Their Babu asked them once if they wouldn't prefer to be a wild witch when Nantli and Mom had been arguing again about their future, not for the first time:
"She's a head witch, think about the opportunities , Gigi" / "I don't care Ximena. I'm not letting my kid near that creep, again."
Raine had gone outside to take a breath from all the energy that was building up inside. They hadn't even been part of the conversation, just the object of it, and that angered them till present day.
Their Babu had joined them, sighed as they sat next to them in the porch, his joints popping.
"Hey there little soul," He said, Raine hummed. "Sorry about my gurls, they just want what is best for you, and their ideas…clash." Raine hummed again.
"I am fine with joining the bard coven." Raine said. "I love bard magic, and what's best, I am good at it."
This time their Babu was the one to hum.
"Wouldn't you like to be a wild witch? Like your friend, what was her name? Eda?"
"She's my romantic partner now, actually."
"Wow! Aren't you a loverbard," their Babu ruffled their hair. "That's even better: two young lovers that left for the woods and turned wild, imagine the songs that would be written about you! You could even use one or two construction spells I taught you for your cabin."
Raine laughed. "You are my parent. Shouldn't you be keeping me away from those dangerous ways?" They teased.
Babu put a hand on their leg, shutting up Raine's mood, the air grew denser.
"Look, Raine. It is been a decade since they… since I gave my magic away. I miss growing not just houses but trees and saying hi to the bees that settle their homes there. That kind of grief or nostalgia… I don't want that- I don't want for you to feel the same."
Raine smile with all the confidence of a young adult.
"Don't worry Babu. I'll be fine." And they hugged him. "I'll let you in on a little secret," and they whispered into his ear:
"Bard magic is really a lot like wild magic, just with a little more sound."
Babu tapped their leg twice. "If you say so."
A few months later a squadron of scouts would come knocking on their door and asking to talk with their Babu. Never again did Raine saw him.
Turns out he had been a journalist for a paper against the Emperor's Coven System.
Raine knew Eda would hate them for it, break up with them even. But even if the idea of wildness sounded appetizing they couldn't make their mothers lose another loved one for such a childish dream.
As the red glow of the guanted shone they felt the grief they would cause Eda. Not different from when her sister had joined the Emperor's coven. Although she hadn't tell them about it, they could imagine from how she acted a week after.
They always imagined because Eda would never tell them anything. And wasn't that another problem.
Raine trusted Eda with their wounds but Eda didn't. And every year that passed it grew more difficult to be open for someone that will always close.
When their Babu disappeared, they had tried to keep their hurt tucked in. Let Eda feel their impotence at not being able to help, no, not being able to get inside those giants walls in order to help because she just wouldn't open the door. But they were weak and they broke in front of a woman who had suffered so much worse.
After that they started telling Eda less, without any malicious intent. They just forgot to tell her about their panic attack the day before graduating Hexside (she didn't like to be reminded of the school she no longer went too), they just forgot to tell her how they had to move again because their house grew to big of a cost to pay for their mothers (she had enough family drama of her own), they just forgot to tell her about their decision to seal away their magic because the only job offers they could find asked for the witch to had already join a coven (she was a wild witch and made her opinions about covens very clear).
The thread that joined them together was wearing thinner and Raine hated themself for that- they blamed Eda too, a little.
At the dusk of the same day Raine swore their magic to Emperor Belos, they formed their words into an scalpel and cut Eda… deep.
It was incredible, Derwin will tell them after the rogue coven heads rescued the BAtTs, their ability to do things they really didn't want to but knew that have to be done.
"Look at this beauty," Eda had showed them another one of her knick knacks from the human world, a plastic disk with a black string you pulled and fought your enemies with, "Isn't it so cool?"
Though Raine was curious about the object, they were more concerned about the bruise Eda wore on her forearm.
"Yes very interesting," they played with the silky black string, "Eda what happened to your arm?"
"Oh nothing. You should see the boxes they have on the Human Realm. They play all kinds of sounds and images."
"You are deflecting, again." Raine put the plastic box down. "Don't you trust me?"
"I do."
"Then why don't you tell me anything?" Eda opened her mouth to reply, "anything that matters," she closed it.
