The morning following your coming clean to Eda and King, you awaken without feeling as if the world isn't on your shoulders anymore. You make a simple breakfast as the rest of the house scrambles to get ready for a day at Eda's Human stand before you all hop onto Owlbert and fly to Bonesborogh. The moment you all land, Eda is swinging Owlbert's staff in a motion you know that she has done before. From a side satchel comes a big sack, too big in fact. Then the sack 'explodes' into a mess of junk and tables that automatically set themselves up.
Eda busies herself by straightening and dusting the items as King climbs up your leg to sit on your shoulder, Senna is happily dozing inside your hanten. Your eyes filter across the street, and you notice a severe lack of booths set up. It isn't that early in the morning, but this is your first market run; who knows when things really pick up around here? Instead, you pull up a seat near the 'counter' and start mentally going through your catalog of sealed items. You eventually realize that you have a few books sealed away, before remembering that most of those books are the first editions and/or manuscripts of your godfather's books, which are pure filth.
Then you abruptly remember that there is technically one book of his that isn't rated Explicit. The book your birth parents had gotten your birth name from, The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi. With a sense of unease, you unseal that particular book from the seal and crack it open. Aloud, you start to read from the book before you, allowing King and Eda to overhear. The book opens with a fight scene between the main character and their assailant. Every time the book mentions jutsus or chakra, you merely replace the word with magic or spell, whichever one fits the most in that context.
You get through the first chapter before you decide to scan the street again. You raise an eyebrow at the still empty street, considering you had taken your time with reading the chapter aloud, pulling out all the stops to entertain the young demon perched upon your shoulder looking at the book in your hands with interest, though if it was from the story or the Japanese writing you're not quite sure. Finally, you decide to ask, "Hey Eda is it usually this dead around here or what."
Eda looks around, and you can tell when she notices the same thing you did with a frown on her face. "This... This is a bad omen. There must be something horrible happening today." As she says this, you can almost imagine the sound of thunder crackling at the end there. Then you do hear something, from down the street comes two familiar witchlings. Willow and Gus, in their school uniforms, almost slide right into the counter, as they both say your name catching Eda's attention.
You tell Eda that Willow helped you escape from Hexside when you popped into the school a few days back, which is when you finally notice that Willow is no longer wearing the pink and black uniform but is now wearing a green and black one instead. Instead of asking her why it changed, you ask how she got it changed, leading her to tell you that Principle Bump was so impressed with the Trailing Evergreen Plant that he switched her from the Abomination track to the Plant track. You nod as if this makes perfect sense to you and congratulate her for her accomplishment, she turns around and thanks you for giving her the chance to become the witch within herself.
With a small smile, you then ask them what you can do to help them. To which Gus tells you that 'something amazing is happening'. You stare at him, then at Eda, then back to Gus before asking, "And that amazing thing happens to be...?" From behind her back, Willow pulls out a flier that states 'Covention' 'Which Coven are You' and 'Mystery Guest'. "Today's the Annual Covention!" from the context, you're beginning to believe that this 'Covention' was something all witches knew about.
"Sooooooo-" Eda immediately cuts you off with a curt "Absolutely not." You stare at her, waiting for a slightly longer explanation. "I never joined a coven for a reason. Sure it's like a fun club for witches, but you're also giving up your magical independence to be part of a crooked system." This, makes perfect sense to you, from an outsider's point of view, of course, but when you look at Willow and Gus, they stare wide-eyed at your... Mentor? Foster Mother?... they stare at Eda. You lightly cough as you nudge her in the side.
She doesn't apologize, and you don't expect her to, but she does tell them 'You do you'. And then off handily mentions going to Coventions when she was younger but using we instead of I. You assume it to be a slip of the tongue, so you don't bring any attention to it. Instead, you ask Eda if you could go with them to 'check out the competition' as it were. She takes one look at you before letting out a giant sigh and creating a spell circle that sends the entire stand back into its sack.
Ten minutes later, you arrive in front of a large building with 'Covention Today' and 'Alchemists Anonymus Tomorrow' on a board in front of it. You stare up at the large building with King perched on your shoulder and Senna hidden away in your hanten, taking a nap. Beside you, Eda is fighting to get her hair stuffed into her cowl. After a moment of watching her struggle, you turn to her and after making sure she has seen your hands before helping to gather her hair.
