"Something's going to have to be done about this," Poppy announced in front
of everyone at Thierry's table a couple of nights later.
Their new arrivals, Gillian and her soulmate David, had been welcomed into the fold and shown around days ago. There was now a grand total of three human boys, and Mark had decided to move out of the bedroom that he'd shared with Poppy and Phil and into the one with Eric and David. Gillian had ended up taking Mark's old bed in Poppy and Phil's room to the inconvenience of nobody.
"Done about. . . what?" Gillian asked, food halfway up to her mouth.
"This ignorance issue. Let's face it," Poppy said, warming to her subject, "There are now three lost witches in here, if you count me as well, one of which is a direct Harman descendent."
That claim earned a glower from Blaise.
"Add to that two human boys whose soulmates are a witch and one of the lost witches," Poppy continued, "With two the two well acknowledged Harman witch descendents also a part of the group, and another witch who in part helped form this group, and yet so many of us here are ignorant to the ways of witchcraft and our very heritage. I know that Phil has been trying to search stuff out for himself, and truth be told, I'm kind of interested in finding out more myself."
"Also," Phil added once his sister had run down on steam, "Wasn't the original Circle Daybreak all about educating the lesser magical people in the group about everything that was the Night World? Isn't that what we also stand for now?"
"Quite right," Thierry put in firmly. "There is not nearly enough of the knowledge in this group being shared around. I have given the matter some thought before, but as this is the first time we have all been together in some time. . . well, no matter. Better late than never. I suppose if we are going to do this properly, we are going to need to allocate our teachers. Melusine, I should of course suggest you, as you are the one with the greatest spanning practical knowledge in the group here."
Melusine smiled and inclined her head slightly, indicating that she accepted Thierry's suggestion.
"But Thea," Thierry continued, and Thea's head shot up at being thus addressed. "I realize that you have been feeling somewhat at a loss ever since arriving here. Perhaps you and your sister," he encompassed Blaise in his gaze, "Should like to share the Harman ways with the rest of us?"
Thea opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, Blaise cut in first.
"I thank you, but no. I'm afraid that the idea doesn't appeal to me at all. I doubt that I would make very good teacher material in the first place."
Thea looked at her cousin, her jaw almost falling to the ground. How could she speak to Thierry in that way? She had heard the same stories as she growing up. She'd been there when they'd both been told by Gran! And now. . .
"I would be honored," Thea found herself saying calmly over the astonishment. She imagined her expression being calm and serene, the exact opposite to what she was feeling. A sudden thought occurred to her. "Dani! What about Dani? I'm sure she could do this job just as well, if not better than I could."
As the attention at the table shifted again, Dani's face grew red.
"Oh no, I'm sure that I'm not. . ."
"It is your choice, of course, but we would all be deeply grateful if you would consider it," Thierry said in his kindly persuasive tone.
"Oh. I'll. . . then I'll think about it, I suppose," Dani spoke mildly.
"Lord Thierry, there is. . . someone here to see you," Nilsson reported.
Thierry looked at his head of security an instant before nodding his head once and saying, "Bring her in here."
After only the slightest of hesitations, Nilsson headed away to carry out the head made vampire's orders. Thierry settled down into a calmed state while everyone else at the table were wound up with curiosity. When Nilsson returned, with was with one young girl at his side.
"Thierry, this is Fayth. She wishes to join. . . us."
"It is alright, Nilsson. I can see from here that her motives are good. Come, Fayth. There's a free seat just over there between Poppy and Jade. Tell us all, how did you come to find out about Circle Daybreak?" Thierry said, most probably employing some means of mind control to settle the girl's nerves down.
Human girl, James and Ash noted with one glance at each other. The Night World was really beginning to slip if a human girl could not only find out about it, but walk straight into one of it's organizations, even if this organization was not strictly Night World approved.
Fayth sat down, looking cautiously at everyone surrounding her. Her gaze stopped when they met Eric's and Mark's from a little way down the table, and then again at David.