"Is like… is like I don't really know you." Raine brushed their hair, and turned around, they couldn't look at her eyes, they weren't strong enough. "So I made a decision: I'm joining the bard coven, and… and… and I think… we should see other people. I am so sorry Eda, it's over."
They heard Eda growl and quickly turned around.
"Are you okay? Is this the curse?" It was obvious it was the curse, Eda's hands had grown feathery. Cursed them for asking the obvious.
"It's fine." She was still hiding even when she literally couldn't, she was still pushing them away, and that hurt in a way only music could describe.
"Everything's normal." She wasn't normal, they weren't normal, that was why they had become friends, why was she so insistent on the opposite now? "You can leave now." As if they still didn't care, as if breaking up with Eda was another task on their list.
They couldn't do this anymore.
"I can't do this anymore." They said. But they couldn't leave Eda like that.
Her family was a no, and Raine didn't know if Eda had other partners (ha, didn't that hurt too). There was Hooty… and there was Owlbert.
Raine whistle theirs and Owbert's secret greeting and in a manner of seconds the little owl chopped on their ear.
"Can you help her?" Owlbert hoot.
Together they guided Eda back to the Owl House, the wild witch insisting all the way that she was "fine". At the door of the house Raine stopped.
"Goodbye Eda." And they left.
The first time Raine set foot in the Bard Coven's Head Quarters they were in awe.
A whole palace dedicated to the study and development of bard magic.
After walking through the main arch where on top of the keystone rested the statue of Bard Hamelín, who is said to have hypnotize the flesh eating rats and stopped the Carnivorous Plague, there was an arcade that gave way to the main courtyard. There was a fountain on the center carved in bone, with a beautiful and wild garden around, and benches hidden around the bushes for any musician or apprentice in need of a break.
Around it where four buildings that lead to multiple purpose rooms, some classrooms, some practice rooms. The hallways lead to other gardens, quaint buildings with dome roofs, an atrium were most performances occurred, and a concert hall where special demonstration were held to coven heads, the emperor and the like.
They had arrived as a library assistant. Their duties consisted in helping researchers, teachers and students find their class material amongst a sea of flesh eating books, make sure the eco mouses didn't eat those (if in the odd case they did, track them so that they would regurgitate the knowledge), and making sure that whenever the books came to life could not escape the walls of the Bards' Castle.
Frequently, notes of a badly tunned instrument would grace the library, sometimes many witches and demons would be playing different melodies at the communal gardens or in rooms yet to be soundproof and an impromptu orchestra of chaos would be born.
It always reminded them of Eda when that happened.
Lectures where opened to all in the coven, the slight glance of the sigil enough to grant you entrance- in case of young learners without it, their credential as students of the Bard's Conservatorium or a letter that you were studying on the bard-track in multi-coven institutions like Hexide or St. Epiderm.
Raine went to those lectures with an avid curiosity and left them feeling depleted. They hadn't suffer at school the same way as their ex-partner but their need for invention and invention, seeing how hard they could pull the strings of bard magic until it broke, had always made the academia a bit wary.
It was at one of those lectures that they first meet the head of the coven, Scooter Crane. They didn't remember what the lecture had been about, but they remember shooking the leader's hand and she telling them:
"I can feel that you're powerful. Be careful. You wouldn't like turning wild."
Too early after breaking up with Eda to be healthy, Raine met a demon at a pub.
They were drunk on fairy's tears and the beautiful tentacled, eight-eye lady had approach them with a seducing bottle of green wine. In a drunken stupor they had offered their arm to be wrapped around her tentacles and left the establishment.
They walked somewhere, Raine can't remember, through the forest. And, maybe it was her lack of sigil or that they missed Eda or how she had murmured on their ear: come on, don't you want to be part of something better.
"U know," Raine said dropping to the soil of the forest and pull her down with them, "Sometimes I look at the world and wonder, how did it get that fucked up u know."
Their companion laughed, "You don't know? My, I would have thought a pretty little thing like you'll be more clever."
"The system?" Raine really should stop talking. "The Coven system, I knouow. But I like it u know, well not like, but it doesn't phase me. I'm fine with doing just bard magic."
