｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ─Potions & Practical Magic: Witch AU ─ ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

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Allspice ~ Cinnamon ~ Angelica ~ Coriander ~ Poppy Seed ~ Chamomile - For Health

Vitality - the study of the body. Common practices of this coven include potion, tinctures, and cures, but there are rumors of more taboo practices lurking under this coven’s soft veneer of respectability. One can only imagine the control they may have over skin and bone, flesh and blood.



Smoke. It’s of tantamount importance in his work. Anything about its varying properties could indicate any number of potential outcomes of the potion brewed. Like now; the deep purple smoke pluming atop the latest batch of whatever Augustine was crafting signaled the fine balance between something meant to heal and something meant to harm, and that particular jewel tone was edging a little too far towards an undesired outcome.

“Intention, Augustine, Intention!” He chides gently as a hand sweeps through the violet haze to disperse it. His large currently-a-boar familiar, Strigoi, sneezes from where he’s settled in a pile of old quilts in the corner of the room. “You cannot be distracted with this particular mix. Others, yes. But not this.” A dark hand traces the lip of the cauldron. Bright glyphs follow where his fingers pass, curling over the cast iron and burning the near neon violet of them into the dark metal. Lyov can see as he peers over that the color is correcting into something far more palatable. “There. An easy fix.”

“How do you know I didn’t want to make fucking poison?” His son grumbles beside him. Augustine is terribly partial to Lyov’s hand me down robes; right now, he’s near swimming in the hand crocheted piece Lyov had given him a season ago. It makes him proud how much his son take after him: curly hair puffed from too much smoke, tawny eyes like the owls that perch in the pines around their home, dark bags under the eyes from too little sleep, and a penchant for a bit finer food and more sedentary spell work than their associates. Though of course Lyov would never compare himself to other covens! Far from it actually. He knows that the niche his particular coven has carved is damn near vital to every corner of their magical community. Everyone injures themself, bleeds, gets sick, craves a little cure.


“You still have a few years before Blight might take you. Keep the poisons until then.”


“Poison can have just as much use as any sort of potion.” Auggie grabs the wooden spoon tucked deep into the sludgy mix, gives it half a stir.


“Intention!” Lyov’s hand meets the back of his son’s head in a gentle slap. “What did I just tell you?”


“It’s a troublesome thing to master.” A new voice calls from the hallway beyond this particular brewing room. Thank god for the warning; Grimm is always a tricky one to hear if he didn’t want to be heard. The poor man’s head brushes the doorway as he dips inside, holding a package in one pale, fine boned hand. Blight’s realm really didn’t do wonders for anyone not already gifted an abundance of color, Lyov thinks with a hum as he reaches for the package.

“Ah, yes, Grimm, thank you. You know, it just doesn’t grow here as well. I’ve tried to cultivate glow root, but for some reason or another, it just refuses to take.” His laugh echoes around the bubbling of the cauldron. Tawny eyes catch Grimm’s own, looking up at a face seemingly more suited towards Revelation than where he currently resides. “Don’t suppose I could grill you for tips?”

Grimm’s hair flickers. Here in sunlight filtered through the green tinted glass of his home, the whole of him looks a little paler, a little more like something strangely graceful yet dredged corpse-like from a swamp. Still, his hair and curious markings along the length of his throat  manage to shine plenty bright and plenty blue as though branded by lightning and still sparking. They’re a lovely contrast to the dark embroidered purple of his thick robes. The whole of him feels slightly off, that slightly left of normal that quietly screams ‘other’. “The raising of the glow root is not under my purview, sir.”


“Of course.” Lyov sighs. Auggie snickers behind him. “Could I keep you long enough for tea, or do you have somewhere else to be?”


“Only a cup, if you please. I am on a rather tight schedule this afternoon, and the Switchback gets rather… troublesome to navigate after dark.”


“Troublesome? With the fucking Maynards in there? Crow not on friendly terms any more?” Auggie huffs, tossing another handful of dried herbs into the pot. Lyov’s muttered ‘intention, grace, please’ goes ignored.


