The Outcast

After a few minutes of walking, Lily couldn’t deny that the fearful feeling in her stomach was waning fast. The woods were, well, they were beautiful to walk in. The sunlight of the late morning made the different colours in the bark covered trunks stand out and the colours of the undergrowth were crisp and fun to walk through. Birds twittered overhead as they hopped on branches or flew to a safe distance from where Lily and her cats walked; they were obviously not like the companions she was used to; these birds would see a cat and see it immediately as a predator. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see both cats turn their heads to glance up at every movement by something smaller than them. It was easy to forget that they were, in fact, predators when they sat laughing with her daily.

It took about an hour of slow walking to start seeing the edge of the woodland, the light between the trunks getting brighter by the second. At the edge, Lily had to raise her hand to shield her eyes. She had never seen the sunlight without some of it being masked or blocked by leaves and trees, but here it swallowed the world before her for the moments that her now green eyes adjusted to it.

“Whoa…” Kiki breathed down by Lily’s left foot.

‘Whoa’ was the only word for it. As soon as her eyes had adjusted and Lily could make out what was in front of her, she felt her jaw gape open. The sight before her was nothing like she had ever known, nothing she had ever imagined.

She had been told to venture to the right of the witches’ congregation first, so it didn’t look obvious that she was coming directly from the woods, but the Elders had not told her that there was something like this waiting for her!

Down the hillside where the woods started, there was a large mass of organised rock, stone and carved wood. There were chunks of metals that could never have occurred naturally seeming to hold the wood to the stone, or maybe they were just for decoration? As she walked down the hillside, her eyebrows furrowed into a confused expression, Lily couldn’t keep her eyes off the first structure. The one that ran around the outside of the settlement. It was at least ten times the height of her, and it seemed to be made purely of grey stone, though there were rectangular holes in the sides of it at different heights. As she got closer, she realised that there was light through those holes and some kind of clear material that reminded her of the ice they used to cover the gaps in their homes to allow sunlight inside.

Coming to a stop, she looked up at the structure with an eyebrow raised while dawning understanding moved across her face. Witches lived within stone homes. Though not naturally occurring stone, it was like the building she had seen in the history books that all those related to mankind had lived in.

Lily was surprised they hadn’t moved onto something more… well, pleasant.

As she looked around, she noticed that there seemed to be no end to them as she walked further inside. It was some kind of town, with the stone buildings reaching different heights, some towering over her threatening to outgrow even the oldest oak tree, others sitting timidly in the shadows looking run-down but somehow friendlier. This city was likely as large as their little area of woodland; the first witch settlement on a border between races, just as theirs was one of the first Fairy cities they would come to in the woodland which was said to span to the ends of the world where the stone grew up to meet the sky in a boundary at the world’s edge.

People moved around her and flitted from one building to another, some carrying bundles of things Lily couldn’t make out but all being followed by at least one companion animal. Cats, rats, bats, dogs, ravens, ferrets, frogs, and even a couple of stoats or mink could be seen trailing after their respective companions.

Strange. Lily thought that the numbers of witches were meant to be low; but from what she could see, every single person that resided here was a witch.

She felt sick at the thought, and with a subtle glance to the cats by her side, they were thinking the same thing. If all these witches were a part of the training to target the fairies, there would be a much bigger war than there ever had been previously!

“Nice shoes!” A voice sounded behind her, causing Lily to jump viciously, her feet actually leaving the ground a little as she scrambled away from the voice and turning around to find the source. Beside her, Kiki had yelped and ran a little away before turning and Oscar had spun on the spot, hackles raised and hissing angrily.

To all their surprise, they were faced with a creased face of a girl who looked around Lily’s age. She was laughing hysterically at the response she had been given and waving her hand in front of her as though that would help her calm down. Her chest rising and falling heavily, Lily simply watched the girl with her eyes still wide with unease. She noticed that there were three rats clinging onto the front of the girl’s jacket to stop them from falling down into Oscar’s reach.

The girl before her had a happy rounded face that was framed gloriously with messy curls of auburn hair that reached her shoulder blades. Her shirt was oversized, falling off one shoulder, with a cute drawn rabbit on the front who had an eyepatch and held an anatomically correct heart in its front left paw. Beneath it in beautiful italic writing read My heart for yours?

