into the woods

[spelleton]

There are stories told about who lives there, in the darkness of the woods that surround Subcon's various kingdoms, where even a brave knight would fear to tread. The desperate, the ghost-touched, the people who live on the edges.

And those who embrace that border between night and day, those who live and breathe magic; the witches. Those who offer strange magic and stranger things, but always for a price.

That's what everyone says, anyway. There must be some truth to it, surely?

Comments

[subconmodo]

It's a question that Avery intends to find out.

It's late at night when he slips out the window of his estate, a hooded figure crawling down on a makeshift rope from the second-story window with the practiced ease of a man who has done so more times than could be counted. Whether or not he'll actually find something out there in the woods he doesn't know, but his days have been filled with lesson after boring lesson and as far as he's concerned it's about time he finally got a little excitement in his life.

The pouch of gold (for what else would the price be?) at his side jingles when he finally hops the rest of the way onto the ground, and he grins, taking one last look around the grounds before stealing away into the forest. He's heard the rumors, knows the approximate path that he's supposed to take. Even he hasn't dared to explore this deep into the forest in all his twenty-some-odd years of life, but that isn't going to stop him now.

He's getting a souvenir from this witch. It's already been decided.

[spelleton]

The forest's trees whisper and sigh, grasping like hands at the night sky. They form darkened corridors that block out the light of moon and stars, until there's barely any light to speak of. Thorned vines with strange, pale flowers twist around leafless, stony trees twisted and gnarled by the burden of age.

And then, quite suddenly, there's a clearing, with no warning at all. The trees part perfectly for it. The moonlight bathes, like water poured into a well, a quiet garden and a well-kept cottage that plants in bloom use as a trellis. Behind the house, something is singing, out of sight; it doesn't sound like quite a bird, nor like anything else. There's the sound of rushing water, somewhere distant. A perfectly still pool surrounded by stones sits by the side of the path to the house, reflecting a darkened, starry sky.

There's a sense of eerie peace, everything in its place. Avery is the only thing that seems out of place, in this quiet scene.

[subconmodo]

His mouth hangs open and he doesn't move from the tree's edge at first, taking in every inch of the clearing that he can see. It's gorgeous here, well worth the trip even if he doesn't get anything out of the witch that may or may not live in the cottage. It's almost a shame that anyone lives here at all, really. How wonderful would it be to have this as a hideaway of his own?

The thought brings a smile to his lips and he lets out a giddy little laugh, a spring in his step as he hurries over to the door, giving it a few raps and waiting.

[spelleton]

At first, it seems like nobody's here to answer the door at all. And then, perfectly ordinarily, the door is opened by a masked stranger who...well, he certainly dresses well, at any rate. His clothes are hard-wearing, but cut and crafted to suit him.

"I admit, I didn't expect to have such a prestigious visitor," he says, his voice amused. "What brings a prince the land loves to my doorstep, I wonder?"

(When he was young, his mother had taken him to the public celebration of a prince's birthday. "Your paths will cross," she had said to him as he grasped her hand tightly, still afraid of the crowd. "I know not more than that, but I need nothing else to know that your life will be a surprising one."

The words had stuck.)

[subconmodo]

"Curiosity, mostly," Avery replies. He reaches up to pull down his hood, figuring it won't matter any seeing how the man already knows who he is. "You're the guy, right? The witch who lives in the woods?" His cheeks hurt from grinning. It's the first time they have in a long, long while.

"I mean, it looks like it, but..." He supposes the man could just be some random hermit with questionable choices of living spaces.

[spelleton]

"What were you expecting, I wonder?" He still sounds amused, and a little teasing. "A spirit? A fae? A monster, even?"

Then he bows. "But I am the witch. You are correct. And fortunate, too." He doesn't elaborate on this at all.

"Would you like to come in? I'm afraid that I don't have much ready. I wasn't expecting so noble a visitor."

[subconmodo]

Avery snorts at that, waving a hand dismissively. "Just because I'm used to luxury doesn't mean I need it," he assures the man. "But yeah, I wouldn't mind coming in."

A pause.

"Uh. Wait. Do I have to pay for coming here to sate my curiosity?" He honestly isn't sure. Witches did deal with the intangible after all.

