Chapter Text
Agatha was already behind the pace of the other witches. Despite being a blood witch, born to one of the greatest witches of her time, Agatha has failed at almost every turn on the path to becoming a member of her mother's coven.
Evanora had left her previous coven to establish one for new witches, mentoring young girls in the art of witchcraft. Most girls pass the induction trial at the age of sixteen, but Agatha's sixteenth birthday has long come and gone. Even at the age of eighteen, she is no closer to passing the simple induction trial than she had been in the past years of trying.
"Time's up," Evanora says in a commanding voice, her expression already flooding with disappointment.
The young Agatha gasps, looking at the rune on the ground. She had only just finished drawing it; she never even got the opportunity to activate it.
The trial is simple. All it is meant to do is draw out the innate affinity of each witch so Evanora can tailor to their specialty. All each witch must do is show a potential in anything to pass. For this attempt at the trial, Agatha had chosen the path of a protection witch, the path of fire. She had hoped she could show some potential in this field, but like all other attempts…she failed.
"But, Mother—" Agatha protests, turning to Evanora with her hands clasped in a plea, "I was so close this time! Surely that must mean I show some potential for this path!"
"'So close'? You are hardly any further now than you were before," Evanora scoffs.
"See? Right there! A step closer, no matter how small, is still a step!"
Evanora's patience grows thin, curling her lips in frustration. "You would dare settle for mediocrity?!"
Agatha flinches. Having her work diminished like that cuts her deeper than any blade could. "I… I am trying, Mother…"
"It is not enough," Evanora dismisses her with a wave of her hand. "Leave my sight. I do not wish to see you."
Agatha sucks in a breath, trying to stop her lower lip from wobbling. She knows to comply, because she also knows that if she does not appease her mother while she is so frustrated, 'leaving her sight' could very much mean having to sleep outside. She scrambles to grab some of her tomes and her notebooks, scooping them into her arms as she runs out the door.
"I'm sorry, Mother! I'll do better!"
Evanora has since turned away from her, and Agatha runs too fast to be able to catch a glimpse of her as she leaves the cottage. Her legs carry her as quickly as possible away from that place, into the woods. Agatha can barely hear the sounds of nature over her heartbeat pounding in her ears and her exhausted pants for air as she sprints. It gets to the point where she can barely see the dirt road in front of her by the way her vision becomes clouded with tears.
Blinded by her tears, Agatha's leg catches on a tree root, and she falls forward. Her skirts tear as they are caught in the root, and her books go flying when she loses balance. Her body crashes hard on the ground, and Agatha cannot bite back her howl of pain, which soon gives way to broken sobs as she lets herself fall apart.
She sobs and chokes on her own tears, feeling a searing pain both in her palms and ankle. She knows deep down that the binding of her books have likely come undone as well from the crash, and it feels as if she cannot escape misfortune's grasp. She drowns under the surface of her own misery, so submerged that she cannot hear the quiet rustling of leaves from slow and careful footsteps.
It only registers that someone is with her when she hears the subtle pop of one's knees as they kneel next to her. She gasps, hurriedly trying to roll away before she is immediately stopped by the pain through her body, now centered in her knee. Frozen in place, she finally looks at her strange company: a girl in a green cloak, with black hair and big, brown eyes that blankly stare down at her.
"G-Get away from me!" Agatha shouts pathetically, her voice muddled from crying. Her voice is weak and meager, matching the pathetic 'witch' it belongs to.
"You're hurt," is all the stranger says back to her.
Agatha sniffles, feeling the tears well back up in her eyes. Her palms have been skinned when she fell, as has her knee, and she's certain she twisted if not flat out broke her ankle on the root. Yet more proof of how pathetic and useless she is.
"I deserve to die out here… A miserable failure like me deserves a miserable and pathetic end…" Agatha mumbles with tears rolling down her cheeks, curling up on the ground.
The stranger merely exhales a bothered huff at that, and she turns her gaze away from Agatha and plucks a leaf from a vine.
"Give me your hands," she tells Agatha, holding out her empty hand for her.
Agatha weakly sets her hand in the stranger's, her gaze slowly rising to look at her again. She's just in time to witness the girl lick the leaf she holds before she sets it on Agatha's bloody palm. Agatha recoils in disgust and horror.
"Eugh! What are you doing?!" Agatha cringes, yet she's quick to notice the pain has vanished. Once the girl moves the leaf away, she notices the blood is smeared, but the wounded skin has mended. "You—You're a witch…"
The strange witch lets out a noncommittal hum of acknowledgement as she moves to the other hand with a new, moistened leaf.
