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staysaneathome · 2 years

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Let’s Meet At The Gathering of the Witches (2)

It takes the Strangerling a week decide on a name.

It’s a fraught week, with them frequently bursting in on Jon while he’s working on a personal project with crises of confidence, even shaking him awake in a panic on three separate nights. It takes him a while to calm them down every time, and his intense dislike of Nikola and Stranger Witches grows slowly but steadily with every incident.

But eventually they settle on one they say “feels right”.

Jon’s never had any real opinion towards the name Robbie, but he thinks that it could grow on him.

He also appreciates that they settled on it in time for him to make the final modifications to his personal project and present it to them.

“We’re going to be going to a special gathering soon.” He tells them as they stroke the material of the face mask he’s sewn them, fingers rubbing over the small embroidered Robbie on the inside seam. “The Witches’ Gathering, to be precise. Witches of every level and their familiars will be there, which means we can take you to meet the Grand Witch of the End. She’s an old friend, she’ll be able to ensure your safety and freedom.”

Robbie’s eyes are wide and focused as he continues. “However, that does mean that Nikola and others of her ilk will also be present. If you feel comfortable with chancing this, the mask should hide some of your more…discernable qualities, but only if you keep it on, stay close to me or Martin, and don’t draw attention to yourself. It’ll make you look more like an Eye Witch’s familiar, but that’ll fall apart if anyone investigates. Unfortunately illusions aren’t exactly my specialty.”

He watches them consider this, thumbing the enchanted fabric of the mask again while he gnaws on his lower lip.

“Well?” He bursts out, nervy and impatient. “If you don’t want to, it’s, it’s fine, you can stay here and keep that Damn Cow out of the garden while I’m away, but. But.”

Robbie looks back up at him.

Their signing is much more fluid with all the practice they’ve been doing.

Martin does not look as insufferably pleased as Jon thought he would when they meet at the Gathering.

Satisfied, yes, but not entirely content to be so. Jon ponders what this means.

Frey Lukas, on the other hand, is every bit as insufferable as Jon knew xey would be, all genial, superficial politeness like xir maddening buffoon of an uncle, if less practiced.

“Pleasure to meet you, Robbie.” Xey say, looking mildly distasteful when Robbie shakes xir hand vigorously.

“I like your mask.” Martin says kindly, making Robbie puff their chest up with pride and lift a hand to their chin to sign, “Thank you. Jon made it for me.”

Admittedly Jon is himself quite proud of how well the illusion turned out. Eye Witches can’t hide things like Dark, Fog, and Stranger Witches, can’t distort them like Spiral Witches can, but they can redirect attention, focus the eye (heh) on something other than the obvious.

In this case, the mask draws attention to Robbie’s eyes over the rest of their form, even somehow giving them the same all-knowing gleam Jon sees when he looks in the mirror.

“Are you ready to go, then?” Frey Lukas asks, drawing Robbie away from Jon.

Robbie looks back at him, mildly alarmed, and Jon finds himself reaching out to take hold of their sleeve. “What do you think you’re doing?”

That at least cracks the famed Lukas apathy, as an unsure look skitters across Frey’s face. “I. Um?”

“Jon,” Martin’s tone is exasperated, if fond. “They don’t allow apprentices and familiars into the inner sanctum while the main meeting’s going on, remember? They all have to wait outside until after.”

Something of Jon’s retort must show on his face, because Martin immediately says, “And it’d look suspicious if you insisted on staying out here with them, which is the last thing we want. Look, I’ll help you broach the topic to Georgie, and Frey will take good care of Robbie out here, I promise.”

Frey Lukas, Jon thinks mulishly, does not look nearly confident enough to be worthy of Martin’s faith. Still, xey give him a weak grin and a thumbs up.

Robbie stares up at Jon, nervous and unsure.

“There’d better not be a hair out of place on their head when we return.” He warns the little Lukas. “Don’t let them get, I don’t know, stabbed or anything.”

Not even twenty minutes into the Gathering, and Jon’s remembered why he hates coming to these things.