[spelleton]

That gets a sharp laugh, as he steps aside to let Avery in. "If I was another kind of person, perhaps! But you need not pay, unless you desperately desire what I offer."

Those were the terms he had set, with the forest, with himself. If someone needs or wants him, they will find him; the forest will part for them, lead them to his door. In all other matters, he's nearly impossible to track.

The house itself is warm and cosy. It's relaxing, most of all; even if the decorations range from the ordinary to the macabre (there's plenty of bones, apparently just for ornamentation), it's easy to feel unthinkingly uncomfortable here.

"Feel free to sit anywhere. Make yourself comfortable." Woven rugs are draped over a couch that has clearly seen plenty of use; a chair or two set aside for a table collecting books and papers. Even the floor seems amenable enough, what with the brightly woven rug that decorates it. (Just don't look at the patterns too hard, or think about if it moved or not.)

Ekkehardt himself is content to arrange himself in a chair, draping over it in an almost catlike way. Watchful and angular.

"Mostly curiosity brought you here, you said? Might I ask if there was anything else?"

[subconmodo]

Avery doesn't bother to sit. Not yet. There are too many things to look around at. Some send shivers up his spine, others he tilts his head this way and that to try and figure out how they work.

He still can't quite manage to examine the rug for long.

"Well, that depends... They say you take payment and do things for people. What sort of things and what's the payment scale like." He lifts his head up, eyes wide as a thought occurs to him. "Wait. Do you pay taxes? You are paying your taxes right?" He leans his head forward staring at the man intensely.

[subconmodo]

In the end, he doesn't even need to pretend to feel sick. The very next day he starts feeling lightheaded a little before lunch, which leads to nausea and awful stomach cramps that left him flushed, sweating, and nearly delirious.

There's something familiar about the symptoms, he can't help but think whenever they start to ease a little, but there's not enough time to dwell on those thoughts. If it's part of the deal he made, then he needs to use these moments of lucidity well, and so he slips away and searches, eventually managing to find his mother's old necklace hidden away somewhere.

The chain is practically glued to his neck up until halfway through the second day, when he finally falls into a deep sleep.

[spelleton]

He comes on the third day, as promised, masked and cloaked. A shadow among shadows, a dark figure.

What he doesn't expect to find is that his work is nearly done for him, but in a way that wouldn't spare Avery's life. The tattoo writhes on the prince's skin in a desperate warning; by the time Ekkehardt finds him asleep, it's climbed halfway up his arm in an attempt to stop an invisible, inexorable opponent.

He soothes the spell, and begins his work. His power for such things is strongest of all when the moon turns its face away from the forest and the earth. He can move the earth itself at need, if he needs to, when there's little light.

"You didn't fight it," he mutters, quiet, his expression creased in worry, as he works. "I should have said something."

He doesn't know if Avery is awake. He doesn't know, at this point, if he has the capability to be.

[subconmodo]

Avery doesn't stir, lost to fevered dreams. He thinks he hears his mother speak to him, saying something he can't quite hear. Sometimes it sounds like she's urging him to wake up, but he feels made of lead and its hard to breathe sometimes, and surely this is all part of the false death, right?

The deal was made. He has to hope. It's all he can do right now.

[spelleton]

The spell needs time to work, to create a false self. He doesn't know if Avery will survive to see that self made. It's fortunate, then, that he's a healer as well as a witch, or things would go ill.

But he doesn't have medicine or a proper antidote on hand. Burning out the poison might cause irreversible damage, something he can't afford.

He kneels at the bedside, traces the spiral of the tattoo, and falls into a dark place he knows as well as he knows himself. He's found it many times, guiding people out of it, or those who've forgotten how to die peacefully into it, and so the way is easy.

The tattoo, the mark of their contract, helps him find Avery quickly. Though Ekkehardt is a shadow in the real world, here he's a translucent figure; scarlet light shining through him like water.

He grabs hold of the other man's soul, tying them together through the bond, preventing him from descending any further. "Come back," he says, his voice urgent.

[subconmodo]

There's something around him. It tugs at his being, anchoring him, and he wonders if this is part of the spell too. And then he turns and sees something strange and translucent and as familiar as a word at the tip of his tongue.

