The escapism of writing

 Writing itself is practiced often, every day for most individuals. However it's not the words themselves
that make this practice so appealing but what stories can be made from them. I started writing for fun when I was 11 or 12, I wanted to be an author and was convinced that I was writing my magnum opus... i was not, it was exceptionally bad, but that's what made writing so addictive to me, sure it was bad now but it could only improve itself. My "magnum opus" is still out there somewhere, published on Wattpad and forgotten about, in some ways this blog replaced that story for me in other ways the stories i continue to write have. ultimately writing is meditation for many, myself included but at a certain point that meditation becomes your reality, you are in your story or more over you are your story, and that's something truly special. - The Witch

This is a Preview of what I've written for the current story I'm currently working on, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

Prologue

The gardens were as wild as the first day he had been there, that is the day he locked her up.

The wild nymph goddess, mother of nature, chaos, and death he supposed; at least recently she had somehow been controlling the food supply, only feeding her followers and if it were not for the kindness or well want of political gain on the nymph’s part the humans would be long dead by now.

She sat in the middle of her garden on a tree branch that seemed to bend just for her, busy holding a baby bird attempting to feed it. “You would think I’d be good at this.” she chuckled he had not made himself known but she always seemed to know when something had entered her garden. “You can come out Malachy, I probably won’t bite.” That did not fill him with confidence, yet still he made himself seen “what is it the monsters need now hm? If it is feeding the humans, it won’t happen they brought this drought on themselves and if I could id tell my nymphs to stop their sharing.” “The god Aldric has sent me with a package.” She finally looked over to him, eyes wild and gold, thorny branches twisted around her arms, her waist tearing holes into the thin fabric of her dress. “Aldric, sent me something? After all this time he thinks gifts will make it better?!” she began pacing as far as the branches would let her “I’ll just set this here than shall i?” quickly placing the box on the ground he scurried away as fast as he could neigh, he face the wrath of the goddess Fiadh.

The second he was gone she tore into the box, nearly breaking the fragile mirror that lay inside “A mooring? Really? All that drama for a mooring?” she flipped the small mirror thrice in hand and a picture became clear in the reflective glass. A nymph, no older than 1.

 

 

 

Chapter One

The woods were as bright as ever, that is to say not very bright as Birdie found her way downstairs. The large, hallowed tree her family had always lived in was as rambunctious as ever, her eldest sister Maize was attempting to prepare breakfast, smoke filling the air around her as her other sister, Summer was poorly attempting to calm the mother of the cub she had let into the house and the youngest of the three triplets Hyacinth, was calmly sitting at the table reading her story. Birdie was the youngest of her siblings, her mother had called her “eris supra anew dunt” saying it meant welcomed surprise. Her family, the Foxgloves were well known amongst the nymphs for being well black widows of sorts. Each head of their family would have at least five husbands in their youth, which seems like a lot to mortals, but the youth of nymphs is more well more; Her grandmother was easily 700 years old but didn’t look a day over 45, 30 if you ask her.

Even with their reputation her family was well liked, her mother represented the nymphs in all political meetings across the races of Alger Cammi. Today her mother was nowhere to be found, the day of all days to be missing was not today. Today was the first day of her first year at Magina Pentaculum, inside the human college of yale. The school her mother, sisters, grandmother and great grandmother and great great grandmother, had attended; needless to say, she had a lot to live up to. She had been packed for weeks at this point counting down the days even if she had to live up to the foxglove name it would be fresh start, only the professors would know her family personally and the students would never guess if they did not know her last name. She could start over with only herself and of course that was terrifying, but it was terrifying in a new way and that was better than what she had now. At least it probably is.

 

Mazie handed her a bowl of what she could only assume was meant to be oatmeal, it was thick black sludge at this point, the spoon stuck as if it were super glued in “thanks Maz.” Mazie was never great at cooking or cleaning or well most things that weren’t magic, but she was fantastic with animals and of course she was as gorgeous as their mother, tall, thin and blonde the only difference was Mazie’s strength she was as strong as an ox and about as scary as one when she wanted to be. The mother bear who had been angrily swatting at the door for about 30 minutes finally flung the door to the other side of the yard, Mazie calmly and carefully approached her and gently scratched under her chin immediately calming the crazed mother enough to hand her back her baby. Birdie was not great with animals like her eldest sister nor was she great with plants or just magic in general, sure she could grow a succulent better than any human, but she couldn’t get them to grow at will or help her when in need. Yet still, she was going to Magina Pentaculum the number one college for nymphs to study plant magic, her mother said that some nymphs were late bloomers, maybe she was one of them.

What she lacked in magic she would make up for in her studies, which would be enough.

Still the thought of being alone with hardly any magic sent a chill down her spine, the world had been of kilter for so long it should have been normal but there was always this underlining feeling of change, one she’d never voice goddess forbid her mother heard her.

She decided that she would not wait for her mother, being late on the first day would put her behind even more.

She gestured to Mazie to follow her, and they slipped out the door, as Mazie dictated an ivy plant to open the window and bring down the luggage, even when it’s not her specialty she has a way with nature, if she was anyone else Birdie would be jealous but Mazie was hard not to love.

“You will be back for winter solstice, no? I think if I cook mother would miss you more but at the same time it will be too cold to burn down the house.” She said with a faint smile “I’ll be back, wouldn’t want you catching a cold Goddess knows how dramatic you are.” “Bitch.” “Asshole.” “Seriously come back, I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She said as she smushed her with one of her bone crushing hugs that Birdie would miss ever so dearly. Her older sister gave her the ‘smallest’ push and sent her on her way, of course it wasn’t a human push it was a way portal she had not realized till she was falling through the ground, or well, falling up through the ground? Left was right, right was left and then instantly she was there.