As you do, you quietly ask her if she has to do this because of that large bounty of hers. She nods her head, before asking if you thought her bounty was just for 'petty theft' just in time for your hand to get snagged on something within her hair. You pull it out and stare blankly at the sight before you. A mound of human garbage is in your hand, alongside a (hopefully) dead beetle, and what appears to be a hand-carved toy soldier that is missing its head. Your eyes flick back up to hers as she grins sheepishly at you.
She snatches back the trash items and redeposits them back in her hair. You follow Gus and Willow into the building, and suddenly the word Covention makes more sense. A convention for Covens, you'd consider it nice wordplay if it were being put on by anyone else. You place yourself in between your two new... friends? acquaintances at the very least, and Eda. You can only assume that her mood is due to being behind enemy lines so to speak, and their disposition seems to be rubbing her the wrong way currently.
Eventually, you return to the previous statement she had made and ask if it wasn't for theft what was the bounty for. "I refused to join a Coven" and before you can ask for clarification of that she stalks off further into the Covention. You follow after her, not wanting to lose your mentor in this crowd of bodies. From your shoulder, King tells you to march, and you speed up just a tad bit. You duck and weave in between different bodies before you catch up to Eda just in time to watch her slam a bag of something down on the ground before booking it in the opposite direction.
You get within feet of the person bending down to pick up the bag when Eda reappears to snatch the bag back and pulls their cowl over their face before running away again. You walk up behind them as they struggle to pull their cowl off and 'accidentally' on purpose knock into them, and send them sprawling. You meet back up with Eda, Gus, and Willow at one of the booths. You watch in shock as a lone witch builds a house in mere seconds before you notice a small familiar being next to them. It's the little nose demon from the Conformtorium.
The witch places a sheet with a fist on it, on the little demon's nose. You can almost feel the power increase from twenty feet back, as the demon goes on a destruction spree. From there, you head to another booth, this one containing students with the same colored uniform as Gus. This, you quickly find out, is the Illusion Coven. Then in the back, you notice a student holding out their wrist to one of the other students. Eda places a hand on your shoulder as you both watch as blue lines appear across the witch's body flashing briefly before disappearing altogether.
You side-eye Eda, silently asking what the heck is going on here. She carefully pulls you to the side and drops her voice as she explains that was the witchling sealing away their magic, from here on out they will never be able to use any other magic besides Illusion. You wince at the thought of limiting yourself to one thing. You might mainly use fire-aligned or neutral chakra typing when it comes to jutsu, but that doesn't mean you're a one-trick pony, you'd probably be dead if you were. Not to mention your past lives.
Then you realize that since Eda never joined a Coven that means she can use all types of magic, right? When you whisper this to her, she just nods her head before pulling you further away from the Illusionists. Despite Eda's clear hatred of the coven system, she pushes it aside to give you a better understanding of the world you find yourself in. She points out the main nine covens to you, which you make short stops at to pick up the propaganda that they put forward.
Eventually, you get to the last of the nine when Eda starts to get tense and tries to convince you to not visit the last one, which you find quite strange. You tell her that you're more than fine going to the last booth without her to which she gets a look of relief on her face for a moment before she sends you on your way.
After sharing a look of confusion with King still on your shoulder you make your way to the final coven booth. The booth's main color is red, which catches your attention and then you realize the symbol is a harp of some sort, or some sort of musical instrument at the very least. At the booth stand four witches, one of whom is somewhat familiar to you. As she catches sight of you, she lets out a squeal that almost hurts your ears. You stare at her before it clicks that this is the other witch from the Conformtorium, making you realize that you have seen all three of the prisoners you released today, the eye demon maning a baking stall if you remember correctly.
You raise a hand to wave at the witch and her compatriots as you say hello along with King. You follow it up with a smirk and, "Nice to see you out of that prison." Before your eyes trail over the other three, "These ones decent or should I...?" Thankfully she quickly understands and answers your unspoken question, "Nah, I trust Teach not to rat me out, besides Amber and Derwin are worse than I am." You quickly assume that Amber and Derwin are the witches of similar age to her while the older one is their Teacher, which based on the gender-neutral title and the androgenous features you assume they use they/them like the Kitsunes do.
