Sparrow Truman May 16th,20XX

“You’re late”

The ever-ageing old witch pointed out my tardiness with a bland tone that I could now recognize as her restraining her anger but I ignored her and moved towards the workbench to look over what she was making.

“Another immortality potion?”

Witches were not immortal like our fellow denizens of the world, the goblins and fairies, but we did live long lives of about two hundred to three hundred years. There were ways to extend it of course, and it would vary if a witch were half-fairy, half-goblin or even half-human but it was rare to see a witch live past five hundred years.

The older generation had struggled to come to terms with the fact and most ancient research was devoted to finding ways to live longer but with the increase of half-human witches that originated from the decline of population and unpopularity of witches after the fae-goblin wars, the newer generations were more at peace with their mortality. A few witches would even purposefully spend more time in the human world, where the low amounts of magic would make them age faster so they could die at the same time as their human counterparts.

“If you would hurry up and complete the research I wouldn’t have to make so many now would I? Go to the cupboards and bring me the bright red leather-bound book.”

She’d entrusted the completion of one of those old spells to me, who had received someone else’s memories and seemed more and more impatient by the day.

I didn’t like being ordered around and probably wouldn’t have obeyed if any of the other witches were around but since I didn’t have anything to prove and I also didn’t have the motivation to fight her I settled with sending her a nasty glare as I did as she asked.

“Perhaps I should have left a few memories behind. This attitude is really...”

She trailed off her muttering as she realized I was still well within earshot and focused on completing the last step of the noxious neon orange potion. For all it was called an immorality potion it didn’t stop ageing and just slowed down the degeneration rate of the body. But it had some pretty nasty side effects such as increasing the potential for magic blockages and making your hair fall out, as could be seen by Rubella’s ill-fitting wigs.

Today’s was a long dark auburn red, similar to my own, and had bangs that covered her wide forehead, and the end tips curled around her ears.

If not for the missing purple stripes and the fact that it was longer than my style I would suspect she’d taken inspiration from me. But that couldn’t be right, never mind that I was a part of the younger generation, Rubella’s pride wouldn’t ever let her copy someone she felt was inferior to herself.

The leather-bound book landed beside her with a loud thud and the old witch flinched as she was startled. Her left hand that held the potion almost dropped it but barely managed to hang on, the final ingredient though, a sapphire blue powder, wasn’t so lucky.

More than half of the measured-out ingredient sank to the floor, leaving small dents on the surface of the ruby tiled floors.

“Sparrow!”

“Rubella!”

I barked right back at her.

I didn’t know why I was so hostile towards the woman. Aside from her occasional selfish request or vainness, she was nothing but nice to me, and even completely sponsored me and my education. I got status by being her only direct disciple and once upon a time she had even let me borrow her wardrobe. Of course, she had immediately rescinded the offer when I’d borrowed one of her clothes and had gotten more compliments than she did in it.

She took a deep breath and decisively dumped out the now useless potion in the sink behind her. Although she was faced away from me I could see her shoulders tremble with emotion, most likely negative. She stayed that way for a few moments before turning around to me with a large smile that showed no traces of the irritation from moments before.

“I’m glad you’re so enthusiastic about the lesson.”

I shrugged in response to her sarcasm and sat down across from her.

“Why would you call me if you weren’t ready for me yet? I’m not as free as you seem to think.”

It wasn’t like I had anything to do anyway but being treated like a servant was annoying. If she needed someone to order around like a puppet, there were more than enough goblins for the task.

“Show me your arm. I found a new spell I think you would love.”

Immediately my mood lightened and I pushed forward a smile towards the red witch, even though I didn’t particularly feel like smiling.

Yet another remnant of a past I didn’t remember was how hard it was to smile. As I was, there weren’t many reasons to smile, but even at times like this, I struggled to be happy. Every smile, especially towards my teacher felt like a stab into my own heart and filled me with a sense of wrongness.

Although I usually avoided doing so, it did make me wonder what type of person I used to be.

Once again the dull eroding pain began to corrupt my thoughts and made me quickly change the subject of my thoughts.

“What type of spell is it?”

Rubella held up the scroll and tossed it over to me, choosing to have me read through it myself and decide if it would match with the other spells I had on me.

As a ‘redeemed witch’ I’d gotten a lot of my practical knowledge by having someone’s knowledge ‘downloaded’ into me. It was also one of the reasons I’d chosen to have my own memories locked away, to have more space for them.

I hadn’t been told whose knowledge they were, but I figured they were probably someone pretty important considering that I’d only become Rubella’s direct disciple because I was compatible with them.

Getting another witch’s knowledge and experiences was a bit of a risky process because there stood the chance of having the original witch's consciousness completely taken away, which would lead to not only the loss of your own life but also the loss of the precious memories that were injected in you. There was also the possibility of the witch not having enough magic power to support their newly gained knowledge and attempting spells beyond their capacity.

