Work Text:
A sound like the surface of a shallow pool of water being disturbed dripped through the air as a witch with burning orange hair used a stick to poke and prod at a puddle of deep blue that glistened with deep magic. As she pulled the stick back, the liquid briefly clung to the wood before slipping off and impacted the pool again.
“Ye ye. Little Clawthorne sees. The oldest blood leaks into the forest.” The witch briefly acknowledged the Bat Queen’s words with a nod.
The deep ginger-haired witch cupped her chin in her hand and idly scratched at her cheek with her thumb, humming to herself as she glanced back and forth through the palistrom glade.
“Well, that’s definitely Titan’s Blood, Bat Queen. But what’s it doing so far from Eclipse Lake?” Briefly glancing up at the enigmatic, gigantic palisman bat, the Bat Queen could only shrug her wings as a response.
Evelyn turned her gaze back to the magical pool, and through it, like a window, she could swear she saw trees with leaves of green with brown trunks.
“That other realm.” Clicking her tongue, the witch turned away from the pool.
The sound of a bird chirping caught her ears and she looked up to see a crimson cardinal fly through the tree branches and landed on her shoulder.
“Flapjack!” Always happy to see her palisman, Evelyn Clawthorne nuzzled her nose into the palisman’ feathers.
“So good to see the young cardinal healthy.” Bat Queen commented, briefly scratching Flapjack’s head with the tip of her wing.
The cardinal chirped questioningly about the small pool of Titan’s Blood that the two had investigated for the Bat Queen. It didn’t settle well with Evelyn. While it wasn’t unheard of for Titan’s Blood to bubble up and out of the Titan’s body and settle on a random part of the Isles, it hadn’t been recorded as happening in several decades, most of it contained to specific parts of the Titan now.
“I’ll be sure we get this part of the glade cordoned off.” The palisman gave another questioning chirp at her decision. Turning to Bat Queen, Evelyn saw the larger palisman shrink in disappointment of having so many palistrom trees restricted. “Yeah, I know. It sucks. But palistrom trees aren’t going anywhere fast. If a witch needs a palisman I’m sure we can handle it, Clawthornes aren’t exactly strangers to adversity, are we?”
“Before the young Clawthorne leaves. I request assistance once more.” Turning slightly, the Bat Queen let out a brief, shrill whistle into the glade.
As the witch and her palisman waited a moment, and then another, they shared a confused look, until the sound of skittering, slithering and flapping pulled their attention. Three palisman emerged from the foliage and gathered around the Bat Queen’s feet.
“Little ones can relax, this one is kind. She will take you home.” The Bat Queen nudged the palisman forward, and they slowly gathered around Evelyn.
One was a purple centipede, its many, many legs a darker purple lightly skittering up Evelyn’s clothes, tickling her and making her gently chuckle before it sat across her shoulders like a scarf. Another was an ebony snake palisman that slithered up her legs and wrapped around her arm to rest. Finally, the third palisman was a parrot with vibrant white feathers and a golden yellow plumage that settled on her opposite shoulders.
“BQ what gives? Where are these palismens’ owners?” Evelyn’s voice took on a note of curiosity and worry as she looked over the palisman, and felt them shiver against her.
With a heavy sigh, Bat Queen spoke. “I know not where the owners are. All I know is that they came to me. One by one, over two weeks just gone. I healed them as best I could, and allowed them to rest here.” Evelyn felt the palismen huddle closer to her as the story was retold. “I do not know the fates of their witches. But they have only spoke of Bonesborough, I am hoping you can return them.”
“Of course I will.” Bringing her hands up, Evelyn tried to soothe the palismen as she gently ran her hands over each of them. “Do you have any idea what happened to them?”
“They each told the same story. Two witches, one with pale yellow hair, the other, a deeper brown. Neither of them wielding magic, coming at night and absconding with them-” The Bat Queen suddenly stopped as her eyes narrowed in sadness, pained by the memory. “They spoke of the witches only bringing them pain.”
“That’s barbaric!” Evelyn stomped her foot and focused on her breathing to calm herself down.
Running her hands through her hair, she made the motion of tying it into a bun and then letting it unravel, the sensation of the hair brushing back down onto her shoulders helping to calm her.
“I’ll get these guys back to their witches. Then I’ll find out who the hell is trying to make off with palismen.” Flapjack gave a confident nod and chirped in agreement with his witch’s words.
