Old Scars

Chapter One: Old Scars

Silva

The town bell rang, and my parents gathered whatever food and water they could and made their way to the door with me in tow. Doing my part, I shouldered my own bug-out bag, and we began navigating the streets of our small border town. I knew, or at least had the idea instilled into me, that this day would come, but I never expected it to feel so mundane as we weaved through the city streets, moving to the evacuation point. My parents had been to countless town halls on how to prepare for this. I thought we were ready. We all did. Things did not stay mundane. We were not ready.

A small town in the middle of nowhere, no real value for either of the warring sides to fight over. All those town halls made it seem so simple. The soldiers of whomever saw fit to take the town would show up, but we would all already be gone by then. Out to the forest, which was poorly charted by our neighboring nations but well known to the locals. Even at twelve, I could venture deep past the tree line without worry.

There was no tree line to flee to.

There were no soldiers to hide from.

There was only fire.

---

I sat upright, my bed sheets and blankets having fallen now, gathered at my lap, once more in the middle of the night. Sweating, terrified. In my warm bed, in my safe home. I paced my breath and tried to center myself again. The events of my nightmares were over a decade in the past.

I am safe.

My home is safe.

My family and friends are safe.

But still I trembled.

I can hear the ticking of the clock and focus my eyes on it, peering through the darkness of my room. It's somewhere past midnight, but too early to wake and begin my day. I continue to breathe slowly, trying to get my heart to still itself, listening to the subtle tick-tock, ever-present in my room. As I close my eyes, though, I can only see the fires. The fires that ripped through the forest, cutting off our only escape. The fires that scourged the land and robbed it of its bounties. That dried the rivers and starved the wildlife. The fires that had driven us back to our town in the hopes we could take shelter in the sturdy stone town hall, or at the very least, negotiate with our conquerors. The fires that were there when we made it back to the town. That consumed our wood-frame homes. Devouring the shops and the town square and bringing the town hall down into a pile of rubble. The fire that filled the air with smoke, which the elderly and sick could not escape. The fire that my parents dived into action to try to contain. The fire that my parents failed to contain.

The fire that took everything from me.

I opened my eyes again, conscious of my ragged breathing. “Let’s go for a walk,” I spoke into the lonely darkness of my bedroom, as I shuffled from my bed, my toes reaching out like tentacles, searching for where my slippers ended up. It was cold. I had ended up far north, in the proximity of the capital, Lundenbruh, but just outside the reach of the oh so long arm of the law. With my feet now warming in my slippers, I grabbed a blanket from my bed and wrapped it around my shoulders, pulling it up over my head and clinching it together under my neck. As I wandered and was warmed in my mobile cocoon, my breathing normalized, and my thoughts turned away from that wretched day and instead to the grumbling of my stomach and the path to my kitchen. Careful not to trip over the somewhat warped and uneven flooring, I reached my destination. I stood before my stove, heart finally slowing, breath steadying, and with a muffled snap from beneath my blanket, the wood-fire stove came to life. I paused for a moment, staring into the orange light that flickered beneath the stove top. The sight of it lingered in my mind as I turned to reach for my kettle, fusing with the remnants of tonight's nightmares.

How strange for destructive so terrible to give us so much.

Adrift in my own thoughts, an alien voice pierced my mind. I lurched, letting my overfilled kettle clatter into the sink below, and whipped around. In the living room, which conjoined my kitchen, the fireplace flickered dimly. In its faint light, I could make out someone teetering back and forth in the rocking chair that flanked it.

I hope you make enough tea for two...

Her voice came through with more clarity, and I composed myself as I set the now properly filled kettle to boil. “I wasn’t expecting anyone at this hour, and yes, there will be enough for two. What brings you here in person, Mother?” She continued to rock, gently, in the chair. The fireplace’s intensity grew, and more of her form was visible to me. She stroked the arms of the chair, her fingers inspecting the craftsmanship, my craftsmanship, leaving no detail untouched.

It’s quite happy, you know, to be this way.