The case of the witch that had blown up his cauldron and half his neighbourhood block in an experiment had been repeated so many times to me that I could recite it from memory alone.

The witch whose knowledge I’d received had been an extremely aggressive person, favouring spells that demanded a lot of magic that exploded and blew people away rather than the usual low demand but quick spells that witches tended to favour. If I’d had any less magic capacity or output than I did, I wouldn’t have been able to use more than a third of her spells. It wasn’t my style but it would have been stupid to avoid using spells that I didn’t need to devote years to perfect. Instead, I tried to balance them out with more defensive spells and escape spells so I would have a few backups.

The spell Rubella had just tossed me was a rather nasty one but would prove indispensable during battle. It would drain the energy of my teammates and my enemies if I could time it well enough.

I held my arms out and for some reason was just as repulsed as ever.

Different symbols connected by dark webs of hardened magic littered my arms and reached up to my neck and down to my arms.

The symbols pulsed as each spell absorbed ambient magic and prepared to be used despite my not having any intentions of doing so. The tattoos were essentially magic scrolls but embedded into my skin for convenience. A witch could have as many as they could support but the limit was usually one or two arms and maybe just the torso. I could have them all over my body though… I guess I was just special that way.

Rubella motioned towards the deadly looking needle on the desk and pushed the ink towards me, looking eager to see me bind the evil spell to my person.

She was my benefactor. She taught me everything that I needed to know. She was the one that arranged for me to get the precious memory pack that I did and she even financially supported me by letting me live in the castle and taking care of all my food and clothing. I had no reason to be hostile towards her but somehow-

My head started to hurt again and once again forced me to redirect my thoughts.

In the beginning, I'd barely even noticed that I’d sealed my memories or I’d had them sealed but the more I learned and the more the knowledge assimilated with my mind the more difficult it was to ignore the seal.

Each symbol on my skin was the result of a painful process of carving the spell into my skin with the needle and sealing it in with the ink. It was similar to the toys that the fairies made for their children to teach them how to use their immense amounts of magic. The ink was a magical treasure in itself that would help keep all the accumulated magic inside the spell until the witch was ready to release it. The higher quality the ink, the more magic you could store in each spell without overburdening your body.

The symbol this time were two fruits with thin lines of energy connecting them, one of which was clearly in better form than the other.

Ah. This was gonna hurt like a Bit-

“Why are you hesitating Sparrow? I’ve already done all the conversion so all you have to do is put it on. I’d suggest putting it beside your highest output spell.”

I grabbed the needle off the table and prepared to stab it into my upper thigh, starting the process of shaping the symbol into my skin. Just off it was the picture of a figure wrapped up by vines, slowly being crushed to death. Like Rubella had suggested I’d put the new spell beside the one with the highest output, the ‘forest of death’. Within a designated area it would gather every life form and wrap them tightly with unending vines, slowly breaking their bones and suffocating them to death.

Each of the twelve vines that wrapped around the animated figure. I remembered them all. The initial fear of mutilating my own skin and the eventual pride that had come after I’d borne the pain.

With a bit of experimentation, I would find out a way to merge the two spells and absorb energy from the victims of the forest so it wouldn’t go to waste. Reason told me to consult Rubella about it but once again I was repulsed by the idea and decided to keep it to myself. Besides, the original owner of the knowledge package I got was more than enough for the job.

I looked at the ruby themed witch once more before I began the ritual in earnest. I dipped the needle in the black ink and began to repeat the spell I was printing into my skin over and over again as I stabbed my self and began to carve my skin.

Rubella went back to work on her potion as I operated on myself and we both finished at the same self. One of us trying to live just a bit longer and the other having gained a more efficient way to take a life. She had a wide grin on her face and tossed back the potion in a single gulp.

Far from the sultry elegance she’d had when we’d first met, this Rubella was like a tightly wound yoyo; if enough force was used it would snap out hard enough to take out an eye, but it only had as much impact as its short rope. And speaking of ropes, I could tell she was at the end of hers.

The first time we’d met.

I tried to remember it past a general impression and found myself curling over into a ball from the pain. Having to combat the after-effects of a new spell finding its balance with the others on my body and the dull eroding pain of the seal.

“Sparrow?”

Her voice, as irritating as ever penetrated past the fog of pain and intensified it, making it harder and harder to focus. She ran over to her cupboard and pulled out a bottle before running back over to me and rubbing something on my forehead, chanting a spell at the same time. The spell eventually ended and I felt an ice-cold reeling spread from my forehead to the rest of my body, just cold enough to be uncomfortable without being life-threatening.

“Why does the spell keep degenerating so quickly?”

She resumed chanting the half-completed spell over me and the pain began to fade away but so did my consciousness and the rancid smell of whatever she had put on my face filled my nostrils. It was a familiar as it was torturous but I couldn’t resist it and could only feel myself embrace the shores of sleep, desperately chasing after the uncomfortable feeling of familiarity from the situation.