The Bat Queen gave what seemed like a bow in thanks to the young Clawthorne witch and flew off, deeper into the glade.
Flapjack tweeted happily at a job well done and fluttered up and into Evelyn’s hair, making her chuckle. “It’s not a nest you know?”
Turning his head away, Flapjack pretended to ignore his witch, though a small, knowing smile crept onto his face. Shaking her own head with a small chuckle, Evelyn began making her way back through the glade back towards her home in Bonesborough.
“So why do you think the eggheads are calling this the ‘Deadwardian’ Era anyway, Flap?” The cardinal and his witch went back and forth on the strange name, chuckling to each other as they did.
Evelyn waved and greeted a few passing witches, watching as everyone from the children to the elderly casually cast magic as they ever had. Children constructed abominations out of plant soil and rock to reach toys that were stuck in trees. A con man she knew of subtly used oracle magic to cheat someone at a game of cards, chuckling to himself as he left before his opponent realized his sleight of magic.
It didn’t take long for the presence of multiple palismen sitting on Evelyn to draw the attention of witches, and she spotted one or two witches eyes’ widening in recognition before they ran off down the street.
“You see that?” Evelyn pointed to the witches who ran off as she spoke to the palismen. “They’re probably off to get your witches right now.”
The palisman that had settled on her began to relax as they took in the familiar setting of the town. Anxiously darting their heads back and forth for their witches.
Evelyn made her way to her potion stand. The small side business she ran when she was low on requests for palismen carving. She figured it would be better for the witches to converge on a singular point, rather than her running around the entire town looking for them.
As she had predicted, within the next twenty minutes, each witch had come running down the street, two of them openly crying as they were reunited with their companions.
Through the tearful reunions, Evelyn was able to question each witch on what occurred, and it was just as the Bat Queen had said: two witches, one pale blonde, the other a brunette were the only consistencies between the stories. The witches would meet the pair one day, and within the week, their palisman would be stolen from them.
As the last witch left, Evelyn chewed at her thumb nail, pondering over what she’d heard. Flapjack landed gently on her other knuckles, and she stroked the bird, though she didn’t look at him, still lost in her own thoughts. A tweet from him quickly jolted her out of her thoughts and back to reality.
Chuckling to herself, she continued combing his crest with her nails. “Sorry Flap, just a little rattled. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense.” Holding up a hand, she began counting out what she knew, one finger at a time. “Two witches are stealing palisman. That much we know, but why? Their bilesacs may not work, and they need a staff to cast magic. But if they wanted a staff they could have just come to me or the family, instead of stealing them. They could be criminals, selling the palismen to a different witch, but they’re not very good at it.” Closing her fingers into a fist, she cupped and scratched her chin in thought again. “This just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Are you Evelyn Clawthorne!?” Evelyn’s head snapped up to the new voice calling to her.
A new witch came running down the street towards her. The man wasn’t much younger than her, and about her height. As he reached her stand, he bent over slightly, panting and out of breath as his head whipped back and forth.
“Is she here?” The witch asked.
“Um, yeah, I’m Evelyn Clawthorne.” She gently patted the man’s back to try and soothe his clearly frayed nerves.
“No- I- I know who you are. Is she here, Cheshire-? The- a- a cat palisman! Have you seen a cat palisman!?” The witch spewed out the words in rapid succession, tripping over his words as he spoke in a quick, panicked tone.
Quickly figuring that she might have a fresh lead on these two mystery witches, Evelyn leaned in, towards the man as she spoke. “Whoa, calm down there buddy. It’ll be okay. No, I didn’t have a cat palisman with me. Where’d you see her last?”
“She’s a gray and purple striped cat. She’s been stolen, and a few days ago, I met two witches-”
“One blonde, the other brunette?” Evelyn asked, hopefully.
The witch nodded quickly. “After I heard about what’s been happening these past few weeks, I knew it had to be connected, and when I heard you were coming through town with multiple palismen, I- I just hoped-”
Evelyn shushed the man with a quiet, gentle tone. Rubbing his shoulder, hoping to help him calm down. “I got those palismen from the Bat Queen. But I am planning on looking into this. Is there anything else you can tell me about these two?”
The witch began describing the two as best he could. Along with the hair he was able to describe their eyes, the blonde had brown eyes, while the brunette had blue eyes. He spoke of one of them wearing simple, plain clothes, while the other wore a far more ornate coat, slightly too big to fit him.
