Hunter pushed open the heavy wooden doors of the council building and walked inside. Even though he regularly came, it was still always impressive. Everything was made of wood, stone, and natural materials. Everywhere else, at least in major cities, human inventions and synthetic materials were implemented everywhere. But in this one building, everything was natural and native to the Isles. There weren't even any imports from other nearby islands like cities along the coast had been using for a few years.
As Hunter took his time, trying to really take in the massive entry room, his eyes scanned over all the paintings that lined the walls. Each in a different style, made by different artists. Eda and the rest of the council wanted this building to really show the unity of the Boiling Isles along with the independence and uniqueness of every citizen. You could spot something made using each of the main types of magic throughout the building. It was truly a sight to behold and a far cry from the stone-cold sterility of the Emperor's castle with its perfect brickwork, oil paintings, and stained glass windows, which was something Hunter very much so appreciated.
Here, everything was completely its own, and it worked so well.
Hunter did eventually decide he should probably get to the meeting instead of looking at everything and headed through the halls into the large council chamber. A few people were still coming in and getting situated, so it wasn't like he was the last one there, which felt nice.
The large council chamber was meant specifically for the monthly forums and large cases or hearings. All other things were either held in the slightly smaller courtroom, for regular criminal proceedings, or in the much smaller meeting room, for meetings of just the council or them and a few others for private and high importance information.
Hunter spotted the others and got in an open seat next to Masha, who looked very excited to be there. Hunter locked eyes with Vee, who recognized his curiosity for why their partner was so excited for something so trivial.
"This is Masha's first public forum." Vee explained, "Their visits never seemed to line up with these things until today. I keep telling them that these are nothing special, but they're still ecstatic."
"Why wouldn't I be!" Masha happily exclaimed, "I get to watch as a bunch of witches and demons come up and talk to the 10 most powerful people on the island openly without worry of persecution!"
"Yeah they talk openly all right." Boscha chuckled.
"Sometimes these sound less like helpful public forums, showcasing the care and transparency of our leaders, and more like parent-teacher conferences with the most insane people ranting about inconsequential things out of reasonable controllability." Amity added.
"Completely off topic, but where's Willow?" Gus asked Hunter.
"She was feeling a bit stressed out and went to the greenhouses. We had a bit of an argument about Luz earlier today, so she isn't in the best state of mind."
"About Luz? What about her?" Amity asked softly, a twinge of anxiety in her voice.
Before Hunter could answer, there was the sound of large doors opening and shutting in front of them. They looked up and saw the council walking in. A few people clapped and cheered, but other than that it was pretty chill as the council members took their seats at the massive wooden table, raised up slightly so that they could be easily seen by everyone.
On the left side of the table sat Lynn Sheth, the Potion magic head, Talia Mave, the Construction magic head, Finn Verra, the Plant magic head, and Eberwolf, the Beast-Keeping magic head. On the right sat Cassandra Paion, the Oracle magic head, Lexi Mirra, the Illusionist magic head, Asclepius Romanox, the Healing magic head, and Darius Demonne, the Abomination magic head. And, at the center most part of the table sat Raine and Eda Clawthorne, heads of Bard and Wild magic respectively.
Once they were all settled in, Eda banged her gavel a few times, and everyone settled in and got quiet. She chuckled to herself, still amused by the fact that she was in a position of power instead of being a fugitive after nearly a decade. She set down the gavel, pulled out her scroll, skimmed her notes, then stood up and looked out towards the crowd.
"Hello again Boiling Isles!" She said, making everyone erupt into a cheer, though it quickly quieted down when people saw her go to continue, "Let me just say how great it is to see so many of you at this monthly public forum. Now, we have plenty of business to cover today, as we won't have a meeting next month. Why? Well, because next month is the decade anniversary of our freedom!"
Once again, everyone cheered loudly. Masha was absolutely loving all the energy, especially in a political meeting. People did eventually settle down and let things continue so the meeting could start.
