Chapter 3: The Wandering Witch

“A long time ago in a lifetime far, far way”


The Great Flood had passed, but the world was quieter for it.

Forests swallowed drowned villages, their roots prying through rooftops and graves alike. Rivers carved new scars into valleys, washing away maps mortals had once trusted. Survivors crept from mountains and caves, building again with brittle hands, fearful and weary.

Where once they sang to the heavens, now they lowered their voices — wary of gods who might strike again.

And among them walked a woman with dark feathered wings.

Her hair spilled like ink, her eyes shifting like dawnlight on water, and wherever she passed mortals whispered. Some called her goddess. Some, demon. Others gave her no name, only prayers, or curses, or silence.

She no longer corrected them.



Her first journey carried her to the jade courts of ancient China, where bronze gongs tolled in smoky air and scholars debated beneath silken banners. Beyond the palaces, in a dim workshop reeking of cinnabar, an old man bent over brass vessels, his beard trembling as he stirred mercury with trembling hands.

Sera lingered in the doorway, unseen by the servants.

“Why do you cling to forever?” she asked.

The alchemist jerked, knocking a vial against the table. The liquid inside quivered like a living thing. His eyes, clouded but sharp, narrowed. “A spirit…? No… a goddess?”

“Neither.” She stepped forward, the candlelight bending around her as though it knew her name.

The man pressed his palm to his chest, his lips dry. “I seek to master life — to seize what slips from every hand. Every emperor dies. Every dynasty crumbles. If I can live forever, then perhaps…” His voice cracked. “Perhaps something of us endures.”

Sera rested her hand on the brass vessel. The mercury stilled, like water shamed into silence.

“Forever is a burden,” she said softly. “Not a prize. Mortals are meant to end, so that their song has shape. Without ending, there is no meaning.”

The old man swallowed, his eyes shining. “Then you will leave me empty-handed?”

She knelt, drawing shapes in the dust — circles within circles, fire and water, earth and air, lines that spoke of balance rather than conquest. The vessel glowed faintly, the air filling with the scent of rain.

“This is not eternity,” she said. “It is harmony. Learn to change. Teach it.”

The man bowed until his forehead touched the floor. “Then you are my teacher.”

Sera smiled faintly, already stepping into shadow. “No. I am only passing through.”

When she was gone, the alchemist wrote down her marks before the dust could fade. His students would one day call it the Way of Alchemy.



Southward she sailed, across turbulent seas where storms roared like living beasts. The islands she found were rich with forests and salt winds, their people dancing between huts of bamboo and firelit rituals.

Here, shamans — babaylan — spoke with spirits of rivers and trees. Drums echoed into the night, voices chanting invocations as smoke curled upward.

Sera cloaked her wings and walked among them. They saw only a stranger with sharp eyes and a voice soft as tides.

By a crackling fire, she sat beside a young babaylan, no more than seventeen. The girl’s hands shook as she fed herbs to the flame.

“They fear me,” the girl whispered. “Even when I heal them, they look away. They say I consort with shadows.”

Sera reached toward the flames. With a flick of her fingers, fire bent into birds, then waves, then constellations strung across air. The girl’s mouth fell open.

“They will always fear what they cannot name,” Sera said. “But fear is not the truth. Truth is what you carry, even when they curse you.”

The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “And if they burn me for it?”

Sera turned, her gaze like embers. “Then burn with purpose. Teach them even as the smoke rises. One day, another will remember your fire.”

The girl bowed her head, strength settling into her bones like iron.

When Sera left, the villagers whispered of a dark-haired woman who came from the sea, who walked with spirits and vanished into storms. They called her Diwata — not witch, not angel, but something between.



Years became centuries, and still she wandered.

Mortals rose and fell — kingdoms raised from clay, kings buried beneath pyramids, temples swallowed by jungles. She walked unseen, her wings cloaked, her face ever-shifting.

Loneliness settled over her like a second skin. To mortals, she became a woman of many masks: healer, trickster, judge. Each role was a shield against the ache she dared not name.

A boy in Mesopotamia once tugged her sleeve, asking, “Do the gods love us?”

Sera touched his cheek but said nothing.

A queen in Egypt clutched her hand, begging, “Give me victory against my enemies!”

Sera offered her a single word of strategy — then was gone before dawn.

A hunter in the steppes pursued her for days, swearing she was his spirit-wife. At his fire, she laughed once — a sound sharp and strange to her own ears — and left only a feather behind.

Everywhere she went, stories grew.

In the south, they painted her likeness on pottery — eyes of violet and red. In the mountains, they carved her into stone — a woman with balance scales that swayed in the wind.



But Heaven’s shadow stretched long.

Mortals still feared magic, whispering of divine retribution and wrath. Those who learned in secret did so by candlelight, in caves where no priest would find them.

One night beneath a sky thick with stars, a child crept to her. His hands clutched a scroll of stolen incantations, his breath sharp with terror.

“Lady,” he whispered, “will they kill me for this?”

Sera knelt, brushing his hair back. “Yes,” she said, her voice low and steady. “They might. But listen: knowledge is a seed. It can be trampled, even burned, but not destroyed. If you carry it with courage, it will bloom one day — where fear cannot choke it.”

The boy swallowed hard, clutching the scroll tighter. “Then I’ll plant it.”

And plant it he did. When he grew, he taught others. Many died, yes — but the ember never went out.



By the time the Great Flood was only a legend, Sera was no longer remembered as an angel at all.

The name “Harmony” faded. The name “Sera” drifted into whispers.

What remained was myth: a figure who crossed oceans, wore many guises, and left trails of forbidden knowledge. To some, salvation. To others, corruption.

The Celestial Witch.

Once, the title stung her. Now, it was armor. Better Witch than prisoner. Better Discord than silence.

She stood upon a lonely shore, waves hissing at her feet. The wind carried her voice into the dark:

“Let them call me what they will. So long as they remember.”

Chapter 3: The Wandering Witch End