"Is not, is not about forbidding people to specialize in one type of magic. Is more about the fact that the Emperor shouldn't fucking control our knowdlege, our magic, our bile sacks, fuck even the heart with how close it is to it."
"Nor our bodies," Raine said.
"Know you're getting it."
"I would like to get more."
They kissed, Raine's lips traveled from the demon's mouth, through her kneck and all the way through their chest where they sucked. Her tentacles embraced them, reaching across the expanse of their brown skin.
"What is your name?" Raine asked.
"Spikkes. Yours?"
"Raine. I want, I want to keep talking to you."
"If I remember you by morning I'll send you a crow."
Spikkes did remember them, and by morning Raine received not only the crow but a series of independent publications deconstructing this fucked up world and ideas to built a better one.
They started seeing each other; a drink at whatever tavern was shabby enough a wild witch would go unlooked, having sex and talking about this world they had found themselves living in.
"I don't know. I am all for fighting, but its getting exhausting. I just wish I could go to another universe and don't have to deal with this shit anymore."
"Do you know about the Human Realm?" Raine asked.
"Were giraffes supposedly live now?"
"That one. I had a… my friend, she found a portal to the Human Realm, took me there once, the rain doesn't boil there, their pies don't have screaming fairies in them."
"Sounds nice."
Raine laughed, "I hated it there. Everyone just started at me, like I was an ugly creature that needed to be dissected and put the pieces in nice little boxes. I was stopped by one of their version of coven scouts, I thought… I just hated it there."
"Mmmm." Spikes said. "I guess every universe has their own shit."
They started teaching after a year and a half of working for the Bard Coven.
Whenever they had expressed their desire to become an educator, people had laughed at their face: Principal Bump had shouted in horror at someone else following down his path, their parents had ask if they wouldn't like to become a musician instead, Eda had threaten to kidnap them away to the Human Realm if it happened.
But when it finally happened no one was there to stop them. There was only Clef, their palisman, soothing them after waking up in the middle of a panic attack the night before their first class.
There was a difference between the judging prying eyes of the leaders of the Emperor's conservatorium and young tired ones of students with too much curiosity and nowhere to let it be, Raine knew. However their stage fright, or anti-social tendencies or anxiety only saw the piercing orbs.
They wrote their name on the board, like they've seen characters do on the oracle and waited for the students to pour in.
"Rain Whispers," A dark-skin witch with glasses read out loud more for themself that anyone else, "Sick name." And they sat on the far right corner.
When the classroom looked more half-fulled than half-empty Raine took a deep breath and stood-up.
"Hello all, my name is Raine Whispers…like you can see from the board behind me, ehm, my pronouns are they/them and I'll be teaching you musical creativity: composition, spell crafting and the like this semester. But ehm, that's not important for today.
Today I will like for all of you to introduce yourselves: name, pronouns, why did you chose to study bard magic, and what hobbies do you have outside of it. Let's start from left to right, shall we?"
Little by little their students start to open up: some where here because their parents made them, some where here because they wanted to be a rock star (though Raine wasn't sure how bard magic could help with transfiguring into a rock or a star), some where here because they thought bard magic was the easiest.
Some where part of a grudgby team, some where raising trash slugs (as a deathwish), some where really into cooking shows, others just enjoyed sleep as a hobby, and there were a few that had a gift for drawing.
"Well, thank you everybody, I promise to learn all your names by next week. Now-
"Wait." Called the student sitting in the far right corner, "You haven't told us why did you chose bard magic or if you've got any hobbies."
"Oh right. I find that magic speaks most to me through sound, I feel it reverberating through my body all the way to my bile sack when I hear a song, and I can see the little part of mine leaving to meet the outside world whenever I play a melody."
The class grew quite, as sharp curious eyes devoured the information.
"Oh. And a hobby of mine is that I like collecting rocks." Raine said, "Now, we need to talk about the rules.
A collective "aah" was heard throughout the room. Raine laughed, thinking of a younger version of themself and Eda.
They hated rules, mostly because they didn't understand where they came from or why were they even there… some they did and thought they were absolute bullshit. But Raine found comfort in lines being drawn around them of what they needed to do, and how they were expected to act- so long as this were written in sand and able to change with the tide.
"This are fun rules."