"Now, I do see lots of new faces in the crowd, just like Cassandra predicted, so I'm going to briefly explain how these work." Raine said, "People with reserved time slots will go first, taking all the time they requested, then once they've all gone anyone can come up and get a maximum of 5 minutes to talk to us."
"First on our list," Darius began, "Is Mr. Hieronymus Bump with the matter of retirement requirements and a pension proposal. You have the floor, and I have to find out who named this and give them a firm talking to. I can only pray that all of these don't have names like this..."
The meeting was pretty basic, all things considered. People went up and talked, they asked for what they needed, and the council voted on whether to accept, deny, or postpone the issue. Most of the ideas were reasonable too, as reasonable as issues tended to be. The chaos mostly would arise when it opened to anyone. Masha had a few occasional questions, which Vee and the others were happy to answer. They found it much more fascinating than everyone else, but their enjoyment of politics was fun enough for everyone.
A few people went slightly past their reserved time, which was normally no big deal but did make Vee squirm slightly for some reason.
"Are you okay, mi serpiente?" Masha asked softly, resting a hand on Vee's thigh.
"Yeah. I'm fine." Vee assured, putting her hand on top of Masha's.
"Are you hungry?"
"I made sure I got plenty of magic before coming here. It'd be stupid to come here without being positive I wouldn't get hungry. Don't want to risk being seen sneaking out to eat some glyphs."
"You know, I hope someday you won't have to worry about not being seen eating magic. The Isles have gotten so much more accepting, even seeming fine with the whole grimwalker thing, yet people are still terrified of basilisks." Hunter sighed, though for some reason Willow looked a bit skeptical of his words.
"Things are going to change soon. I'm sure of it." Vee said, looking straight at the council.
Masha began to get a twinge of worry with how Vee said that, but before they could say anything, the Council began talking again.
"And with that, we only have one more reserved meeting. Unfortunately because some of the others went over their time but we still need to start the open session on time, you won't get all the time you reserved. Would the last group like to go anyways, reschedule for the first slot in two months, or have a private session?" Raine asked.
"It's fine, we can still go today." Vee answered, standing up, which surprised her friends.
"Okay then. Ms. Vee Noceda and Ms. Tinella Nosa, you have the floor."
Vee went to the center and was joined by Tinella Nosa, who was carrying some papers, files, and note cards.
"Before you begin, would you tell me why you didn't specify what you were going to talk about in your reservation? It's required information. How were you even approved?" Darius asked.
"Councilwoman Clawthorne approved the reservation." Vee explained, making Darius and a few other councilors shoot a confused or frustrated look at Eda, "I didn't specify what it was because it's a tad…controversial. It's still within the guidelines but frankly I didn't know if most, or any, of you would have approved it."
"Kid, unless you're going to tell us about how old Boo-los wasn't actually that bad of a dude or something, I think you're safe." Eda chuckled.
Eda herself didn't know what they were going to talk about either, despite approving the reservation. But she trusted Vee. She was basically one of her kids after all.
"Okay then. Thank you." Vee said, breathing a small sigh of relief.
Vee paused, looked at Tinella, and they nodded at each other. Vee turned back to the council, took a deep breath with her eyes closed, then opened them and looked straight at the center of the council table, not making eye contact with anyone. She knew once she spoke she wouldn't be able to take anything back, so any way she could reduce her anxiety she'd do.
"Me and Tinnella Nosa would like to bring up the matter of the untraced basilisks."
The second she finished that sentence, many of the people in the seats behind her blew up in rage or confusion, simply because of the mention of the word "basilisk". Masha was about to stand up to defend their girlfriend, but Hunter gently grabbed their shoulder, making them sit down. Anything they said could risk outing Vee as a basilisk. They had to trust she knew what she was doing.
They all did.
"I know that talking about basilisks is always complicated, but the issue has been swept under the rug long enough." Vee continued.
"In the fiwes that became avaiwabwe to the pubwic aftew the seawching of the castwe, incwuding a seizuwe of aww the unknown documents in Bewos' lab, fuwthew infowmation on the basiwisks was found. These fiwes pwovide much more infowmation into the pwoject, and the natuwe of these extinct demons bwought back thwough science and genetic modification." Tiny Nose said, mildly surprising everyone with how academic she sounded.