“Where did you meet them?” As the questioning continued on into a little over an hour, Evelyn continued to glean as much information as she could.
Clearly exhausted from having to remember so many details, the witch paused and rubbed his temples in concentration. His eyes snapped open in realization as he began rifling through his pockets.
“I run a local grocers. They came in looking for supplies. I didn’t realize until they had run off with the food. But they didn’t pay in Snails.” Pulling out a crudely done silver coin. He handed it to Evelyn. “They called it a Shilling. I thought they might have been foreigners from off the Isles with how they were dressed.”
Evelyn turned the coin in her hand and couldn’t help but crinkle her nose at the shoddy craftsmanship. The coin looked like it had been smashed into shape by a hammer, rather than done by magic. She turned the coin over and tilted her head at the pine tree engraved on it. Turning it once more, she noticed the numbers stamped onto it. 1652. The strangest part of the coin were the letters that went around the curve of the coin.
“New… New-? New En… what kind of shoddy piece of slag is this junk?”
Flapjack tweeted and fluttered down from Evelyn’s hair onto her wrist and pecked at the coin. Turning to Evelyn he tilted his head to her.
“I dunno buddy. This is a hack job of coin making. I can’t tell what that’s supposed to say. But it’s something, I guess. Did you happen to see where they went when they ran out of your store?” Pocketing the coin, Evelyn turned back to the witch.
“I don’t know. They ran into the wilds. That’s all I know.” With a shrug, the witch’s shoulders slumped as he put his head in his hands.
“Hey don’t worry about it. I’ll get your palisman back. It might take a few days, hard to say if they’re near Bonesborough or have maybe moved on. But Flap and I’ll find her.” With an excited tweet, Flapjack nodded to the witch and began circling around Evelyn. With a brief exchange of thanks the witch left as Evelyn began her search.
After making her way to the border of Bonesborough, Flapjack flew ahead as Evelyn began pacing the perimeter of the town, checking for any signs of the foliage being disturbed. Flapjack soon called back to the witch who hurried after the calls.
At Flapjack’s position. Evelyn saw a bush that had clearly been frequently trampled as a means of escape, and besides it, a marked tree. As she moved beyond the bush and through the foliage, she found several subsequent trees, marked in the same ways as before.
“I think we’ve got ‘em Flap.” Hurrying down the path, Evelyn caught sight of the marked trees again and again.
Eventually she found herself overlooking a cliff, and the rolling wilds of the rest of the Isles beneath her, in the far distance, more than a day’s travel by foot, but less than an hour or two by palisman, the next town. At the end of the trail, Evelyn leaned against a tree, and felt where the bark had been carved away at.
Peering at the bark, she made out words carved into the trunk. It read “You witches really are predictable”.
“You witches? What do you think they meant by that Flap?” The cardinal landed on Evelyn’s shoulder and simply shrugged. With a heavy sigh, Evelyn paced back and forth. “Okay, how do we do this?” With a tweet, Flapjack pecked at Evelyn’s pocket and her eyes brightened in understanding. “Oh you are a beautifully brilliant bird, you know that?” Tussling the top of FLapjack’s head, the cardinal gave a proud tweet.
With a sound of magic echoing off of Flapjack, the cardinal transformed into a staff as Evelyn pulled the coin out of her pocket, flicked it up in the air with a thumb and simultaneously cast a spell circle and focused Flapjack’s magic into the coin.
The silver coin went stiff in the air as Evelyn’s magic flowed into it. Whorls of magic swept up around her and swirled across Flapjack’s staff before converging onto the coin. As quickly as it began, the sound of the rushing, whistling wind ceased into silence as the spell completed. Evelyn released her magic, yet the coin remained suspended in midair.
After a brief moment, the coin jolted, and then flicked through the air. As the spell settled into the metal, the coin began slowly flowing through the air, and Evelyn followed after it, as the coin tracked its way back to whoever had originally handed it to the witch. Having the spell overlap the presence of herself and the previous witch on the coin was difficult, but worth it, as it would now lead her to the witch that had paid it out to begin with.
She followed the coin through bushes that stretched too far to go around, through trees that weaved together and down into more rocky plains. While snow hadn’t begun to settle, with how the wind brought on shivers, and with how long she traveled, Evelyn realized that, whoever these witches were, they didn’t want to be found.