The Grand Witch of the Buried, Hezekiah Wakeley, and Basira Hussain, Hunt Witch, glare daggers at each other when they aren’t both glaring at Jon. The Dark’s Grand and lesser Witches have already extinguished all the candles in their corner with designs on the rest of them. The Grand and lesser Witches of the Flesh are trying to rope anyone not quick enough to escape into their argument over whether adults or children are more succulent. The Grand Witch of the Stranger, Nikola Orsinov, is in attendance along with the Witch who Jon Knows is Not Sasha James.

Elias is thankfully embroiled in a conversation with Grand Witch of the Vast, Simon Fairchild, and the fellow-apprentice-thief Peter Lukas, so Jon can hide behind Martin and avoid all attempts to catch any of his eyes as they make their way over to where the witches of the End are.

“Well, well, look what bad penny turned up.”

He has to resist the urge to audibly groan. “Melanie.”

The Slaughter Witch grins at him. It isn’t a friendly expression. “Jon. Heard you got yourself a familiar, at long last.”

Jon opens his mouth in instinctive denial, but is saved by Martin’s elbow to his side.

“Oh, ah. Well. Yes.”

Melanie surprises him by nodding, almost cordially. “Got one myself, recently. Ghost kid, but he’s taken to the Slaughter like nothing else. Alfie says he hasn’t seen anyone with so much potential since, well. Me.”

Georgie draws abreast of Melanie, resplendent in all her End finery. “That’s not what you were saying a few weeks ago. I seem to recall something about ‘if that floaty brat smashes one more plate’…?”

Melanie jabs an finger in a way that would surely mean a declaration of war between anyone else. “Yeah, yeah, well, we all have growing pains. And it was my good china too. What about you, Jon? Yours driving you up the wall too?”

“Ah.” Jon fumbles, casting about for what to say. “Nn-yes? Well, it’s not like they’re—? They could be. Tidier. And less…eager. I’m not sure they’ll be a good match for Eye magic, conduit-wise.”

“Oh?” Oliver Banks, End Witch, pipes up. “Well, sorry to hear it. You’re a good witch Jon, I’m sure you’ll find someone soon.”

Martin rolls his eyes with a nearly inaudible scoff, for some reason.

Jon tries for a strained smile, feeling oddly wrong-footed. “Yes, well. It’s not like they’re completely hopeless. Good at hunting. Bit too good, to be honest, lord I was getting worried about whether they’d wreak havoc on the local ecosystem for a while there. At least Robbie takes instruction well. They started out not knowing a, a mote of sign language, and now they can hold basic conversations! After only a few weeks of study. And, and they’re getting better at herb gathering, found a new strain of monkshood all on their own, they showed Martin, didn’t they, Martin? And—”

Jon becomes aware that Martin is subtly making a slicing-the-neck motion.

Everyone’s staring at him. Melanie and Oliver are blinking, nonplussed.

Georgie is smiling, for some reason.

“They sound wonderful, Jon.” She says gently. “It’s great that you’ve got a good familiar now. I’d love to meet them afterwards, if that’s okay.”

Jon has no idea what to say to that, but fortunately the meeting is called to order before he can.

This Gathering of the Witches is more of the same bickering and thinly veiled one-upmanship as the others.

The only thing of real note is that Orsinov complains of poaching over the Stranger’s borders, but Desolation Witch Jude Perry makes a remark about kindling that devolves into another argument.

By the end of it all, Jon’s head is throbbing and he’s eager to escape the pandemonium of the meeting for the relative peace of the outside.

They exit the inner sanctum to the sound of screaming.

Jon’s Eyes snap to attention and take in the facets of the scene:

The apprentice of the Dark, Callum Brodie, is flat on his back with a bloody nose.

A ghost who Jon presumes is Melanie’s familiar is floating in the middle of the fray, mouth open in a war cry as fragments of glass and metal fly at anything that moves.