"Humans," she murmured. "So I am not the only human to find out about the Night World then."
It seemed that in her state of shock, she was voicing her thoughts aloud.
"How did you do that?" Rowan asked. "How can you tell the humans apart from just a glance?"
Fayth looked up at Rowan in some surprise, as though it caught her off guard to be spoken to directly.
"That's easy. Night People are still. Even down to eye flickering. No human can stay that still. The eyes give them away every time."
Thierry smiled slightly, as though this had been obvious to him all along, then directed her attention to him once more.
"Fayth, how did you come by searching us out here?" he asked softly.
Again that surprised look, but this time more quickly covered.
"I can hardly believe that I am here speaking to you all now," she admitted. "It just seems so surreal. Um," she tried to gather herself, "I had this friend, in school. My best friend actually, since early primary school. Turns out she was a witch."
The way that this was said, so matter of factly and without preamble took everyone around the table dumb. Glances were taken around the room, everyone expecting there to be more to it, but no more came.
"And..?" Blaise prompted.
"And," Fayth said, "I found out. Obviously. She got really freaked out one day when I walked in on one of the study rooms and found her. . . working something together with all these strange smells and. . . she said that it wasn't safe for me to know."
"Well there's an understatement," Kestrel murmured.
Fayth gave Kestrel an odd look before turning again to Thierry to finish off her story.
"She'd heard rumors of a group that was trying to bring back the third of the witches Circles back. Circle Daybreak. She said she couldn't come with me because of her family, but she said that this was the only sure safe place I had now. I won't put her in more danger by giving you her name."
"We wouldn't ask for it," Thierry murmured, taking a glance around the table to see how they were taking their new arrival. He couldn't help but notice that Fayth was doing the same thing, at least at James and Poppy, Ash, Rowan and Jade. Lastly, her eyes rested on Thierry, but this time as though trying to figure something out.
Finally, she spoke it out loud.
"It's strange. Do different Circles of witches look different? My friend. . . she never looked the way some of you do."
"How much exactly did your friend tell you of the Night World?" Thierry asked.
"As little as possible," Fayth admitted. "She said that when I found you, I would get told everything I needed to know and that it would be best for both of us to wait until then. I've never seen her like that. They won't. . . do anything do her, will they?"
"We hope not," Thierry said. "But there is something you do need to know right now. We are not only witches here. Those others you were looking at, and myself. . . we're vampires." Thierry gestured towards Lupe who was just walking into the room. "And werewolves. We are all part of the Night World."
"Oh," said Fayth on the end of a breath. "I think I need to sit down."
"You are sitting down," Jade pointed out from beside her.
"Right," Fayth murmured.
"Look, I know this is a lot to take in, but as you yourself realized, there are other humans here who you can talk to about anything that worries you," Thierry comforted.
Mark waggled his eyebrows while Eric nodded and David just smiled. Fayth turned her own smile around to all of them, before asking Thierry, "I know this might be impolite, but I've just traveled a fairly long way. I don't have anywhere else do go. I don't suppose you would put me up here?"
*
Teachings commenced at the beginning of false dawn the next day, a fitting time for the first witches' lessons for Circle Daybreak. Among the early risers were Poppy, Gillian and Phil, Eric, David and Mark who insisted that he wasn't going to be the only human left out of this just because his soulmate was not a witch. Jade had looked on him fondly at this, and said that she'd had better things to do with her morning anyway. Like sleep.
Melusine, Thea and a resolved Dani stood at the head of the room that Thierry had leant out for this purpose for as long as they desired it. He was not present to this first meet, although he expressed an interest in being present for future meets, especially if they were held at more decent hours of the day, or even more preferably, night.
"Well, merry meet to everyone here," Melusine began. "I think we should begin at basic history and move from there."
She paused, waiting for agreement from both Thea and Dani, before going on.
