#13:accepted

[13ceremonialskrp]

                              STEP LIGHTLY, CHILDREN OF THE MOON

THE COVEN WELCOMES THE MIDNIGHT CEREMONIAL, KANA TAKEDA, A 27 YEAR OLD SCRYING WITCH

idiosyncrasy

+ authoritative, trustworthy, assertive

- dismissive, overbearing, presumptuous

proficiency

strength : she is gifted with a particularly strong penchant for finding things and people across great or short distances, through her mirrors and crystal balls– it’s how she’s come to find many of her coven members and how she manages to show up to places whenever she’s needed, or whenever is most unexpected.

strength : she has a way about her, something born of her spirit and the magic that has infused into every flake of skin, every flutter of eyelashes, every lilt of every syllable that cascades from her ruby-stained lips; there is an atmosphere that clings to her, a vibrating intoxication, the very gravity she wields as a weapon, hovering around her like an aura. it’s nearly tangible, threatening when she needs it to be, calming when others need it to be, a haunting presence she carries with her in each taken step.

ineptitude

weakness : divining the future has always been more difficult for this witch, the oncoming storm of events oftentimes becoming muddled or fuzzy in her crystals and reflective surfaces, and the harder she attempts to look into them, the more strenuous and painful it becomes. plenty of mirrors and crystals have broken or shattered under the weight of her pressure, her gravity begging to be given a glimpse of a future that plays coy with her.

weakness : she still filters her abilities through a netting of rage and coercion, still presses too hard to get what she wants from her powers, still fights with herself and her mirrors to wrestle the information she desires, and oftentimes it backfires on her in explosive, cutting ways. if a broken mirror costs you seven years bad luck, then kana takeda walks through her shattered hallways with millions of years left on her debt.

sanctions

penalty : most sideshow tricks kana employs don’t take much out of her, but heavier magics and spells require pieces of her soul not many would be willing to sacrifice; every time she gives herself to the magic, her powers breathing life and control over her, she loses a sliver of emotion, fades another step into apathetic despair, into a kind of death. she has died before and each new movement is simply another bill needing paid– eventually she will fade to the grey world altogether and be entirely lost.

penalty : her nights are forever plagued by nightmares, irregardless of how much or how little she sleeps, no matter what soothing tonic she swallows, no matter what spell she put herself under. dreaming will always and forever be a hassle for her, a curse marked upon the back of her neck by the dying fingers of her old coven’s high hand– the one she watched die in a heap of mud and grass.

memoirs

tw: suicide attempt

7. she stands on the cliffs with the winds at her back, the air tugging and pulling at her clothes like a begging lover, the uncharacteristically frayed robe and nightgown whipping at her body tightly, loud and wailing, the roar filling her ears despite the silence that infects her. the storm above her is some comfort at least, knowing that the sometimes the sky cries as well, knowing that sometimes the weight of water becomes too much even for mother nature, until eventually the dam cracks and rain must fall, tears must fall.

kana has been weeping for weeks straight now, the sorrow sinking in marrow-deep until it is all she knows, until it’s all she’s sure she’ll ever know; her hands empty, her life empty, the grey of the world whirling and surrounding her, a poison. it hadn’t taken long after the absence of their son for her husband to lock himself into his study and only come out on an ambulance stretcher, pills filling his gut, freezer-burn covering his eyes, his fingers, the stench of death wafting off him like a curse. she closes watery eyes and listens to the ringing of her eardrums, listens to the pounding of her heart howling against her rib cage, listens to the tides beat themselves against the shoreline, rising up to meet the challenge of the moon, hidden behind thunder. rising up to meet the challenge of her own personal gravity, her own personal hell, hidden behind exhaustion.

when she exhales and falls from the rocks, her shoeless, coatless form cascading downwards into the drink like a teardrop, the cold winds kissing her limbs, wishing her farewell, she prays to the triune goddess, prays for death, prays for the crashing sounds of the sea to swallow her down, down, down, and the crashing sounds of mirrors breaking to crush her, deep, deep, deep. prays for just one more chance to see her son again.

and receives none of it.

1. the mirror glistens cold in the midnight air and finally, finally, this she knows for certain: she is all storm and howling, she is all thunder and power, nothing delicate framed in the cut of her young cheekbones, in the dark of her eyes, in the way her reflection glares back into her like an abyss she no longer fears. her hair a maelstrom havoc from nightmares spent in drenches of sweat and stress, her nightgown torn askew, her soul torn asunder, a stain of red in her wake in the way all women burn scarlet at this particular age, and she decides white is no longer her color, no longer the bliss and innocence she will hide behind, no longer the shade of ribbons her nanny is allowed to tie into her long, black locks.

barely eleven years old, the witchling steps across the shards of the mirror her newly-awakened powers have shattered across her bedroom floor, and in the pieces strewn about, she glimpses her future, she watches her past, she opens the doors to ruin and inevitability, penning the course of her life without truly meaning to. divination shines through her chest and she likens it to a birth, begins screaming, begins breaking, the stars high above her shuddering in reverberating echoes and instinctively she knows: this is the last night of her childhood. from now on, she will adopt the vague apathy of her mother, the grey distance of her father, the frozen poison of her grandmother, and come next morning, she’ll learn why.

she’s sure it’ll have something to do with seven years bad luck.

2. strong magic floods through her veins, a direct lineage to the ancient sorcerers of old, back when the world was half shadow, half spirit, back when human and dragon could be fused into one, and kana believes she is a dragon, believes she is half shadow, believes this is the only explanation as to why she burns deep within herself, why she enjoys selfish magic so much more than anything ivory. she grows in her abilities as she grows in age, surrounding herself with blackened tales, banned guides, abolished spells, memorizing what she can, lavishing in what she wants, her family’s wealth and prestige affording her access to whatever her heart may desire. she’s the singular daughter of one of japan’s forefront fashion and design brands, her parents inheriting a luxurious empire from her grandmother upon the old hag’s death, kana raised amidst these stages and diamonds, limousines and velvet carpets, her appearance and technical prowess in the business granting her plenty of attention herself.

3. she’d assumed, wrongly of course, that somehow her accomplishments in both the fine arts of music and poetry, as well as the physical exertions of martial arts and combat training, would prove her independence enough as a woman capable of ruling alone, capable of reaching through the clouds and swallowing the stars themselves, capable of breaking the earth’s crust in the gravity of her heels, but not to her mother. nothing is ever enough for her mother. at eighteen years old, kana is given in an arranged marriage to a man eleven years her senior, the heir to an even bigger technological conglomerate, a man forever scented in cigar smoke and ink, a man with tired eyes and small burn scars on his knuckles.

she asks him one night across the stretch of silk sheets, the dimmed glow hovering around their bodies, where he’d gotten the scars, and he tells her that he used to own a pair of tiny dragons who’d scorch him all the time when he fed them. just like her. she snorts and looks away, but it’s the first moment she doesn’t outright despise him.

5. she glows with promise in the heart of her coven, a star in her own right, a sun on the horizon of life, her mother-priestess and the high hand naming her the maiden archetype, granting her the possibility of tutelage, of eventually becoming a priestess herself. she impresses them with her hold over her own abilities, her potency, her knowledge, her skill, the way she masters the basic practices, the way she convinces the world that she is a hurricane made flesh, a dragon brought home in the center of her chest. she harnesses her craft through anger and clenched teeth, through red lipstick and curled knuckles, through the half-shadow she drags by its ankles, the curses she breathes and the fire she bleeds, and she can almost feel everything she’s ever wanted in her grasp, all the power a sharded young girl could ever need, could ever have been wrong about in the pieces of shattered reflections across her bedroom floor. she’d never had any reason to be so worried– it would all be fine.

mirror mirror on the wall….