Grimm’s tone is the clipped posh of Revelation, but the warmth in his eyes cuts neatly through any sort of annoyance on his face. “Far from it. I just prefer not to be accosted by moths.”


Auggie can’t help it; he laughs. His giggles start small before echoing against the vine covered glass, bright and bubbling in the humid air. As if catching the mood, the little bat familiar tucked in his curls chirps just as bright and amused. “Maybe I should give you whatever this turns into. It might be way better for killing moths than… I don’t know. What is this meant to be anyway? Boner potion?”


“Get your hands off that.” Lyov slaps Auggie’s hands away from the spoon. “Boner potion. I cannot believe you.”


“But tata, I thought I was supposed to learnnnn.” Auggie’s pitiful tone is undercut by the shit eating smile he’s got hidden behind his arms. The whole of him is leaned heavy on the lip of the cauldron looking over the edge of the iron into what is quickly becoming less of a dark purple muck and more of a lovely, light purple. “The fuck, how did you do that?”

In the end, it’s not Lyov that answers, but Grimm. Standing with his hands in front of him, dry as a fucking bone, Grimm’s voice carries past the soft bubbling of the cauldron.


“I don’t think he was thinking ‘boner potion’ while he did it.”


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Sorrel ~ Vanilla ~ Cinnamon ~ Coriander - For Love

Charm - the study of the soul. Emotions are common practice within this coven, made and broken in equal parts practice and potions. As it is, those in this coven tend towards protective measures and pleasant effects, but one must never forget charms and curses lie on the same coin.



“I’m going to need vanilla, sorrel, cinnamon, ah… hmm.” Karen Scott looks over the plants tucked away in the basket appraisingly, running her fingers against each to judge the quality. A striking woman of middle age, her skirts are ringed in dirt at the hems from a day in her own gardens. The stains are hard work, the fabric bleached from mornings in bright sun. She’s a soft sort of oddity in their line of work. A coven such as hers is intrinsically tied to the earth, to the warmth and stability of dirt and bark. Not as wild as the Maynards of the Switchback, but she still deals in flower and root all the same.

One of them stands in front of her now. Tobias is one of a pair of twins, all broad height and curly hair. There's a smattering of freckles that dusts across his cheeks that she can see this close and calluses on the hands  holding out the wicker basket of grown goodies. He’s a gentle giant if she’s ever seen one; well, one of several gentle giants that make up the Maynards. His massive Newfoundland familiar has long since settled against the wall of her cabin, happy in the shade it provides.


“How ‘bout coriander, ma’am?” Tobi offers with a hopeful little pinch to his brows. “Sounds like you’re cookin’ somethin’ sweet, and coriander usually rounds that sorta thing out. Least that’s what ma says. I got no head for brewin’.”


Karen laughs at his clumsy but well intentioned help, but she can’t help but think the suggestion over. If it really was something heard from Tobias’s mother, it's not a tip to take lightly.  The woman is a respected wild witch, choosing to keep only her family close within her chosen woods instead of formally joining any coven. A coven head in all but name, and her son is passing on potion advice in such an earnest manner. It makes her smile to see it.


“Think I might, Tobi. Add it to the bill.”


“Yes, ma’am.” The boy already has smile lines for being so young. She watches him bundle each herb in careful amounts, the weight of them familiar enough that he doesn’t need to measure them out. Calloused hands knot each ribbon with a practical bow. Even tempered, and cunning under all that hair and past piercing gray eyes; she can see why her daughter has taken such a shine to the boy.


“Miss Noelle in, ma’am? Or is she up with them in the mountains now?”


Speaking of.


Her smile is secret as she hands off bundles to Marden, the beaver familiar at her feet, her clever little hands grabbing at each before toddling away towards the house. “She is up with Revelation, yes. Girl couldn’t wait to get her hands on all those books they have tucked away up there. She did leave you a letter though.”


“A letter? For me?”