With the witches' help, you go through the different pamphlets on the table. To your great joy, this is the Bard Coven, and it takes everything in you to not make a joke about Bards f-ing everything in sight. Your conversation eventually turns to musical instruments. You tell them that you once played a stringed instrument a few years back, though you neglect to tell them it was in another life. When you hear that this 'Teach' also plays string instruments, you turn your attention to them.
You ask if they have any recommendations for any shops that sell instruments around Bonesborough, string, and percussion to be exact. You've been itching to get your hands on a guitar or a drum set for years by this point. When they ask about the percussion, you answer truthfully, "I love my string instruments, but percussion is where I really shine through. Besides that, I want to teach my little brother here how to play an instrument, and I don't really see him learning anything if it's not percussive, at least not at first that is." When you say little brother, you scratch King on the head, before you gain a look on your face with a smirk, "Not to mention driving Mom up the wall will be a fun pass time... as long as Hooty doesn't make an appearance," You and King shutter in unison as you remember the last time Hooty tried to join one of you when you were doing something.
Several minutes go by as the Bard goes over various shops and the advantages and disadvantages that each one of them has. Eventually, they tear their eyes away from you to look at the other Coventioners. You take this time to gaze at a hidden watch on your arm before sighing as you realize that you should probably go meet back up with Eda. Then before you can go to speak you feel Senna start to shift around in your hanten, before their head pops out, startling everyone but you.
You hear the Bard's breathing pick up slightly as you scratch Senna on the head, as the Conformtorium Witch speaks up as she leans forward to give them her own scratches between the ears. "Nice to see this little one again. You know when I first saw you I thought you were too young to have a palisman but you sure proved me wrong. If you don't mind me asking what's their name?" You quickly gather what information you need from her question before answering her in kind, "It's fine, I know I appear slightly younger than I should, but I'm nearly sixteen, is that really young to receive a palisman? Anyway, their name is Senna, they've only been with me for the last month but they are honestly someone I would protect with my life... while we're on the subject of names I don't think we ever exchanged our own." You hope this is enough to turn her attention away from terms you have no idea what they mean.
Thankfully it seems to work alright, "I guess that's true, following the breakout I don't think we had time before you flew off with the Owl Lady. My name is Katya, this is Amber and Derwin, and our teacher is Raine Whispers" Raine's breathing is starting to worry you slightly, so you hope to end this conversation before they pass out or something.
"Fair enough Katya, my name is Samantha Clawthorne, but please call me Sam. And this is my little brother King. I wish I could stick around longer but my mother is probably bouncing off the walls just being in the building. I doubt she'll last too much longer before something chaotic happens around here. I hope we get to speak again soon. Ja Ne" You don't even realize you spoke Japanese as you turn with a wave, speed walking away from the booth. Using your skills you blend in with the crowds while wondering what the heck was wrong with that Bard before putting it aside.
It takes a few minutes, but you find Eda again, seemingly causing chaos with some of the Covention goers. You wrap a hand around her arm and pull her away before she can cause much more trouble. As you do so you realize that your shoulder feels light, and when you look, you find King nowhere in sight. Your eyes snap up and scan the vicinity, looking for the small demon.
You find him talking with someone wearing a deep purple Hexside uniform as they spin a pen around their fingers. You glare at the offending party as you stalk forward, subconsciously pulling forward passive killing intent that makes the student freeze as they realize they are in the presence of a predator. You snatch King up before he can complain before spinning on your heel and striding back to Eda as King complains in your arms about offerings.
As you pass by the room that contains the mystery guest, Eda lets out a muffled curse before grabbing you by the upper arm and pulling you into said room. You risk a glance backward and find the witch from earlier talking to a guard, and wince as you realize that Eda's disguise had been made. Eda leads you down into a recessed colosseum that has a good turnout, while not being particularly crowded.