"We are all daughters of Hellewise. She and her sister Maya were each a Hearth-Woman, which is where the name of Harman, given to those females directly descended down that line comes from. When their mother died, she left them both as leaders of their tribe. However, this was not good enough for Maya, who wished for immortality and the sole rule. In the beginning, Hellewise, acting on her love for her sister, helped her out in this, but when it became obvious that she would go horridly far in these pursuits, Hellewise was forced to step back and think of what would be best for their people; her people.
"When Maya finally did find the way of achieving her own immortality, it was at the expense of human lives. In order to retain the life that she had stolen, she was compelled to drink the life blood of other living creatures. She was the first of both made and born vampires."
The group sat rapt at the story. Only Poppy had an idea of some of this history, having been filled in on the vampire part not long after James had turned her some months ago now. Thea was the one who continued on with the story after this pause.
"It is for that reason that the vampires and the witches have such a bond to each other. Tracing way back to those times, we find that we are all related to each other. Thierry," she stopped subtly at the mention of the patron of their group, "Was the first vampire that Maya ever made of her own blood, mixing it with his in the traditional way as it is still done today. Further, she gave birth to the first lamia vampire, by the name of Red Fern, the first of one of the most prominent lamia families today.
"At the same time, the witch line continued down through the two girls of Hellewise's bearing, Elspeth and Edgith. However, Elspeth was lost to us and found by a human family who believed that she had no other family of her own and took her in as theirs. She was to become the first of the lost witches," Thea looked at Gillian, "As was every other witch to be descended down from that line. A witch's power does not come out fully without the proper knowledge of where one has come from.
"And that," Thea finished brightly, "Is why we are all here today."
The three witches standing at the front of the room looked around at each of the members of the group sitting in front of them. Most had expressions of wonder on their faces at the bulk of new information. Even Eric, to whom Thea had already explained most already, was sitting transfixed by the information that was new even to him. David had heard none of it, and turned to see his soulmate's fascinated expression. Mark was gaping like a goldfish; Phil, silently contemplative.
"Well, now that we've covered that, it seems about time to move onto the next thing, don't you think?" Melunsine questioned, snapping her hands together to break the mood than had fallen.
"I think it would do to go outside for their first meditative session," Dani voiced for the first time. "Look, the sun is just rising."
Indeed it was, as everyone could see out of the window. The three teaching witches in agreement over Dani's idea, the group as a whole was sheparded out into the crisp morning air. Finding a restful spot, surrounded by trees but not stifled by them, the stopped and sat.
"Now, close your eyes," Dani said, with a side look towards Thea and Melusine. "Breathe deeply and focus on letting go of all thoughts. If it helps to concentrate on your breathing to begin with, do so."
She watched as the six in front of her slowly closed their eyes and went along with her instructions. Confidence blooming for the first time that morning, Dani beamed across at her fellow witches, before they too closed their eyes with the aim of guiding the lesson from that angel. Dani kept her eyes open and watchful, concentrating on keeping her voice smooth and toned to the mood they needed to achieve for this to be done properly.
"Now, feel your spiritual body rising, see the colored light swirling as mist around you. Be at peace with yourself and your surroundings. You are safe here. Free. Allow your minds to soar boundlessly beyond the limitations of your imposed confinement."
Dani paused again, watching with a serene satisfaction as she saw many of their eyelids flittering as though in a state of R.E.M. Only David seemed to be having slightly more trouble than the others. Soundlessly, she rose from her perch and swept over to him. Molding her hands into his aura but without disturbing him by physical touch, Dani sent subtle mind waves of her own thought to help him along this process. The first time could many times be the hardest, as the mind did not know exactly where they were meant to go. After a few moments in that position, she felt Melusine's presence lingering near by and stepped back to allow the older witch to take over.
Resuming her position so that she could equally see everyone in the group, she began to speak up softly again, this time incorporating it with more of a mental signal.
"Identify the place your mind has taken you. Evaluate your surroundings, but do not think too much on it. Just experience it. Sights, sounds, smells; this is your world, the haven of your mind. The place where you will draw your mystical strength from. Embrace it."