6. it is exactly the equinox of the spell, the midway point when she realizes she has been tricked, she has been fooled, she has made the gravest error of her life– or more specifically, she has failed in her trick of the others, the pin-needles all shifting suddenly towards her, the sharpened sting of betrayal and white-hot understanding flooding through her, icing her blood in a way entirely foreign to her. she’s been young before, been inexperienced before, been wandering and stretching and hungry before, but fear? fear is a monster heavy on her lungs in this moment, claws and jaws digging in and robbing her of breath, of sight, of atmosphere. fear is her reaction to being out of control, and in these two very separate thousand-year-moments, two beats that will forever define her and deform her from now on, she has never been more out of control.

the first moment is given to when they take the only thing she’s ever loved before away from her; the young toddler’s face seeping down into the immutability of stone, forever silenced and choked away from her, life shifting to earth; his tiny, reaching hands, his wide, teary eyes, everything melting down too quickly into permanent solidification, just before she can touch him.

the second is given to when she disappears into the maelstrom of hatred and boiling, tumultuous fury, when she lets her restraint finally, finally become swallowed up by the flames of her internal wraith; the darkness howling up from the unfathomable ocean of her soul, the likes of which had never been seen by her coven before. and would never be seen by them again, not after she’s grinded their bones into the earth they love so damn much.

betrayal tastes bitter, but not as bitter as the dirt and dust she crushes all the bones in their bodies into– all twelve of them writhing and gasping in simultaneous horror.

4. when she bears a child, a boy, her firstborn, she comes to the belief that he is the truest form of the sun incarnate, the belief that he is all light and all laughter, tiny hands and toes and eyelashes even longer than hers, and he’s the first boy she’s ever loved quite so much in her entire life. she was raised from one nanny to the next, but she’ll be damned if she lets anyone else so much as touch him for any extended period of time, insisting on raising him herself, insisting on hoarding all his first giggles and first steps and first words, dazzling him with the magic she becomes more and more involved with.

he is every golden memory, every reason to fall in love with life itself, every belief in the cosmos she’d never truly had before. he’s perfect and she occasionally has a difficult time believe he could have come from her.

8. when the men are finally able to revive her, rouse her from her drenched, unconscious state, she sputters awake like the lifting of a curse from her skin, coughing and hacking up mouthfuls of salt water, wheezing air into her lungs as though they’ve never felt so free before, as though she’s never felt so released before, her arms and fingers reaching and grasping onto anything sturdy enough to hold her. she is as wet as a fish, having been mistaken for a mermaid by a fishing crew and hauled up on deck in an effort to save her life, dressed in almost nothing, floating adrift in the middle of the sea currents that separate two countries from each other. she blinks at the faces of the men surrounding her limp, shivering frame, the sky as grey as she remembers it, and before one of them can manage to fetch her a towel or a blanket, she asks what’s happened.

“we found you in the water. you stopped breathing, we thought you were dead.” the man, presumably the captain, bellows in korean– which is all kana needs to know about where she is and where she’s heading.

“are we near a port?” she asks in perfect korean, having been trained in up to five different languages, beaten into her skillset until perfection.

“busan.”

busan. that’s it then. the veil of the world is drawn back for her in that instant, clarity finally descending upon her like a beam of light, a calling she cannot and must not ignore or refuse. the goddesses have seen fit to spare her life for a purpose and she knows what she must do, what she owes not just simply to them but also to the world at large– blood for blood. she has a debt now, a payment she must make in life for what she’s taken from it, for the havoc she’s wreaked, for the evil she’s lathered across her palms, spread over her flesh like ointment. the goddesses won’t allow her peace until she’s fulfilled her role, until she’s given back in the amount that she’s taken. balance.

busan.

[13ceremonialskrp]

                              STEP LIGHTLY, CHILDREN OF THE MOON

THE COVEN WELCOMES THE 4:30PM CEREMONIAL, KANG SEULGI, A 24 YEAR OLD SIBERIAN CAT FAMILIAR

idiosyncrasy

At first glance Seulgi seems arrogant and standoffish, and in a way she is. She prefers to be on her own and fully believes she doesn’t need to rely on anyone for anything, save for the bond she has with 4am. She’s irritable and uncaring of any business that isn’t her own, almost to the point of selfishness because why should she help if it doesn’t benefit her? If she does agree to help (or is forced to help), she treads carefully because any misstep could cause her curse to knock off another few years of her life. 

However, despite the cold exterior, Seulgi can be a fiercely loyal friend, who will go to any lengths to protect those dear to her. She’s not ungrateful to those who help her, being more tolerant of those who do and she hates having any kind of debt to others. Alongside being cautious, she’s mostly levelheaded because she knows mistakes are born from emotions, although this also means she’s a tough nut to crack when it comes to revealing her emotions. On the off chance her guard is lowered, she can be a little clumsy and a little tsundere, but you’d have to be really lucky to get to see that.

proficiency

In her cat form, Seulgi is gifted with exceptional night vision, being able to clearly distinguish between people, objects and animals. She has a great sense of balance, is very quick and agile and her keen hearing helps to keep enemies from catching her off guard from behind. She is quiet in her cat form, making almost no sound as she travels; however, not the same can be said for that pesky tail of hers.

ineptitude

Still trying to understand her role and her ‘gift’ as a familiar, one of the things Seulgi has troubles with is the control of her tail. Sometimes without thinking, she’ll knock something over on her way out, or (very loudly) rustle some leaves, alerting others of her presence. While she has keen hearing, it’s useless if the person, animal or familiar coming up from behind her is light footed. Without a keen sense of smell, she also cannot distinguish if they are a friend or a foe. While most cat familiars also seem to be able to see spirits outside of their realm, it is largely undeveloped in Seulgi. Sometimes she’ll see a flicker of light, or the slightest shadow, but because her abilities manifested later than others, she doesn’t have much control over any that aren’t of a physical nature.

Seulgi is also weak when it comes to confrontation. She is more likely to evade than attack and any physical blows can cause considerable damage, depending on where it lands. If forced to attack, her claws are weapon, although she’ll keep her attacking to a minimum, just enough to create an opening for her escape. This is less of an issue in her human form as she’s taken up martial arts to make up for it.

sanctions

The myth is that cats have nine lives, but that’s not how it goes for Seulgi. In fact, Seulgi doesn’t know how many ‘lives’ she has left. She’s been cursed with her ‘nine lives’, where she has nine chances to get out of nine life-threatening situations; however, she doesn’t know how many chances she has left or how many have already been used. What she does know, is that after her nine chances are up, something bad will happen and it’s not something she wants to find out.

The only clue she has to finding out when her chances are maybe being used is the pain she feels in her chest when she’s in a dangerous situation. This can sometimes cause her to falter in her escape and cause more harm in that particular situation, though the pain can be negated with the help of either magic or specially brewed medicine.

memoirs

i.

Born on a moonless night, Kang Seulgi was very much a mistake.

Born to a faceless father and a mother who never wanted her, she was passed to the first person who would take her and maybe, that was the beginning of her bad luck.

ii.

