Grace and a natural dominance carried Miku, but so did smolder and slow burn. Life was about the hunt, the chase to get what she wanted. Her fiery inner strength allowed her to calculate, measure, re-evaluate for what someone could give her too. Pleasure, knowledge, increasing her power.. all things that drove the black witch.
She sized up Vedika quickly. A nepalese statue, masculine and feminine energy swirling around the tips of her fingers, lingering at the corner of her eyes. And beneath it all - the truly delicious part - a dormant, primordial energy lurked in Vedika. Miku didn’t know what was more enticing to think about: the thrill of being between her thighs or experiencing the rippling, dark power at her core.
But then again, Miku was greedy. Reducing her options wasn’t in her vocabulary. Why settle on the one when you could have it all?
‘’Impressive? That remains to be seen.’’ Miku spoke with a wicked grin, eyes locked with the other, a playfulness stirring inside. Yes. She liked this one. But her nose crinkled in distaste while watching the identification band being torn away. Vedika’s obvious escape from a hospital was admirable, but the hoodie had to go. ‘’Follow me.’’ No introduction. Not even an ask if the other wanted to come along, because Miku knew she would follow regardless.
And she lead Vedika to her stall on the pier. Even from the outside, Miku’s sanctuary at the harbor stood out among the others. Sheathed in rich, other-worldly textiles, it was meant to be a visual portal to another dimension. Her inner life expressed through oils, acrylics, and mixed media. Some paintings and pieces held themselves together by turbulence - raised, darkened streaks on canvas begging to be read more closely. Others seemed to be created with a delicate and firm serenity, with the tensile strength of spider silk.
Inside, Miku walked around gingerly, eyes searching, fingers lifted and dancing through the air as if guiding the witch to the correct location. She finally picked up an ornately decorated wrap dress - long on Miku’s small frame, it would work nicely for the other woman. She dangled it just out of Vedika’s reach before clutching it to her chest, the barest hint of a grin on her lips. ‘’Before I let you borrow my clothes.. tell me why were you in the hospital.’’
The shaman was utterly entranced by the woman before her, felt a deep and dark connection down to the very core of her that she couldn’t quite find a way to explain. It was almost like meeting a stranger and then suddenly realizing she was your long lost sister, or your lover from another life or dimension. It seemed against the odds that their paths would have crossed, and yet here they were, brought together by their own power, or by the ever-tangled red strings of fate... She was intrigued to see where this went, where this familiar shadow would lead her, and what they could build or destroy together.
Everything the woman did seemed perfect, whether it was the result of excellent control of self, or simply her natural graces, Vedika wasn’t sure- but the effect was utterly seamless. She was watching something ten times more graceful than a ballet, and a hundred times more deadly than a prowling tiger, and for the first time in too long, she felt her energy spike with exhilaration and excitement. She felt like her wild self again, transported back to her school days when she roamed the halls and ruled over the others with... not so much an iron fist but a killer set of steel claws. She felt... ferocious again, in a way that had escaped her for a long time. If this would could bring that out of her just by standing near, Veda could only imagine what might happen when they started to show off for each other. Her eyes twinkled with eagerness and hungry curiosity, even after a somewhat cold comment from her new acquaintance.
Oh yes, she hadn’t done anything impressive yet- that was exactly it, and the look that came over Veda’s face in that moment was one that said she was aching for a chance to prove herself, and promised she wouldn’t be disappointed when she finally saw what she could do. She followed wordlessly, immediately companionable with her powerful new friend and willing to follow her into the very mouth of the monster’s cave, if that’s where they were headed. She had no way of knowing really that the real monster within her was just as intrigued, and fed her eagerness all the more from the dark depths of her soul he dwelt in.
Somehow, she wasn’t expecting to be led towards the sea... Water was the one element she could never quite get control of. As the smell of salt water hit her nose, she was assaulted with the vivid memory of kneeling in a cave, her hands cupped as if to sip out of, but the water she tried so desperately to move through the air quite literally fell and slipped through her fingers. And just like that, the torchlight of the cave melted away again, and she realized she was standing at the entrance of the woman’s grotto, adorned with paintings and fine fabrics, and all kinds of beautiful things that made Vedika yearn for another time of her life. A time when she’d surrounded herself with similar things, or more specifically when she fled from beautiful place to beautiful place, finding whatever she could to distract her from a pain and loneliness that seemed to travel with her.