To the right of her, Poppy's energy was perhaps the strongest of those untrained there. Dani could see the waves of it flowing out of her, swirling around her physical body without her awareness of it. She wondered if it was because she was also a vampire. Her witch's studies had never been too clear on that.
She looked towards the horizon. The sun was almost fully risen. Time was almost come to bring them back to themselves. She would allow them to linger in their own spirit only a little longer.
"As you relax into the spiritual space around you, you know that you will be able to come back here at anytime. But you also know that you must come back to where your physical bodies remain. With one last bask, you will begin to draw back. Back into the swirling mists of color, to the bounds of your mind. Become aware of your physical body once more; where it sits down on the soft, green grass. The heat of the newly arisen sun falls upon one side of your bodies. Feel those bodies. Feel your connection to them again. Stretch your fingers, your toes. Flex your wrists, your neck. And when you are ready, come back."
*
Blaise was sprawled across her bed, alone in the room she shared with Thea and Dani. Although the other witches had been quiet when they had left, Blaise had still shifted into wakefulness before they had left the room. Since, she had been unable to find a satisfactorily comfortable position to fall back to sleep in.
Sitting up moodily, she threw the covers off her as soon as the sun was fully risen and it was clear that she was going to get no more sleep this morning. She started her surprise upon seeing Kestrel standing in the doorway looking at her. Quickly covering it, she adopted her usually sarcastic temperament.
"Come to warn me off your brother again?" she asked, turning away to find her hairbrush before waiting for the lamia vampire to answer.
"I'm pretty sure he can take care of himself," Kestrel said with a smirk, sauntering into the room. "All this space to yourself. I would have thought you would have been doing something more productive with your time."
"You thought wrong," Blaise said, locating her brush and running it through her hair. She stopped. "Did you come here for anything?"
"I think so," Kestrel replied. "How's the adjustment into Circle Daybreak been for you so far?"
Blaise raised a perfectly formed eyebrow.
"Don't tell me that you actually care," she said, going at it with her hairbrush again.
"I might," Kestrel said. "Perhaps not much, but you are a part of the group as a whole. The group can't work together as one if some of us aren't exactly. . . in the game, so to speak."
"You needed worry that I'm going to rat all of you out," Blaise told her. "I wouldn't do that to my cousin."
"Ah, I see. So all of this is for Thea," said Kestrel, in mock wonder.
"Do you have a point?" Blaise asked rudely.
"So hurried. Even this early in the morning with the rest of the day still ahead of you." Kestrel tsked lightly with her tongue. "I suppose it was too much to hope that I would find you in a good mood."
A lightness, mock and other, left the middle lamia sister as though it had never been.
"Look, something's between us. I don't particularly like it and I'm not going to insult either of us by pretending to. But something is definitely there, and I'm not satisfied with just leaving it there unchecked any longer."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Blaise asked. "Are you gone crazy or something?"
Kestrel reached out with her unnatural speed and initiated physical contact between her hand and Blaise's upper arm. Blaise's annoyance turned to surprise, and rather than softness, fear.
"What did you do to me?" she accused, jumping up and away from the contact as though it were a livewire.
Kestrel didn't move from where she stood.
"If any of us did something, it was you. I'm not the witch here. For all I know, maybe it was one of your little magical weavings."
"You said that they didn't work on the lamia," Blaise shot back.
"True. I did say that, didn't I?" Kestrel said, tilting her head to the side.
"Look, just tell me what is going on here, and let that be the end of it," Blaise said, jaw tautened.
"Nah uh, I don't think it will be that simple." Kestrel shook her head. "Are you seriously trying to tell me that living in a house that's filled with soulmates; your own cousin happily hooked up with her own, and you don't get what just happened here?"
"Don't even joke about it," Blaise cut in before Kestrel could go any further.
"Ah, so I see that you do have some idea after all. Good, I couldn't stand to have someone who was without their brain."
"Get out," Blaise said softly.
Kestrel raised her eyebrows.
"Now."
With a small smile on her mouth, Kestrel turned around and left the room. Blaise looked down at her hands. They were shaking.