“Unfortunately, they’ve never met a Clawthorne, ain’t that right Flap?” Flapjack puffed out his chest with a small tweet, making Evelyn chuckle as she followed the coin.
Eventually, after what felt like hours of trekking, Evelyn saw the coin float towards the mouth of the cave. Before the coin made its way back to the pocket of the witch within and gave her away, Evelyn snapped her fingers and undid the spell, realizing a split second too late that she wasn’t close enough to actually catch the coin. Stumbling forward, the coin graced the tips of her fingers, and as she fumbled with the silver coin, it slipped through her grasp and clattered against the stone.
Like a curse, Evelyn muttered “Rats” under her breath as she held a hand to her ear and leaned towards the cave, to gauge whoever, or whatever was inside.
The silence that greeted her meant one of two things; that the pair had heard the coin, and paused to listen back for anything, or they were asleep. With a deep breath, Evelyn steeled her nerves and began making her way into the cave.
The walls were thin, and pressed against her on all sides, to the point that Flapjack had to nestle into her in order to not get caught against the walls. Eventually the cave gave way to a bigger opening, and Evelyn was able to relax. As she took in the cave for any sign of its inhabitants, she flexed her hand, and Flapjack understood immediately, shifting into his staff form for his witch.
Sudden voices echoing from deeper inside the cave put Evelyn on immediate edge. Slowly creeping towards the voices, she made out the faint glow of candlelight, and as she grew closer, two shadows were cast against the wall.
“Are you certain about this brother?” One of the voices spoke, and gave Evelyn some more answers to her questions about the pair of witches.
“We’ve been stuck here for months. Magic brought us here, perhaps magic can take us home.” Evelyn paused at the words.
Peering around the corner, she was slightly annoyed to see their backs turned to her, as she had no way to identify them, but was also thankful that they wouldn’t see her straight away. As she peered at the two, she squinted her eyes to make sure she was seeing properly, as she could swear that the brothers had round ears, instead of pointed ones.
“Father wouldn’t want this.” One of the two placed a steadying hand on the other’s shoulder. The brief nudge parted the two, and Evelyn’s heart stopped as, through the gap, she spotted the currently immobile form of a gray and purple cat palisman. “We are sworn to purge their kind, not to take part in the practices of these… these malcontents!”
“What other choice do we have Pip!?” Smacking the arm away, the candlelight glowed against the sides of the brothers.
Evelyn saw the cat palisman firmly clasped in the hands of the blonde man, as the brunette, now with the name “Pip” in her mind, rubbed at his arm. Evelyn winced as she saw the two, gaunt of face and extremely thin. It was little wonder to how they used this cave as the two looked to be so starved that it seemed as though their clothes were wearing them.
“Pip.” Clasping his brother's shoulder, the blonde met his gaze with one of affection and protection. “You’re still just my baby brother, no matter how old you get, and I swore to our mother to protect you. If this can help us, then I am willing to use it. But I must be the one to test it. I won’t let you get hurt if I can help it.”
The younger brunette briefly met the blonde’s gaze before turning away with a huff, though Evelyn noticed a small smirk on his face.
“Always so protective, Caleb. Fine, if you really insist.” Pip responded, and nodded to his brother.
Whatever was going on confused Evelyn, but she’d had rather enough of these two. Slipping past the rock she slowly approached the two and prepared to introduce herself.
Before she could react though, the last of her questions were answered. She didn’t understand what the Bat Queen meant when she said these witches, or whatever they are, were hurting the palismen. But as she saw the one called Caleb brace his arms against the palisman, and saw cracks begin to form in its shell, she yelled in aghast horror and fury.
Green, vile magic essence, like fire burst from the cracked shell of the palisman and flooded Caleb’s eyes, making him gasp for air as she raised Flapjack overhead and poured as much magic into him as she could.
The younger brother cried out to Caleb and rushed to him as Evelyn unleashed a wave of brilliant golden magic against the two. First, the spell connected with the one called Pip, it threw him off his feet and into Caleb who sprawled forward, and the force of the spell carried the two into a nearby wall and pinned them there.
Hurrying to the remains of the palisman, Evelyn tried her best to gather it up and put the pieces together. But as her hands made contact, the dead palistrom wood turned to dust in her hands. Gripping the dust, she glared up at the two.
“WHAT DID YOU DO!?”