Karen chances a glance up. The boy’s hands have stilled in the basket of herbs he’s carrying, a blush high on his cheeks. She knows he’s trying to play off any excitement he may be feeling, but one look at the Newfoundland’s tail thudding happily beside him betrays any sort of cool he may have thought he had. She laughs not unkindly as she brushes bits of dirt and stray herb on her skirt.


“Yes, a letter. Just for you. Come in a bit and we can discuss payment, letters, and a bit of tea. If you have the time?”

“Always have the time for you, ma’am. ‘Specially if you got tea!”


“I always have tea, Tobias.” her laugh is warm as they enter her home. Herbs and cut flowers cover countertops as if in the middle of a spell, something spiced bubbles away in a cauldron in the center of the room, and her familiar is arranging the newest additions with quiet focus. She thinks they might do best hung from the ceiling like the other whole dried herbs for now until she has the caudron space to use them. There was a comfort spell she needed to work before the week’s end; someone’s child was nervous at school despite the sweetheart she knew taught that class. “And so you’re always welcome.”

“Mighty fine smell you got goin’ on in here. I’ll stop by for sure between rounds if I got the time.” He sits heavy in the chair at the kitchen table, the whole of him settling like some ancient fallen tree. Curly hair bobs as he leans forward, rough hands clasped in front of him as he waits patiently for both the tea and the promised treasure of a letter. She sees no reason not to reward him.


“Here. Light reading while I brew the tea.”


Tobi’s face when he takes the letter is a slow simmering delight, as if he’s afraid that showing too much will have the letter taken from him. As if she would do anything of the sort, she thinks with a laugh. She turns her back to sounds of ripped envelopes and the soft crinkling of the parchment she knows her daughter favors.


If these two don’t end up courting, she’ll eat her garden trowel.


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Allspice ~ Comfrey ~ Nutmeg ~ Heather - For Luck

Fortune - A wild coven with no real home, practitioners travel under the keen eyed gaze of their fey covenhead. Their only goal; to spread fortune’s favor or displeasure however they see fit, and to cast and take luck as their capricious natures lead them to.



“Love!”


Larry smiles from his place on the couch. His little cottage is a wash of warm, earthy tones and scents all muddled together to form the aesthetic equivalent of a hug. At the insistent knocking and steadily increasing dramatics, he sets his book down on a side table, gives his pet sheep a little pat, and makes his way across wood weathered by constant company to open the door to one of his favorite visitors.

“Dearest!” Molly looks delighted on the other side, his hands splayed wide as if asking silently for a hug. Larry is more than happy to have his laughter lost to a patchwork scarf, a sweater large enough for one shoulder to escape the collar, and piles of golden bits and baubles hung wherever they can fit. It seems to be a trait of his, shoving things where they don’t quite fit; his baubles, his trinkets, himself.


“Come in, come in! It’s been ages!”


“It’s been a week.” Molly’s grin is bright as he brings them both over the threshold. ‘Always so polite’ Larry thinks. More people should really wait for permission to enter. It had always felt some sort of wrong to him to go into someplace he wasn’t invited. Like a strange itch that crawled up his spine, twisting his insides until he felt sick; only leaving had ever made it feel better. “How are you, dearheart? How are the children? I’ve brought them gifts, you know.” His clever hands go to digging in the large leather bag at his side. “And you as well, but that goes without saying.”

His hair always looks so soft. Larry aches to touch it sometimes, perhaps even tuck the stray curl back behind pointed ears. His cheeks flush pink from the thought and he’s suddenly grateful Molly’s attention is always a hundred percent taken with whatever current task he’s involved in. Right now it happens to be pulling little brass contraptions and setting them on the nearest flat surface, lining them up neatly as though anything less than perfect presentation would result in Larry not taking the little things. He doesn’t know why Molly still does it, he’s never not taken the toys. It’s rather endearing though.


With one final tap against a little machine, Molly steps back with his arms open wide and smiles proudly. “Gifts! What do you think?”


They’re the same as he always brings; that is to say, blindingly complex little machines and trinkets that are no doubt each worth a significant chunk of his teacher’s salary. Each of them tut and whir to life the moment he steps close. There are ones that walk, ones that sing, ones that hold and sharpen a pencil when given. Molly hands a tiny knight a little strip of charcoal and it bows deeply to the coven head before taking its sword and slicing a neat little point to the stick. He holds it out to Larry, eyes wide and delighted like a magpie with a particularly shiny watch.