You keep King in your arms as the lights dim, off to one side you can see Willow and Gus. Your gaze never settles, even when Principle Bump comes on stage and starts his spiel. Your eyes dart from person to person, lingering slightly on Amity, before going back to people watching. As the guards appear on stage, you briefly tune back in to watch as they perform their act. When you hear they can use any type of magic, without being called a wild witch, your eyes narrow slightly in thought.
"And now, I'm pleased to introduce the esteemed leader of this coven and this year's mystery guest. You know her, you love her! Lilith Clawthorne!" Your eyes widen as you hear the name Lilith Clawthorne, that was who Bump had asked if you were related to before you crushed his hopes and dreams. You and King turn to look at Eda as her look of shock turns into anger and betrayal. You slowly press yourself against her side as you turn your attention toward who you can only assume to be her relative of some sort. Lilith goes on to speak about her accomplishments within the Emporer's Coven, but you tune them out the longer this goes on.
She ends it with a large magic display that makes you wonder if she was overcompensating for something. As everyone leaves the room, you stick close to Eda after waving to Gus and Willow. King scrambles to perch on your shoulder again as you walk toward the nearest exit. You get maybe a few feet from the door when movement from a nearby booth pulls your eyes over to it when a voice calls out, "Sister?" You and Eda stop and turn to look at Lilith as she looks over the three of you, four if you count Senna as their nose pops out from your hanten, seemingly questioning why you were stopping.
As they exchange barbs, you can tell that this Lilith has completely dismissed your and King's presence, which makes you want to cause just the tiniest bit of mischief. Slowly, you slide your foot across the floor until it bumps into Eda's, making her jolt slightly as if remembering that you're still there. You hear a slight hum of acknowledgment from her which you take as your cue. "Did she call you sister, Mom?" which quickly brings the other witch short. You watch as she mentally runs that line through her head for almost a minute before her mouth opens in pure shock.
You can hear Eda just barely cut off a snort of amusement as her sister gazes upon you with a look of horror before flicking her eyes back and forth between you and Eda. With a small smirk you lean toward Eda and in a false whisper you ask, "So am I supposed to call her Aunt Lillith or do you want me to renounce her relation to me and not even acknowledge her existence Mom?" You can tell with every word you say Lilith is put further and further on the back foot, which makes you internally smirk.
You watch as Lillith tries to speak, but all that comes out is a stammered, "A-aunt? I-I have a n-niece? HOW!?" A large part of you wants to respond with 'when two witches love each other very much' but you have no idea if that is even a thing in this realm, and instead you decide to drive the stake in just a bit more. "Hey King what do you think, should we call her aunt or what," Her mouth drops open as she realizes what you are implying here, and you can tell if she just had the slightest bit less willpower, she would have fainted from this.
Lillith takes a moment to take a deep breath, seemingly trying to get her composure back under control before she asks Eda, "Dearest Edalyn, how could you keep your children from the world, they could have had the world, and yet here they are just as wild, corrupt, and living a worthless life as you are." Your eyes widen at the last few words, and you can tell that Eda definitely isn't going to take those words lying down. Eda quickly snaps back at her sister with a firey rage lit in her eyes, "Listen here perfect, prissy Lily my eldest here could defeat anyone that you put in front of her." You can tell that there is just the slightest hint of a growl in her words as you internally groan as she more or less just puts you on the metaphorical chopping block.
"Well then, for today you won't have to worry about hiding from the law," and with a click of her fingers, you watch as the various Owl Lady bounty posters around the Covention burn, almost as if they had been Thanos snapped. " I hope you have trained my niece well enough because she'll need it to fight my top protege Edalyn." At her words, you can't help but let out a barely muffled snort of amusement that Eda echoes without bothering to muffle.
You plaster a smug smirk onto your lips before speaking, "Aunt Lillith it would be my honor to beat up your little rich kid apprentice, despite not being able to use magic like most of my peers here I have learned to use the magic of our ancestors and I will wipe the floor with them." You watch as Lillith's eyes widen in slight shock as regret briefly flickers in her eyes, so brief that you have a hard time figuring out whether or not you had seen it in the first place. She narrows her eyes at Eda briefly before spinning on her heel and marching off further into the Covention, calling back she will see you in the main hall in an hour.
