Sakura huffed as she looked over the list, “Shishou, are we sure this is an actual spell for seeing the future?”
Tsunade stopped measuring tiger's entrails. “Well, it’s a little unorthodox, but there’s nothing to lose by trying.”
Both Sakura and Shizune freeze. “Eh, Shishou ....” Because last time they had messed with an unknown spell they had all ended up as slugs. Very cute slugs, but still slugs, even if all the boy slugs had waved their eye stalks like whoa. Sakura shivers - that crash course in slug husbandry had been entirely unwanted and unnecessary.
Shizune glared, then huffed under her breath, “This has to be punishment for throwing out all her sake.” Still she obligingly stoked the fire, then added more poison to the entrails. Right, they should have everything they need, or at least acceptable substitutes.
As one, the trio threw on their hooded cloaks. Not actually necessary but it was cool and added a nice atmosphere. Half of being a witch was atmosphere.
Tsunade squinted at her crib sheet, “ Okay first we need three cries of a brindled cat. The closest thing we have is Tora, so here we go.” She squeezed said demon cat three times, and each time elicited a squawking meow. Then she tossed the cat out the front door. Sakura shivered, better that furry demon elsewhere than in here.
“And three whines of a hedge-pig.” Shizune lifted up Tonton, who was wreathed in hedge branches. “Come on girl,” Shizune tickled under Tonton’s chin, who begrudgingly whined three times.
Sakura’s turn. “Who even knows what a Harpier is. So, ‘Tis time. Tis time’.”
“Once round the fire, then poisoned entrails,” Tsunade read off as she completed each action. The guts of last nights dinner plopped into the second-hand caldron with a sickening squish, fizzling as it hit the boiling water. “31 day old toad, poisonous variety, in.” She checked her receipt, then announced, “Time to boil.”
Sakura pulled out her half finished lunch. Mmmm banh mi. Pots took forever to boil, okay? And she was hungry. It wasn’t fair to force her to wait when the spell said nothing about having to have fasted. Those spells were the absolute worst. Even worse than the spells that required specific astrological happenings or star alignments or specific portents to happen while you were casting. There were documented and tested workarounds for those things, but nothing for fasting.
After about half an hour, it was Shizune’s turn. “Fillet of snake, boil.” The cauldron had failed to stop boiling, so Shizune shrugged and continued. “Eye of newt, toe of frog, bat wool, dog tongue, snake tongue, lizard jaw because having a lizard bite the cauldron would be a hassle, lizard leg, owl wing. And more boiling.”
She pulls out a book, since at the end of the addition of ingredients the cauldron had gone flat - weird flat too, spewing green smoke and a nauseatingly sweet scent. Sakura really hopes this is a spell to see the future and not some hacked together love spell. That would be a trial and a half, especially after last time. Everyone wanted the quacks potions and spells because they were cheaper, and then Sakura as low-woman on the totem pole was sent out to deal with it when petitioners came to the actual witches to get the resultant mess undone. On the plus side though, those were the days she felt the most de-stressed after she had finished undoing the spell. Clouds and silver linings and all.
Next would be dragon scale, wolf tooth, the skin she had ripped off her callouses and mummified - no one said it had to be a dead witches mummified flesh, the jaw and stomach of a shark, hemlock root dug up in the middle of the night, human liver - because Jew liver was a little racist and also no one classified their livers by religion anymore, it wasn’t the 1300s- carefully chunked, goat bile - Sakura had to sacrifice a goat, did the spell writer even know how expensive goats were - that had been squeezed from their liver and gall bladder and stunk the whole cottage up, eclipse harvest yew twigs, human nose - again, why a Turk specifically, why do people note these things when there is no inherent difference between human noses beyond size and shape - and human lips - seriously what did these ingredients have to do with seeing the future? - and then the finger of a baby that was strangled as a prosititute gave birth to it in a ditch. That last one was horrifying, but since umbilical cords sometimes strangled babies as they were born (usually the fault of quack midwives and doctors, not that Sakura was salty or anything) it was easy enough to hie off to the county records office and find the appropriate gravesite and dig a little. Sakura felt bad, but spellwork. She’d made sure to send the baby’s spirit to rest with the Mother, though, since she felt bad for disturbing the grave. Finally tiger entails, and then boil it again. Why did she get the hardest ingredients to have to find, though? It was like someone had deliberately written that spell so that the lowest witch in the coven would have the hardest time. Hazing is what Sakura would suspect, but she’d had that already in trying to resuscitate a fish when she first applied for apprenticeship, not to mention the hand to hand combat training. Could she lodge a formal complaint about this “spell” when the Grand Coven convened next month? Spell reform was hard, but worthwhile -
“Sakura, the cauldron!” Tsunade snapped. Sakura startled, then hurried to dump in the ingredients in the specified order. Who knew if the damn thing even needed a specific order, but noooo the original author hadn’t noted and so they were stuck adding each in order in approximately equal amounts like plebeians instead of the High Witch's Coven.
The cauldron rapidly returned to boil, and Shizune dumped in an equal amount of baboons blood until it was cool. The trio crowded around and peered into the glassy, murky depths. Sakura had to squint, but the amount of magic lurking within the cauldron was spectacularly reactive. A touch of their magic and the surface shimmered into a mass of rushing images. Sakura felt like her brain was going to leak out of her ears, but she couldn’t move, caught in the swirling vortex of snippets of things, and knowledge, and events. Maiden’s tits. It all felt important, and connected, but she couldn’t tell how. Why would she need to know that a Demoness trapped on the Mother’s Moon was weak to naked boys? Would she need to update her antidotes and antivenoms kit sooner rather than later to save that man? And still nothing about boobs?
Finally the spell broke and they each stumbled away from the now smoking cauldron gagging, retching, or in the case of Tsunade, vomiting into the waste paper basket.
“Mother’s mercy,” Shizune whimpered and Sakura had to agree. At least the damned spell worked, thank the Crone.
Tsunade wiped her mouth and stood. “Pack your bags, ladies. We’re going to need to convene the High Witches of the Elemental Nations now rather than next month.” Right, portents of doom and war. Sakura stood firmly on her still shaky feet. Magic exhaustion and shock or no, they were the High Witch’s Coven of Hi no Kuni, and Sakura would not be the one to disappoint her forerunners by breaking faith and shirking her duty. She grabbed her travel satchel, the one she’d luckily restocked just that morning, and left without looking back.
Hello once again interweebs. Uhhhhhh I'm so freaking tired :{. We've had our play at our high school the past 3 days, and it's a very taxing show so I'm pretty tired 😭😭. Plus I'm the lead and it's Shakespeare and the director is on my fweaking dick so I've been walking on eggshells, but at least it's Sunday YAYYYYYY. Hashtag TGIS. Erm anygays Idek what to say, uh yeah it's been a very emotional two weeks and I feel like this will be a very taxing and long year emotionally, but at least I'm a senior #collegewillbeparadiseifimnotdeadbyjune. But uh yeah. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers and trips to the bathroom my baba ganooshes 😞😜