"Unfortunately, many of the files were destroyed, likely from Belos due to signs of him having returned to his lab shortly before his demise. But, from what we did find, we were able to learn much more about basilisks."
"Okay, great, you found out more about those creatures." Councilman Finn sighed, "How is that an issue?"
"Well, it's because we are proposing an initiative to track down, take in, and rehabilitate the basilisks." Vee said, a twinge of nervousness in her voice.
The people watching exploded in outburst again, all yelling their opinions at once. Unfortunately, all of their opinions seemed to be the same.
"That's insane!"
"My child got their magic drained a decade ago!"
"Why should we care about those experiments?"
"Belos only made those things to make his draining spell better!"
Eda slammed her gavel a few times, making the crowd slowly quiet down.
"Vee, Tinella, could you please explain your proposal more. Surely you understand our hesitance over such an issue." Eda requested, nervousness in her voice as she looked at Vee.
"Of course." Vee said with a nod, "We propose organizing a group, with me as the leader, to go out and track down the missing basilisks. We know that there are 10, so we just have to find the other 9."
Eberwolf said something nobody could understand, but Darius nodded and went to explain.
"Councilor Eberwolf says that the basilisk that attacked the schools all those years ago was never apprehended, so we will need to find all 10, not just 9."
"Right, my mistake." Vee nervously chuckled, getting a concerned look from Eda, "The teams need to be able to peacefully grab them, making sure to do no harm as they are probably traumatized from their years of capture, ranging between 10 and 20 years, explain what we are doing, and provide them with an alternative source of food."
"The food souwce we awe pwoposing is gwyphs. They awe abwe to be consumed without sucking away anyone's magic, can be any size, can be dwawn and stowed fow potabiwity, and do no hawm to anyone."
"With this solution of a risk-free alternative, after some therapy they can be easily integrated into society instead of being seen as monsters and relegated to the wilderness. There have been a few basilisk sightings reported, even some drainings, but not nearly as many as would be expected. Clearly they are not out to get anyone. If we help them, there will be no risk. The only part that is dangerous is the process of bringing them in, but so long as we make our intentions clear, we will be fine."
"You said that you would lead the capture operation. Why? You are young, from what I know inexperienced, and have completely unknown magical ability with exception of your glyphs. What makes you qualified to lead this?" Councilwoman Talia asked harshly.
"I know lots about basilisks, and that information could be of use. I have researched this extensively. I even have a few theories on possible places that they could be hiding out!"
"If you know so much, why do you even need Ms. Nosa? It seems all she has done is elaborate on what you say or set you up for something. You could have easily done this on your own. Is she only here to boost your credibility?" Councilwoman Cassandra scoffed.
"With all due respect, councilors, I have not said anything warranting such hostility. I simply believe that we should uphold our reputation of acceptance towards all witches and demons, even those that are not exactly natural."
"Ms. Noceda," Darius chuckled, "You cannot expect us to believe that a grimwalker and a basilisk should get the same level of respect. Those things are sick variations of their original forms. You are not the only one who has researched these creatures and when Hunter was under my care, he was happy to fill me in on everything he found. Those documents are public, after all. So while basilisks are still magical in origin, their status as a demon could be debated easily. Their bipedal status could only be affirmed with their shapeshifting, they aren't bugs, and they are far too intelligent to be beasts. The basilisk that attacked the schools was a ravenous but calculating creature. Working on instinct and desire, but still able to talk and feel want. And all it wanted to do was feed. This isn't some cartoon where you just need a conversation and an alternative to their ways to make everything fine. Those things should be captured, yes, but they certainly should not be integrated into society. They must be captured and dealt with. But you can not believe that they would be treated like beings that are meant to exist."
"Meant to exist!? It is hardly their fault that they were hunted into extinction then brought back as sick experiments! And, respectfully, I think it is out of line for you to speak about creatures you've never even seen!"