"Sit up," she urges. Agatha, knowing the girl is helping her, does as told, sitting with her legs extended in front of her.
The girl mends Agatha's scuffed knee with another saliva-coated leaf, but she stands and walks towards a different tree right after. Agatha tries to stand, but the girl's voice stops her, as does the pain in her foot.
"Stay there. I need something else for that ankle," the girl says. She plucks a plant from the base of the tree and smushes it in her hand, rubbing her palms together to turn the plant and its inner moisture and gel into a paste. Grabbing more leaves, she rubs the paste onto them before kneeling by Agatha and wrapping the leaves around her ankle.
Agatha hisses from the sudden, icy coldness, but it quickly reduces the swelling and pain in her leg.
"A…A potions witch?" She asks the girl in disbelief.
"Eh, not really," she shakes her head, "I just know nature."
"So a green witch," Agatha deduces.
"You could say that."
"I…I'm a witch too. Or…at least, I want to be. My name is Agatha," she tells the girl, sniffling one last time as her tears have mostly subsided. She is trying to compose herself.
"I'm Rio," she says, her gaze now turning to the scattered pages and books on the ground. "Are these yours?"
Agatha nods. "Yes… I need to study. I failed my mother yet again with my poor performance."
"What's your specialty?" Rio asks with a tilt of her head. Agatha can tell by her voice that she is actually curious and wants to know, but she would never guess that based on Rio's blank expression. There is so little in her eyes.
Agatha draws in her lower lip nervously. "I…I don't have one. I haven't been able to excel at any path."
"I see," Rio comments, turning away from Agatha. She moves towards the pile of papers and begins to gather them up for Agatha as she is still recovering from her wounded ankle. She looks over some of them, unable to help herself while organizing them back into their intended order.
"You said your mother was a witch?" Rio asks offhandedly.
"Yes… The greatest witch in the colonies," Agatha tells her. She still speaks of her mother in reverence.
Rio snorts. "Some great witch she is, allowing her own daughter to proceed with incredibly flawed notes."
"Flawed…?" Agatha can hardly believe her own ears. Could Evanora's teachings be wrong? Or has Evanora genuinely allowed Agatha to misconstrue all her readings this badly without intervening?
Rio doesn't answer. She stands up, walking around the forest path and gathering a few objects. Agatha watches as she plucks red berries, splinters off a small piece of tree bark, and gathers more leaves. Rio crushes the berries and puts the paste atop the leaves, then dabbles that splinter of wood into the paste, creating a quill and inkwell out of nature itself. She begins to write on Agatha's pages, making Agatha squirm.
"Hey..!" She protests uneasily. She had worked so hard, labored to take meticulous notes of every tome and teaching given by her mother.
Rio doesn't acknowledge those protests. She merely keeps working, then takes the stack of papers and books and hands them back to Agatha.
"There," she says as she hands them off, "you should be able to pass if you study these. Your mother deceived you. Maybe that was part of the trial. Or maybe you are just that gullible or stupid. Either way, this is the correct practice."
Agatha's first reaction is immediate distrust—how dare this girl insult her mother and accuse her of deception? Who is she to insult her own intelligence, too?
But Agatha saw this girl's affinity for herself. She's far more advanced than Agatha is, a knowledgeable and powerful witch.
Agatha hurriedly stands, and the fact she can put weight on her ankle tells her everything she needs to know. Rio can be trusted.
"What coven do you belong to?" Agatha asks urgently, clutching her books closely to her chest.
"I don't have a coven," Rio answers, turning away, "I have a Master."
A witch this powerful without a coven? Is that even possible? Who could possibly be this girl's Master?
Rio's walking away from her. Agatha cannot remain trapped in her own head with all these questions.
"Wait!" Agatha stops her, causing Rio to turn around again. "Thank you, Rio."
Rio simply looks Agatha over for a moment. She eventually nods her head and lets out a hum in acknowledgement. With her hands to her sides, she gives Agatha her parting word, "Te veo."
With that, she turns around and skips off. Agatha stands and watches her leave, exhaling a breath. Once Rio is out of sight again, Agatha looks down at the pages in her hands. She sees Rio's annotations: words in some incantations crossed off and corrected, ingredients added or removed from certain brews, and most of all, notes about earthen magic.
Agatha's eyes linger on the earthen magic, the magic of a green witch. She attempted that path once or twice in her trials, but it never clicked for her, and she never truly devoted herself to that path as opposed to protections. She witnessed this magic firsthand, though. Something she cannot say about any other path.
Perhaps she knows what she will attempt for her next trial…