Glows and sparks and lights and magic
It's really not all that tragic
Till the men show up at your door
Ready with fist to start a war
== Jade: Run
You are late to work (hence the running), which almost always happens. Your name is Jade Harley, and it is a very good thing that Feferi and Damara can pick up your slack, because you always clean up after breakfast and the early-morning meal for the night workers you sometimes call night-breakfast. Kankri does all the cooking; it's only fair that you clean up. Feferi usually cleans up dinner and the late-night meal that has no real name.
You gather you skirts and force your legs to move faster. You have a lot to do today. Your socks, striped black and white, are showing, but you really don't care anymore. You wear a black skirt with a gray apron over it, a black shirt, a white corset, and bright red shoes. The shoes were a gift from the others when you became a Magical, with a title. You have a hunch that Vriska stole them from her old family.
Once you're in the village, you slow down and force your breathing to remain steady. Hoping no one notices the subtle glow that surrounds you when you use magic, you take in some extra air with every breath until you feel better. Everyone's magic works differently; yours happens to involve glowing and occasionally making the air smell like burning things when you move things from place to place (you call this teleporting).
The glow disappears as you step into the shop where Feferi and Damara are piling herbs, fresh and dried, into bins. Meulin find some of these in the woods and some you grow in the garden behind the house that the magical children you take in attend to.
You smile at the other witches and begin work. It is your job to make everything fit where it should, by shrinking or growing objects. You can't do this too much, or customers will notice when their purchase grows when Feferi packs the herbs in packages. But just enough.
Magic doesn't come into your day for a while. Damara uses hers twice, once to fix someone's deadline and once to add five minutes to someone's rest hour. Feferi uses hers, too, once for a man looking to save his wife (Feferi can occasionally pull someone back from the brink of death), and once to tell someone the day they'd die. Feferi has some of the oddest powers, you think.
You are finally called to help a woman find her child. You use your magic to scan the whole of space for the little boy, until you finally focus in on him.
"He is by the doctor's office on Tenth and Twelfth street," you say. "Hurry, before he moves."
The mother nods and runs off to find her child. Their children are most everything the women have in this village and this saddens you. You have the Magicals, the Plan, and your friends. Not to mention that you do not plan on ever getting married. You don't want children, and although there are men you would like to marry, you do not want to bear children until you are older. Maybe twenty-five. But definitely not sixteen! That's just crazy,
Damara smiles at the customer who has just walked in. She is simply the sweetest girl you know, except maybe Feferi. But unlike Feferi, she is incredibly shy. She never does anything without asking, even though she is five years older than you and Feferi. (There are two "generations" of Magicals; sixteen of you are sixteen and the other sixteen are twenty-one.) You've been trying to get her to attend to customers on her own for as long as you've known her, and she finally is.
"I'd like to see the Woman of Space," he says.
"That's me," you interrupt, seeing Damara get nervous. "Come with me. What can I help you with, sir?"
"There's a problem in the village," he says.
"Please continue," you say, and you are starting to glow from the magic you are preparing.
"It is a problem with magic. It is being used."
Shit.
"Please hold on just a minute, sir," you say shakily, trying to force away the glow. You run to the front of the shop and hiss, "He's a spy!"
Feferi freezes and Damara blanches. "No time to lose!" you say, grabbing them by the wrists and pulling them out through the side door. The chase is on.
The man, immediately realizing what you've done, follows the three of you. Shit, shit, shit, you think. You've got to hide somewhere! But you can't give away any of the others. Maybe some of the others have been discovered, too! It could easily be the sylphs. They are so full of magic.
As you run through alleyways with Feferi and Damara, you halt suddenly. "Where can we go?" you pant. Feferi braces her hands on her knees and Damara rests her hand against the wall of a building. "Why can't you teleport us?" Feferi asks, but it's not accusatory.
"Too dangerous," you reply. "I don't know how to transport living things yet. Where?"
She nods. "Seers," she answers. "They are the smartest."
You nod your agreement, barely able to speak. After a long second of rest, you take a deep breath and you're off running again.
You dive into the alley to your right in a vain hope that the men won't be able to follow you, but they do, of course. You can barely breathe, but neither can you stop to rest. You start to glow as you force more air into your body. You're even easier to follow now, because you glow more as you help your friends, but you can't risk stopping for even the tiniest second.
You make several sharp turns, but they are right behind. You try turning a corner and pressing your back against the wall around another corner, but that doesn't work either. You are nearing the sylphs now; maybe they can provide you with some safety.
As you pass the sylphs' stand, you feel a person or two to your left, but you don't have time to move before they crash into you and all five of your collapse into one heap.