“Sorry, sorry!” The girl choked out as she began to get her breath back. “I’ve never seen anyone jump that high in surprise!” She giggled standing up straighter so that Lily could see the thick black choker around her neck with small chains and a black star hanging from it.

Lily must have seemed stunned into silence, but the girl merely smiled brightly up at her before motioning to Lily’s feet again.

“Your parents some of those hippy types? I’ve not seen people use such rustic material for shoes before.” Her smile wasn’t mocking, but her words caused pink to pepper Lily’s cheeks in embarrassment as she looked down at her own feet. The things that had been made for her feet were wound together from fine strips of wood and then a tiny layer of ice was used to keep them shiny.

“Erm… yeah?” Lily’s voice was incredibly quiet. Was she going to get caught out for her shoes?? This early on?? Fairies had no need or urge to wear shoes in their kingdom, so they hadn’t even known where to start with them. “I don’t really like them,” she added as an honest thought.

“Well, I can help that!” The girl commented, and Lily only had time to look back up before the girl had pulled a wand out of a pocket in her puffed out short skirt and waved it in the direction of Lily’s feet. “Consilce.”

Lily couldn’t keep her eyes from widening in horror as she looked down. But all she was met with was the sight of her shoes condensing and the material rippling into something much softer on her skin. Soon enough, she was looking down at her feet which were now within slim slip-on shoes rather than ones that hugged her ankles like before. They were black and gleaming, matching her dress and standing out against the grey of the stone floor of the city.

“Wow...” Lily couldn’t keep her lips shut this time.

“I know… I should be able to do that without my wand,” The girl had started saying “But my wandless magic often goes wrong so I prefer using it to be safe.”

Lily looked back up as Oscar and Kiki moved over to sniff at the new shoes curiously.

“Wandless magic?” Lily tilted her head a little with a bit of hope tickling her heart.

“Yeah, my dad says my bloodline should mean I can use it.” The girl looked sheepish now “Can you do it?”

Without thinking, Lily nodded though she received a claw to the side of her now visible ankle from Oscar. “Well,” She tried to rectify quickly, “I can do some, but I’ve always been a slow learner.”

That was a lie, but it seemed to bring a brighter smile to the girl’s face again. “A kindred soul!” She chimed happily before sticking out her right hand in greeting “I’m Diavian Blythe, though you can just call me Dia!”

Lily reached out to take the hand, noting that it was covered in a multitude of small bandages. “I’m Li…” Damn, she hadn’t decided on a name “Liliana. Liliana Roselyn; though my friends call me Lil or Lily” She invented hastily.

The girl named Dia didn’t seem to have noticed Lily’s hesitation and shook her hand almost gleefully. “Pleasure! Say, you aren’t by chance heading for the coven centre out of town, are you?”

Lily raised her eyebrow as she let her hand fall back to her side.

“It’s just, I didn’t like the idea of going alone. I bet most signing up will be able to use wandless magic and be so much better than me.” Dia was continuing “But if you were going, we could go together and maybe it’d feel better? I dunno, it’s just what I was thinking.” Her voice began to trail off at the sight of Lily simply looking at her without any reaction.

“Yeah, ok” Lily agreed quickly but nervously. It would be a very good idea to go into her destination with an actual witch, at least she could just be the quiet one to follow in the wake of this bouncy redhead.

“Really?! Alright!!” Dia really seemed like a bundle of sunshine, it was strange to think that someone like this could be one of the witches who would kill fairies in a few years’ time. “Did you need anything from here first?” She asked Lily looking around the entrance to the city, there wasn’t much here aside from a couple of places to eat and lots of homes.

“No” Came Lily’s answer, still highly nervous of giving anything else away and letting it out that she was no witch.

“Alright, let’s go then!”

Lily could never have been prepared to deal with a girl like Diavian Blythe, but she took Lily’s hand and tugged her from the city entrance in the direction of the so-called ‘coven’.

Dia talked the whole way, not seeming to mind that she either got one-word responses or no response at all.

“This is Snow, Idella and Gary. They’re so playful and they always come to give me a cuddle when I need it.” She was saying, pointing to the white rat, brown rat and grey rat in turn. “My dad says that they’re the weakest companions other than frogs, but they’re the best friends I could hope for, you know?”

