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“Lilia are you sure this is going to work?” Rio asked as she sat across from her at Lilia’s shop. A crystal ball between the two of them and the curtains drawn. Several candles were dotted around the space and there was a lavender incense burning.
“Rio my dear, do you doubt me?” Lilia glided round the room grabbing various items she would need and setting them on the table.
“I do not doubt you I am just skeptical of the premise”
“I have performed this spell many times for many a witch, yes you are different but the premise is still the same, you want to find out if you have a soulmate yes?”
“I do”
Lilia patted Rio’s cheek a few times
“Then we will find out”
It had been a few months since Rio had made the comment about how she wondered if she had a soulmate, even though she didn’t have a soul. To which Lilia responded with you might not have a soul as death, but you do have a soul as Rio.
She had never thought of it like that.
Really death and Rio Vidal were one and the same. Some days she was death, some days she was Rio. It was just as simple as that.
That was how she found herself in Lilia’s shop, surrounded by all these damn candles, while Lilia prepared for the spell.
Rio never thought she’d find herself in this situation, she had a slight soft spot for humanity ever since she met Lilia all those years ago when she had come to take her Coven and Lilia was the only one alive. They bickered and fought but Rio couldn’t shake that soft spot for her.
So here she was, quite a few years later, about to find out if she had a soul mate. She didn’t doubt Lilia’s magic. Quite the opposite. She believed in it heavily.
She didn’t know if she wanted a soulmate or not. Getting her hopes up to only be disappointed would mean an eternity of knowing someone was not destined to be with you. And unfortunately an eternity was Rio’s whole life. She would only have Lilia for a short while in comparison to her life, was there meant to be another human in it?
“Are you ready?” Lilia asked
“If I say no are you going to let me out of it?”
“Oh absolutely not” Lilia laughed “I have my own suspicions about how this will work, I want to see if I’m correct”
Lilia went silent as she focused on the crystal ball in front of her, she didn’t necessarily need it to perform the magic, it just made some things clearer. If this was going to go like Lilia suspected, she would need all the help she could get.
She held Rio’s knife in one hand and a bundle of what Rio thought looked like crushed up herbs in a bag but she knew better than to question Lilia’s methods. Lilia’s eyes were closed as she muttered the spell, Rio was unsure of what to do but kept her mind clear and eyes focused on Lilia.
Rio flicked her gaze between Lilia and the crystal ball when Lilia’s hand dropped the herbs and pressed the crystal with one singular finger.
After Lilia had finished the spell she immediately smiled and opened her eyes, handing back the knife to its rightful owner.
“That was quick”
“For you it was, I saw everything I needed to see”
“So it did work?” Rio tried not to sound too excited, but if Lilia saw something then that meant there was something to see.
“It did, it was different for you to most other witches I do it for. They get a name or a location, something more specific, but all I have got for you was the colour purple”
“Purple? And how is that meant to find them Lilia?”
“She is not ready to meet you yet, if I gave you any more information you might try and find her and there are certain events that have not happened yet. You will meet her when it’s time” Lilia spoke as she cleared up the items on the table, covering up the crystal ball. Lilia had already given over another piece of information though, one Rio was too occupied to notice at that current moment.
“But…” Lilia added as she turned around to face Rio “there is something I can tell you”
Rio raised an eyebrow in question
“She will love you for everything you are, bones and all”
“Oh” Rio really hadn’t expected to find her soulmate, and if she did, she really didn’t expect for that to happen
“The ball told you more than the colour purple didn’t it?” Lilia had that glint in her eye that said I know something but I cannot tell you.
“It did” she smirked “but you will find her soon providing you don’t go looking. Like I said there are events that need to happen first”
As it turned out soon was several years later. Rio had not had many souls to ferry that night. The Salem witch trials had provided many a death for Rio to attend too, but they had started to slow down. The women being careful to not do anything out of the ordinary. Until she was called for a very abnormal event. She could feel the call of the dead, but it wasn’t just one or two, no this was big.
Rio arrived as all but one of the bodies had fallen to the ground, the last woman was putting up a fight as the magic was drained from her body and she crumpled to the ground. The girl in the middle remained tied to a post, breathing heavily and looking very dazed. Rio began to move into the clearing now all the witches were dead, her hood up when the girl shouted at her.
“Stop!” Rio immediately froze, no one could see her unless she wanted them too. She quickly shifted into her human form to not scare the girl as she still wasn’t sure how she could be seen
“Who are you? How did you find me?” She shouted
“You do have a lot of questions young witch” Rio looked at the girl properly, there was magic swirling all around her, through her fingertips and around her hair. She was alive with bright purple magic.