“They’re lovely, Molly, really.” Larry takes the charcoal stick between two fingers and eyes the knight suspiciously. It raises its sword at his attention, but does little else. “Perhaps I keep that one for my office, but the children will certainly love the others.”

“So it's this one you like? Noted.” Larry watches Molly nod to the little knight before raising a hand. The trinkets all rise to attention like tiny little soldiers. When he speaks next, it's to them. “Go, you know where.”


Larry watches with more than a little amusement as the little statues click and move like the real creatures they represent. A brass bird hops down to the wooden floor and toddles away followed by a dragon clawing its way down the table it was placed on and quietly smoking the entire way. Little mechanical witches cast tiny spells, disappearing and reappearing a foot from the door. The mink that always seems to follow at Molly’s heels hissing at the one nearest the door until it raises its arms in a strange sort of stool and provides enough height for the little creature to climb up and twist open the door. Molly certainly must have spent quite a bit of time training the little thing to do such a trick, Molly thinks. It was really rather impressive.


“They’ll be out of your hair in a moment, love. Then it’ll be just us.”


His jewelry always catches the light so pretty. It’s absolutely unfair the things he does to Larry and doesn’t even seem to notice, all casual flirting and little regard for personal space. He’s leaned back now, nearly bent in half to better look at Larry. His auburn hair falls soft and wild behind him and Larry can’t help himself; he tucks a stray curl off the man’s forehead and behind an ear. He realizes what he’s done a second too late and nearly trips over his own feet to back away and towards the kitchen.


“Just, ah, us then. Would you care for anything? Tea, coffee, scones, I have some leftovers even from last night, a very nice stew-”


He’s gone too soon to watch the way Molly stills, painted fingers reaching for the hair now tucked back and away. Misses entirely the soft grin that rises like a sunrise across his face. Before he hears the quiet, disbelieving chuckle of a man stolen of air and praising a higher power in the same breath.


“Well what do you know.” He’s reverent, a sinner at an altar of warm smiles and pale eyes. Then, louder, “Stew would be great, love!”


Molly follows where he had gone with a new bounce in his step, his joy painting the light that streams through the windows golden.


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Angelica ~ Basil ~ Bay ~ Cinnamon ~ Garlic ~ Mint ~ Peppermint ~ Pepper ~ Marjoram - For Protection

Blight - Rot and foul fiends, creatures of decay and penultimate change these practitioners be. Their magic exists in the cracks between what was and what shall be, in the liminal and unknowable, in the change of seasons and the shift of life into death.



Blight, as a whole, was commonly thought of as a place of morbid darkness. How could it not? Everyone knew Blight existed past the Switchback Forest, through the swamp at its core. The trip through was always disorienting; dropping through the inky dark of the swamp, sucking on water for a moment too long, drowning until not before treading water with the world flipped under one’s feet. The sky now echoed the color of the swamp water, clouded and dark. Crows could be heard cawing and fluttering between trees always halfway to barren. Sharp eyes lingered on each newcomer, the vultures attached to them weighing the worth of one’s life as whoever had made the effort to come through heaves a sopping wet hand to shore.


But.


But past the murk, if one cared to look, was life. Glowroot grew wild here, tucked into tree roots with other plants and fungi leaking light into the perpetual fog and night. The thick flora could be difficult to navigate to those unfamiliar, but overgrown paths lead the way to those that know of them. Like now; bare feet pick their way along the withered path. The figure they’re attached to is silent save for the quiet rustling of their familiar at their side.

Qamar ducks under a dying branch, arms laden with tied bundles of foraged herbs and ingredients. Out of all his siblings, he had been the one to take to potionwork and thus the one to most need to visit the forest floor for supplies. He’d been the one to inherit quite a bit actually; his father’s magic burned in his veins, manifesting in moss and feathers curling up his arms whenever his hands stirred a potion or dredged their way through some thick, poison sludge. Blight had always been a tricky magic, but his family was thankfully well equipped to ignore any possible necrotic side effects.


