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He felt her before he saw her.
Her presence: a flash like thunder and a boom a second later when the spirits reacted, violently as always.
He gritted his teeth as he worked to reel them in from their frenzied reaction to the stronger witch’s power.
“Not quite yet, but soon: you alone will be the strongest. If they will not submit, you will force them. That is the way of the North.”
He relaxed his posture as a cold calm settled on him at the memory of her words. He had no need to panic and scramble for their attention: both these spirits and their land belonged to him. They would return.
And they did, soon as he’d commanded them back to his side, with certainty not desperation, and Tiletta ceased purposefully agitating them.
A test, she’d call it. To him, her intrusions were burdensome. He had no need for her lessons, he’d soon be the strongest after all.
Even still, she never ceased with her visits, and by this point he’d at least come to expect her.
She landed the way she did anything: magnetically and intense.
She was beautiful, almost graceful even, in a savage way, like a lioness or an eagle, and so palpably full of life it nearly blinded him to look at her.
The force of her landing, in part no doubt to the ridiculous speeds she always insisted on flying at, flung soft piles of snow to the air.
A halo of floating, powdered white encircled her visage, the light of the sun she’d eclipsed turned her hair from honey to gold.
Breathtaking. Unnecessary.
“You’re back.”
“Is that all you have to say? And After 50 years no less, though I suppose I could expect nothing else from you.”
This time too, he didn’t bother answering her complaints: she always made them and he’d long since learned that nothing but time could silence them.
“In any case, this is for you”, she spoke, holding out a small package, the same mischievous, wide grin plastered on her face. Though this time, the look around her eyes was strange. Softer. Gentle, had he been able to discern the emotion.
He stood silently for a moment. She’d never given him anything save for lessons taught in blood and irregular visits whenever the winds blew her in his direction.
Northern wizards did not give nor accept: they took and were stolen from. Yet, Tiletta gave this strange box willingly. There was no challenge in her smile.
He stood for another moment, before reaching out and taking it.
It was an ornate thing. Dark wood carved with intricate, swirling designes and a silver clasp sealing the contents tightly. Certainly, not a thing meant for a lake scattered with bones.
“Why?”
“Open it.”
Northern wizards did not heed commands. But just this once, he’d listen.
He barely took a second to disarm the seal the way she’d taught him and tip open the cap before he looked back up at her in confusion.
A single, sparking gem attached to a thin, gold chain.
Deep purple caught rays of bright winter light as he held it up awkwardly, unsure of what to say, unused to such vibrant color.
“Why?”
“I thought of you.”
Like always, his silence was enough of an answer. Somehow, she always understood him. Somehow, he never understood her.
She met his blank stare with laughter.
“This is what people do, you know. When they see something nice, and they think of someone they know, they bring it to that person. It’s called a present. I’ve brought you something nice, Mithra. Do you like it?”
Like it? He was unsure. A gem wasn’t fun the way fighting was, and it didn’t give him purpose like his duties as a ferryman, but Tiletta had given it to him, which meant it was his, and she’d taught him never to let go of what belonged to him. If he didn’t like it would she try to take it back? He wouldn’t let her, but The Great Witch Tiletta was very strong.
He would be the strongest. Soon, she’d said, but he wasn’t there yet, and a failed attack would hurt. Normally that wouldn’t stop him, but nothing about Tiletta was normal.
“I like it.”
He didn’t expect the way her face brightened.
Her smile, sunlight like her hair, beamed down at him.
“Really? It’s called an earring! It’s jewelry, you wear it on the bottom of your ear, like I do!”
In an instant, her hand shot out before she caught herself.
She stilled for a moment before asking slowly, “Mithra, do you mind if I put it on you?”
Tiletta was forceful. Tiletta did not ask for permission.
Stunned, he went silent once more, and she took this as permission.
He never agreed, but when she reached out to him a second time, he didn’t pull away. Not as she took the gem from his hand. Not as he felt his ear pricked and a weight replace space that had never once been filled.
A single gem dangled from his left earlobe. The golden chain, was the color of her hair in the sunlight. The purple, he had never seen.
She stepped back, the same knowing, teasing smile on her face, no trace of the odd expressions she’d worn earlier.
He knew this Tiletta. Familiar. Annoying.
The moment the thought left his mind, she was up on her broom again.
“You’re going again?”
She laughed, as she always did.
“I didn’t finish my business, I got too excited about the earring and flew straight here. I’m off to see the Northern Twins’ disciple: the miserable older one with the long blue hair. Don’t worry, it won’t be 50 years this time.”
He had no chance to answer.
She left as suddenly as she came, and his world was white silence once more, though that peace came with an expiration date: he’d see her again.
He always did.