The familiar of the Web has already been punctured by several of these, red bowler hat ruined, and Tim Stoker, familiar of the Desolation, has taken the opportunity to get a few blows of his own in.

One of the Stranger’s familiars, Breekon-or-Hope is rapidly sinking into the earth. The other one is being rapidly subsumed by butterflies, much like the apprentice of the Vast.

This predicament doesn’t seem to have stopped the Fairchild from trapping Julia Montauk of the Hunt in what appears to be zero G, judging from the way her face is going a purplish-green.

The apprentice of the Corruption is sitting on the floor, wailing as more and more butterflies pour from him in an unending flurry.

That awful familiar the Spiral was somehow hoodwinked into taking on is curled up on the floor wailing, but that’s not unusual behavior for Trexel Geistman.

Petra Ito, the Buried apprentice, has somehow ended up in the arms of Frey Lukas, both of them trying to stay out of the fray.

The Monster Pig which serves as a familiar for the Flesh is standing in the middle of it all placidly, untouched by the chaos.

Robbie is not nearly so lucky.

Jon’s eyes catch sight of them clutching at their chest and staggering backwards one, two, three steps.

They almost look surprised to see him as they’re swallowed up by a haze of fog on the fourth.

Compulsion magic runs hot and slick along Jon’s vocal cords, curls oily around his tongue, seeps into the gaps between his teeth.

Jon would be perturbed by how little he minds the overflow of power, but he’s too busy commanding everyone to “Stop.”

Everything freezes.

Even the Strangers, the Spiral and the Slaughter, which take poorly to any attempts at orders, are now stock still.

Jon advances, glass shards and metal fragments crunching under his boots. His march avoids the butterflies where they’ve fallen, paralyzed and quivering.

Frey Lukas currently bears a stunning amount of resemblance to those insects.

Xey’re physically taller than Jon and still holding the Buried apprentice in xir arms, but Jon wouldn’t be half the witch he is if he hadn’t learned how to loom over people regardless of height. “Where is my familiar?”

The little Lukas shudders, mouth opening helplessly. “I-I hid Robbie in the Fog! I only looked away a, a moment, and then everything was chaos, and, and I had to protect them but I wasn’t, wasn’t fast enough to stop—I’m sorry—”

Jon’s opening his mouth again, preparing to Ask, make xem Tell him exactly what’s happened here, when an even larger figure of fog pours into the gap between them, form taking on shape and color like liquid filling a mold.

The Grand Witch of the Fog, Peter Lukas, does not look very happy at all.

“I suggest you get your subordinates under control, Elias.” He says, blithe. “I’m sure it’d be upsetting for everyone if drastic measures needed to be taken for this slight.”

Jon can feel his face contorting into a snarl, the eyes he keeps closed in polite company Opening, compulsion pin-pricking his lips, sliding like honey and oil down his throat—

“O-oh, okay Robbie, easy there duck, gently now—oh. That is. That is a lot of blood, isn’t it.”

His eyes snap to the sound of Martin’s voice, drinking in the sight of him curled around a desaturated and silently shivering Robbie. The blood spilling between their fingers is ruby-bright compared to the rest of them.

And the sight of Nikola, leaning over the pair of them, person-shaped in only the loosest, most pantomime sense of the word with a ghoulish smile on her stolen lips.

“A quiet one, aren’t you?” She croons, menace in her bright tone. “Where ever did you find this one, Jonathan?”

Jon can’t answer, a wave of terror crashing over him and rooting him to the spot.

By contrast his eyes are clustering around Martin and Robbie, as if they can somehow keep Nikola from doing anything if there are simply enough of them watching her, watching them.

But he’s not Elias, can’t freeze people in place with his gaze alone, so all this means is that he has the perfect view of Martin’s breath hitching involuntarily, of his grip tightening, of Nikola’s smile widening, of Robbie—

Robbie is squirming, not quite pushing so much as wriggling around Martin to put themselves between him and the Grand Witch, stance set and glaring up at their tormentor with hard eyes even as they tremble.

A third eye opens on the bridge of their nose, just above the mask.