He picks his way up the first of many sets of crumbing stairs, all of them more loose stone than anything solid at this point. The great horned nightjar familiar at his shoulder shoots the whole scene a look absolutely too withering for such a small bird.


“Is baba in?” Qamar catches his only brother by the arm when he finally reaches a habitable part of the castle. People often assumed Blight to be cold, dark, and colorless; the reality of it was just a little to the left of that assumption. Malik lounges on a plush chaise upholstered in deeply saturated hues. Under him, the floor is draped in rugs done in intricate geometric patterns, and lanterns above cast warm specks of light across the room. It spatters off the both of them and onto the many plants that have taken space in the cracks. Qamar can just barely catch the large form of Malik’s familiar wound around the space, torchlight glinting off obsidian scales and too clever eyes.


“Baba’s home.” Malik hums in answer. “Upstairs in the study. He’ll appreciate that,” he nods towards the bundles in Qamar’s hands, “But it's one of those nights. Closer to mine than yours.”


“What did you do to get scales?”

“Why do you assume the worst of me?”

Qamar and his familiar merely wait with twin disapproving gazes for the man to crack.

“I tripped into something time sensitive.” Malik sighs eventually. “Lost an arm to it, but what can you do?”

“You could not trip into things.”

"So funny, you know that? I lose an arm and you're making jokes."

"Did you save it at least?" Qamar crosses the room and spares half a glance at his elder brother. Both arms, whole and intact, are draped dramatically over the back of the seat.

"Of course I did. I'm not an idiot." A squawk comes from Qamar's shoulder; it's a credit to his familiar that she can sound mocking even in bird calls.

"Not cool!"


Malik's indignant shout carries as he climbs further up a staircase. Even here. High above the misty swamp of the Kcabhctiws, the building crumbles. Stone cracks under his feet, plants tuck themselves wherever they can and cling to life jealously despite the adversity. His mother had once tried to tuck wildflowers in with the glowroot and ferns, but the native plants hadn't seemed fond of sharing. Not that they had much choice in the matter after Sam had heard how happy the little blossoms made Anisah.


The blossoms stayed even when their mother wasn't there to see them.


The door to his father's study is past the library they keep. Many of the books inside had been an early and a touch excessive courting gift from Revelation, but his sisters more than appreciated this collateral from their father's tangled love life. They're inside now, their hushed tones and quiet rustle of pages letting him know Qadira had to be in and supervising. It's quiet this high up. Not always, but usually; it's a lovely reprieve from the subdued bustle of witches closer to the ground. He doesn't even realize he's paused at the study doorway until his father's voice breaks through his thoughts with the grim precision of one of their ritual knives.


"I can hear you thinking from here, habibi."


Sam has always cut a striking figure and now is no different. Even in the gothic ceilinged hallways of their home, he takes up a massive amount of space through sheer presence alone. Tall curved horns serve as the closest thing they have to a crown, the bits of gold tucked away in his hair glittering warmly with each tilt of his head or step of his walk. His robes are in the same rich purple they all wear and barely visible beneath the shimmering iridescence and many blinking eyes of the feathered cape he wears. The nature of the garment is evershifting, same as all their own ever-changing natures. Not quite witch, not quite Fey, they were something almost unknowable. At least, to those that cared enough to speculate.


Qamar had never felt his family was anything strange. Forest, trees, whatever.


"I heard it's scales today."

Sam huffs a laugh at that. Qaamr can feel a tension he didn't even know he had loosen at the sound. "Your brother is being dramatic. There's no warpath to tread here."


"He ruined a ritual." Qamar points out. It seems important.


"Which was more than made up for by the arm he left behind. I'll have to talk to him if he's still wallowing." The cape flares as he turns, flashing its colors as Sam steps into the open space of his study. Half the room is simply foundational columns and broken glass open to the cool mountain air and miles of hazy treetops. Qamar had always found interest in the way one could pick out every pinprick of light from every little home or study that was scattered throughout the forest. Sam had shown him several times, the two of them with their legs dangling off the high ledge and watching crows flit from house to house.