---

Mother was old. Older than mountains. She had witnessed the Sundering, had watched the world be forever reshaped by magic and the wars that would follow. When I was first brought here she even seemed to know me. My entire life, all 12 years of it. She wasn’t there the day my whole world burned, but her sisters and daughters were. The Crones. The Coven. The Mistlands Witches. There were only a few rumors about them. Some believe it to be a strange cult with no real connection to magic. Some believed them to be the remnants of some once great civilization, who govern from the shadows. Others believed them to be something much closer to what I’ve come to know them as: Witches, those who could channel the magic that flowed through our world. The Coven saved what few of us were left after the war had scourged our home. Most were taken to whatever city or town was close by and seemed safest, I later learned. Not me. A witch found my parents sheltering me with their bodies, dying, dead maybe. I was, too. I had breathed too deep of the fire and ash. She plucked me from their limp arms, and we soared far above the smoke and clouds. She was Viridia, my first adoptive parent, and she showed me a world I couldn’t fathom.

From atop her lap and atop a broom, I had been revived. I saw the world as it was: massive chunks of floating land ebbing and flowing with currents of magic weaving between them. I could see plumes of smoke and flame across many of them. We were just one stop for the war machine. But before I could truly take it all in, we dove. Reaching speeds I never thought possible, we dove deep into the Mistlands below the floating islands, below the war, and eventually, weary and wasted, I slept, only to awake in the Coven’s own little hamlet.

---

“Is it really?” I mused. Mother remembered each and every tree, spoke to them, learned their story, cherished them, understood them. That rocking chair was carved from a tree that had been uprooted during a storm, and later had its trunk crushed by a passing bear. It had died. But by bringing it to the village we could give it new life before it returned to the earth.

The rocking is nostalgic, like its branches are swaying in the wind once more.

Despite being here for a bit past a decade now, I rarely had one-on-one conversations with Mother. Her age made her distant from even some elders in the Coven, let alone barely-an-adult me. She hardly ever spoke, or so I heard. Her eyes were always fixated on some imperceptible object, and she explored the world with her bare feet and wandering hands. Having her thoughts manifesting directly into my mind always took some adjustment, and I had to catch myself from dropping the tray with our tea and biscuits as a new thought pierced my mind.

Join me for a while, won’t you? It’s become quite cozy in front of the fireplace.

As I walked with our midnight snack and drink, she gently waved her hand, and a second chair scooted across the floor, now flanking the fireplace, across from where she was seated. A second gesture sent the end table to rest between us, just in time for me to set down the tray and join her in my rearranged living room.

We sat in silence for some time, the only sound was us blowing on the hot tea, taking small sips, or tea biscuits crumbling as we nibbled on them. She was right. It had become quite cozy near the fireplace, and my anxiety slipped away.

I was safe.

My home was safe.

My family and friends are safe.

I was calm.

We each finished our cup of tea, and, this time, with a flick of my hand, the pot tipped on its own, pouring us each another cup. As we mixed in sugar and milk and considered how many more biscuits were appropriate for the night, Mother suddenly stopped, set down her cup, and looked deeply into my eyes. I’m not sure I’ve ever made direct eye contact with Mother, certainly not this intensely. Her eyes were like the night stars swirling around the black void of her pupils. I was enraptured in their gaze, watching them twitch, looking at me over and over again, and then meeting my gaze. She leaned back and away after some time and then produced a letter from her robe. “The elders couldn’t make up their mind about this. I had planned to wait until sunrise to show you, but your midnight foray gave me an excuse to visit you with no fear of our privacy being intruded upon.”

My jaw dropped. She was speaking to me. Out loud. I hardly registered the words she said as I took hold of the letter. “W-what? The elders can’t decide on... this?” I flipped the letter over in my hands. It bore the wax seal of the Northerner aristocracy. Some wealthy family had managed to get a letter down here. “And why me? I’m not really someone who makes decisions for the Coven.”

Mother paused, swishing a bit of tea in her mouth as she considered how best to communicate to me how I, someone who was barely into their adult life, who wasn’t born into the Coven, who had mastered only the most basic of magics, could be the one best fit to decide on behalf of the elders and herself. “Time for those outside the Mists is measured differently than it is for us. They rarely measure things in anything more than years. Time for us is measured in the rings of the trees, the layers of stone in mountains, the depths of rivers. My decision, or my juniors in the council, may be right for us, but wrong for them.” She pointed to the wax seal. “Read it. It’s possible there is a solution that is right for both of us, and if there is, you may be the one to spot it.” With that, she finished her tea, stood up, and departed from my home.

Take your time considering this. We don’t need an answer right away.

From beyond the walls of my home, Mother’s words once again echoed within me. “Alright,” I shrugged, “Let’s see what the nobles have to say.”