"You forget that I was a coven head once. I wish I could too. And I knew about most of Belos' experiments. I saw their creation, torture, and escape. And what I saw were beings given levels of intellect they were not meant to have, learning that draining magic was their only way to live, and that that ability was dangerous. You don't know this as lots of the files were destroyed, but they were not all the same. Belos gave them variety. Some were large and imposing who could drain an average sized demon in seconds, some just larger than the average witch who were fast and agile, using their shapeshifting to make themselves hard to so much as touch, and one the size of a witchling who while not strong, was a master at shapeshifting and attempted to manipulate guards with that ability and their innocent appearance. But at the end of the day, they all were monsters. So excuse me for being hesitant, but I know more than you ever will learn from some papers."
"Darius! That is completely out of line." Eda yelled, glaring at him, "We might be able to engage with people presenting their ideas but none of us have the right to attack the citizens like this."
"Why are you so pro-basilisk, Edalyn?" Councilwoman Lexi asked, "Do you underestimate them because your ex-kid took one down?"
"Hey! Enough!" Raine shouted, before sighing and turning to Vee, "Ms. Noceda and Ms. Nosa, you are unfortunately out of time. We will now vote on whether we go through with your proposal. Is anyone abstaining?"
Eberwolf raised their hand and growled something that made Darius roll his eyes.
"I am also going to abstain." Councilman Acslepius said, joining Eberwolf, "I simply do not have the information necessary to cast judgment."
With those abstaining out of the way, it was time for the voting to begin. Of the 8 members participating, only Eda, Raine, and Lexi voted in favor with Lynn, Talia, Finn, Darius, and Cassandra opposing.
Eda sighed and looked at Vee and Tinella Nosa.
"Your proposal has been denied. However, the basilisk situation should not be ignored and what we do will be taken under advisement. Thank you for your time."
Tinella, saddened, turned to Vee and held her finger, as it was all she could reach.
"Don't wowwy Vee. We gave it ouw best shot."
Vee jerked her hand away and left where they were standing, storming to the back of the room. She could feel her body fighting to change into her true form as she just got more and more angry. When she passed by the row her friends were sitting in, Masha stood up and walked over.
"Vee I'm so sorry that-"
"Masha, I can't be around anyone right now." Vee said softly, suppressed rage seeping into her voice, "I'm going outside, then I'm going to the park to relax. When I'm ready to talk, I'll text you. But right now…I just don't want to risk hurting you. I am a monster after all."
Masha retracted her hand and watched as Vee left. She sat back down and everything seemed to go back to normal. Random citizens said their grievances, got rejected, and then got mad. Some people made a scene and were escorted out, but nothing was too bad. Masha felt like they should be finding this fun like everyone else was, but the nagging nervousness over Vee didn't let them. They trusted her to be okay, but they were still worried. Vee was always an enigma when she was mad, because she almost never was. The first time she yelled, Masha was baffled. She was allowed to be mad, of course, and it was completely understandable that she was.
But they had no idea what Vee was going to do with her proposal so quickly struck down.
Outside the building, Vee had gone down the street and went down a dark alley. Once she was sure she wouldn't be seen or heard, she began to scream and sob as she transformed back into her basilisk form. Her claws dug into the brick walls as she slashed through them in frustration. She punched into the wall, strong enough to crack it, though it caused some damage to the scales around her knuckles and she began to bleed slightly. She sighed, leaned onto the wall, slid down, and pulled her tail up to her chest, wrapping her arms around it and holding herself tight. She began to shapeshift between all the members of the council, furious with all of them.
They were the reason she didn't have more time. They focused more on berating her than listening to her. They shot down all parts of her idea except finding the basilisks and taking them in. No, not take them in, they wanted to capture them.
The last member Vee shifted into was Darius. As she looked at herself, some gears began to turn in her head.
"Maybe they won't listen to Vee. But they might just listen to the shapeshifting basilisk Number Five."