"He's still wallowing. I brought these."


“Oh lovely. I had just run out of oleander, and the glowroot will be good to repair what Malik ran through. Almawt!” His voice is suddenly loud and calling up towards the large dark shape roosting in the rafters. “Check it over for me. What’s smudged beyond repair, what can I fix?”

If Qamar hadn’t already been a part of this family, he might find the low static that fills his mind as multiple pairs of eyes open above him rather unnerving. As it stands though, he’s just glad Almawt spreads several pairs of feathered wings instead of climbing down with blood stained claws. They land with a rush of wind and a heavy thud, squawking unintelligibly at Sam when the man bats their curious head away. “Make the note, damn pest. You’re not getting the arm.”


“They want the arm?”


“Yes, they want the arm.” Sam sighs like someone burdened by the same scabbed over argument. “They always want the bits that fall from your brother, the damned carrion pigeon. Overgrown, spoiled pest.”

The bird-adjacent familiar coos as it uses the largest of several wings to scrub away a section of symbols on the floor. A moment later, the little nightjar from Qamar’s shoulder swoops to join, helping to scrub out some of the smaller, more intricate symbology that fills most of the space on the expansive stone floor of the study. Sam and Qamar watch them in a peaceful sort of silence.


“How far were you in to-”


“So far.” Sam hums with a pained tone at odds with the quiet smile on his face. “So far.”


─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ────── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Orange ~ Lemongrass ~ Marjoram - For Insight

Revelation - study for study’s sake. Revelation seeks to understand each strand that holds the universe together and then guard that knowledge so as to keep it only to its practitioners. Rumor has it the coven head already knows, the knowledge so great that he even keeps it from himself.



“It’s fucking cold up here’,” Newt grumbles from where he’s kneeled in front of some massive instrument. Beside him, the wolverine curled around a pile of wires and conduits huffs its agreement.  “Freeze my fucking fingers off. Too fuckin’ bright and cold. Rozz!” The last name is yelled, loud and bouncing across the high, immaculately polished ceilings and walls of what looks more like a church than some academic stronghold. A groan answers him almost immediately before the man in question calls back.

“Yeah?” Low, deep, deeply annoyed. Rozz is just as done with the cold and the high air as he is. At least the man gets to be elbows deep in brass gears instead of stuck where Newt is, desperately trying to diagnose what’s wrong with these fucking arcane connections. Goddamn upstairs wizards and their need for expensive, fiddly equipment. If the man running this freezer didn’t have a thing for his coven head, he doubts they would be here in the first place.


“Where’d you put the goddamn –“


“Down below me. Dropped it earlier and couldn’t be assed to put it back.” Rozz leans over after a self-satisfied ‘ha!’, a massive brass fixture in his hand that looks to be missing an annoyingly few numbers of tines, just enough to prevent it from working. “We’ll have to recast this. It was done solid to begin with because apparently, courting gifts between coven heads have to be absolutely insane.”


“Lucky us.” Newt reaches for the tool where Rozz says he dropped it. His hand closes around nothing. “Asshole, where is it?”


“I dropped it there, I swear.” The gear is set down with a large crash of metal against marble, loud enough to get Rozz’s familiar, an absolutely massive saltwater croc, to raise its dumb head to look their direction. Rozz gives the whole area a once over as he pulls back the thick locks that had come loose from their braid while he had worked to free that fucking mass of brass and spite. “I’m not lying to you, dude.”

“He’s not.” Comes another voice, light and tinted with laughter. They know this one just from how Qamar generally tolerates the man during the times he can be bothered to break through the Switchback. “It fell down between the edge.”

Taylor is a curious man at the best of times, capriciously infuriating at the worst. Newt would swear up and down that the man had some fey in him were it not for the fact that he had seen him use cast iron to cook. In a way that would make Shoris (a witch with Vitality that Taylor had waxed poetic about on more than one occasion) beat him over the head with said pan, but he had used it. Right now, he stands with his hands tucked behind his back, the colors of his robes in this environment making him seem almost ethereal.