 

Magina Pentaculum, she would say finally but realistically it’d barely been five seconds. The grounds of yale were swarming with first-year student, all looking as lost and scared as she felt. Most were human of course but she could spot a few fellow students she assumed were well not.

There was on sure fire way to tell when you were approaching a nonhuman, looking for out of the norm things like wearing a beanie in summer, (usually to cover pointed ears though she always preferred a simple charm on her earrings) or being abnormally hairy near full moons, umbrellas with no rain, picking up dead bugs, pointed teeth, really it was quite easy to see when one looked. That’s what made it fun, all of Alger Cammi thought humans were idiots, which was admittedly fair they had no clue what most of the world was like and, if they did, they would probably start the witch trials again.

While all the humans were getting registered Birdie slipped around the side of one of the main buildings, to the entrance to Magina Pentaculum. Dubbed shifts tetter by students it was a test to see if one was worthy of the school, it didn’t matter how good your GPA was or how talented you were in magics, to succeed at Magina pentaculum you had to be cunning, so of course the first test was a riddle.

After cracking the glamor over the garden of shifts tetter she found it, the broken mirror and silver dagger, the beginning of the test. She gently ran the blade across her palm, a line of red appearing in its wake, and pressed her bleeding hand to the mirror. The garden grew dark, and a deep harsh male voice spoke, “I’ve no flesh, but flesh I’ll take, I have killed non but grow through bodies, I have no hands, but plenty of fingers, I am connected but you cannot see. What am i?”  it was almost too easy, almost. “Xylaria polymorpha, more commonly known as dead man’s fingers.” “Correct, you may enter.” Behind her she heard a wall creak loudly, slowly raising revealing a dark damp passageway. She could barely see her hand in front of her, let alone the end of what she assumed was a long narrow hallway; nevertheless, she proceeded, walking slowly almost anxiously. There was no way in all of the hells that this damned hallway wasn’t booby-trapped, and she could almost guarantee that to fight those booby-traps she would need to use magic, and well she didn’t want to think her magic was finicky at best, it totally most definitely was. Instantaneously the floor fell from beneath her, she fell or more dropped directly, screaming her head off till something filled her mouth, water? No, it was thick too thick, she would choke if she didn’t figure out which way was up. She swam and swam till finally she emerged from the dark liquid, it smelled of ink but only seemed to stain her clothes, which was a damn shame because she was wearing her favorite most beautifully perfect white sundress, which was now a blue black dripping mess. She took in her environment; she was in a large, rounded room with the pool of black in the middle; all around the pool were pedestals each holding an object. “As you have failed the second test, you will have one chance to remedied this.” The voice from earlier echoed in the rounded room “choose one of the eleven objects laid out, and the door will open.” She walked from pedestal to pedestal, each was labeled with a number, 1 had a thin silver dagger, 2 a golden bangle, 3 a staff which looked to be carved out of bone. They all seemed to be enchanted, which enchantment each object had seemed to be the test. She couldn’t lift them, which would make it easier, she could however feel them. Not by touching them, but via her intuition. She had always been good at guessing or well investigating things? To be fair her manner of investigating was guessing, but it always worked out in the end.

 

She closed her eyes and stuck out her hand and walked around the pool, pedestal to pedestal nothing stuck out to her; until she opened her eyes, she was at pedestal 11. a small amulet laid upon the smooth stone, a gold chain holding a beautiful red stone, the stone was small about the size of an eye and was encased with gold leaves. Birdie felt compelled to put it on, who wouldn’t? as she clasped the jewelry round her neck, she felt the glow of an aura around her, an ancient nymph magic that allowed its user to take on parts of whatever it had been enchanted with. Anything from animal’s, to creatures, to stone, she had even heard that some contained the powers of nymphs who disobeyed the goddess of nature Fiadh, which was nothing more than rumor according to her mother. The aura was definitely powerful though, more powerful than anything else in the room at least. The door had opened, and the pedestals sunk into the floor, all except 11 at least.

Through the door was a forest, or a cave? A forest in a cave? It was hard to tell, the contained wilds roared with awakening as she stepped into the mossy floor. It was gorgeous all be it at little tame for her liking, in the center of a clearing laid a statue of a man and woman holding each other, a sword lay in the hand of the woman. Aldric and Fiadh if she had to guess, the lover gods and founders of Magina Pentaculum. Moving closer, Birdie inspected the sword, it wasn’t made of stone, or iron for that matter. It was silver if she had to guess, kind of rude to the Fae and werewolf student body, but then again that wasn’t really her problem. She attempted to remove it from the stone goddesses grasp, and when that failed, she tried a number of things, all but not limited to, hanging off the sword, randomly tapping areas on the statue hoping for a pressure plate and nearly a spell but her magic fucked off half way through, of course it did. That’s when she noticed the necklace the stone goddess was wearing, obviously she couldn’t tell the color of the stone in the pendent; but the shape, the leaves around it, it was the necklace she just found, it had to be.

 Attempting to climb the statue had proved difficult, but a scrapped knee and a broken nail later. She was standing in front of a large, stone version of the necklace she was wearing. The feeling of beating the puzzle was already setting in when she pressed the pendent like a button, and when nothing happened it faded as quicky as it came. She hardly noticed when the gem on her necklace started to glow gently, instantly becoming blinding as the gem on the statue disappeared into its wearer. The sword fell with a sharp clang as a rock slid to the side of what seemed to be a cave. Something smoked and the air grew hot, slowly a large taloned beast came strolling out. “Dragon” she whispered.