You and Eda share a brief look before she pulls you into an alcove far from other people. You ask Eda for the basics of a witch's duel, as she calls them. And to your amazement, you realize you can work with what she tells you that she doubts this will be a duel to the death based on your ages, at your raised eyebrow she tells you that since Lillith called your future opponent her protege this usually means that the witchling in question has yet to graduate from a school like Hexside. You're quite thankful for this since it means you won't have to kill a teenager in front of the masses here, you're quite proud of your low kill count for this life, and you would rather not have it increase unless you really had to. The second thing she tells you is that you can't use any 'spells' that cause permanent damage to your opponent, you ask for clarification if you could use those 'spells' for inanimate objects and the like, to which she gives you a wink.
The final thing she mentions is that once the duel starts, any interruptions from either her or Lillith will cause the match to go to the wronged party, making it impervious that cheating was not to happen. Then for the remainder of the time, you and Eda talk about what jutsus you could use that could be mistaken for spells. You also bring up the idea of bluffing with the light glyph on paper making it seem like you were using different spells when in reality you were using the same spell to cover up different jutsus.
Eventually, you head to the main hall/ colossum. To your surprise, you end up facing off against Amity. But after a moment of thinking you have to admit having this witchling being the protege of Eda's sister doesn't seem that far-fetched. Off to the side stands both Eda and Lillith, Eda has her hands full with King, and sitting at her feet is Senna. When Amity sees that you're going to be her opponent she gains a thoughtful look on her face before a look of realization crosses her face. With a haughty smirk on her face, she comments, "So I get to wipe the floor with the rule breaker." As you casually wipe your nails on your shirt, you can see just out of the corner of your eye that Lillith pinches her nose between her pointer and thumb. Then you state aloud, all the while focusing on your nails instead of your opponent, "Did you say something, my dear little mouse?"
Your sentence lingers in the air before Amity seems to realize what you said. For just a moment, a blush settles on her cheeks before it spreads across her face in anger as she sputters just as Lillith starts the match. You watch as she spins a quite large purple circle, and between the two of you, the massive form made of purple slime forms into a humanoid shape. You assume that this must be an abomination and eye it with a bit of curiosity before you school your features into a look of indifference.
With an internal smirk, you mockingly yawn, before speaking and projecting your voice throughout the room, "You might be cute minty, but this thing isn't even a contender on the largest thing I've faced." From one of your pockets, you take one of your light glyphs and activate it as you fake a spell circle right in front of you giving the illusion that you're using a spell. As you finish the circle you force a concentrated stream of fire from your hand directly at the center mass of the abomination. You rather not waste your time with the creature before you and use some of Kuruma's chakra to supercharge the attack. The blast of fire ends up going through the chest of the thing disrupting the flow of whatever that material is making it splash to the ground in a large puddle of purple.
Before Amity can recover from your attack, you almost flash step behind her and pull her tight against you with your dominant hand gripping her upper neck without disrupting her airflow. You lean forward as you lightly squeeze her neck, showing that you could and would tighten your grip if the situation called for it. You can tell the moment she realizes the position she is in when she tenses. You lean your head forward till your lips are mere inches from her ear. "You are terribly outclassed here cutie, you might be an apprentice under a Clawthorne, but I am the child of one, you are outclassed, outpowered, and one wrong move from me snapping your neck, make the right decision and both of us can walk away from this," You know that you're talking crap since you're not actually related to Eda, and therefore Lillith, but familiar bonds mean the world to you, always have, always will it doesn't matter if the bonds are forged through blood or though battle, you'll cherish them all the same.
Your eyes catch sight of something on the back of Amity's neck. You give it a cursory look, and an eyebrow raises slightly as you take in the sigil of the Construction Coven and you remember the little demon from the Conformtorium and the destruction. You never thought that Amity would cheat, but then you believe that maybe Lillith had done this without telling her. "Seems like Aunt Lily doesn't even believe you could overpower me on your own, sweetheart unless you want to tell me that you knew about this power glyph on your neck here."