"They're after us," Kanaya breaths.
"Us too," you reply. "Seers."
"Of course," Aranea agrees, and the five of your disentangle yourselves and sprint towards a place that might be considered safe.
There goes the Plan.
You realize that you might not lose them in time and start to panic, but Aranea (one of the first Magicals) has a few tricks up her sleeve. She shimmers your forms into invisibility for just long enough to lose the men as you knock rapidly on the secret door to the seer's stand.
Rose throws open the side door and ushers the five of you into the closet in the back, where you squish together as the men enter the house. Rose or one of the others must've warned the mages, because they don't join you and both suspicious men walk into the shop, so neither are chasing the mages. That is good because Meulin's been feeling ill lately and you don't think she could run far.
"I'd like to see the light," the first man, the one in your shop, says.
"I'm sorry, what?" Rose asks pleasantly.
"The one who sees light."
"I'm sorry, I really don't know who you mean," Rose insists politely. "Perhaps you'd like to try on a jacket? We custom-fit them."
"If the one who sees light isn't here, then what about the ones who see mind and blood?" the second man asks.
"If you're having trouble with your eyesight, I advise you to see the doctor," Rose advises, faking naïveté.
The second man looks frustrated, but he clearly believes Rose and leaves.
The other man isn't so easily deterred.
He grabs the neck of Rose's shirt and pins her against the wall. She immediately pretends to be terrified and whimpers, "Please put me down, sir, I'm engaged to a man named John."
"Where is the Seer of Light?" he snarls, a feral look on his face. You are scared for your friend, and scared that you will be found out. If the seers can't get you out of this, if Rose can't get you out of this, no one can.
"I don't know who you mean, please let me go," she begs, tears trickling down her face.
"I MEAN THE ONE WHO USES MAGIC!" he screamed.
"No one uses magic here! It's a horrible abomination!" she answers with false desperation.
He lets her go and walks out. "Fine," he snarls. "But I'll be back. Mark my words."
He storms out.
Rose opens the closet door and the three witches and two sylphs exit. Terezi and Kankri, who were hiding behind the counter, emerge and sigh. "Brilliant acting job," you compliment.
"Thank you," Rose says, all traces of fear gone from her voice. "I think we may have to get them out of the village."
"An accident?" Terezi suggests.
"We could have them 'promoted,'" Rose counter-suggests. You have all long since stopped letting Terezi arrange "accidents".
"Good idea," Aranea agrees. "I'll have Karkat tell them."
Terezi cracks a wide, toothy smile. "That'll be good. So we can keep our shops then?"
"Of course," you say. "It's not like this hasn't happened before." Because of course it has. You practice magic in a world where only normality is allowed. It would be a surprise if you didn't get chased around the market sometimes. It just doesn't happen as often to the seers.
Kankri, who had been organizing the clothing knocked over by the angry men, rejoined the group. "I do hope you realize the danger you could put us in if you stayed here for the rest of the day. It would be beneficial to leave your stores empty and secure and perform small acts of magic in secret for a few of the peasantry to win their favor in our revolution."
You think he's probably right. You can't do much good to the Plan tied to a stake or locked in the stocks.
You know the others worry about much worse, but you can't stand thinking about the blood on your hands.
It's not just your lives, or the lives of all your friends and family (though those lives are certainly a heavy burden on your shoulders), it's the entire village. Any one of them could be accused of being part of your plans.
It is terrifying.
But you can't worry about that now. For now, you have to overthrow the monarchy. Which is a big enough task.
"Come on," you say to Feferi and Damara. Damara, who looks pale and nervous, nods her head and follows. Feferi, on the other hand, bubbles, "Let's go work on the Plan!"
The three of you leave together, Damara trailing a bit behind. You know that Meenah won't leave her alone about her old engagement and about her painful shyness, so you've been trying to get her to come out of her shell.
You've got an idea.
"Let's split up," you say. "I'll take the area by our old stand."
"I'll take by the sylph's place," Feferi volunteers.
"So you can go work by the mages and seers," you say to Damara, smiling brightly. She looks deeply unsure and anxious, but attempts a brave half-smile and walks away, shaking visibly.
"Was that okay?" you ask Feferi. "I don't know."
"She'll be fine," Feferi says. "She always is, she just doesn't know it."
She's right.
You let yourself glow, just a touch, as you walk through the market. People notice you (news of the magic in the village travels fast) and approach you. You create small displays of spark-forms (magic harnessed into small moving pictures) and teleportation for people to see your magic. It is quite impressive, what you can do. You don't realize it until you're hiding it.