"Come back?" he echoes, and he swears he hears his mother urging him to follow this man.

He trusts her, and so he does as he's told, taking step after step toward the man who bids him to follow.

[spelleton]

He listens. That in itself is a relief; not everyone does. (He thinks he can hear another voice, briefly, but he discards it; it's not for him to listen to.) He forges upward, making sure he's still following, pulling him step by step out of the dark.

The poison is still there, working through the other man's system, and he can't afford to split his concentration to treat it while this second spell is active. It's fortuitous, in a way; whoever poisoned him will simply believe that it worked, and not think about it any further.

But he needs to get him out of danger, first. He tugs him back out of the darkness, into consciousness; it's too dangerous for him to sleep right now. Sleeping will send him back, closer to death.

"Wake up," he says, pulling him out of the darkness like hauling an anchor out of water.

[subconmodo]

It hurts it hurts it hurts.

His eyelids feel as though they have weights tied to them, his stomach twisting, head throbbing, every part of him screaming in pain. It's like being thrown into ice cold water, worse somehow, and he wonders if he would have been better off remaining in that peaceful realm of sleep.

He squints past the pain and at the man at his side, memories slowly filtering in. "You're... Ekkehardt?" Has it been three days already? It was only two before.

[spelleton]

"Mm. It's just me."

He keeps focused. He has two things to take care of, now - the spell that will create a convincing simulacrum, and keeping the poison from killing his...patient? Apprentice? Contractee? It's hard to define what their relationship should be, now.

"Try not to move. Just concentrate on staying conscious. Do not fall asleep." Telling him he's been poisoned will just make him more stressed, and that will circulate poison around the body faster, so that can wait until later. Still, he sounds stressed, rather than unflappable.

[spelleton]

It's been some time since Avery made a full recovery and formally became Ekkehardt's apprentice. He can't say it's not odd to have someone his own age - and the former prince, no less - as an apprentice, but he supposes he'll always be seeing strange things as a witch.

"Now that you've made that cape," he says, one rainy morning over breakfast, "would you like to learn how to use it?"

[subconmodo]

His hair's been growing in too dark.

The roots are an almost purple black, fading slowly into his normal brown as they go. He's not sure what caused it, not sure if he should be concerned (not even sure if he should be concerned about the fact that he's gotten used to having yellow eyes), not even sure if he should bother bringing it up to Ekkehardt. It's just hair in the end, right? Even if it is strange. And a little uncomfortable.

"Huh?" Avery asks, looking up from his plate. "Uh, sorry. Didn't catch that. Could you repeat it?"

[spelleton]

He frowns, slightly.

"I was wondering if you wanted to start learning how to use your cape to travel, but you appear to have something else on your mind." He pushes an egg around on his plate. "Would you care to enlighten me on what it is, or is it a mystery for the moment?"

[subconmodo]

Avery waves a hand dismissively, taking a moment to eat about half his bacon before answering. "I'm still interested in lessons. And it's not really that big a deal." Probably just a change of lighting or something.

"But, uh, just in case... Anything look weird with my hair to you?"

[spelleton]

"Weird?" He blinks, taking a moment to look at him. "Your hair has changed a little, I suppose...?"

Ekkehardt's threshold for weird is significantly higher, as it turns out. Colour changes barely even register.

[subconmodo]

Avery waits, but nothing more comes. "And... that's normal?" he probes, one hand rolling in a lazy circle as he arches an eyebrow.

[spelleton]

"If you've had no such incidents before in your life, then it's strange. Otherwise, it's just something your hair is doing." He prods at his egg, finally starting to actually make progress on eating it.

"It's not my doing, if that's what you want to know. If I was going to change your hair colour, I'd ask first." Ekkehardt is very insistent on the idea of getting permission from people, something that applies to his teaching style too. "I suppose it might be a side-effect of something or other, but you'd have to test it to make sure of its origins."

[subconmodo]

Magic... Useful as it can be, Avery's starting to get the feeling it can be quite a pain in the ass, too. "Maybe I will. So, what, do I have to cut some of it and drop it into a potion or something?