Witch’s Garden

The Witch of the Wood. 

She'd only heard the name recently, but it seemed to be the name everyone knew her by in this land. 

Another land... another name. 

Ariana readied herself as best she could. Her hands came up, and she recalled the first major bit of magic she attempted in this world on Loomholm’s cotton fields. She brought her hands together just as she did those years ago. As she did, she felt a surge she had almost forgotten, and a jingle she hadn’t heard in ages in the back of her mind. 

As she prepared for the most costly cast she’d ever performed, that surge redoubled the amount of magic she put into it. The first time she attempted this, it only affected a dozen or so plants. 

She considered all of the things she had learned about magic through trial and error and how they connected. 

The first cast in the cotton field only had a certain radius around her, which must have had to do with how much magic she had. She had four times the amount of magic that she started with now, and being in Indrock kept replenishing her pool.

When she aided Mirabelle with medicine, she could detect the natural energy within Kristof and used that to target his spore infection. From this, she knew that her magic could be concentrated and targeted, and that she could assert her magic outside of herself.

From all her time cultivating plants and gardening, she knew that it was more efficient to grow plants from seeds in soil, but she could sprout seedlessly from soil purely by magic, and she could sprout a seed in hand without soil. Both could be replaced with magic. She wondered if she could replace both at the same time. She knew that she could generate water from thin air using magic, so perhaps the same could be possible for plants.

She knew from the encounter with Father Briggs and their time in Lumie’s prison that if she could imagine a plant, she could create it. She also learned that seeds were excellent for storing excess energy. It was possible this meant she could generate plants that don’t exist in this world, that she could store her magic into seeds, and potentially that she could generate plants purely from her imagination.

The fight against the elves in Reddenton taught her that her magic could linger outside of her for a long time. She also learned that tapping into magical sources outside of herself would increase her power. Perhaps she could use this to generate stores of raw magic to draw from for something else. 

From the passengers aboard the ferry, she learned that it was possible to control the flow of your magic to reduce the drain casting us on your pool. This meant that she could control how much magic went into each spell as she cast it. 

She thought about the purpose of Reaping. When she used it, she felt revitalized. It seemed to her that the purpose of it was to cut into a thing and take the energy from it.

And lastly… she remembered all the way to her first minutes in this world, when she had barely comprehended the magic granted to her: the roots that scared the charging boar. She had summoned them with no knowledge of how to do so. It came to her as naturally as breathing, on an instinct. This same instinctual casting happened when she had been poisoned in the forest. It meant her body understood the world around her better than she did. 

With all of this knowledge combined… she closed her eyes… breathed in… and reached out. 

She didn’t want to harm anyone when she first came here. At least, that’s what she told herself. She grappled with what she thought was the world changing her, or a monstrous flaw in her nature. Fighting Millim revealed a hypocrisy in her soul to her. 

Her hands and feet weaved along, tracing where she felt a flow.

She had claimed all along that she didn’t want to fight, and yet she had been doing nothing but fighting all these years. She’d subdued Albert, she slew White Tusk, she was fighting boars, she fought the zealots, the elves, the hydra… and here she was now on the front lines of a war. 

Her body exuded wispy green energy, like an array of emerald gossamer threads had caught to her.

She couldn’t lie to herself at this point and say that cutting Millim was an accident. She assumed what Reaping would do with the Hydra already; how could she be surprised at the spell doing what she thought it would? She realized that the dissonance inside her was what shook her the most. 

She placed a hand against her chest, pulling free a mote of green light, then waved her hand out and stepped aside, leaving the mote behind.

What did she really want? Why was she really here? Why did the voice grant her a second… no… a third life? Since Alex’s birth, she had believed his life was her entire reason for being. She was brought to this world without him. What was her purpose if not to be there for him?

She danced along the flow of magic, sewing motes of her natural energies along it like seeds in a tilled field.

She had always felt that there was a hole in her life, and motherhood filled that emptiness like nothing had before. What had she been doing this whole time? She’d been searching for Alex. Was it really Alex she’d been looking for, or was it something else?

She could hear the roar of the approaching army closing in. Alvin was calling out orders and positions to each of his soldiers. Her motes of light grew steadily as they siphoned from the magic flow. 

What had she been doing without Alex all of this time? She met her neighbors. She met Alvin. She met Ellie. She met Koichi. She met Hayden. She met Sophie. She grew to love them. Did she love them? Were they just something to fill the void with?

She cast Reaping on an engorged mote and surged with power for a moment, sewing another tiny mote into its place and sweeping up a great tide of snow with it in the direction of the charging army. They were slowed by the tundra wall.

She questioned why she thought she loved them all. She thought back over the time they’d traveled together. She had lived in Loomholm for ten years now… Had it even been a month since she left Loomholm? Was that enough time to say you love someone? Was that long enough to call a person family? She’d only known the passengers of the ferry for half a day. Surely that was too soon to regard them as family. 

She harvested and replanted another mote; the surge from this one became lines of trees that blocked and funneled the army down a strict path. Several soldiers were stopped in their tracks by full-grown pines suddenly bursting from the ground. 

Did she even know what love was? Of course she did, she thought, love is… she struggled to parse the idea as she weaved and waded through the flow of magic and casting. 

Well, when you love someone… You hold them. You feed them. You listen to their sorrows. You relish their company. You comfort them. You clean up after them. You get upset when they put themselves in harm’s way. You teach them how to cook. You teach them how to read and write. You wake up at ungodly hours because they need you. You ask if they are alright. You do everything you can to see them smile. You hurt when they’re gone. You would do anything for them. And you do it simply because… You love them. 

She harvested and replanted another mote, and several trees sprouted sideways on the funneling path, tripping many more enemy soldiers. Some attempted to divert through the trees.

She knew she would do all these things and more for them. Did they feel the same, or was she projecting onto them? She thought back through the adventure. 

Ellie depended on her for support many times. Sophie opened her heart and healed her. Hayden promised to be by her side. Alvin yelled at her when she tried to join the fight. If that was love, surely she could call them family. Surely she could say she loved her family. 

Another mote was reaped and sewn, and she used its power to unleash a bombardment of exploding pine cones into the trees beyond the funnel, and a hail of piercing needles within. The first enemy soldiers broke into the defensive position. 

Was that the answer? She was prepared to accept that it was and call it that, but was it the truth? She thought back again to the dissonance within her. How could she reconcile with it? She grappled with this concept as she moved through the motions of her “witch’s garden”. 

She harvested again, and the trees erupted with sap like the breaking of a great dam. The sap spilled across the soldiers, blinding, snaring, and slowing them as they became stuck to each other and every obstacle between. The soldiers who made it through the gauntlet were all that would be in the battle; the numbers were much closer to even.

She realized there was no excuse, no justification. There was a hypocrisy in her, a rule for thee, not for me. That’s what it was. She had been stopping the violence by being violent. It’s what she did from the start and was doing now. She lashed out at Albert when she had no business doing so, and she stuck herself into this conflict now. 

But it was where she needed to be. Perhaps it wasn't where she was needed, but where she needed to be. 

Alvin had asked her to take on a role, to play her part. Perhaps that is what she was meant to be. This wasn't the first time she was given a new name in a new land. The first time, she accepted the name and whatever role it brought. 

Perhaps it was time to accept a new name once more. 

Yes.

She would become the Witch of the Wood. 

The Witch of the Wood was the answer to the dissonance in her soul. 

As she did this, she realized the reason why the danger sense was not functioning. 

There was no danger.

Not anymore.