Lily hummed in agreement. She knew nothing about witch companions, let alone whether they had any difference in strength.

“What are yours called?” Dia asks, looking to the side at Lily to show her that she was expecting an answer this time.

“Oh. Kiki is the smaller one with socks, and Oscar is the larger one.” She motioned to them, both trotting along silently either side of her as she walked. So far, they hadn’t heard any of the rats utter a single word, so Lily assumed the cats were sticking to the plan of keeping their tongues held too.

“Cute names!” The auburn-haired witch looked down at the cats and gave them a happy wave with her left hand. “Nice to meet you both!”

A low rumbling purr came from Oscar but that was all they could respond with.

Before any more could be said, Lily stopped and found herself looking up at a large gateway which towered above her. It was another stone structure that ran around what was inside, like a fence, though Lily couldn’t make out how far it went. It was far too high to think about venturing over and, dotted along the top, there appeared to be large figures standing sentinel.

These same sentinel figures were found at the gateway, one either side of the gate and standing at a colossal height. Lily tilted her head back to look up at the faces. How tall was that? Close to fifteen feet? They were cat-like in form, their giant paws flexing against the floor and their regal faces turned slightly into the pathway where the people would pass. Their fur was grey, but plumage of feathers sprouted off them in different areas. The sentinel on the right had green and yellow feathers, they sprouted from its back and over its two front legs while the green feathers on its head made it look like it was wearing a headdress. The sentinel on the left had a similar headdress style with its feathers, but they were of a deep violet and magenta mix. It had feathers down its sides over the rib areas and instead of a feline tail, it had feathers of the same hues splayed out like the tail of a peacock.

“Custosphinga” Dia whispered in awe as she looked from Lily, wondering why she had stopped, and the sentinel creatures.

“Wha…” Lily stuttered “I’ve never heard of them?”

“Really??” Dia looked utterly stunned, causing heat to prickle the back of Lily’s neck. Had she messed up? “Damn, you from like a farm out in the sticks or something? Your parents really kept you sheltered, huh?”

“Erm… yeah.” Lily didn’t have to try to look sheepish now, her face was obviously awkward.

“Wow. Well, I’ll help where I can! Us slow learners gotta stick together!” Dia grinned brightly before turning to look at the sentinels again. “Custosphinga are basically guards. They were bred to be dutiful and to be able to see the true physical form of those who pass. You know, to keep out any race like fairies or Draconian if they were hiding their wings, scales or horns somehow.”

Lily’s eyebrows furrowed. What was Draconian? And did it mean that these sentinels would be able to see what she was? Dread filled her in an instant. All other thoughts were lost from her mind. Her green eyes glanced immediately to Kiki and Oscar who were looking up at her, trying to keep their demeanour from becoming obviously nervous.

“So, we just walk past them?” Lily asked with her voice surprisingly steady, though as quiet as always.

“Yup! Come on, they won’t do anything to us witches.” Dia assured her while linking her arm with Lily’s and leading her towards the gateway. Lily tried to keep her legs moving evenly, trying not to show any display of hesitation. She didn’t want the sentinels to have any reason to single her out. Though, as she grew closer and could see their eyes, their large red eyes with silver pupils that ran like an ‘S’ down the centre, Lily knew that she was being viewed all over.

The few seconds that it took to walk past the sentinels seemed like an eternity to her. Her heart was pounding in her chest and the hairs on her neck raised with the feeling of being watched, being seen pure and naked under the gaze of red and silver.

And then, the feeling of their stare was gone. Dia was guiding her further past the gate and into the courtyard leading to the coven.

How Lily had managed to walk past she didn’t know, but the relief that spread through her made her want to sink to the ground and rest. But this had only been the first hurdle, the next was right in front of her.

What she faced now, was a huge stone building, longer than it was tall with some spires up high above the centre of the building. From the look of the windows, the building had three floors in most places and four in the central part that reached up higher into the air. The stone wasn’t grey like the outer wall, they were white and beautiful, and the ground floor windows and doors were arched and regal.