Meanwhile, miles away at the Bonesborough Plant and Conservation Society, Willow landed in front of the main greenhouse. She was slightly delayed from looking for the plant she saw in the alley but couldn't find it. But that was okay with her, she really just needed the pollen, and she had plenty of that wiped on her sleeve. She walked swiftly through the rows of greenhouses, passing various other employees, technically her employees she reminded herself, busy doing miscellaneous things. Most of the workers were skilled in plant magic, but someone from any type of magic would be able to find a place. Willow had made sure when she established it that anyone would be able to work there.
Any time someone noticed her, they went to wave then saw how serious she looked and got back to work. In one greenhouse, a small group of employees were busy with that weird human plant Gus had taught them about, but they noticed her and immediately stopped what they were doing and got to work on other meaningless tasks they could do until she was out of sight.
But Willow didn't have time to deal with them. She was on a mission.
Willow finally got to her lab, unlocked the door, went inside, and locked it behind her. She let Clover off the staff, who went and began to let the blinds down, as she went over to her lab table. She drew a spell circle over her arm and lifted all of the sparkling pollen out of the fibers of her sleeve. She delicately moved it over to a small glass dish.
One of the advantages to being head of the conservatory, and Gus' friend, was that she had easy access to gaining human scientific technology, something that proved useful at exotic plant identification and something that was certainly useful at figuring out if the pollen that had shot at her actually had hallucinogenic properties. Sure magic could do a lot, but science was something that the Isles lacked until they gained access to more equipment that didn't need to rely on powerful and creative witches or complex spells. They had obviously been modified and programmed to work with things native to the isles rather than the human world, so there was no worry of breaking anything. Willow went through several of the machines. A mass spectrometer, a DNA sequencer, she even gave titration a shot but nothing helped her identify what it was, all results coming back as inconclusive. Her only other piece of equipment left was an electron microscope. And, after slipping it under, she discovered what the problem was.
Within the pollen were traces of powerful magic. Someone with lots of power did something to the plant or the pollen to give it effects, change them, or boost what it already did. And if she could get the magic out of it, it'd be clear that the pollen was regular old pollen and the magic was what made it hallucinogenic, if what she saw was a hallucination, or maybe that the magic had just been there to interfere with any testing done. Using a piece of equipment that was native to the isles, a magic purifier that could separate the magic from a magical substance, Willow put the pollen inside and let the machine do its thing. After a while of waiting, it had finished and Willow could take the purified pollen and run it through another sequencer to see if it had anything in it that would make her have hallucinations.
And it was exactly what Hunter said it was. The pollen did, in fact, have properties that could induce both audio and visual hallucinations.
Defeated, Willow put both the pollen and the magic sample on her desk, along with all the test results. At least she'd be able to program in this new plant, because it was still nothing she'd seen before. Possibly from another island.
But how did it get in the alleyway? What was the plant even doing there? And why had someone done magic to it? It was likely to boost the hallucinogenic properties, but that still didn't make sense. What did the spell even do? Why was someone growing that plant in the first place? And there was still the crying she heard that made her go into the alley. Maybe Hunter was right and the crying was stress induced auditory hallucination, with the pollen just amplifying what she thought she heard with more audio and added visual hallucinations.
With a sigh, Willow basically flopped into her desk chair.
"I thought I was finally over it all." Willow sighed, "I know that the nightmares are a problem, but that's just from the trauma of what happened. But still, why can't I just let go!"
Willow looked around her messy office and groaned, laying her head on her desk.
"When did life get so complicated? Oh right, when Luz teamed up with Belos, killed Hunter, ran away, and died leaving behind only some hollow letters. Ugh! Is it too much to ask for a normal life?! I just want to live with my husband, grow some plants, and raise a family. Is that really so hard to do? I don't want to deal with magic or hallucinations or…Luz."
Willow's head turned to the side and she looked at one of the many plants inside her office.
"And now I'm talking to myself. Maybe I'll become just as crazy as Luz. Perhaps I could kill Amity, run off and team up with Luz, then disappear, making everyone think I'm dead as Boscha spends the rest of her life hating me and imagining my return while everyone around her insists I'm dead. Just like what I'm doing."