A fourth attempts to blink their fringe away from where it’s appeared on their forehead.

The fifth that’s formed between all four of them, huge and bulging and the color of Jon’s own, is easily the most unpleasant of them all.

Robbie’s extra eyes glare up at the Grand Witch of the Stranger, furious and protective.

The spectacle is enough to make Nikola draw back slightly, confusion plain on her face.

In fairness, Jon is quite confused himself.

Robbie’s mask is only meant to redirect attention, not allow them to sprout vestigial eyes.

“Well.” Elias’ voice is, as usual, both unwelcome and slimy, like vegetables left out to rot. “Regardless of where they came from, it’s clear this one can only be a familiar of the Eye. Now that that’s settled, I’d say there’s been enough ruckus for one day without causing any more casualties, wouldn’t you all?”

The good thing about Elias interceding is that everyone is much more willing to drop whatever matters are at hand in favor of picking them up later at a more discrete time and place, though Nikola is clearly very grudging about it.

The bad thing about Elias interceding is that in return for his help, Jon and Robbie now have to travel back with him instead of on their own.

His carriage is an old, ostentatious thing, eyes and mirrors decorating every facet so anyone within or without is always watching and watched, the subject of constant scrutiny.

Also the upholstery is the most lurid shade of green.

Robbie’s extra eyes are still very much present, much to their distress and Jon’s consternation.

“Hold—hold still—“ Jon tries to use his magic to dispel the eyes again, to no avail. It worked perfectly to heal up their wound to an angry red scab so why…?

Elias sighs, the same way he did when he first told Jon that Martin was lost to the Fog. “Take that mask off.”

Robbie jerks. Their hands tremble as they come up to unhook the mask, eyes darting to Jon pleadingly before squeezing shut.

Jon has the oddest urge to put his hand on their shoulder or something, even though he knows nothing he does will help.

It takes a moment, but after the mask comes off the extra eyes start to gradually shimmer, then melt away as though they’d never been in the first place.

“I thought so.” Elias says, smug even as Robbie begins patting their face to check whether anything else unexpected has sprouted there. “Really Jon, I can appreciate the spirit of experimentation, but did you have to use the Gathering as your testing ground?”

“What are you talking about?” Jon demands as Elias leans back, the very picture of satisfaction. It’s enough to make him almost miss the very early days of his apprenticeship, back when Elias seemed more concerned with concocting recreationals than with cryptic remarks.

“It’s really quite simple, Jon. It,” A lazy hand waved in Robbie’s direction, who freezes with one hand holding their nose and the other their ear. “Is a product of the Stranger, whose magic centers on illusion and mimicry. And you crafted an talisman imbued with the magic of the Eye for it, with the express purpose of concealing what it was from Orsinov. Really, it couldn’t have asked for a better template.”

Jon tries to follow the logic, brow furrowed. “So the magic…mixed, somehow?”

Elias sighs like he did when Tim gave himself to the Desolation. “In a sense. It would be more accurate to say that your familiar incorporated your magic into its mimicry of the Eye—or to be specific, of you as a Witch the Eye, in defense of itself and Mister Blackwood. It was only able to produce a throughly inadequate likeness, of course, but close enough to fool the uninitiated.”

Jon looks at Robbie.

Robbie looks back, shoulders hunched, still a bit pale from blood loss, and the mask somehow back on their face without him noticing.

“It’s fascinating of course. The extent to which the Stranger can mimic the abilities of other witches and various beings, and the limitations therein. Can’t be Unknown unless there is something to Know in the first place after all.” Elias huffs a laugh, like he did when news came that Sasha was now Not. “I’d investigate it myself, but well. You know how that turned out.”

Jon stares at his mentor and allows himself to simply hate. Just for a moment.

“Still. I did have a list of acceptable candidates prepared for when you began hankering after familiars and apprentices of your own, but as always Jon, you continue to exceed expectations.”

Elias leans forward, the glint in his eyes magnified and replicated tenfold.

“I can’t wait to see what you’ll do next.”

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