She’s raised with her grandmother in a small farming town outside of the city, having only seen her mother through old, faded images. Secrets are always eventually leaked between the gossiping neighbours and she’s soon enough branded as the child of a whore, and the local kids have something to tease her about, though she doesn’t understand.

If her parents didn’t want her, then why did she need them?

When she repeats those words to her grandmother later that night, the elder’s lips curl up into a slight smile, hushes her and tells her to finish her meal.

iii.

They’ve never had money and it’s a struggle to put Seulgi through school. Her grandmother was getting too old to work, her mother barely sent any allowance anymore and so at 15 she drops out to pick up odd jobs. Commuting to the middle school in the next town was a hassle anyway. Her grandmother doesn’t approve, saying that they’d somehow find a way because the neighbours always helped, but it was because the neighbours always helped that they were beginning to want to stop.

This world was never made to be fair.

She leaves her grandmother at 16 to move to Suwon. At the very least she would be able to pick up better paying jobs, more money could be sent home and luckily, her boss offers her the cramped storage room above the restaurant, even though instant rice is all she has for a while. Its her first time in a big city and she gets scammed once, stolen from three times, but calls are still made every other day, payments are made fortnightly and somehow, they manage to survive.

iv.

She’s almost 18 when her world is turned upside down.

Everything happens at once – her grandmother passes, the payment for the latest medical bill is being followed up, she needs to leave the storage room to make way for the new tenant that wanted to expand on the second level and then there’s the unsettling feeling in her chest that won’t go away. She quits her jobs and heads home as soon as she can, the feeling in her chest only getting tighter the closer she gets to home, but reality doesn’t hit her until she’s standing in the same room as the woman rumoured to be her mother, in front of her grandmother’s dead body.

They don’t talk, but Seulgi cries because her world is gone and from the looks of it, her mother didn’t even want to be there. She doesn’t leave that night, doesn’t invite her mother home the next morning and by evening on the second day, she’s gone. There’s no note, but there’s cash and Seulgi doesn’t know if due to guilt or responsibility, but she’s thankful in that moment that she can at least give her grandmother a proper funeral.

v.

She manages to make a bit of money by selling the stuff she doesn’t need or can’t keep. She keeps some jewellery and some photos, but the rest she burns, because those memories aren’t hers and she doesn’t need any memories of her mother. At 18, she finds someone to help her rent out the house and for once in her life, money is not an issue.

The issue is when her mother turns up once more out of the blue and demands the keys to the house, and all Seulgi can do is scream at her in the street and run away. Running, running, running, because she needed to get away and who the hell does this woman think she is? Traitor. Her emotions flood through her, the anger, sadness, loneliness taking over, moulding into one, and then she’s running faster than she’s ever run before, but the world seems different.

The lights and shadows seemed to dance in her peripheral, her senses became a little sharper and somehow, everything looked a little bigger.

A little too big.

She slows down, because by now she’s well towards the outskirts of the town and looking down, Seulgi almost gets the shock of her life. Since when was the ground so close… and why did she have paws?

vi.

When she returns home, its because her time as a feline is up. She doesn’t know who to go to for help, but when she arrives, the lights are on and her belongings are heaped outside of the gate and Seulgi doesn’t need her mother to tell her what she wants. Gathering her belongings, she makes sure she has everything and then turns on her heel to leave– this time, for good.

vii.

By 20, Seulgi’s figured out this transformation trick of hers. Without someone to teach her, trial and error becomes her teacher and eventually, she finds small uses with her new skill. Having made a little home out in an abandoned cabin the forest, fruit growing on trees is easier to obtain and free snacks in town were easier to come by (though taste is a different matter). But the more she stayed changed, the more energy she used until eventually, Seulgi would come home exhausted and sleep the day away.

A visitor waiting for her outside her cabin after one morning run is all she needs to find out that she’s actually something called a familiar. She learns that because she’s relying on her own power, she’s unable to do much in her cat form and that she needs to be bound to a witch to create a relationship of mutual benefits.

She doesn’t like the sound of needing to rely on others, and the words could also be sweet lies. If there’s anything the world has taught her, is that reality is harsh and free is rare, but her curiosity gets the better of her and besides, don’t they say cats have nine lives?

viii.

She’s never been in this much pain before.

The pain sears through her chest, forcing its way into her veins and Seulgi’s curled up on the floor, clawing at the wooden boards in a futile attempt to find some sort of distraction, but nothing can distract her from this. She’s gasping for air like a fish out of water, but every breath feels like a knife to her lungs and the only thing the Witch can seem to do is stare with a look of disdain.

“You rejected it.” She says plainly, as soon as Seulgi can hear over the blood rushing through her ears.

“What the hell did you do?” She hisses through clenched teeth. It’s almost a miracle when’s she’s able to push herself up into a sitting position, her head starting to clear up and cool down, but the pain doesn’t subside and throbs in her chest, almost with an iron grip around her heart.  

“I told you I could help.”

This time Seulgi’s eyes are defiant, narrowing them at the woman standing on the other side of the shed. “I don’t need you.” The only person who had ever needed and wanted her was now gone and the only person she could rely on was herself, because all anyone else had done was smile to her face and talked behind her back.

She doesn’t need anyone.

ix.

It turns out that she does need someone.

The pain comes and goes in waves, better on some days than others. It hurts to transform, so she doesn’t, and she spends her days rationing the rest of her food and staying curled up in her bed. It’s easier to tire, so the days are spent sleeping until she’s gathered enough energy to be able to bring herself to get more food, only to repeat the cycle over and over.

The pain also never fully goes away, intensified when the Witch shows up at her doorstep once more and this time, with another. They ignore her hostile greeting and sit her down, the second Witch more respectful than her counterpart, offering her a medicine of sorts. It helps to calm her down enough to listen to what they have to say, but what they tell her is not the kind of thing she wants to hear.

“The contract backfired because you rejected it,” is the first thing she hears. “And the resulting negative energy is now acting like a curse, because you’ve let your body become so weak.”

She learns then that the contract was not supposed to be broken or rejected in the manner it was and that the rejection was a big deal between familiars and witches.

Somehow, they manage to figure out some of the details of her curse, finding out of her nine chances to get lucky in life threatening situations, although what will happen when her nine chances are up is left to fate. The one thing that’s clear is that she can no longer form a bond with the first Witch and that in order for her to survive, she needs to partner up with another.

“I’ll think about it.” Are the words she tells the witches, and with a sigh they get up to leave.

“Think fast, for you may not have very long left.”

x.

She moves to Busan soon after, wanting to leave her past behind. There was nothing waiting for her but bad memories and ruins of what used to be her old life. Maybe the ocean could wash all her worries away, but even she knows it’s not as easy as that. Eventually she makes up her mind and researches ways to entice some witches in her direction, because if she wanted to live, she’d have to make some compromises.

Maybe one day they would be able to rid her of her curse, but until then, she’d have to play nice.

“Hey. You’re a witch, right? Looking for a familiar?”

