eight
raven
"Such rage," says an orotund voice from high in the trees.
Ella pivots on her heel, glancing wildly about. Her hands are hot, flaring brightly with spurts of magic that is leaking out in time with the pounding of her heart. The forest bordering Charmstone has taken a lot of abuse ever since she found out that Carlisle - kind, fatherly, honest Carlisle - had known things about her life, known her, long before all this started.
It's been a week and even though she's demanded - and received - answers, her ire hasn't cooled.
Intellectually, she knows that it's really not Carlisle's fault. She can't even really be mad at him.
He'd been working for some magical network - The Coterie - that operated around the globe and he was a first responder on the night that her mother had been assassinated by something called The Order, who apparently went around ridding the world of supernatural people who were too powerful. The Order had killed her mother by mistake; Ella's magic had killed them in return.
She's glad she was too young to have that memory.
But still - what happened between Carlisle and his banshee partner handing her off to the proper authorities and Ella ending up in the foster system?
And then there's a fresh guilt slashing across her soul. Ella's mother was dead because Ella is a magician, because Ella exists. Was the same true for her father?
Those are thoughts that Carlisle can't rightly respond to - he honestly doesn't know. After her case - that's what he calls it - Carlisle had promptly retired from The Coterie at age twenty-three and he hadn't looked back. He'd moved to Charmstone and did his due diligence as a druid.
He hadn't done anything wrong.
And yet she's still so enraged - enough so that it's better for everyone if she's either sequestered in her room gouging charcoal into her sketchbook or out in the forest letting her magic run loose. Otherwise it's completely possible that her inner-turmoil will manifest in something that isn't as manageable as a magical temper tantrum. The ring on her finger has been hot like burning for seven days, the magician's glass cloudy and dull. Her directionless anger is like poison.
She hadn't counted on hearing voices in the trees, though. That's new.
"Who's there?" she finally demands once she can't manage to locate anyone, either with her eyes or with her magic.
"You've been calling for me," answers the voice. "I apologize it's taken so long for me to arrive. I had quite a ways to fly."
"Fly?" she wonders with a raised brow.
A raven with wings black as knight and eyes shining like onyx flutters down onto a lower branch, tilting her head in a birdlike fashion. The raven flaps her wings. "What else would you expect of your familiar?"
"I didn't know I had a familiar. Or even that I could have one."
"You have need of me," answers the raven.
And apparently that is that.
Ella names her Raven and finds comfort in the pinch of talons digging into her shoulder, the smoothness of a beak pecking tenderly at her ear and the cluster of piercings there. The magic in Raven is in utter sync with Ella; explains why she couldn't sense the bird before Raven made her presence known.
Her magic settles into some semblance of peace, like a truce on a hair trigger.
A/N: As a point of artistic expression, I will not be doing any disclaimers or spoilers about characters. There is a reason why I've only put Bella so far and called it a supernatural genre. I have a plan. It's all about the reveal, folks. If at any point you don't like what I've done with a character? Click the red X! Don't like, don't read is my policy!
That said, have I ever led you astray?
As always, be brutally honest. I can take it.
~cupcakeriot