The courtyard that they stood in was well kept, not wild like the woodland that Lily had grown up in. It was pristine, grass kept at an even length and trimmed back off the stone pathways that led to the doors in the building. Rows of flower beds lined the stone wall that ran around the edge of the courtyard and around the main building.

“Wow! It’s awesome in here!” Dia sounded excited beside her, and although she was still filled with dread, Lily could see why. The building truly was stunning in a way Lily could never have described; it wasn’t cold like the grey stone from the city. This white stone was oddly inviting, warm and pleasant as it reflected the afternoon autumn sun.

“Come on. Gotta register!” Again, Dia was pulling Lily by their linked elbows towards the main door. Did this girl just have no awareness of how nervous Lily was right now?! Did she have no delicacy?? She pulled Lily along like she was just as excited as Dia was for this. It really made Lily’s stomach turn a little to think that Dia was so eager to learn magic which would one day allow her to rip wings from fairies, potentially from Lily’s parents.

Taking a deep shuddering breath, Lily tried to calm herself. Having Dia pull her around was allowing her to get places she needed without having to know what she was doing; yes, that would be useful to her. Lily could use that. The logical argument chanted inside her head like a mantra to keep herself from pulling away from the auburn-haired witch and moving away from her in fear. The entrance foyer was huge, the roof arching upwards with artwork painted across the ceiling. The tall windows let the sunlight bathe the interior in a warm light that made the white stone of the walls seem to glow while the brown wooden floor simply glinted from its obviously recent polish.

As if this bright stone image wasn’t enough, there was a pair of double doors to the right side of the entrance leading into a small and more dimly lit room. The lighting in there was not from the windows, Lily realised as she was dragged through the doors, mahogany shutters were pulled closed over the windows to block out the sunlight. Lily was stunned to see fire dancing along the cornices at the top of the walls. It was blue in colour and it flickered completely out of reach and forever burning without fuel.

In the blue flickering light, Lily could see a desk in the centre of the small room where both a tall, slim, hooded figure sat in the chair, and a strange hunched creature the size of a hare sat on the left side of the desk. The creature watched them with beady black eyes that reflected the blue fire around the room. It was a slimy-looking creature of pure black, with four legs and a fifth limb sticking out of its chest with six curled talons at the end of spindly digits.

Lily shivered, revolted by the way those creepy black eyes stared at her. Though, she found it no less creepy to focus on the figure completely shadowed by the hood. Something about it felt like she was being seen through to her core.

“Well, hello there, sweeties” The voice that came from the hood was surprisingly charming. It was a tantalising singsong voice that brought an amazing feeling of calm and joy over those who heard it. It was the total opposite to the feeling which was given from the visual image of the room. “Here to sign up for some glorious learning?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Dia chimed while Lily merely gulped nervously and nodded. “I’m Diavian Blythe and this is Liliana Roselyn. Three rats with me, and two cats with her!”

“Splendid! Would Blythe be similar to Bermet Blythe?” The hooded woman trilled.

Lily glanced to the side at Dia who shuffled uncomfortably but smiled still. “Yes, that was my great grandmother.”

“Oh, how wonderful! You’ll be a pride of this school then, just like her.”

“I-I hope so.”

Lily’s stomach felt heavier by the second, if Dia’s great grandmother was the pride of this school then that would have been about a century ago when the last fairy massacre was, in which case, it was probably because she had ripped a record amount of wings off or something.

“Well, this is wonderful! And you’re already friends so I’ll place you both in room thirteen in the Purple Spiocus house which is the second house you come to when you exit the main building out the back.” The hooded woman was explaining, though she still hadn’t risen from her seat. Instead, she motioned to the creepy creature to her right which had stretched out those talon-ended digits and the centre of the hand seemed to glow a sock orange colour “Just place your hand against his, and you’ll be able to enter your rooms without any worry throughout the time you are here.”

Lily definitely didn’t like that idea. Her disgust at the concept of touching the creature must have shown on her face as her eyes glanced down to the cats for reassurance. Unfortunately, they were supposed to be acting like true cats so the sight she was met with was Oscar staring avidly up at the white rat on Dia’s shoulder, and Kiki batting at Oscar’s tail as it flicked from side to side.

Dia went first, seemingly without any worry in the world. Her hand outstretched and placed itself palm to palm with the creature, and after a moment she pulled back with a smile at Lily. Well, it hadn’t hurt her. Though maybe it would sense Lily wasn’t a witch.