[13ceremonialskrp]

                              STEP LIGHTLY, CHILDREN OF THE MOON

THE COVEN WELCOMES THE 9:30PM CEREMONIAL, KIM EUNJONG, A 21 YEAR OLD BLUE RACER SNAKE FAMILIAR

idiosyncrasy

ambitious, determined, resourceful

stubborn, impulsive, volatile

proficiency

healing: the (rather strong, ironically unwitting) ability to regenerate a living being’s wounds, cuts, bruises, and general aches and pains. although she has no control over when and where it happens, direct contact with the affected area is necessary to initiate the healing process. brushing against her won’t do anything, nor will grabbing her and willing her magic to flow through you. she cannot strengthen or weaken the extent to which her powers affect someone else, she can only watch as her powers spring to life in response to another. infuriatingly so, when she can’t even trust them to respond to her, their master. this ability is considerably stronger whilst she is in snake form, but good luck convincing her to slither in any other direction than away.

gorgon effect: a piercing gaze, quiet, calculating. or so they say. it’s enough to turn anyone to proverbial stone. while those under her gaze do not literally freeze, there’s a pressure there, enough to make regular people squirm, or at least feel the weight of it. it’s worked in her favour in the past, captivating in the worst ways, conveying intensity, influence, power - it’s no coincidence that most dealings tend to end in her favour, should she want them to.

ineptitude

the complete and utter inability to control when she transforms. even years after the discovery of her powers, her transformations are still ruled by emotion, particularly those of fear, anger, anguish. they are almost always a result of a loss of control on her part, mentally and emotionally, when her heart might burst forth from her chest, when the tears springing behind her eyes might never stop should she let them fall. she lets fear and hatred rule over her. fear and hatred of herself. though she’s come to terms with being a changeling, that does not mean she accepts it. it’s this aversion to her true self that prevents her from gaining any control over her powers. although she is a child of transformation, she stagnates.

reconciling her dual nature, or the difficulty thereof. it’s difficult for her to adjust to being human again after having been in snake form, especially if in said form for lengthy periods of time. the transformation sends her stumbling, first and foremost, but also leaves her incredibly weak, requiring days to stand without trembling, as if learning how to walk all over again. she’s left squinting in the brightness of the sun, with air she cannot keep in her lungs, with a heartbeat that doesn’t fit in her body, with an unease in the only body she ever should’ve had.

sanctions

although she is a changeling, she views magic and humanity as two separate things, two states at war within her, and so that’s what they become. fear of her own nature allows it to rule over her, and so the more she tries to run from it, the more it instills its grip on her, fear morphing her magic into something darker, drawing power from the wrong places, the underworld.

she becomes more serpentine as the days go by, small changes such as slit-like pupils. but also in her traits, becoming more like the serpents of old, vindictive and venomous, entitled in their sacredness, their closeness to the divine. more subtly, more dangerously, this leaves her open, more susceptible to dark forces, evil in intent, eager for her mind and soul, should she not make a change.

memoirs

0. blearily between blades of grass, she sees moonlight.

the sky is dark and inky. starless. the moon a waning crescent. all indications of passing time, of time passed and yet, she doesn’t know how long it’s been.

how many days, weeks, months it’s been. all arbitrary words to someone, something like her.

all she knows is the hunger that grips at her core, writhing, twisting, begging her to move, to do something. instead she embraces the cold, the sluggish numbness, and coils her lithe body around itself again and again in the hopes that it will consume itself, should the elements fail to do so.

she doesn’t know how long it’s been, or how long it will be until the end.

all she knows is that she’s stopped counting.

1. it’s all rather anti-climactic, she thinks. the way her life had changed.

that’s enough, her father had said, voice even, gaze clouded, distant.

the witch shows no reaction, only leans backwards in her seat, drops her hands from the table. she speaks, carefully: what is?

her father waves his hand around. all of this. because clearly, he pauses to chuckle, this… this is all a mistake. we- we never should’ve invited your kind here. into our home.

the witch keeps her expression neutral. the room is silent save for the ticking of a clock, and eunjung sees her father tremble for the first time. she chances a glance at her mother: screwed away, tucked into the side of a chair, hands white for how hard they grip at the armrests. both of her parents are looking pointedly away from her, staring at anything but her.

looking back now, eunjung thinks that they really did love her. but it was the simple fact that doctors, slaves to empirical reasoning, could never accept, could never be forced to believe in something not meant to be true.

fathe-

don’t! don’t fucking call me that, eunjung i- her father flinches, startles in horror, moves his mouth around the bitter syllables of her name, knowing that what was once daughter was now…

get out.

the words are simple. enunciated quietly.

no one moves. her mother holds her breath, eyes shut tight even as tears slip down her cheeks.

GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE!

her father’s eyes are crazed, desperation rushes up and out of his lungs, reverberates around the room, bounces from the walls, all sharp edges, unpalatable fear-

eunjung feels like the room is spinning.

the witch stands and sweeps eunjung out of the house in one fluid movement, as though she’s seen the extent of what human fear can do. the door slams behind them. eunjung knows that her mother will not break down until they are sure that she’s long, long gone. the witch grabs her by the shoulders, says something. shakes her firmly.

it’s funny. she can’t even find it inside her to cry.

so she’s ushered into a car, led by the arm and shoved in. they drive. as they always do. they take the highway as they always do, they pass over the bridge as they always do, they stop at a red light as they always do and

she gets out and jumps.

2. she runs away when she’s 16.

or that’s what she wishes to be true.

she barely feels it when it happens. energy rushing through her, tingling at the tips of her fingers down to her toes

and then she sees dancing dust, particles in a pool of moonlight streaming onto the floor. the room is darker, sharper, and at the base of the mirror she sees a snake.

brilliant blue, deep, rich, beautiful.

she screams.

thrashes around in a frenzy, slithers and shakes as though trying to rid herself of her own skin until she’s lying in a heap of exhaustion, tucked into a corner underneath her bed. she weeps, coated in dust, and desperately wishes she had tears. a deep fear takes root in her, sends her heart beating so wildly she thinks it might just give out and die. other times, she merely stares into the mirror at whatever monster looks back at her. wills for it to change back back back until she launches herself at the mirror, bashing hard against cold glass but there’s only so much a young snake can do.

a sound freezes her movements and she’s diving back beneath her bed-frame, coiled and aching, more fearful of being found out than of anything else.

it goes on like this for weeks.

her parents pace in and out of her room, wondering, worrying. her mother weeps, sometimes sitting atop her bed. eunjung silently weeps alongside her, and wishes for nothing more than to give her mother some comfort. but creeping, cold scales will do nothing but stop her heart.

when it happens again, she barely feels it.

she doesn’t know how, she doesn’t know why, but when she changes back the first thing she does is heave the contents of her stomach onto the floor. when her parents later see her reappear deathly pale, grey, covered in snot and tears, they don’t ask questions.

they’re just glad she’s alive.

and somehow, so is she.

3.i. she should’ve known.

she should’ve known that it was merely a matter of time.

for as much as she tries, how can you hide the monster that lurks inside of you, pretend to be normal when you know you are changed.

for as much as she tries, she can’t stop it from happening again and again.

and when it does, there’s simply no time to hide.

3.ii. it was a stupid argument.

but at the time, she remembers screaming her lungs out, ripping her bloodied heart from her chest and bearing it for them, her parents, the only people in the world who were supposed to love her unconditionally.

she remembers them, unyielding. cold logic, steadfast against anything other than their truth.

she remembers it happening then, quick and unlike before, like a bolt of lightning jolting through her veins.

she remembers hissing at them, raising herself up to her full length to look them in the eye. she remembers their faces, twisted and frozen in terror, her mother moving to clutch at her father, the both of them stumbling away from her, mouths babbling, unable to find any words.

monster.

she remembers the slow horror, the realization of what she had done, and when her father fumbles for a letter opener on the table behind them, she remembers her mother wailing, incomprehensible sobs: wait!

somehow, they loved her even then.

she lives through the night. and the days after, until they bring a witch inside their home.