(The demon in her belly laughed at this mental image of hers- it had been him all along, eating at strings of her heart. He loved the aged wine taste of her deep dark blood, and the exquisite bouquet of her misery. Every story she had lived, every life she stepped in and out of had been of his design and authorship- she would exist in no other world but his until her death, and it was so satisfying. He growled pleasurably in her stomach, and if the witch was very astute she might have felt it in the way Vedika seemed so natural in her air of sorrow and desolation as she looked over the painting, and all the fine distracting things around her.)
Inside, however, she and the demon had eyes for nothing but Miku again. Her energy was so strong, it was as if she could tell exactly where she would be moving to, and what she would be doing, as if it was her natural place in the world, the thing she was most destined to do in that moment. Veda hardly understood it, but as long as that destiny involved her, she couldn’t be bothered to care. She reached out for the beautiful dress dangled tantalizingly before her, even though some part of her knew it would be snatched away again in a second. Steeling herself with a breath, she knew this was part of her test. Not only would the woman evaluate her story to identify any strengths and weaknesses, but she would know outright if Veda tried to lie. Not that she wanted to... she found herself wanting to tell Miku everything, even the parts she thought no one would ever want to hear.
She started at the beginning, or what she could make of it, at least. The thing was, she remembered more than she’d ever let on to anyone else, including the police and doctors that had interviewed her at the hospital... Having been through the wringer a few times, Veda knew better than most that some things were better left unsaid... but not this time. Not to her new friend.
“I was... at home last I remember... And something woke me up... It was the middle of the night, but I could hear... a voice calling me,” she started. She could picture herself rising from her bed and walking trancelike to the door, bringing nothing with her but her body and the dark soul attached to it. She thought if she concentrated enough, she would be able to make Miku see it too- some of the witches she’d studied with had such a power...
“I think it was my sister...” Sure enough, the voice of Maina, the ghost of so many years now, began ringing through her ears as clear as a birdsong. “It lead me... to the forest... Deep in the forest...” She had walked barefoot in nothing more than a nightgown down into the darkest parts of it, the parts that no path could lead her to but her own black heart. “I- I don’t remember much after that but...”
She hesitated... This was the part of the story she didn’t exactly remember. And it was the part that demonstrated her shocking lack of control when it came to her magic. How could she explain this to the witch before her without being seen as weak and pitiful. Nervously, she fiddled with the glass vial around her neck that housed her sister’s bone shard and a pinch of black ash... And naturally, as soon as she was distracted with the bauble, this was where the demon stepped in to.... fill in the gaps as it were.
“A Black Circle,” Veda continued, her eyes focused on something far away, not of this room or even of this land, but in a cave thousands of miles away, her master and the parasitic entity that lived in her. Her voice was still her own, but with something... else... An extra quality and tone that her regular speaking voice distinctly lacked. The demon, using her tongue to speak. And he continued. “A Black Circle, and Black Ones around it... A deal struck in blood and bone... and a demonstration of power. My power.” The possessive word was drawn out and emphasized, the demon clarifying again that he was something else wearing Veda’s skin, and he was not to be trifled with.
With this last declaration, he surrendered control of her body to her again as suddenly as one releases the throat of someone they were until a moment ago suffocating with their bare hands. She came back to herself with little physical change but a bewildered blink, and the sudden realization that she was standing in the exact place and time that she was, and that she had until recently been speaking... She resumed her sentence perfectly, as if no time had passed at all, as if she hadn’t really been present in the previous few moments, her necklace falling delicately against her throat again as it slipped unnoticed out of her fingers.
“...that was about the time the fire started... And I guess I’ve been missing since then. I hear the fire did extensive damage to the forest... but I don’t remember where I was or what I did while it was happening... They just... I mean... this guy found me, recently... He felt me in the woods and I... I mean I just woke up the other day... I don’t know where I’ve been since the fire began... or since it was put out...” Her confession complete, Veda felt there was nothing left but to be judged by the witch. Her stomach worked itself nervously into knots at the idea that she might be rejected because her story was so unbelievable... or because it was an example of such a serious lapse in control and consciousness. But at the same time, she wasn’t going to beg to be forgiven for it. She knew somehow that Miku wouldn’t be swayed by begging, although she might find a sick satisfaction in hearing someone beg...