A young witch with purple hair that looked like candy floss shouted, "No rules are fun!"
"Agree to disagree." Raine said. "We are going to write them together though, if someone is against one, please tell me."
Raine wrote the first rule in the board:
Be respectful to YOURSELF and your classmates.
"Anyone against it?"
A silver-haired witch with two blue horns spoke: "And what about being respectful to the teacher?"
"Oh right." Raine re-wrote it.
Be respectful to YOURSELF, your classmates and the teacher.
They continue writing the rules on the board accepting any kind of constructive criticism from their students. By the end, the class had came up with a list of rules that were inscribed in golden parchment and perched on the same wall the board was. The paper read:
Some no bad, actually sensible rules:
1.- Be respectful to YOURSELF, your classmates, and the teacher.
2.- Never say "I can't do it or is impossible to do this."
3.- Learn more than just music.
4.- Experiment! Learn the rules of bard magic and break them.
5.- Question everything! Even this rule!
6.- Nothing is a mistake.
7.- General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teachers. General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students.
8.- Observe! Everything is interesting.
9.- There are no rules only suggestions.
Helpful hints: Always be around. Come and go to everything. Read anything you can get your hands on. Save everything, it may come in hand later.
(there should be new rules next week)
"They are coming for me!" Spikkes shouted knocking on their mothers' door at midnight after a year and a half of the two of them having sex and exchanging political ideas:
I just think this is a fight for wild witches, and I'm not one. / That may be true, but the war is for everyone.
They never named their relationship. It wasn't like Eda because nothing could be, but it was transformative in a way few others were.
Nantli had woken them up, with alarmed dishavel hair and a tired frown. Raine had jumped from their bedroom and into the door so quickly they had forgotten their glasses.
They served Spikkes a glass of water, and hummed to make her hands stop trembling.
"Breath. You are safe here."
"I am safe." Spikkes breathed.
"That's right." Raine refilled the glass, "What happened?"
"The coven scouts. They knocked at my door and asked if I had finally decided to join a coven."
"Oh." Raine knew how bad it could get when coven scouts arrived.
"I'm not stupid so I told them I was still thinking about it. And then one drew a spell circle while telling me that I should think faster. After that I panicked an appeared outside of the house and ran to here."
"Okay. What are you doing next?"
"I need to get out of here."
Raine nodded, "I can fly you to the toes with Clef."
"No. I need to get out of here. Leave the titan, travel the boiling sea."
Selfishly, Raine wanted Spikkes to stay. They hadn't felt they had learned all that Spikkes was, all the ways they could be shaped by her.
Raine ran for their glasses and wake up Clef, and with Spikkes holding their waist for dear life the flew to the docks.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Eh, I always wanted to explore the world."
"Take care."
Spikkes sneaked into a cargo ship, and then hid inside an empty wooden box.
That night as the box where Spikkes hid grew smaller and smaller they remember thinking of the Human Realm's burning of witches, and how easily Spikkes could meet the same fate in the boiling sea.
Quickly Raine had risen among the student population as one of the best teachers the Bard Coven's conservatorium had. Their understanding of bard magic mixed in with the freeing atmosphere of their classes was the perfect combination for their students to actually learn some magic.
Even those that were there out of obligation, found Raine's classes to be invigorating as the teacher was sure to mix in some way a topic that actually interested the young students.
Which was how young Abijah had ended up with hir singing garden. Ze had grown trees that produce specific sound whenever wind or water pass through them and different silences when the sun reach its leaves.
It had been so impressive that members of the Emperor's coven had come watch a demonstration. Which was when the Golden Guard rip the rules' golden sheet from the wall and asked:
"What's this?"
"The rules of the classroom?" Raine said. "Even if we are artists, we need some structure."
"I wonder how a rule like question everything can bring about structure."
Oh, Raine thought, they were in deep shit.
"Sorry. I did not mean questioning his excellency divine right to rule. I meant me- you have no idea how much I had mixed up theory. And you know normal life stuff: why is the sky red? why do rain boils? Are we real or just a dream of the Titan?"
The Golden Guard passed the list to a coven scout who set it on fire.