Purple.
“But how about you begin by answering the question how did all these very grown up and advanced witches end up dead but you are still alive” Rio walked towards her now and could see the traces of fear on her face, the tear marks running down her cheeks and the magic still dancing around those fingers.
“They attacked me, they were going to kill me. I don’t know how I did it” the girls head dropped and looked at the ground, Rio slowly moved forward and put a finger underneath the girls chin, lifting it to meet her eyes.
“What’s your name?” Rio asked, still ignoring the questions she had been asked first.
“Agatha” she whispered
“Well Agatha, let me ask you this” Rio’s hand moved to twirl a piece of Agatha’s hair.
“How powerful do you feel right now?” Agatha was slightly confused and annoyed, how did this woman just appear out of nowhere, ignore her questions and then act like this
“Because you should not be able to see me” Rio explained, still twirling Agatha’s hair “but you can, and that is the mark of a truly powerful witch, so tell me, how do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been asleep for years and I’ve finally woken up” Agatha took a deep breath and found herself beginning to speak “they were my coven and they wanted me dead, I didn’t know what I was doing it was like something took over me. And then all their magic was siphoning to me and it felt amazing”
Rio began to walk round Agatha in circles, looking her up and down as she did. Agatha was growing impatient, she had shared her story and her name, when was this other woman going to do the same.
“Are you going to answer my questions or just look at me like a creep all night?” Agatha snapped
Rio just smiled and looked at the ropes holding Agatha’s hands behind the post, as she did they fell apart, freeing her hands.
Rio half expected Agatha to run away, most people were scared of her and tried. The difference being they were normally dead.
“My name is Rio Vidal but that is not how most people know me”
“Are you going to be this cryptic all night?” Agatha rolled her eyes
Rio smiled at this, she had never know a human so bold, let’s see if she is as bold once she knows who she’s faced with.
“I am death dearest Agatha, I ferry people to the afterlife once they have died. People fear my name and hope they never see me but that’s the thing about life, you can’t have one without the other”
Agatha’s face didn’t change, she still looked at Rio with the same amount of annoyance and questioning.
“People are scared of you?” Agatha huffed “like those eyes and that stupid smile you have could scare anyone”
This made Rio smile in a weird kind of way, Lilia gave her no other information about her soulmate other than the colour purple, but she didn’t need that to know that Agatha was the only person she would ever let fill that position. The sarcasm and wit keeping her on her toes, there was only one way to know she wouldn’t run when she saw death’s own face.
Rio looked down at the ground before looking back up at Agatha, the face of Rio gone and replaced with the face of death. The skeletal mouth not moving as she spoke.
“People are scared of me ” death echoed as she gestured round the clearing that was absent of bodies after ferrying them all.
“I don’t think you’re scary” Agatha crossed her arms and stood up straighter “I actually prefer this face to the other one, not as chatty”
Rio laughed and transformed her face back, mainly to annoy Agatha
“I will tell you who was chatty though” Rio walked even closer to Agatha, their feet touching as Rio pointed over to where the last witch died “Evanora”
Agatha swallowed slowly as Rio brought up her mother “what did she say?”
“Oh the usual, it’s not my time, I cannot take her blah blah blah, but then she started talking about you” Rio pointed towards Agatha
Rio’s face instantly screwed up as she recalled the horrible things Evanora said about Agatha “and that was one thing I could not stand for” she cupped Agatha’s cheeks “your mother was a cruel liar, I knew that from the few seconds I spoke with her, but you Agatha, are so much more”
Agatha didn’t know how to react, no one had ever dared speak of Evanora that way, and certainly not to Agatha.
“You are full of power Agatha, it’s time you used it”
“Why are you saying all of this, you don’t even know me” they were still close, in each others space yet neither of them moved
“Because some things in this universe are bigger than knowing someone. Fate is a fickle mistress, but it seems she has had her way with us. Waiting until this very moment for us to meet, you have just murdered your coven, I am death. I would argue one could not have organise a better match”
Agatha tried to decipher Rio’s riddles but it didn’t make them clearer. Agatha closed her eyes to gather her thoughts and then she felt the absence of Rio’s presence and opened her eyes to see her walking away from Agatha to the edge of the forest, her hood up.
“Wait!” Agatha shouted as she ran towards her
“When will you be back?” She asked
“Still so full of questions” Rio teased as she turned towards Agatha and pressed a quick kiss to Agatha’s lips, stunning the woman enough to stall her
“Te veo Agatha”
Agatha didn’t really know what just happened, but she did know she would do anything to see death again and as soon as possible.