Misfit 10
Chapter 10! Well, we're a ways from being finished, but it probably won't creep up to 30 chapters… In terms of updates, Misfit is extremely spotty, but thanks for sticking with it, reader! I find it somewhat interesting how much less traffic non-romance Fanfiction gets. But I suppose the whole purpose of the site is to bend the reality of your subject into something you want to see, like impossible couples or events, or alternate endings.
Uh, excuse my rambling.
Thanks for your support!
I don't own Harvest Moon (I always forget about this)
She has a plan now, but is not by any means confident in it. Witch has a series of scenarios in her head of how it would go down when Master uncovered her plan (which, in this instance, was inevitable). He would banish her and send her off on her own to starve in the cold, or lock her up in the basement and beat the rebelliousness out of her, or tell the Grand High Mages, who would revoke her apprenticeship and seal her power. Wizard is present in all of these delusions, standing stony-faced with the security of the blameless behind Master as he metes out her due punishment. That little bastard.
It would be thirty lashes, stripped to the waist, in the style of the ancient militaries. Four days without food, two days in solitary confinement. Always prone to dramatics, Witch concocts for herself a little nightmare world of crime and punishment, unable to truly free herself of the absolute, habitual loyalty Master commands. Wizard, though he had previously offered his own form of silent and possibly disapproving support, is not an accomplice and is therefore not to be trusted. This is something she has to do alone, and begins transporting some of her books and research materials to the Dead Zone, taking shelter under a reasonably well-preserved section of roofing in the ruins. Ivy and moss grow abundantly in the chinks in the old stones- water had pooled there, in a huge basin in front of the big tree. It is slowly stagnating into soupy green sludge, in which small turtles and frogs swim when the weather was warm.
Witch has no magical means in which to patch the cracks in her makeshift lab when it rains, and packs the blocks instead with mud and fallen leaves. Here, she works out magical equations and formulas tirelessly, and tests them outside the Dead Zone- she pilfers Master's and Wizard's black magic textbooks and adapts the ingredients in first the potions and then the charms recipes in the most basic ancient kids' manuals so that they require no animal sacrifice. Only three work at all without blood or animal parts- they require the massive energy released by a dying body, and without this catalyst they are not worth the toll on the caster. They do not do what they are supposed to. Her work takes months and does nothing in the end.
Even Witch knows this, secretly. Even the procedures detailed in the most basic baby-books of black magic require the energy of many magicians and sacrifices, and are not common. Only a top-tier mage could hope to perform such spells alone, and many of her attempts fail.
It was a bit of a stupid idea, she thinks one day, sipping her tea years and years later. It was idiotic to think that a thirteen-year-old girl with no special ability or innate power could change anything, save anyone.
It is frustrating and futile, and she knows it, but the possibility of being able to sway something, to use her own power to prove herself and make a name, and maybe even taste a little glory was too tantalizing to completely abandon. She packs up the books (quite damp and wrinkled from being out in the elements for so long), the tools, the journal in which she had recorded at great length her procedures and evaluations, and carts them home, deflated.
She would again reflect on her childishness later, and realize belatedly that the town was lawless then, and as long as it was out of the public eye (as all magic was to be performed strictly hidden from the suspicions of the villagers, who had a fondness for burning magic folk at the stake), it was perfectly acceptable to curse or kill a rival, bring down storms, plagues, misfortune.
There is no warm meal on the table when she returns- Master is staring blankly into the fire and Wizard, who usually huddles near the light to read or perhaps to play a game of chess, is nowhere to be found.
She raids the pantry and goes to her room, sensing the mire of negativity around Master; whatever had happened, his fuse was likely shorter than normal, and she has no desire to vex him tonight. Having already cleaned up her temporary lab at the hideout in the dead zone, Witch pushes the journal, full of leaflets and scraps of writing, diagrams, and equations, far under her bed and tries to forget about it. Suddenly she is as depressed as Master seemed to be, and pulls out her favorite book to soothe her. It is a book of very stupid fairy tales about magic folk. She has no real interest in the stories, as they portray her people as demons and savages, and keeps it around only for the lovely detailed illustrations. Witch eats the dry biscuits and old plums she snuck from the pantry and thinks.
She finds out later that week that a close associate of Master's had been burnt, tried for a false crime and set against the villager's rigged examination, an interrogation filled with trials which no creature could have survived. He had been drowned and then burnt for apparently raising a howling storm two days ago that had destroyed some crops. Wizard does not come out of his room at all for about a week, and Witch wonders what he is up to. Had he known Master's friend?
It wasn't exactly a rare occurrence for someone to die for being an alleged magician, but it was shocking because this time around, the villagers had gotten one right, had managed to bag an actual mage. That alone worried her. Though their attempts to bring good Witches like her to justice were often misguided and usually only killed their own men, it was startling to her that they had managed to get one right at all. Did someone witness him doing magic, or was it a lucky guess? She is unsure. This was the second of master's close companions in a year, and she wasn't sure how he would hold out. Often, she would pass by the chair in front of the fireplace in the dining hall (which he had not left for many days) and hear him muttering quickly and quietly to himself about his plans, about his dead friends, about awful things and unrepeatable machinations.
This chapter was for whatever reason super difficult to write. It's important but not especially exciting or anything, but it was still painful. I don't feel like it was particularly good either… disorganized.
I also fixed up the description- the story does not honestly center on Wizard, and it was pretty misleading. Sorry for the wait, either way, and thank so much to anyone who reads and supports any of my works.