Clover buzzed over and snuggled up in her hair comfortingly. Willow smiled and pet her palisman a few times. Feeling better, she got up, watered all her plants, left her office, making sure to lock the door behind her, and walked out. She wandered the rows of the greenhouses, this time taking the time to smile and wave to her employees as she walked by. When she got to the largest of the greenhouses, she walked in, wandered through the rows of plants, unlocked a door in the back, went inside, and admired all the work.
In that back room was a decades work of regrowing the palistrom grove. Mr. Clawthorne and Bat Queen had donated to this part of the building generously, sparing no expense on the future of the palismen. As she walked along the trees, she got to the one in the back, the largest of all the trees and a notable red hue to the wood rather than the traditional blue. A small stone that had grown into the wood had a carving of Flapjack on it. This was his tree, after all. Grown from a small feather that remained even after sacrificing himself to bring Hunter back. Nobody had any idea it'd grow anything at first, Hunter had just put it in dirt as a goodbye. But when it sprouted, they knew it'd have to be protected. And it was, just like every tree in the grove. Locked behind a door only a few had access to, reinforced walls protected by layers of spells, and a glass roof that had even more protection spells than the walls. A few people had gotten inside, sure, but they never did anything. The most worrying time was Darius using his translocation spell after Hunter had run away one time, still being taken care of by Darius, after a bad panic attack. Thankfully, so few people knew the spell that the risk of anyone dangerous getting in was negligible.
Besides, who would even want to get into the palistrom grove and destroy anything? With this new age of free and wild magic, palismen had returned in full swing. Bat Queen's grotto had cleared out of lost palismen quickly, with teens and adults alike being able to gain new bonds. Even a few ex-scouts were reunited with their palismen that had managed to escape from Belos. Steve had been in tears for hours when he and his wolf palisman were reunited after so many years of being apart.
Willow softly smiled at the memory of how much happiness had returned to the isles. Sure, things were horrible for a little over fifty years, and just bad for around four centuries, but things had improved so much. They'd never been better, in fact. People were happy. People were free.
And maybe Willow could be too.
Interrupting that hope, Willow heard something coming from behind the tree. She saw the shadow of it shift and heard that familiar giggling sound again. Slowly, she walked around the tree, Clover sitting on her shoulder, ready to go back into its staff form whenever necessary. But when Willow got to the other side, there wasn't anyone there.
"It was just a hallucination again." Willow sighed, "You just haven't gotten all that pollen out of your system. Everything is okay."
Willow took another few steps forward, when she heard a soft crunch under her foot. At first she thought she must have stepped on a dead leaf or a bug, but when she picked her foot up, she saw a wrinkled, old piece of paper on the floor. Cautious but curious, Willow leaned down and picked it up, examining it. The front side was blank.
And on the other side was a crudely drawn light glyph.
Her breathing picking up, trying to assure herself that this wasn't real, she touched the glyph. The paper crumpled up and, because of the poor quality of the drawing, light flashed in her face, blinding her for a few seconds instead of turning into a simple ball. Willow yelped in shock and stumbled back, managing to stay balanced but barely. She turned to her palisman, looking at it in a way that asked if it had seen the light too. Clover slowly nodded.
Full of shock and determination, Willow left the building and got on her staff again. She needed to go home. But she couldn't ask Hunter about what had happened, he either wouldn't believe her or he'd begin to panic, which she did not want or need. She needed someone else. So, Willow pulled out her scroll and messaged the one person she was sure would lend an ear.
WillowPark05: Hey! Think after work tomorrow we could meet up? It's been forever since you and I had hung out and I need to talk to you about something.
TheMightyMittens: Totally! Where at?
WillowPark05: How about the boardwalk? There's some good cafes there.
TheMightyMittens: Sounds perfect. I can't wait. I have a lot to catch you up on too.
WillowPark05: Can't wait.
Willow put her scroll away and got on her staff to fly back home.
She would figure out what was going on no matter what. Because if the Collector was back, she had to keep her friends safe.
And if Luz was back, she had to keep Hunter safe. No matter what she had to do.