*
Their new arrivals, Gillian and her soulmate David, had been welcomed into the fold and shown around days ago. There was now a grand total of three human boys, and Mark had decided to move out of the bedroom that he'd shared with Poppy and Phil and into the one with Eric and David. Gillian had ended up taking Mark's old bed in Poppy and Phil's room to the inconvenience of nobody.
"Done about. . . what?" Gillian asked, food halfway up to her mouth.
"This ignorance issue. Let's face it," Poppy said, warming to her subject, "There are now three lost witches in here, if you count me as well, one of which is a direct Harman descendent."
That claim earned a glower from Blaise.
"Add to that two human boys whose soulmates are a witch and one of the lost witches," Poppy continued, "With two the two well acknowledged Harman witch descendents also a part of the group, and another witch who in part helped form this group, and yet so many of us here are ignorant to the ways of witchcraft and our very heritage. I know that Phil has been trying to search stuff out for himself, and truth be told, I'm kind of interested in finding out more myself."
"Also," Phil added once his sister had run down on steam, "Wasn't the original Circle Daybreak all about educating the lesser magical people in the group about everything that was the Night World? Isn't that what we also stand for now?"
"Quite right," Thierry put in firmly. "There is not nearly enough of the knowledge in this group being shared around. I have given the matter some thought before, but as this is the first time we have all been together in some time. . . well, no matter. Better late than never. I suppose if we are going to do this properly, we are going to need to allocate our teachers. Melusine, I should of course suggest you, as you are the one with the greatest spanning practical knowledge in the group here."
Melusine smiled and inclined her head slightly, indicating that she accepted Thierry's suggestion.
"But Thea," Thierry continued, and Thea's head shot up at being thus addressed. "I realize that you have been feeling somewhat at a loss ever since arriving here. Perhaps you and your sister," he encompassed Blaise in his gaze, "Should like to share the Harman ways with the rest of us?"
Thea opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, Blaise cut in first.
"I thank you, but no. I'm afraid that the idea doesn't appeal to me at all. I doubt that I would make very good teacher material in the first place."
Thea looked at her cousin, her jaw almost falling to the ground. How could she speak to Thierry in that way? She had heard the same stories as she growing up. She'd been there when they'd both been told by Gran! And now. . .
"I would be honored," Thea found herself saying calmly over the astonishment. She imagined her expression being calm and serene, the exact opposite to what she was feeling. A sudden thought occurred to her. "Dani! What about Dani? I'm sure she could do this job just as well, if not better than I could."
As the attention at the table shifted again, Dani's face grew red.
"Oh no, I'm sure that I'm not. . ."
"It is your choice, of course, but we would all be deeply grateful if you would consider it," Thierry said in his kindly persuasive tone.
"Oh. I'll. . . then I'll think about it, I suppose," Dani spoke mildly.
"Lord Thierry, there is. . . someone here to see you," Nilsson reported.
Thierry looked at his head of security an instant before nodding his head once and saying, "Bring her in here."
After only the slightest of hesitations, Nilsson headed away to carry out the head made vampire's orders. Thierry settled down into a calmed state while everyone else at the table were wound up with curiosity. When Nilsson returned, with was with one young girl at his side.
"Thierry, this is Fayth. She wishes to join. . . us."
"It is alright, Nilsson. I can see from here that her motives are good. Come, Fayth. There's a free seat just over there between Poppy and Jade. Tell us all, how did you come to find out about Circle Daybreak?" Thierry said, most probably employing some means of mind control to settle the girl's nerves down.
Human girl, James and Ash noted with one glance at each other. The Night World was really beginning to slip if a human girl could not only find out about it, but walk straight into one of it's organizations, even if this organization was not strictly Night World approved.
Fayth sat down, looking cautiously at everyone surrounding her. Her gaze stopped when they met Eric's and Mark's from a little way down the table, and then again at David.
"Humans," she murmured. "So I am not the only human to find out about the Night World then."