"If you want to see us, just come to our herbs stand and ask for the Woman of Space, Time, or Life, whichever is closest to your needs," you whisper. "But only tell those who won't tell the secret, or we won't be able to do magic again."
The people around you nod and leave. This continues until the end of the day, when you meet up with Feferi and Damara at the shop and head for home.
It's late and you're exhausted, but you have to register your updates on the Plan. It seems that your spelling has gone out the window as your tiredness increases, because you're having trouble writing and spacing your words properly. But in the end, you get the whole thing written down and post it on the wall with the other updates. You're in charge of the witches, so this will be your job until the Plan is done.
As you finish the report and hand it to Kankri, Nepeta stumbles in the door in the clothes you know her mother makes her wear, all tight corsets and thick skirts. She normally changes before coming here; you wonder what's different this time.
"Can I change into something?" she gasps, and you of course tell her yes.
"Of course," you say. "I've got something Kanaya sewed for you upstairs."
"Lovely," Nepeta says. She heaves a heavy breath and you are infinitely glad that you are a Magical, through and through, not stuck in the Underground.
She follows you upstairs and you help her undo the complex ties on her bodice and corset. The thing is next to impossible to get off without help; you don't wear one.
You and Nepeta have been good friends for a long time now, though you thought she was teasing you at first because she was so lighthearted and silly all the time. You eventually realized that that was her genuine state of being and now the two of you are as close as you and Feferi.
When you finish taking out the lacing, she releases her breath all at once. You suppose you do wear a corset, but it's loose and not designed to make you look like you've lost twenty pounds. Nepeta's already skinny enough; why on Earth does she have to wear one?
"I hate that corset," she says, tilting her head from side to side and rolling her shoulders back. "Damned thing. My mother won't let me dress like anything less than my best until the wedding because people just keep coming over."
"Oh, that's too bad," you say. "I guess you'll be having a rough three months."
"No kidding," she sighs. "Thanks a ton." She doesn't mention what happens after the three months.
"Anytime," you say. "Here's the outfit." You lay the pink clothing on the bed. It's a pair of tight-fitting leggings that are a fairly bright pink and a magenta tunic over those that comes down to an inch or two above the knee with a tight neckline. There're also a pair of arm socks and a hood that are a matching purple and an eyemask that's the same color as the pants. The symbol Kanaya uses for heart is sewn on the front and its color matches the stitching on the costume. The shoes, tightly fitted boots, are dark green for some reason and when one walks in them, one can move in complete silence. You're jealous of the clothes Kanaya makes for the rogues, but witch's clothes are pretty cool too.
You walk back downstairs to leave Nepeta to change. Feferi and Damara and all of your other dear friends are sitting around the table in preparation for the late-night meal. You missed dinner because all the chaos in the market forced you to put off coming home for three hours while the seers and mages made the money to buy food. You vow that you'll be more careful; you can't afford to let this keep happening.
The rogues and thieves eat quickly. "What's the rush?" you ask.
"We've got to get the updated Plan to the Underground," Roxy, leader of the rogues, informs you. She's sobered up and become a better leader recently and for this you are grateful, although she still doesn't speak clearly.
"And we're running low on supplies," Meenah says. "I've got a plan of how to get some more."
"You may not murder anyone," Kankri say sternly, setting the bread on the table and returning to the kitchen for stew.
"Aw man," Vriska taunts. "I was planning on assassinating the king."
Kankri nearly drops the huge bowl of stew he's carrying and you help him steady it. He simply does not understand sarcasm.
"She's kidding," you tell him, before he collapses from a heart attack.
"Yeah, Kankri," Vriska says. "Don't be such a stuck-up."
"Vriska," Kanaya warns, placing one hand on Vriska's shoulder. Vriska rolls her eyes.
"Yes, Mother," she says sarcastically, but you remember that her own mother is dead and feel sympathy for the orphaned girl.
"Jade." Feferi addresses you and you jump.
"Yes?" you answer, smiling as if you weren't spacing out.
"Report?"
"Oh, right. Sorry. Okay. We were nearly caught by a couple of lackeys today, but we made it out. They interrogated Rose," You gesture towards your childhood friend. "But she played innocent. We're going to talk to Karkat and 'reassign' them," you report.
"Rogues, do you have that?" Kankri asks. He looks annoyed, and you suspect that he wishes he could go tell those men off on his own. But Karkat is more authoritative, so he will be the one to go.
"We do," Roxy says, writing down the message, a bit of slur on the 'we'.
"In that case, meeting adjourned," Kankri says, and you devour your stew and bread. You make small talk with your dearest friends until it truly is night and the night workers must leave and you must sleep.
After all, what is waking without sleep?