"I see. Mx. Whispers I am going to go easy on you since you are a young teacher and clearly don't know what you are doing… Rules like this," The golden guard pointed to the ashes, "They bring about insubordination, and I know that wasn't your intention. In the future you better following the Emperor's rules."
The coven scout drew a circle, and where Raine's and their student's list had been where now the same set of rules Eda and them had struggle against all their life.
I'm so sorry Eda, Raine thought, I have become the adult we hated as children.
After Spikkes left, they finally went to a meeting of the group she had been a part of.
Spikkes' crow had arrived at their window with an invitation in its peak, from The Free Witches Collective, the note was simple:
Come if you decide you want to learn more.
It took place on the woods outside of Boonesborough, under the cover of the trees. Witched and demons arrived in cloaks and masks, for they knew that if they were caught they would never see the light of day again. The only one that was bare faced was the speaker.
Aer was a three horned demon, which dark skin was contrasted the multiple scars across aers face that ran like lighting.
"The separation between wild witches and coven witches is a farce." Aer started, "For under the emperor we are one and the same. We are born as criminals and treated as such until we recognize it ourselves, the brands we get when we join a coven are nothing more than shackles. We are captured, wether it be through an institution or through raids.
Wild witches then, are no more or less criminal than any other witch under the system."
"Blasphemy! You can't say wild witches are not threated worse than the rest!" Someone in the audience said.
"True. Wild witches are powerful for we understand the system, we have autonomy over our magic and we actively chose freedom instead of imprisonment. And we face pressures for our autonomy: unemployment, ostracization, criminalization, and death in the worse cases.
But everyone is a wild witch at the beginning, we are not born with a brand they are giving to us. And so this fight is for everyone branded or not, in a coven or free.
For me the people most harmed by the coven system, is not those outside of it, but those inside. Which is why my friends, if your wrists already wear shackles don't turn away from us, don't think this isn't your fight, for we both seek freedom.
For we, as wild witches, embodied your liberation, and if you help us, we will help you."
The three horned demon stepped down from the rock aer had said aers speech, and another one came in.
"How does the Emperor establish control?" She started. "It's not only in the big loud petrifications, the silent coercion is more effective. Millions of witches join a coven not because they fear death but because they fear ostracization. Because covens give us a sense of belonging, because since children we are told is what is best for our magic…"
"Hey, I know who you are."
Raine jumped. The dark skin witch with lighting scars had come sit next to them.
"I don't think so, this is my first time here." Raine said.
"No, not here. Elsewhere." The witch thought. "Oh, I know, S.W.O.T. ! Or was it H.E.C.K. ? You and your friend fired a spell at the head of the plant coven. It was amazing!" Aer said.
Raine laughed. "Oh titan, that takes me back."
"I remember going back home and saying to my parent how I will rebel against the coven system and become and activist." Aer laughed. "He was terrified."
"Well you are here, so he had reason to be."
"Perhaps. What are you doing here, planning to fire against the emperor."
Raine shook their head. "Nothing like that, I'm not a rebel anymore. My friend was though, so I wanted to see what is all about."
The witch didn't asked for aer had already lost many friends.
"Well, if you ever you decide you want to be a rebel again, call me." Aer said.
"Call you what?" Raine asked.
"Oliver, and you my friend?"
"Raine."
The emperor lowered the age of joining, any witch pass their 21 summers without a coven was now considered a wild witch and would be treated accordingly. In the same breath, Head Coven Scooter Crane announced that Bard Witches would no longer be allowed to master multiple instruments. Her excuse was that this way it would be easier for young witches to achieve proficiency at music. However, no one believe her, the students knew that it was just an extension of the cracking down on wild magic, and they were not going having it.
"Professor, you know this is not fair!" Bubblegum said.
Xe was a plump young witch with purple candy floss hair, that always arrived late at Raine's class. Xyr excuse on mondays and wednesdays was that xe had been in Tabla class, and on tuesdays and thursdays that xe had practice with xyr strings quartet.
Bubblegum had chosen to study 5 different instruments at the conservatorium: tabla, cimbalon, harpy flute, harpy harp and viola. Which were the least played instrument on the Isles, xe relied on the knowledge Raine, their colleague Mr. Shah and xyr grandma to master them.