It seemed that in her state of shock, she was voicing her thoughts aloud.
"How did you do that?" Rowan asked. "How can you tell the humans apart from just a glance?"
Fayth looked up at Rowan in some surprise, as though it caught her off guard to be spoken to directly.
"That's easy. Night People are still. Even down to eye flickering. No human can stay that still. The eyes give them away every time."
Thierry smiled slightly, as though this had been obvious to him all along, then directed her attention to him once more.
"Fayth, how did you come by searching us out here?" he asked softly.
Again that surprised look, but this time more quickly covered.
"I can hardly believe that I am here speaking to you all now," she admitted. "It just seems so surreal. Um," she tried to gather herself, "I had this friend, in school. My best friend actually, since early primary school. Turns out she was a witch."
The way that this was said, so matter of factly and without preamble took everyone around the table dumb. Glances were taken around the room, everyone expecting there to be more to it, but no more came.
"And..?" Blaise prompted.
"And," Fayth said, "I found out. Obviously. She got really freaked out one day when I walked in on one of the study rooms and found her. . . working something together with all these strange smells and. . . she said that it wasn't safe for me to know."
"Well there's an understatement," Kestrel murmured.
Fayth gave Kestrel an odd look before turning again to Thierry to finish off her story.
"She'd heard rumors of a group that was trying to bring back the third of the witches Circles back. Circle Daybreak. She said she couldn't come with me because of her family, but she said that this was the only sure safe place I had now. I won't put her in more danger by giving you her name."
"We wouldn't ask for it," Thierry murmured, taking a glance around the table to see how they were taking their new arrival. He couldn't help but notice that Fayth was doing the same thing, at least at James and Poppy, Ash, Rowan and Jade. Lastly, her eyes rested on Thierry, but this time as though trying to figure something out.
Finally, she spoke it out loud.
"It's strange. Do different Circles of witches look different? My friend. . . she never looked the way some of you do."
"How much exactly did your friend tell you of the Night World?" Thierry asked.
"As little as possible," Fayth admitted. "She said that when I found you, I would get told everything I needed to know and that it would be best for both of us to wait until then. I've never seen her like that. They won't. . . do anything do her, will they?"
"We hope not," Thierry said. "But there is something you do need to know right now. We are not only witches here. Those others you were looking at, and myself. . . we're vampires." Thierry gestured towards Lupe who was just walking into the room. "And werewolves. We are all part of the Night World."
"Oh," said Fayth on the end of a breath. "I think I need to sit down."
"You are sitting down," Jade pointed out from beside her.
"Right," Fayth murmured.
"Look, I know this is a lot to take in, but as you yourself realized, there are other humans here who you can talk to about anything that worries you," Thierry comforted.
Mark waggled his eyebrows while Eric nodded and David just smiled. Fayth turned her own smile around to all of them, before asking Thierry, "I know this might be impolite, but I've just traveled a fairly long way. I don't have anywhere else do go. I don't suppose you would put me up here?"
*
Teachings commenced at the beginning of false dawn the next day, a fitting time for the first witches' lessons for Circle Daybreak. Among the early risers were Poppy, Gillian and Phil, Eric, David and Mark who insisted that he wasn't going to be the only human left out of this just because his soulmate was not a witch. Jade had looked on him fondly at this, and said that she'd had better things to do with her morning anyway. Like sleep.
Melusine, Thea and a resolved Dani stood at the head of the room that Thierry had leant out for this purpose for as long as they desired it. He was not present to this first meet, although he expressed an interest in being present for future meets, especially if they were held at more decent hours of the day, or even more preferably, night.
"Well, merry meet to everyone here," Melusine began. "I think we should begin at basic history and move from there."
She paused, waiting for agreement from both Thea and Dani, before going on.