You casually grab her hand and bring it to brush against the seal, her face pales. With her body almost plastered against your own you can tell when hers starts to shake, even if most around you wouldn't be able to make out the slight movement without damn good eyesight. You can feel her gulp slightly before speaking in a loud, firm voice that she surrenders, which sends the entire colosseum into shocked whispers. You carefully let go of her neck and watch as she stalks away from the battlefield in a carefully measured walk that begins to falter the moment she believes she is out of sight of the spectators. You spin around and lazily walk toward where Lilith and Eda are, and you can see Eda has a wide grin on her face as she mockingly teases Lilith.
You make sure that her attention is on you before you begin to speak in just a loud enough tone for Eda to just barely hear as well, "Your actions have caused your apprentice to lose her trust in you, and for what… nothing that's what. I hope you have learned your lesson about this sort of thing Aunty" Before turning your attention to Eda and stating louder, "I'm going to make sure the little green mouse is alright before we leave Mom" and then without another word you follow Amity's trail out into the covention as you begin to hear Eda mocking Lilith more and more with each passing second and King helping to egg the two of them on.
Just as you exit the room, you hear Lilith let out a scream before a loud crash as others behind you scream. With your being here now on a timer, you quickly track down Amity using your limited tracking ability. Eventually, you manage to find Amity tucked in a corner a decent distance away from the arena. You take her form as you slowly approach her, she has her head burrowed in her arms as barely unnoticeable shivers rack her body. You sit down beside her, angling your body in such a way that no one will be able to catch sight of her.
For a moment, neither of you speaks, your eyes filter from person to person as they walk past. Whenever you see one of them slowing down for whatever reason, you shoot them a glare with just the slightest bit of killing intent poking through, making them quickly vacate the premise. Eventually, you hear Amity speak, and though her voice slightly wobbles, you don't call any attention to it as she demands that you leave. Your lips quirk in amusement, despite everything she has gone through, the girl before you still has a spine of steel.
You allow a few moments to pass, as you don a thoughtful look on your face before stating, "Nah minty, we might not see eye to eye but like hell I'm going to leave someone alone while their world implodes around them." As she continues to glare at you, you pull out the small notebook reminiscent of a detective's notebook and start to carefully sketch out circles on each page. You're still not used to free-handing a circle, but slowly but surely your circles are becoming less ovally and more circly.
Out of the corner of your eye, you watch as Amity's eyes drift down to where you are drawing the circles. You sketch out the sigil of the light spell and carefully rip the page from the book. You hold it out to her, and while she hesitates for a moment, she takes it from you and gazes at it. You motion for her to tap it, and she reluctantly does so. She startles slightly as the paper crumples into the light spell as it hovers above her hand.
You and Amity stare at the light ball as you gather your words. "I know I might have seemed arrogant back there, but that was to cover up my hesitance. Unlike most witches, I was born without a bile sack. This along with my wild witch mother shaped my views into what they are. It was only recently that I found that despite lacking a bile sack I could still cast spells, abert with a different medium." You tear your eyes away from the ball of light to lock eyes with Amity as she looks at you. With a small smile, you continue, "I hope that whatever path you're currently on is what you truly want because a lack of a dream is not something that I wish on my rival," Here, your lips curl into a devious smirk "worst enemy sure, but mostly because they're a bunch of cunts."
You can tell your crude words have caught her off guard, mostly because she lets out a snort of laughter. From deeper within the Covention, you can hear the sounds of battle quiet as the sound of footsteps makes their way closer and closer with every passing second. You push yourself to your feet and hold out your hand to pull Amity up after she gives you hers. You add more strength expecting a heaver being, which ends with Amity crashing into your body. You're quick to notice that Amity is a few inches shorter than you are. You heavily swallow as you gaze into her eyes, and a blush settles on your cheeks. With a small, strangled noise escaping your throat, you take a quick step away from her.
You try not to look at her as you walk away with her. A strangled "Bye!" escapes your lips as you barely notice Senna clamber their way up your back to settle around your neck. A blush is still on your cheeks when you slide up beside Eda and King as the three of you confidently stroll out of the building. You hear Eda let out a hearty chuckle as her hand comes up to ruffle your hair. You bump your shoulder into hers with a small pout on your lips with a whine of "Mom!"