Chapter Text

A Moonbranch Productions Documentary

in collaboration with

The Department of Supernatural Studies

presents

SPELLBOUND & NECK-DEEP

A Documentary of Supernatural Domesticity

Filmed on location at
The House at Blackthorn Lane
(Occupants voluntarily signed all celestial, infernal, and mundane consent forms
— according to our compliance officer, at least.)

Director: Maris Oakes
Producer: Lin Kettering
Field Research Lead: A. Wilder
Cinematography: The Crew Who Survived Day One
Sound: Apologies in Advance

All footage captured with minimal magical interference
(except when unavoidable).

Cast / Residents

Rin, Witch

Brilliant, chaotic, her magic works about 60% of the time and explodes the other 40%. Accidentally summons a vampiric aristocrat.

Nezha, Vampire

Ancient, aristocratic, accidentally summoned into a messy mortal house with a witch who draws runes wrong.

Kitay, Celestial Bureaucrat (Exiled and Divinely overqualified for mortal life)

Former mid-level administrator in the Bureau of Heavenly Balance. Got demoted for “excessive backtalk” and now forced to live among mortals until he completes an unspecified number of “character development tasks.”

Venka, Werewolf

Exasperated gym rat. Works 9–5 at a pet store (not suspicious at all), comes home to magical bullshit every day.

Chaghan, Oracle Fae 

Moonlit, eerie, deadpan. Sees visions uninvited. Speaks in riddles. Makes dramatic statements no one asked for.

Qara, Fae Beast-Speaker / Crow specialist

Calm, unsettling, always surrounded by a murder of crows perched on windows, furniture, appliances. Communicates with animals telepathically. Speaks softly but somehow always the creepiest person in the room.

Jiang, Landlord / ???

Part cryptid (probably), part menace, part philosopher, full-time stoner. No one knows how old he is or what exactly he is.

The documentary crew knocked only once before the door swung open.

Rin stood framed in the entrance, her hair tangled from spell-sleep and her sweater emblazoned with a stain shaped suspiciously like a smudged rune.

“Oh,” she said, blinking at their clipboards. “Right. You're the film people? Come in. Watch out for any moving objects! But don't worry, most of them aren’t dangerous… anymore.”

A crow hopped past her ankles, dragging a pen in its beak like it was trying to join the production team.

The crew cleared their throats. “We’re here to conduct interviews and—before anything—we legally need your informed consent to be filmed.”

Rin waved them inside. “Yeah, sure. Whatever, I’m consenting. You got that on tape, right? Chaghan probably already foresaw it and the crows have told Qara by now. Let me think… Oh, Venka won’t care as long as you don’t touch her snacks, which probably won't be hard for you mortals as I'm guessing you don't eat raw meat straight off the bone.”

Before they could respond, Kitay materialized behind Rin—not walked, not even approached—just appeared, holding a glowing clipboard of celestial parchment and wearing an expression that suggested he was one inconvenience away from filing a divine complaint.

“No one is consenting to anything,” he said, voice clipped. “Not until the proper documentation is reviewed, signed, notarized, counter-signed, archived, and witnessed by an impartial celestial entity, which luckily for you mortals is me.”

Lin, the producer, blinked. “Uh— we kind of… brought our own forms.”

Kitay looked at their papers as if they were drawn up in crayon.

“Those,” he sniffed, “are not forms. Those are guidelines for toddlers. We are dealing with supernatural disclosure. Heavenly indemnity. Filming under active prophecy. The fae alone require seventeen pages of clauses.”

“I only need one,” Qara said softly from the stairwell. A dozen crows perched behind her like a feathery chorus. “I consent. The birds consent too.”

As if on cue, one crow waddled forward and tapped the crew’s microphone politely.

Chaghan drifted into view behind her, pale as moonlight. “The moon approves of the filming,” he murmured, which somehow did not clarify anything.

Venka appeared next, wearing gym shorts and an unimpressed stare. “You can film me,” she said, grabbing a protein bar and wrapping prosciutto around it. “But not before eight a.m. I’m feral before that.”

Jiang materialized last, silent as death, smiling like he’d been listening this whole time from inside their shadows. “I enjoy being perceived,” he said. “Go ahead. You may stay as long as these fools keep paying their rent.”

The documentary team nodded slowly.

It appeared everyone was consenting—if not enthusiastically, then with the casual resignation of beings accustomed to far stranger invasions of privacy.

Everyone except Kitay.

He raised a finger. “I am not consenting. I am supervising. That is different.”

Rin rolled her eyes. “Kitay, let them film. The university is willing to pay for this.”

“With mortal currency,” Kitay said, horrified. “Do you know how many celestial audits I risk for—”

But Rin had already turned to the crew.

“Anyway,” she said, clapping her hands. “Since you’re all here, I’m doing a quick summoning. Just a minor demon to help clean around the house. Should be very educational!” She turned to the camera and hid her mouth from Kitay's view before adding, “I forgot to do my chores this week.”

The camera crew exchanged wary looks.

Chaghan paused mid-step, head tilting like he was listening to something distant. “The moon trembles,” he whispered.

Qara’s crows began screaming.

Venka muttered, “If something explodes again, I’m moving out.”

And Rin knelt on the living room floor, drawing a chalk circle so crooked it offended geometry itself.

That was when the first pulse of anticipation and a pinch of wrongness rolled through the air.

The cameras caught the exact moment the summoning rune flickered—

and the wrong being answered the call.

Next on Spellbound & Neck-deep:

His gaze swept the room, pausing on the crooked summoning circle, the thrifted furniture, the chalk smear across Rin’s cheek, and the camera crew cowering behind a houseplant.

His horror deepened.

“This,” he said, “is—without question—the ugliest ritual chamber I have ever been dragged into. And I have risen from crypts.”

Rin sputtered. “Hey!”

Kitay edged forward, frowning at a faintly glowing sigil beneath Nezha’s feet. “Oh, Rin,” he whispered. “You didn’t.”

“I didn’t mean to!” she hissed back.

Nezha took a slow, lethal step toward her, and the summoning sigil blazed gold. A thin thread of shimmering red-gold light shot from his chest to hers, snapping taut like it had been waiting centuries to connect them.

They both froze at the sight. Kitay winced as if he’d just watched someone adopt a demon willingly.

“That,” Kitay said carefully, “is a Class-Four Binding Contract.”

Rin’s blood went cold. “A what?”

Nezha’s expression darkened like a gathering storm. “It means,” he said, voice low with a bite of disgust, “that by summoning me in such a corrupted circle—wrong glyph, wrong placement, gods, wrong chalk—you have bound my essence to yours.”

Rin stared. “You mean—”

“I cannot leave.”