"We are all daughters of Hellewise. She and her sister Maya were each a Hearth-Woman, which is where the name of Harman, given to those females directly descended down that line comes from. When their mother died, she left them both as leaders of their tribe. However, this was not good enough for Maya, who wished for immortality and the sole rule. In the beginning, Hellewise, acting on her love for her sister, helped her out in this, but when it became obvious that she would go horridly far in these pursuits, Hellewise was forced to step back and think of what would be best for their people; her people.
"When Maya finally did find the way of achieving her own immortality, it was at the expense of human lives. In order to retain the life that she had stolen, she was compelled to drink the life blood of other living creatures. She was the first of both made and born vampires."
The group sat rapt at the story. Only Poppy had an idea of some of this history, having been filled in on the vampire part not long after James had turned her some months ago now. Thea was the one who continued on with the story after this pause.
"It is for that reason that the vampires and the witches have such a bond to each other. Tracing way back to those times, we find that we are all related to each other. Thierry," she stopped subtly at the mention of the patron of their group, "Was the first vampire that Maya ever made of her own blood, mixing it with his in the traditional way as it is still done today. Further, she gave birth to the first lamia vampire, by the name of Red Fern, the first of one of the most prominent lamia families today.
"At the same time, the witch line continued down through the two girls of Hellewise's bearing, Elspeth and Edgith. However, Elspeth was lost to us and found by a human family who believed that she had no other family of her own and took her in as theirs. She was to become the first of the lost witches," Thea looked at Gillian, "As was every other witch to be descended down from that line. A witch's power does not come out fully without the proper knowledge of where one has come from.
"And that," Thea finished brightly, "Is why we are all here today."
The three witches standing at the front of the room looked around at each of the members of the group sitting in front of them. Most had expressions of wonder on their faces at the bulk of new information. Even Eric, to whom Thea had already explained most already, was sitting transfixed by the information that was new even to him. David had heard none of it, and turned to see his soulmate's fascinated expression. Mark was gaping like a goldfish; Phil, silently contemplative.
"Well, now that we've covered that, it seems about time to move onto the next thing, don't you think?" Melunsine questioned, snapping her hands together to break the mood than had fallen.
"I think it would do to go outside for their first meditative session," Dani voiced for the first time. "Look, the sun is just rising."
Indeed it was, as everyone could see out of the window. The three teaching witches in agreement over Dani's idea, the group as a whole was sheparded out into the crisp morning air. Finding a restful spot, surrounded by trees but not stifled by them, the stopped and sat.
"Now, close your eyes," Dani said, with a side look towards Thea and Melusine. "Breathe deeply and focus on letting go of all thoughts. If it helps to concentrate on your breathing to begin with, do so."
She watched as the six in front of her slowly closed their eyes and went along with her instructions. Confidence blooming for the first time that morning, Dani beamed across at her fellow witches, before they too closed their eyes with the aim of guiding the lesson from that angel. Dani kept her eyes open and watchful, concentrating on keeping her voice smooth and toned to the mood they needed to achieve for this to be done properly.
"Now, feel your spiritual body rising, see the colored light swirling as mist around you. Be at peace with yourself and your surroundings. You are safe here. Free. Allow your minds to soar boundlessly beyond the limitations of your imposed confinement."
Dani paused again, watching with a serene satisfaction as she saw many of their eyelids flittering as though in a state of R.E.M. Only David seemed to be having slightly more trouble than the others. Soundlessly, she rose from her perch and swept over to him. Molding her hands into his aura but without disturbing him by physical touch, Dani sent subtle mind waves of her own thought to help him along this process. The first time could many times be the hardest, as the mind did not know exactly where they were meant to go. After a few moments in that position, she felt Melusine's presence lingering near by and stepped back to allow the older witch to take over.
Resuming her position so that she could equally see everyone in the group, she began to speak up softly again, this time incorporating it with more of a mental signal.
"Identify the place your mind has taken you. Evaluate your surroundings, but do not think too much on it. Just experience it. Sights, sounds, smells; this is your world, the haven of your mind. The place where you will draw your mystical strength from. Embrace it."