Swallowing heavily, but aware of the two pairs of witch eyes on her, she stepped forward and placed her palm against the creatures. There was a pleasant heating sensation against the centre of her palm that lasted all of three seconds as though a flame had been lit beneath, then it vanished leaving her skin cool. Turning her hand to look at the palm, Lily was honestly surprised to find that there wasn’t even the slightest mark left behind.

“Marvellous! The lessons don’t start for another couple of weeks, so just make yourselves at home and have a good look around, girls!” The hooded woman was chiming cheerily before raising a hand that was covered in a black silk glove to motion them to the door.

Lily honestly couldn’t believe she had not only got past the sentinels at the gate but had somehow not been detected by whatever that creepy creature was.

“Awesome! We get to be roommates with someone we already know!” Dia seemed to have both figured out and accepted that Lily was not talkative, but she took Lily’s elbow again anyway and started dragging her through the school in search of the back where they could find the dormitory houses, the cats trailing along behind them as they went.

“Dia,” Lily started quietly. “How many roommates are in a room?”

“Just the two I believe, why?”

“My parents never told me much about this place,” Lily covered quickly, though she couldn’t help but feel more pressured by the minute. If she was honest, she would have liked to have had a room to herself. She would have liked to be able to talk to Oscar and Kiki on an evening to talk through anything they had found out. Maybe though, if it was only Dia and the rats, there would be some way for her to be able to tell the cats when to take the information back to the woods.

Dia laughed brightly “Did your parents teach you anything?”

Lily had to stifle a look of irritation and instead shrugged as she was pulled along by her elbow “Mostly how to tend to fruit and vegetables.” She would have to keep going with a story that made it sound like she was neglected being taught most of the extensive magical information about the witches’ world, as though her parents had just taken all that as a given in the world and had thought it best only to teach her how to handle the land.

“Ah, so basically you’re a farming daughter?”

Lily nodded without verbally committing to anything.

“Well, you’ll have a lot to catch up on then” Dia chortled as she finally reached the door out to the rear of the large building and pushed it open.

The outside here was just as well kept as the front, but the pathway that extended from the door split off six times to six incredibly tall, long and beautiful buildings that ran along the tall grey stone outer wall, three on the right side and three on the left. Like the main building, they were made of white stone and they had smooth white pillars stretching from ground to roof at each corner. Ornamental engravings were designed into them, creating grab holds for vines to cling to as they grew up the walls, each dormitory bearing different flowers giving them an obviously different aesthetic. It seemed that the colours of the flowers that climbed the walls were there to match the colour spiocus the dormitory was named after.

They walked up to the path to the building with purple wisteria climbing up its side. In front of the main entrance stood a large stone statue of a winged horse with a spiral horn sticking out jagged from its forehead and its muzzle looking like it was the skull with skin ripped back a third of the way up the face. Tilting her head, Lily glanced up at it with a concerned look moving over her features. What was that?

Before she could think further on that, she felt a burning against her palm again. Turning her hand to face upward so she could look at the palm that had been touched by that black creature in the registration room; on it had appeared a glowing purple spiocus, a small body rippling in purple spirit essence was unfolding on her palm, it had front legs which uncurled from its body and large ears that poked out from behind a strange mask that hid its face from sight. From the corner of her eye, Lily could see the purple glow on Dia’s palm as well. In front of them, the eyes of the horse-like statue glowed the same colour and slowly the stone creaked as it moved to walk to the side and reveal the door.

“That was cool!” Dia grinned, while watching the spiocus on her hand as they walked inside. The interior was less interesting than the outside, filled with long corridors with doors adjacent to them all the way along. From the look of the spiral staircase in the centre, there were around seven or eight floors.

They had to go to the second floor to find room thirteen as there were eight rooms per floor. As they walked towards the room, both girls looked down at their palms which had burned once more. The spiocus had yawned, the mouth appearing from underneath the mask and a deep orange number ‘13’ shining in the depth of the dark mouth. The door to their room clicked to signify it had unlocked at their presence.

With another sideward glance to the cats, who were both looking anxious, Lily stepped inside after her new roommate.