After their fingers started to bleed from practicing the Harpy Harp, time and time again, Raine had to asked them why they had chosen to learn so many seemeingly obsolete instruments.
"Music is so colorful Mx. Whispers, it would be a shame if it became gray just because the Emperor's coven says some instruments make more pretty sounds than others." Bubblegum had explained.
Now the world was becoming even more grey and there was no instrument to give it back its color.
"I know," Raine said, their eyes never leaving the homework they were grading.
"Well do something!"
"I can't." Raine made a correction in the parchment.
Bubblegum laughed, "That's fucking big. Did you know my grandma spent most of her life without a brand, did you know that she only chose to be part of the bard coven so that she would be allowed to continue to play the cimbalon. The same fucking instrument the emperor thought was too weird so they removed it from multitrack schools, and now there's just what? Five people in the Isles that know how to play it."
"You've told me that." Raine said. Alijah's handwriting was unintelligible, was that a c or a g ?
"Then you have to do something! Didn't your rules said that there's nothing impossible."
Raine lift up their head, Bubblegum looked horrible, xyr hair pulled in different directions and xyr black eyes were red at the corners. Please don't do anything, Raine wanted to shout, don't do anything that might put you in harms way.
"That list was destroyed by the emperor's right hand man." Raine said and it felt like a threat.
"I… I thought I could trust you." Tears formed at the rim of Bubblegum's eyes and xe stromed out of the classroom.
They should have known better, they should have done something. Hadn't they been a child once, who was told no, so they doubled down and got in more trouble than they would have if they had been told yes.
The wednesday after that day, Bubblegum was late to class. So was Alijah, so was Derwin. So were many other students in many other classes at many other schools. They have gone to protest at the gates of the Emperor's palace, asking for the simple right to have autonomy over their magic just for a little while.
The accounts of what happened next vary, some say that one of the protestors wasn't able to control their rage and had attacked a coven scout, others said that the scouts didn't wait to chose violence. The fact, however was, that after that day three young witches died: a wild witch their family had disowned, a young upstanding man that until that point had been seen as the future of the abomination's coven, and a purple haired bard with cotton hair, one of the five players left of the cimbalon.
Raine skipped classes after that, asking Mr. Shah if he could cover them. Sleeping through most of the day and barely eating. Their moms thought a spirit of death had possed them but when the Oracle witch had come, she couldn't find it.
It was as if Bubblegum had taken not only their happiness, but their energy with them. They couldn't play their violin, or harpy harp or any other instrument. Not even when their mom asked, which she hadn't done since they were a witchling.
A week after they stopped going to school, Spikkes' crow came to visit them. By that time they already knew it was more likely the collectives' crow than hers, but they still referred to it as such.
"Raine," it was the voice of the three horned witch, Oliver. "There's someone with me that needs a place to stay. Could they stay with you?"
They had accepted before they even asked their mothers. It ended up in a discussion, they didn't have fights since their Babu disappeared.
"A wild witch, a criminal, here!" Their mom said.
"Don't you think is a little dangerous?" Their nantli continued.
"I need to do something," Raine had explained. Just something, just a way to fight back, like Bubblegum, like Spikkes, like Eda…
"And put us at risk!" / "But why do you need to put yourself at risk?" Their moms had said.
"Can they stay, please?" Raine asked.
"Well you already said yes." / "We can't say no, anymore."
The witch stayed with them for three days, they didn't speak, they just took a shower, ate, sleep and wash the dishes and whatever else Raine's mom asked them to do. And then they left.
After that, Oliver started to send more and more people in need of refuge to their home. It wasn't until their nantli closed their door on their seventh refugee that their moms finally had enough.
"We are planing of going back to the knee."
"What? Why?" Raine asked.
"Well love…" their nantli started.
"We have harbored seven criminals, and people are talking. It won't be long before the scouts start knocking." their mom continued.
"You are welcome to go with us." Their nantli said.
"No, no. I'll stay here. I need to stay."
"Well. But you better look for another home," their mom said. "It isn't safe here anymore."
It was nice being a teacher while it lasted. They stayed in the conservatorium until graduation, where Alijah and Derwin took their bows. Four wonderful years of living the dream they had as a young witch, showing that bard magic could be as cool as abominations (thank you Darius) had ended at the same time their students finished their concerto.