To the right of her, Poppy's energy was perhaps the strongest of those untrained there. Dani could see the waves of it flowing out of her, swirling around her physical body without her awareness of it. She wondered if it was because she was also a vampire. Her witch's studies had never been too clear on that.
She looked towards the horizon. The sun was almost fully risen. Time was almost come to bring them back to themselves. She would allow them to linger in their own spirit only a little longer.
"As you relax into the spiritual space around you, you know that you will be able to come back here at anytime. But you also know that you must come back to where your physical bodies remain. With one last bask, you will begin to draw back. Back into the swirling mists of color, to the bounds of your mind. Become aware of your physical body once more; where it sits down on the soft, green grass. The heat of the newly arisen sun falls upon one side of your bodies. Feel those bodies. Feel your connection to them again. Stretch your fingers, your toes. Flex your wrists, your neck. And when you are ready, come back."
*
Blaise was sprawled across her bed, alone in the room she shared with Thea and Dani. Although the other witches had been quiet when they had left, Blaise had still shifted into wakefulness before they had left the room. Since, she had been unable to find a satisfactorily comfortable position to fall back to sleep in.
Sitting up moodily, she threw the covers off her as soon as the sun was fully risen and it was clear that she was going to get no more sleep this morning. She started her surprise upon seeing Kestrel standing in the doorway looking at her. Quickly covering it, she adopted her usually sarcastic temperament.
"Come to warn me off your brother again?" she asked, turning away to find her hairbrush before waiting for the lamia vampire to answer.
"I'm pretty sure he can take care of himself," Kestrel said with a smirk, sauntering into the room. "All this space to yourself. I would have thought you would have been doing something more productive with your time."
"You thought wrong," Blaise said, locating her brush and running it through her hair. She stopped. "Did you come here for anything?"
"I think so," Kestrel replied. "How's the adjustment into Circle Daybreak been for you so far?"
Blaise raised a perfectly formed eyebrow.
"Don't tell me that you actually care," she said, going at it with her hairbrush again.
"I might," Kestrel said. "Perhaps not much, but you are a part of the group as a whole. The group can't work together as one if some of us aren't exactly. . . in the game, so to speak."
"You needed worry that I'm going to rat all of you out," Blaise told her. "I wouldn't do that to my cousin."
"Ah, I see. So all of this is for Thea," said Kestrel, in mock wonder.
"Do you have a point?" Blaise asked rudely.
"So hurried. Even this early in the morning with the rest of the day still ahead of you." Kestrel tsked lightly with her tongue. "I suppose it was too much to hope that I would find you in a good mood."
A lightness, mock and other, left the middle lamia sister as though it had never been.
"Look, something's between us. I don't particularly like it and I'm not going to insult either of us by pretending to. But something is definitely there, and I'm not satisfied with just leaving it there unchecked any longer."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Blaise asked. "Are you gone crazy or something?"
Kestrel reached out with her unnatural speed and initiated physical contact between her hand and Blaise's upper arm. Blaise's annoyance turned to surprise, and rather than softness, fear.
"What did you do to me?" she accused, jumping up and away from the contact as though it were a livewire.
Kestrel didn't move from where she stood.
"If any of us did something, it was you. I'm not the witch here. For all I know, maybe it was one of your little magical weavings."
"You said that they didn't work on the lamia," Blaise shot back.
"True. I did say that, didn't I?" Kestrel said, tilting her head to the side.
"Look, just tell me what is going on here, and let that be the end of it," Blaise said, jaw tautened.
"Nah uh, I don't think it will be that simple." Kestrel shook her head. "Are you seriously trying to tell me that living in a house that's filled with soulmates; your own cousin happily hooked up with her own, and you don't get what just happened here?"
"Don't even joke about it," Blaise cut in before Kestrel could go any further.
"Ah, so I see that you do have some idea after all. Good, I couldn't stand to have someone who was without their brain."
"Get out," Blaise said softly.
Kestrel raised her eyebrows.
"Now."
With a small smile on her mouth, Kestrel turned around and left the room. Blaise looked down at her hands. They were shaking.
*