4. her mother’s idea, eunjung’s sure of.

where she heard the whispers of magic, eunjung has no idea, but she supposes she is grateful to her.

it’s the witch that takes her from her room, that forces her to change back, that brings her shuddering from the pain down the stairs to be sat in front of her parents.

the witch talks for some time. explaining in simple terms.

that’s enough, her father had said.

the witch shows no reaction, only leans backwards in her seat, drops her hands from the table. she speaks, carefully: what is?

everything, eunjung knows. we tried to speak of magic as though it isn’t a curse, as though that isn’t a monster that sits at our table with a devil holding the leash.

get out, he had said, in simple terms.

somehow, they loved her, even then.

but it wasn’t enough.

5. blearily between blades of grass, she sees moonlight.

the sky is dark and inky. starless. the moon a waning crescent. all indications of passing time, of time passed and yet, she doesn’t know how long it’s been.

when she hears the crunch of the ground next to her, she makes no move to escape. she merely wraps around herself even tighter, taut in her shivering, and resigns her fate to their will.

but a single touch is enough to ignite her nerves ablaze, alive as they’ve never been before. she feels an energy coursing through her, magic, as she’ll come to know, eager, brimming, receptive to the other’s touch and instantly, they know.

she doesn’t know how long it’s been since she’s been in another’s arms, but they’re so, so warm that it burns.

[13ceremonialskrp]

                              STEP LIGHTLY, CHILDREN OF THE MOON

THE COVEN WELCOMES THE 2AM CEREMONIAL, KIM YOOHYEON, A 21 YEAR OLD DREAMCRAFT WITCH

idiosyncrasy

positive traits: charismatic, empathetic, ebullient

negative traits: unrealistic, invasive, reckless

proficiency

i map out the words, maybe you will say them: When in someone’s dream, Yoohyeon has full access to their subconscious and therefore, their skills. While she can’t actively pick and choose, parts of their subconscious will bleed into hers, and when she wakes up she’ll be able to copy a skill of the person in her dreams. For example, should someone whose dreams she’s entering know French, she’ll be able to speak French when she wakes up for a limited amount of time. The longer she spends in someone dreams and the more willing they are to let her in, the longer she’ll retain the skill. This also allows her to instantly and fluently understand someone’s dreams and the symbolism behind it, and suffer no consequences of things she might not understand while awake.

i know why the wolf sings to the moon: Yoohyeon is particularly strong in communication in dreams, understanding them and remembering them when waking up. Rather than controlling a dream, she instinctively knows how to manipulate a dream to get the desired effects. Her sights abilities are particularly strong and get stronger the better she knows a person.

ineptitude

let these colors bleed and blend in mine: Yoohyeon is very easily influenced by another’s emotions in the dream, which often creates a feedback loop, making a nightmare more terrifying, or a dream more beautiful. It’s extremely hard for her to get any objective and useful information out of a dream.  She also has issues separating her own feelings and identity from those in her dreams or whose dreams she entered, making her unstable in real life.

oh, where are you now?: Yoohyeon can only enter the dreams of people she met before or are in her close proximity. Those she has a close personal bond with are easier for her to find, even if they’re further away. Further, while Yoohyeon can enter the mind of someone unwilling, it’s much harder and very  unpleasant for her.

sanctions

the insomniac dreams only of waking up: Yoohyeon sleeps, but Yoohyeon dreams instead of rests. As long as she uses her powers, her brain and body don’t get the beneficial (and crucial) effects of natural sleep. In the best terms this means Yoohyeon will wake up just as exhausted or sore as she went to sleep, but taken further this means that Yoohyeon’s brain doesn’t process trauma well or in some cases at all, that stresses on her body such as injury and illnesses heal a lot slower due to a lack of rest. This makes it nearly impossible for her to use her powers for a long, continuous time without severe consequences for her health.

the dreamer thinks only of sleep: Dreams are as vibrant and real to Yoohyeon, perhaps even more so, than the real world. The longer she uses her powers, the more she runs the risk of getting stuck in the Dreamworld. If she used her powers for a long time, or several nights in a row, she will start to confuse the real world and the dreamworld. This very often leads to extremely reckless and dangerous behaviour, and has a serious impact on how she bonds with the people around her. While in the dreamworld, everything will feel real to Yoohyeon, so any lucid dreamer could easily inflict heavy trauma, physical or mental, on Yoohyeon, which will also affect her body in reality.

memoirs

I.

2 am, pouring rain, tires screeching as gravity loses its grip. She is fourteen, taste of blood in her mouth, glass in her veins, metal in her lungs.

Someone is screaming, a voice distant like a dream, screaming a name (her name, remember that, remember that always, your name), screaming Yoohyeon, stay with me, but she can’t and she doesn’t. (What was there to stay for, she can’t remember.)

She goes away.

II.

Sometimes the trees are trees, but only if she looks at them from the right angle. If she looks at them from another they are not trees, but they are promises, growth and strength. Sometimes the falling is falling, but mostly it is flying, unless it is control slipping through her fingers, unless it’s something else entirely.

Sometimes the world is hers, and she builds it as much as she destroys it, towers cleaning the sky, flowers with souls climbing up, staircases both ending and endless, ravines tearing the earth apart if she wills it. The sun rises and sets with her.

Sometimes the world is someone else’s, and she stumbles into them likes mazes, watches the world unfold around her like a book in a language only she understands. There are worlds that come back, worlds she returns to, even if they are different every time, different scene but same energy.

III.

(In the white sheets of a hospital bed, Yoohyeon sleeps. Her mother learns to stop crying, learns to name the emptiness inside her heart. Learns the words we don’t know why she won’t wake up, learns how to strangle only her own heart when they say, she is perfectly fine, but she won’t wake up.)

IV.

Her world tells her things, stories that are yet to come, stories that are happening in a world far, far beyond hers, one that she knows from long forgotten times. She sees the things others like her see, sees from behind closed eyelids.

V.

(but he is there like a whisper, your world isn’t real.)

VI.

What does Yoohyeon remember of real? When she thinks of real her world becomes a tower and the door is always locked, when she thinks of real, everything glimmers and shines but nothing is worth a damn thing, when she thinks of real –

she thinks of nothing much at all.

VII.

(but your world isn’t real)

VII.

Open your eyes, the voice says, open yours eyes, open your eyes, until there is no song in the air but those words, until the earth shakes and the rivers bleed dry, until flying is falling and all she hears is an engine and there is blood in her mouth and glass in her veins and metal in her lungs and that voice whispering and screaming both saying your world isn’t real, open your eyes.

IX.

(In an empty hospital room, Yoohyeon wakes up, and the world shifts.)

X.

So her eyes are opened and the world is real and falling is always falling. Trees are just trees. There is nothing but the slow passing of time and the moon struggling its way back into fullness, before it fades.

Yoohyeon opens her eyes and learns all about fading.

XI.

But the world is real and raw and the world wants her dead because all the shiny things mean something here in this world of rules and gravity and non-change. So she runs, to the place she saw in her dreams, in her real world, runs to a place where maybe she doesn’t have to be alone.

