Open - The Pleasures of Fishing | Page 2

An audition? Is she saying I have to audition to be her boss? Do these two think I'm weak? Are talking down to me? ME! DID THEY NOT SEE HOW POWERFUL I AM! I'M NOT SOMEONE WHO NEEDS TO BE TAKEN CATERED TO LIKE A BABY! I'M THE GRAND WITCH! I DON'T NEED TO BE RESCUED!

"Hehehe! Audition? Hehehe, the only one who will be auditioning is you when you come begging to be my ally! I think the two of you are forgetting something very important... hehe..."

Majolica took a few steps back from the others.

"I AM NOT a little girl begging for allies! HEHE, I AM GRAND WITCH MAJOLICA, AND I AM NOT WITHOUT POWER!"

The winds around the campfire began picking up as the shadow's around the campfire lengthened and seemed twist into strange shapes.

"HeheheHEHEHE!"

Freezing cold wisps of blackened air swirled around Majolica as she slowly rose into the air. The shadows surrounding the campfire began to reach towards the floating witch. On her back, black smoke and shadow began to take shape into two large wings. Holding out one hand, a mass of black and purple energy began to swirl in her palm then in an instant, it vanished. Cackling, Majolica pointed her hand towards the treeline on the far side of the river.

”Error Silly equals Error Zero Error Xtreme Plumpy minus two Radical over Witchy Optometrist squared! ABRA CADABRA!"

From her hand, a thick beam of black smokey energy fired out consuming everything in its path as Majolica continued to channel the spell. As the spell moved down the treeline, nothing was left in its wake. Literally. The trees, the snow, brush, and any grass, gone. As if someone had simply erased a swath of the world leaving only a dead, black, stain on the world.

"Hehehehe!"

Majolica slowly floated down as the shadowy energy around her dissipated. Her broomstick moved underneath her to catch her.

"Know this! I, Grand Witch Majolica will be watching you! And, when the times comes, You WILL become my loyal allies! Hehehe! Enjoy the fish..."

The same black, smokey substance gathered around the bristles of the Grand Witch's broom.

"Hehehe... be seeing you..."

And Majolica sped off into the crisp cold night.



[EXIT THREAD]

 

Celestine listened carefully to Emerath as he made one good point after another, nodding to each one. She couldn’t exactly disagree with anything he was saying, but it didn’t seem to change much: at the end of the day, she wanted to feel like a proper protagonist.

“Being myself is of great boredom,” she stated, not hearing any of that bit. “I have done the trying of being myself, and the protagonists are always of much more fun to do a read of, or a watch of. I do not care about being of specialness,” she casually lied, not even realizing that her statement was totally incorrect, “I am just wanting to be of interest: like the protagonists.”

She nodded back at him as he offered to help, with a little twinkle in her eye. “It is an offer of kindness to ease my distress then, yes? That is of great sweetness from you~!” She promptly pulled out one of her scrolls alongside a quill and unfurled it, writing a swift ‘check’ that neither of the others could see from their angle. Without bothering to explain it, she rolled it back up and tucked it away. Given her continued reliance on the lists, his advice had either fallen on deaf ears, or she was intentionally disregarding it.

Halfway through the process, a hysterical cackling caught her attention, and she looked up to notice Majolica laughing her head off. “Did I accidently do a funny,” she asked, turning to her in confusion? “Oh.” She explained her cackling. An evil cackle for flavor and not for humor. Got it. The witch then proceeded to make a great show of magic power - likely dark magic - as she sped off into the distance.

“Umm… I mean...” Celestine stood there, casually observing the whole thing as she sped off out of hearing distance. “Technically I cannot do a forgetting if I am not knowing something in the first of places,” she corrected to the girl who no doubt couldn’t have heard her from here. It was more for Emerath’s sake, and a little bit of her own. After the moment had passed, she finally turned back to him.

“Riiiight, well um…” Celly hummed, filling the awkward silence. “I guess that is the direction of the nearest town then,” she guessed, figuring Majolica would probably have gone off in the rough direction of civilization. “That is a girl of great confusion...”

 

The moment that Emerath had been waiting for happened, and Majolica seemed to lose it. He would have otherwise mentioned this outcome to Celestine, but given the girl's nature, he realized it probably would have fallen on deaf ears anyway. But then the magic started building, and Emerath wasn't about to have it. Emerath stood, and instinctively slipped his iron knuckles on, the wind whipping at his coat as it built. Emerath wasn't about to take his first death in the game just sitting there. He'd fight if she forced him to.

Wings appeared on Majolica's back, and Emerath's fists crackled with lightning in response, prepared to make a move. But much to his surprise, she didn't point at him. Instead she turned to the forest on the other side of the river, and decided to instead destroy the wildlife. Emerath stayed tense, staring at the witch, muttering, "That was rather uncalled for," to nobody in particular. There was never a time or place for wanton destruction in Emerath's eyes. And had the girl not shot off into the night after delivering her final message, Emerath would have made that clear.

But she was gone, and with a heavy sigh, the lightning dissipated from his knuckles, and Emerath fell back onto the log, as Celestine gave no indication that she actually cared. And from what Emerath was learning of her, she probably didn't. Another sigh, as he slipped his knuckles from his hands, and back onto his belt. "Well, that didn't go well," Emerath admitted to his only remaining companion. He looked back to the path created by the black magic, a sadness creeping into his heart at the loss of all the things that lived in that part of the forest. Perhaps they were just pixels in a game, but this game felt too real to not feel anything.

Slowly, Emerath raised a hand at the fire, and blew a hard gust of wind at it to dispel most of the flames, before kicking dirt on it to remove the embers, and finally shoving his boot into the crumbling wood and dirt mixture to stamp it out. And then he stood, "Who knows where she went. The girl is clearly insane," he told Celestine, before adding, "I'm probably just as lost as you are. But I don't mind the company while lost at least. Not that you aren't also a bit insane, but in a much more tolerable and less destructive way."

Emerath fixed his eyes on the girl, his heart pounding in his chest. Mostly from the sudden change in demeanor caused by all of this. "I'd still like to help you. Let's get back to town, and then we should talk about our next steps. Perhaps you can share some of your lists with me, and I can help you find ways to complete them. It's probably more fun than the politics of Astorea. What do you say?"

Emerath found a smile, despite how horribly derailed everything was, and pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders, trying in vain to shield himself from the bitter cold. Sadly though, the cold wasn't the most bitter thing here, as, with or without his new companion, he waded back into the forest to find his way back to town.

[EXIT THREAD]