Rozz knows better. Rozz has seen this man off his ass on potions and the Maynard’s home brewed liquor more than once. Has seen him give sermons  about the fabric of the universe before passing out against the nearest upright surface. He watches him now as Taylor eyes the shape of his arms as they finish tying back the last of his locs. Rozz snorts.


“We both got other interests and you know it.”


“Does an artist commit their view to only one painting? I may have a favorite but to deny the aesthetic appeal of one such as yourself would be a crime I refuse to tolerate.”


“Just say you think he’s hot and move on to the bit where you tell me where this fucking tool is.” Newt sits back and stares at them both. “I’d like to leave this fucking freezer before the turn of the century.”

‘So impatient, why do you even bring him along?” Taylor pouts, though the smile on his face doesn’t leave. It’s enough of a distraction to pull them from the fourth presence that just entered, boots quietly clicking against the polished floors and his magic a heavy, cosmic weight.


“Because these are sensitive instruments that require a professional touch. They are both professionals.”


Newt had never given much thought to Revelation as a coven. Blight was its opposite; dark where the other was light, taking pride in the hidden and unknowable where Revelation loved bringing knowledge into view and breaking it down under further study. When Sam had made it known that he intended to return a certain courting gift from a certain coven head, he hadn’t paid much attention. When he had overheard Sam and Anisah talking late into the evenings about a witch with hair white as snow and eyes piercing like a hawk’s, he had left them to their thoughts. But now, with that coven head standing in front of him? Lazarus is hard to ignore.

His robes are bright white and blue, nearly militaristic in their precise tailoring. Newt knows the man deals in the notoriously fiddly magic of script and runes, but to see the hint of what this coven wore on their skin is something else. The blue is searing, like brands etched across skin, the same color of the eyes that stare at the three of them. It strikes Newt after a long moment that the man is rather slight. Taller than he (not unusual) but not by large amount, the man still manages to fill this cathedral of an astrological observatory through just the weight of magic he carries with him. Newt is blinking the afterimages of stars out of his eyes as the man speaks.


“Don’t taunt them, Taylor. Let them do their job.”


“It’s not taunting, it’s friendly! I’m making pleasant, witty conversation with these two lovely gentlemen.” Taylor grins.


“Witty conversation is worth little when it's an excuse to not perform a task.” Laz glares at Taylor with only a little ire. “What is it he’s supposed to be doing for you?”


That’s another thing, Newt thinks. Revelation and all their fucking words. He and Rozz both know Lazarus knows what exactly they’re missing and where it is. This is probably just a roundabout way of embarrassing Taylor. “We lost a tool between the edge, and you know how fuckin’ deep that shit goes. Sir.” He tacks on at the end.

“Mmm.” Lazarus hums. Graceful fingers flip, there’s a piercing feeling in his and Rozz’s heads that makes them collectively wince, and the universe around them folds like a finished book. When they both blink the brightness from their eyes, the tool is there in the Revelation head’s open palm. “Is this what you had lost?”

Newt snatches it, shakes it at Rozz in a half-assed threat. “Yes, fucking thank you! Don’t fucking lose it again, you asshole!” He ignores Rozz’s grumbled back ‘didn’t lose it’ and turns back to Lazarus. “Thank you, sir. It’d be a pain to do this without.”

“Just as it would be a pain to go without this observatory during the upcoming solstice. You’re doing me more of a favor than I you. Come along, Taylor.” Those same graceful hands motion to the pale bastard still ogling Rozz.


“No, thank you, would rather stay in case of any other-“


“Come along, Taylor.” Firmer this time. “Or would you rather I have Emboss come pick you up?”


“Not that blasted bird again. He’s a bitch, Lazarus, and so mean to Counsel!” Taylor half skips just enough to catch up the coven head. Their voices fade as they walk, leaving Newt and Rozz back to their work. They catch each other’s eyes before shaking their heads. Academics, man.


They’ll never understand.


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