[13ceremonialskrp]

                              STEP LIGHTLY, CHILDREN OF THE MOON

THE COVEN WELCOMES THE 2:30PM CEREMONIAL, YEO JINGOO, A 21 YEAR OLD EURASIAN SPARROWHAWK FAMILIAR

idiosyncrasy

Positive: compassionate, responsible, resourceful

Negative: pessimistic, obsessive, fearful

proficiency

Jingoo is particularly sensitive to sensing dangerous situations/impending misfortune. It is exceptionally strong when he’s the center, and to a lesser extent, his “spidey sense” goes off when his family/friends are in peril or when he’s in the close vicinity of danger.

Jingoo is a highly accurate, if not specific, danger detector. Car accident about to happen? Electric wiring sparking? Gas leak? Someone entered the terminal stage of a disease? He has a bad feeling about it, guaranteed.

Jingoo always knows when it is going to rain (naturally—supernaturally conjured weather disturbances aren’t the same). He can’t stop, delay, or redirect the rain, but he is never caught by surprise by an unexpected shower.

While in bird form, Jingoo has an exceptional sense of direction and is surprisingly fast—faster than the “real” Eurasian sparrowhawk.

ineptitude

Jingoo needs help managing his feelings of impending doom. He isn’t able to “filter out” any of them, which makes his life difficult. (Going to a hospital, for example, is just an overwhelmingly negative experience for him on account of all the people on the brink of dying or having life-threatening complications.) Being able to pinpoint where something bad is about to happen would be very useful (right now the best he can do is play hot and cold with the feeling by physically moving). He also needs to figure out how to feel the difference between doom directed at him and doom directed at others so he can maybe be a little less jumpy someday.

Jingoo would like to get better at his not flying thing. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to fly in human form, but being able to consistently glide down to safety could be useful.

Jingoo is not able to fly in human form. Or maintain altitude. Or even hover. What he can do is…slow how quickly he’ll hit the ground. If it’s just him, he can drop four or five stories safely (though not comfortably). If he is carrying someone, well, the highest he’s done it is five stories, and he broke bones.

sanctions

Jingoo gets anxious/paranoid easily since he often doesn’t know what’s wrong or how to prevent whatever Ominous Thing Is About to Happen. His foreboding feeling is non-specific enough that he often doesn’t know if something bad will be happening to him, to his family/friends, or to the general vicinity. Sometimes the foreboding feeling lasts for hours, days, weeks. The longest time, when his grandfather was dying, was five months of almost constant fear/feelings of doom that led to more than one breakdown. He frequently (read: constantly) is checking up on his friends/family whenever a stray feeling of foreboding/doom strikes him, and sometimes he isn’t sure if he is having a normal bad feeling or an Actual Bad Feeling.

In bird form, Jingoo is capable of carrying his witch’s magic/spells across great distances. But doing so comes at a steep cost—he loses himself for a time, unable to recall what happens in the hours afterwards. He always comes back to himself in his bedroom, but hours will have passed without memory, and he suspects he spends it in his animal form with little to no remnants of his humanity. The longest period of time he has “blacked out” is thirteen hours, and he has not told his witch about this side effect.

memoirs

Jingoo had a happy childhood in a lower-middle class family. His dad was a construction worker, and his mother was a manager at a convenience store. They lived with his paternal grandparents in an old, but decently maintained, house on the outskirts of Busan. He grew up loved and cared for. Going to college and getting a white collar job was his family’s grand ambition for him.

His father died in a construction accident while on the job when Jingoo was eleven, and while the small settlement was enough to pay off the mortgage on his grandparents’ house, the family struggled. Both his grandparents were forced back to part-time work, and this mother worked long hours. Jingoo threw himself into his schoolwork so he could get good grades, go to college, and someday provide for the rest of his family.

When Jingoo was fourteen, he woke up terrified and utterly convinced he was about to die. When the feeling faded after a few minutes, he checked on his grandparents and then went to the living room to wait for his mother to come home from work. He was the one who answered the door shortly before six in the morning, when a police officer arrived with condolences.

After the first manifestation of his powers, Jingoo’s powers grew. His ability to sense danger, potentially dangerous, and otherwise ominous situations increased steadily. The first time he transformed into  a sparrowhawk and back left him trembling and terrified. He thought he was losing his mind, and he couldn’t bring himself to tell his grandparents, unwilling to shoulder them with yet more burdens. He slowly learned what things triggered his transformation and wrestled with learning how to return to human form on command.

The worst time in Jingoo’s life was his senior year of high school. On top of all the normal pressures he had to face, a sense of uneasiness crept its way into his home. It was subtle at first, but it eventually made him restless and scared in his own home, convinced that disaster was going to strike at any moment. So it was almost a relief when his grandfather collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital, because then, at least, he knew where the disaster was coming from.

His grandfather was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer and died three months later. Jingoo accompanied him to the hospital as often as he could, and he met his witch and finally found out that he was a familiar—her familiar.

Now Jingoo balances working part time with going to Pusan National University (Business Administration), taking care of his ailing grandmother, and assisting his witch.  

[13ceremonialskrp]

                              STEP LIGHTLY, CHILDREN OF THE MOON

THE COVEN WELCOMES THE NEGATIVE HOUR CEREMONIAL, BANG HWITAEK, A 19 YEAR OLD NIGHTINGALE FAMILIAR

idiosyncrasy

Positive: Calm, Observant & Meticulous  

Negative: Shy, Anxious & Perfectionist

proficiency

In his bird form he transforms into a small nightingale which allows him to escape easily undetected from confinements/spaces as long as there’s an opening big enough for his size or that allows him to fly through it. He also has a very strong intuition, in which he can anticipate a danger soon enough to allow him to escape to safety.

ineptitude

Hwi has little to no control over storms and certainly can’t predict the weather. He can however, feel when a strong storm is coming just as animals tend to flee when they feel danger. Despite not being able to control the weather/storms, he can still manipulate some air enough to create a small breeze but nothing larger than that.

sanctions

While in his familiar form, Hwi is extremely fragile like a real bird. He could be easily crushed by a hand or killed with a strong hit. He usually transforms when extremely stressed, so when he’s startled or stressing over a situation (like an exam for example) he will transform and keep the form until he calms down. With that said, no scary movies, no surprises and definitely no more school for him. Another downfall of his nature is that much like a bird, his heart often beats erratically rendering him unable to perform strenuous exercise in human form unless he’s seeking a heart failure.

memoirs

When Hwitaek was born there wasn’t a lot of hope on him but against all odds, the premature baby survived. It had been a miracle and he was treated as such ever since.

His family did everything in their power to look out for him. They knew he couldn’t be given a normal life like the other kids. His fragile built and sensitive nature had made him prone to several risks normal children didn’t need to worry about. So that’s how the small child lived. Shielded from the world, kept under constant surveillance by his parents.

The only glimpses he had of a normal life were from his older brother. The boy had made it a point to tease him thoroughly about his condition but that didn’t mean he didn’t care for him. In fact, when Hwitaek started to rebel about wanting to go to school like him, he had backed him up, swearing to be the eyes and ears for their parents.

After a year of struggle, the younger boy was allowed to proceed his studies in school instead of at home much to his delight. At first, Hwitaek had been extremely excited, having formed all these scenarios in his head on how life would be now that he could meet other people his age. But things didn’t exactly go as he had thought. His fragile looks, lack of stamina and shy personality didn’t make him the easiest person to be around and so the boy found himself with only a handful of people he could call “friends”.

Unfortunately his life took a sudden turn once he entered high school. There started to be changes in him that he could not explain. His heart would spike with stress. His gut would give him warnings that were suspiciously accurate and that is why, days before the college entrance exams, Hwitaek decided to quit.