Scooter Crane was an odd woman. She worship the Emperor as much as a coven scout and took to heart his words, but at the same time she took delight in learning other branches of magic she would never be able to cast, dig up old partitures of forgotten songs that had been popular in the savage ages, and played the cimbalon.
Her office was a mess, and her life likely so. If the multiple crows from her ex-husband that Raine had to intercept as her assistant was any indication. Letter from the Head of the Emperor's Coven where mixed with her grocery list and books about the theory of music were next to raunchy magazines about werewolves. She couldn't go to the Four Richards concert because she had once insulted Richard Junior, but she also couldn't not go because she was in an off and on relationship with Richard Grand and he would take offence.
Scooter Crane had spent almost a decade in the Emperor's Castle and she still didn't know where the Emperor's room was, or the dining hall or the exit. Her previous assistant had spent those same years under her service and she still forgot her name or that she had retired to look after their kids.
She didn't knew Raine's name and they have had almost a year working under here. Calling them, "you" or "secretary". Worst was when she try to actually called them by their name and said "Renaldo" instead.
Still, the position gave them access to the emperor's castle and with it information that they later would recall to Oliver and help the Free Witches Collective.
They had found a house in the outskirts of Boonesborough, next to a cliff. Remote enough there were no neighbors that could start rumors, and had welcome many wild witches since then, some staying for months. None of them had been Eda, and they were simultaneously grateful and sad.
But that wasn't enough for them anymore. Raine needed to destroy this system that had cause so much pain. That had caused them so many tears.
Raine stopped talking to their moms, they stopped talking to their ex-students, and they didn't had any friends to speak with. They forced Clef to turn lifeless and carved a violin around it.
It happened gradually, as their worked inside the castle and had to stand by while the Heads talked about petrification as if it was the weather. As they watch how the collective was hunted down by the scouts and one day it was Oliver the one that needed to hide- they still don't know where aer is. As they watched from their Oracle as Eda was almost petrified. Raine decided that with nothing to loose, it was time to punch their fears on Belos' face.
They were ready to fight, knowing they would go down but at least they would take the emperor with them.
The first time they tried was at dinner, there was no reason for Raine to be there but Darius had asked them if they could please perform at the Eclipse Dinner Night and there was no way Raine could refuse a coven head, the bastard.
So they took their violin, and they change the Emperor's wine to poison but he did not once took his mask, and did not once touch his food.
The second time, Scooter Crane was summoned to the throne room and because the Head Bard could not be trusted to know and/or have whatever the Emperor needed from her, she decided to take Raine with them. It was less than an attempt, just an idea that could never be fulfilled: summoning their flute right there and shoot a ball of fire right into Belos' skull. Alas they only handed papers to their boss.
The third time, was after Raine had forced Scooter Crane to retire. It wasn't so hard, the old witch talked about it every time there was a problem she had to fix, or an obligation she had to attend to, which due to her position was most of the time. A few calls to her ex-husband and others to the 4 Richards and she just couldn't take it anymore and decided to leave for Uncharted Island.
Belos had summoned them to the throne's room, the other Coven Heads around him, and told them of their ascension. They had the incantation on their lips, just the right tone, cool air from their lungs and the guy would have dropped dead. Raine would have too, surrounded by coven heads, but that wasn't important.
However that same day, a few hours before their meeting with the Emperor, they found Derwin outside of the castle with two other witches. They were protesting against the unjust incarceration of witches, Derwin banging on his tambourine and making the guards dance to his will, as one of his friends read frankly horrible vegetable romance.
Derwin was going to get killed. He was going to die, as Bubblegum had died, as Eda had almost died, as their Babu had probably died. Raine couldn't let them.
They conjured an armonica and drew a smokescreen around the gates. Then took Derwin by his forearm and dragged them to a back alley.
"Profesor?" Derwin asked disoriented.
"You can't keep doing that." Raine said.
"I am not going to stop. We need to fight back." Derwin stated.
"I know. I am going to help you," I am going to protect you , Raine wanted to say but knew it would be a lie. "Gather your friends, is time to show the throne what Bards are made of."