the strange sighting of a new species that looked like a witch but wasn’t by small features. You had more important stuff to try and figure out, like perfecting the healing magic you would now learn.
Entering your hut, your mind had turned the memory just into memory, the back of the mind, behind all the techniques you were going to learn, modified to be all-powerful and then perfect. You couldn’t find a new mattress, but a bunch of food, more healing magic items to practice with, and more candles to light up your room were better than nothing. Sitting down on the very used and worn-out mattress, you started reading; that’s what you were good at, reading and knowing exactly how each spell worked before finishing all the text. Then, knowing you couldn’t find a partner to help heal as practice, you made the harsh decision to heal yourself as practice. You grabbed your knife and cleanly cut your palm, letting the blood drip down for a moment to allow the pain to become normal.
As you began healing yourself up, you blanked out for a split second randomly, you imagined it was just the pain getting to you, but it got more frequent and more prolonged until you were swept into a trance, the blood on your palm glowing the oracle purple. Your eyes started to shine as you could only see darkness, but in the dark, you saw a figure far in the distance. The figure was walking towards you; the closer it got, the more you realized what the figure was. She was standing in front of you, the girl you saw at the market; she was looking at you, a smile on her face, and was that a blush you saw? She laughed a little, not in a mocking way, but a gentle and charming laugh, the blush on her face growing deeper. She stepped a little closer; now, only a few feet from you, she held out her hands, offering them to you. You couldn’t breathe, but you could move slowly; you put your hands onto hers, but right as contact was felt, you were thrown into pitch blackness, the girl vanishing without a sound. You woke up from the trance, letting out the breath you were forced to hold; you rubbed your eyes, feeling them burning. The cut on your palm was healed up, not a sign of the skin having been broken a few moments ago.
What was that vision? You had visions here and there; being an oracle made that a regular thing. But this was different; you truly felt like this wasn’t a warning but a calling from your magic to discover who this girl was. Were you going to start searching for her, though? It sounded creepy, but you couldn’t help but wonder if you avoided this, it will result in disaster; why else would you get a vision to pursue? During the image, you heard whispers in the background, you couldn't understand what word was said, but now you had the term stuck to your brain. The word repeated in your head, but you chuckled at the idea of this girl being from another realm; that was impossible. But the whisper seemed to come directly from your magic; it started to fade a little, with the last of the whispers fading.
“Human.”