There had been something telling him that misfortune would come if he tried the exam. His parents didn’t understand, after all he had fought so much to want to do things his own way and now he was suddenly giving up at the most crucial point. They ended up forcing him to attend, nearly making a scene of pushing him out of the car when they got to the school gates.

It had been a disaster. One minute Hwitaek was in the hall nervously waiting for his name being called, the next he’s in the bathroom almost throwing up but instead of that, he turns into a bird. Needless to say he didn’t attend the exam.

When later asked about it, he would explain he had felt extremely ill and passed out in the bathroom. No one had questioned whether that had been true or not since nobody had been around to testify it. From then on his parents worry only doubled, going to the point where he’d been locked up at home for an entire month. It took much of his brother convincing to let him go. He would take care of him, he knew what he was doing, he’d be safe with him. He would make sure of it and Hwitaek could not thank him enough. Not only had he taken him under his wing, he had also helped him move in with him and got him a job as a coffee shop clerk.

For a while, things were starting to look good to the youngest Bang. He still wasn’t too sure on what had happened to him or how he had made the shift happen. But at least he wasn’t alone on it. He was surprised to find that his brother was also a familiar and had gone through similar experiences before. His brother reassured him that once he forms a contract with a witch things will naturally settle.

Now at 19, he tries to live his life as stress free as possible. Always aware of his surroundings and hoping that he’ll find his witch soon.

[13ceremonialskrp]

                              STEP LIGHTLY, CHILDREN OF THE MOON

THE COVEN WELCOMES THE 7AM CEREMONIAL, HAN MINA, A 25 YEAR OLD ILLUSIONIST WITCH

idiosyncrasy

Kind, loyal and clever

Bossy, sneaky, possesive

proficiency

Mental Hallucination: Can induce someone into a very believable illusion, depending of the energy spent/applied, the more powerful or “realistic” the illusion can be. Of course without physically hurting the other person as the psychosomatic illusion ability would. If someone realizes they’re in an illusion, it could be easily broken, and everything turn back as how it is.

Selective Illusion: Inducing illusions or hallucinations to specific targets without affecting others. Easier if the other one is sleeping, however is not impossible as long as she’s a few meters close to the target, needs lots of concentration and preferably a quiet place, however even with a lot of noise she can still manage to focus on person as long as they’re in her eyesight. If lost eye contact, the illusion can be stopped, changed/morphed, uncontrolled or even affect the people around for a few seconds.

ineptitude

Psychosomatic Illusion: Ability to cast an illusion powerful enough to cause physical effects on the target. In order to not hurt said target (specially an innocent one) she needs to fully understand her magic to avoid unnecessary casualties.

Illusory combat: Incorporate illusions into one’s fighting style. First she needs to manage a real combat in order to work on the illusion. Without actual knowledge and depending more in the imagination, it will drain her more energy than necessary. This one can be broken when the target becomes aware of being in an illusion.

sanctions

If used to hurt an innocent (even by accident), the magic induced will bounce back to Mina.

If that’s not the case the mere use of such power will make her own mind grow tired and slowly damaged if not treated correctly. In time and if overused, specially by the wrong reasons, it could lead her to either amnesia, madness itself, or both.

If she’s connected with a target too long, she may feel whatever the other is feeling which, in case they’re negative symptoms it can affect her as well, not as powerful as the target but enough to tempt her to stop the illusion.

memoirs

After giving birth to a son who wouldn’t be gifted by magic, the Han family believed it was a sign to try to understand the regular world, for new knowledge for the future members. Every time magic would skip a generation they considered it the time to stop and learn. Like every moment of change, this brought certain disagreements between the eldest and the newest generations. When the boy grew to become a man protector of the family’s secret to the social world, he found love after graduating from university as a teacher, in a lovely cook-to-be lady. While at the beginning it was hard to understand for the woman, she came into realization of how the world was full of secrets, and truly they were so far away to really accept such knowledge.

Despite the first trials that came from the beginning –confusion, fear, anxiety- their love was stronger, soon both married and wanted to start a family of their own (as normal as possible), being the first ones to return magic to a new baby girl. Han Mina.

From a very young age, Mina found herself interested in things out of ordinary, partly because that’s what others seemed to like to call her and partly because most of the fantasy books she loved to read were related to such topics. Usually you could find her sitting alone drawing impossible thoughts and discovering impossible worlds through pages.  

With her father as a teacher, a loving mother as a cook and an eccentric grandmother that came to visit from time to time, the girl never felt like she missed anything. Although, when her sibling appeared in the picture, if anything the colors around her world became brighter. While there were many times when they disagreed and used to compete a lot, they got each other’s back.

The real tragedy came when her mother fell ill little after Mina’s 11th birthday, it was cancer.  

“There will be times, when strange things will happen around you.” she would say to Mina as she caressed her head while the girl was falling asleep the night before her 12th birthday. I’m already strange, Mina thought, “Unexplainable things, it might scare some people away but you must not fear it, all right?” mother replied as though she could read her mind, “The right people for you will come in time, they will understand and accept you for who you are.”  

Mother knows best she believed after a few months.

Small things that weren’t supposed to be there started to appear on her vision radar, sometimes other people would see them too. It started simple, almost like a whisper, calm like her nature. It started with utensils, or books, whenever she was stressed or scared. Sometimes, weird shadows or figures would appear, many, including her would run away. That’s when rumors began about school being haunted, later as visions started to be more prominent, rumors changed of Mina being the one cursed.  

“That’s enough, only those who aren’t satisfied with themselves make stories like that. Go!” Soo-Young, a classmate of hers defended one time, and ever since both built a very sweet and protective friendship of each other. Let’s not get too carried away, it didn’t last long. One time when in need of advice and comfort, Mina started to tell him to imagine beautiful fields, flowers and mountains. Soo-Young did saw them, and run around as he found the peace he needed at that time however, his reality was different than ours and while not paying attention he fell down of a cliff. “Soo-Young! Wake up!” Mina cried.

Ambulance, police, everyone was there, the boy did woke up fortunately, however he knew this was something Mina did, and while he didn’t directly accused her… His fear got the best of him and remained as distant as possible. It was well known a few years later, Soo-Young couldn’t really tell the difference between his reality and ours anymore. Sometimes it looked like sleepwalking, sometimes it wasn’t.  

That night Mina had an extreme nosebleed as well as her energy drained, she slept for three whole days, waking up only to eat, by her mother. “We didn’t told you sooner because we wanted you to have a normal childhood…”, her father said calmly when she regained full consciousness. It was a long talk and Mina could barely understand everything that was happening, fortunately Grandmother tried best to illustrate Mina about their ancestors history, how powers changed according to different traits, and skills. She mentioned something about illusion, casts, spells, and other things, the girl grew afraid but as she was stressed things surrounding them were starting shake and eventually levitate.

Grandmother was proud, father tried to calm Mina’s sibling, and her mother looked straight at her with an unexpressive look. “The very basic of magic itself, you have the power, but you’re unstable. I’ll teach you the basics, and the rules. The rest, will be up to you.” Grandmother explained, but Mina was afraid of everything, of herself and what she could or couldn’t do. This is when mother came into scene, between her arms she was safe, between her arms she was normal.

After a full year of training, Mina didn’t understand magic, or her own self, who was she really? Strange Mina who loved her alone time while baking cookies and cupcakes? Witch Mina who had the ability to play tricks like making your tea cups float and playing with your mind? The young teen didn’t had time to question this for long, since it was in the year her training sessions stopped her mother fell worse than ever. After years of therapies in the end cancer was winning her battle, during her last night she asked one moment alone with Mina who approached her and held her hand, trying to be as strong as she could.

“It’s okay for you to cry, all right? You can do it for a year, afterwards you can carry on. You have to.” mother said with a gentle smile, “I’m proud of you, not because of your grades… not because of your power…” she placed a hand over the girl’s chin, “Because you’re mine, darling. My Mina.” A tear streamed down her face and the girl made her way to lay down with her mother and hug her tightly. “Leaving you and the others so soon, leaving without fighting a little more, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. You did well.” Mina mumbled holding her mother tighter than ever.

After a few years she grew a little more isolated, focusing on her studies -both regular and magical- while trying to get a normal as possible future. Mina always wanted to open a cafe when she grew up, however while still far, the girl kept working hard to get on the top and make that wish true without the need of magic.

Han Mina might’ve regret many things, probably not being too daring, or perhaps never seeking Soo-Young out again to protect their friendship. Perhaps not spending more time with mother, or helping her to feel less pain during her last day of breathing, maybe she regretted not paying more attention during the training of the very basics, instead of fearing her own grandmother. Although one thing she didn’t regret, was to be alive.

She’d to live, for her family, for mother, and while still internally intimidated by all these powers, and things she’s only recently starting to figure out. Magic won’t define her, she was not going to be evil.

[13ceremonialskrp]

                              STEP LIGHTLY, CHILDREN OF THE MOON

THE COVEN WELCOMES THE 5:30PM CEREMONIAL, DO JIWON, A 22 YEAR OLD RAVEN FAMILIAR

idiosyncrasy

devoted, gregarious, resourceful.

impulsive, melodramatic, skeptical.

proficiency

jiwon’s worked on exactly one of her abilities since they first emerged: traveling undetected. it’s how she left home to begin with, and how she started over again in another city whenever she pleased. the raven’s nimbleness plays a large role in this, often saving her through quick maneuvers when inexperience in the air earns her unwanted attention. an expanded visual field also helps a great deal; vastly improved sight makes for exceptional ease in identifying anything she’d prefer to avoid.

this, of course, goes hand in hand with the particular intuition jiwon’s become accustomed to sensing. it should come as no surprise that the feeling of foreboding has hit her more times than she can count, considering how far she’s gone to test her limits. with early misinterpretations ultimately leading to tragedy, she’s given that sense her utmost focus ever since. even now, despite learning how to understand it, she takes time to be sure of what’s going on around her before reacting. just in case.

ineptitude

with all the things she can do, jiwon often forgets she isn’t invincible. she’s abused her body’s resilience for as long as she’s been aware of it; initially due to devil-may-care attitude, a fateful accident prompts her to let go of any notion of self-preservation she has left. five minutes of ignoring minor injuries stretches out to ten, fifteen, thirty… at some point, she stops trying to estimate how long it’s been since she last gave her body a chance to heal, instead waiting until the accumulating pain is too sharp to ignore. it’s only when it takes several minutes for a single scrape to disappear that she starts to stress over the consequences of her choice. 

now, change the subject to manipulating the atmosphere, and you reset jiwon to her recklessly giddy self. the explanation that familiars like her can bend wind to their will has her look back on past escapes with fresh eyes, understanding dawning that some of the luck she’s counted on was actually her own handiwork. it inspires her to do more, yearning to reach that eventual capability of tapping into the power of storms themselves. until then, however, she’ll make mistake after bruising mistake in her haste to become a master.

sanctions

whatever consequences jiwon faces for taking advantage of her powers has less to do with the powers themselves, and more with the body it gives her. the most notable part of this is her vision, and how her eyes are set as a raven; while the superior sight is much appreciated in the moment, she’s almost always hit with vertigo when transforming into her human form. the narrowing scope of what she can see at once throws her off, making it harder to maintain balance; she’s given up on trying to remain standing, knees typically buckling after changing back.

unfortunately, this side effect is sometimes compounded with another, if jiwon’s eaten while transformed. she’s tried just about anything she finds that ravens consume—since the birds are known scavengers, that means she’s sampled quite a number of things that would normally make her stomach turn. as she discovered the hard way, if she’s eaten something unpleasant before reverting to human form, nausea will accompany the vertigo. depending on what it is, the extra sensation could range from thankfully brief to miserably sharp, sending her to the nearest trash can.

memoirs

august 2016. do jiwon’s just landed in busan.

she doesn’t know why she’s come back. yeah, she misses her baby brother, and the home she grew up in to some extent, but she’s been able to fight the sentiment for over two years. it’s not like there’s anything special about late summer, either; only heat, and humidity, and heavy rain that’ll make it harder to make another escape. but, if she’s waiting for clear skies, she might as well take a look around. busan’s a big city. as long as she steers clear of her old neighborhood, she should be able to satisfy her curiosity without any uncomfortable reunions.

jiwon pulls her hair back in a low ponytail, cap tugged low to cover her eyes. there’s only so much she can wear to hide her identity in this weather. she hates it. she didn’t think that returning to her hometown would make her feel so exposed, but now that the feeling’s taken root, she can’t shake it. she stops at an intersection, bows her head forward, and pinches the bridge of her nose. she can’t wait to get out of here.

when she finds herself on a path leading to her old high school, she goes against her gut yet again, and keeps walking. she assumes everyone’s gone home, but the sound of clattering gym equipment has her break into a run, racing right past the front entrance. she only stops when she realizes where she’s gone, heart racing even after she catches her breath.

of course, of all the places she’d never want to visit again, the first one she ends up in is the one that drove her to skip town in the first place.

jiwon staggers to the edge of the street, drops down to sit cross-legged, and leans forward to cover her face in her hands. her mind flashes back to two winters ago: backpacks left open on the sidewalk, a couple of classmates chasing after her when they find a strange bird poking through them, the overwhelming sense of something horrible about to happen as she takes a sharp turn onto the street—

a boy’s voice jerks her back to reality. she looks up, wide-eyed, to find her brother at her side. she lets him pull her up just to take him in her arms, bursting into tears as he returns the hug; it takes all her willpower to keep from transforming right there.

she’s home for all of five minutes before she’s convinced she should’ve stayed away. given no explanation for her disappearance, her parents waste no time in nagging her, to the point she marches to her room out of habit. the breath is knocked out of her as she realizes it’s mostly as she left it; besides a few boxes stacked in the corner, everything matches what she can remember. jiwon hurries to lock the door before finally shifting into her avian form, burying her beak in her pillows to suppress a cry.

she can’t stay. it was hard enough to hide her abilities when she’d first discovered them; now that she relies on them to scrape by, the last thing she wants is for her family to be connected to her thievery. that very night, when she’s certain even her brother’s in bed, she cracks open her window and flies out, circling around the home twice before soaring up and away.

jiwon is so fixated on going, going, going that when she’s hit with that sense of peril, she very nearly crashes into a car window. it’s only then, bitter over the irony of it all, that she’s able to pick up on something else: an odd aura, easing her dread with what can only be described as comfort.

she doesn’t know then, the things she’ll soon learn about what she is, or the people she’ll get to know in the process of improving. but she does get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, she ought to stop running away. something tells her she might benefit from sticking around, this time.