Our cottage in the woods was exactly what you would expect of a witch’s lair in a fairy tale; dry and fresh plants hanging from the ceiling, flowers stacked up in wooden boxes. Open cabinets with collections of jars and bottles filled with all sort of small weird things. Boxes of bones of all sizes laying next to other boxes, filled beyond it’s limit with a mix of feathers, leather, fur and all kind of weird witchy trinkets.
The cabin had two rooms, a third if you are kind enough to consider the bathroom a room – it was hardly a bathroom. In my previous life I always wondered how these modern women would suddenly be thrown in these fantastically medieval worlds with no sewage system and still manage to be happy ever after. I still don’t know, and after a week of suffering through showering in river water and dealing with sewage waste, I knew I probably never would. Our bedroom was a mezzanine that fitted our beds and that was about it.
My mother’s name was Astra. She was a tall woman with gentle manner — unless provoked. She was a witch and worked mostly as a healer, servicing the local common folk and never the local nobility. Astra was known to despise the nobility and The Empire, and most people in her life had no idea where she came from, just that one day this young woman opened a witchcraft shop in the forest, in the outskirts of the town and started helping the local folk. Some of the townsfolk speculated that mother was the shunned-witch-daughter of a northern noble, other’s that she came from the southern continent, and some just thought she was a horrible witch cursed by the Gods.
The only thing that mattered for me about Astra was than never in my previous life had I felt as at home as I did with her. She did the best stews, baked amazing breads and tendered to me with a care and a love I had never experienced before. But what shinned brightest in Astra was more than how much she loved the people. She cared for everyone that came to her shop with love and tenderness, and would even care for the soldiers if they were nice enough. Mother’s hate for the nobility was similar to the rage I felt in my past life, as I laid in the street dying while my boss called the emergency line as he complained about the damage to his car. I knew there was something in her past that brew this hate, but I never had the chance to ask.
As soon as I woke up after the incident in the town-square I opened up to mother about my memories, she rushed me to write down anything that came to my mind about that past life, as they could be important in my future as a witch. I wrote all sort of memories: things I thought I didn’t want to forget, things I thought I shouldn’t forget and things I though might be helpful. I wrote in my original language, and holding a feather pen with my tiny childish hands was a very hard and quite painful process, especially since I had to write everything down in a rough recycled-like paper. Well, recycling was not a concept in my new world, so I guess this was just cheap regular paper.
Transmigration means I died in a world and woke up in another, usually inside a book, a comic book, or a video-game. This means that my original soul probably reincarnated in the body of a character inside a story, and this could bring all sort of trouble— including death by execution in a very public and bloody way. As I had reincarnated in the body of a child so I assumed I had some time until I needed to know which story I had transmigrated into, as writer’s don’t usually kill children in dramatic ways for no apparent reason.
Although I was sure about transmigrating I had no idea to which story I had transmigrated to. My name, my mother’s name and neither the empire’s name brought back any memories. I opened up to Astra about my past life, but concealed the theory of being transmigrated. I could never explain a video game concept to her, and it felt way to cruel to tell this amazing woman that she was a character in someone else story. I wrote down the names and small synopsis of the stories I read or played in my past life— the ones I could remember. But my five year old brain soon grew tired and I fainted once again, these time from exhaustion. Astra told me I should no longer force myself, “the future will be what the future will be,” she said after I woke up from my feverish sleep.
The next five years were spent running in the forest, learning alchemy and witchcraft from my mother, and it was as amazing as it sounds. I hardly ever got sick, I ate amazing food and after Astra judged me old enough I had to, unfortunately, clean my own waste residue. I really hated that part. I once joked around with mother about wanting to be a noble so that I wouldn’t have to clean the sewage. She told me that if I was a noble and not responsible for my own waste residue, than one of our friends from the market, or probably one of their grandmothers, would be responsible for that. Wouldn’t it be worse to have someone’s grandmother smelling your poo? I learned never to talk about wanting to be a noble with her again, but I still missed the sewage system from my now faintly remembered past life. But ultimately, she was right.
Astra would take me to town with her so that I could make friends with the kids in the market, buy books or help her with our daily needs shopping. It was never easy to make friends with children, as I was like an adult caged in a children’s body, most of the times the plays felt dull quickly. So when I turned eight, after much desperate pleas, I started to help mother tend to some of the sick that would either come to our shop, or that we would visit. There was no formal healer in town, so most of the mild illness was my mom’s responsibilities. She couldn’t mend a broken bone, if someone came in with a leg spliced in two they had to run to a noble’s healer in the next city, but everything else she basically had it covered — even small curses. I learned so much from her and made sure to keep all that knowledge registered in my notebooks. These were the brightest years I had in both my lives.
It was spring when I woke up in this world and, per Witch tradition, the day a Witch awakens her powers becomes their birthday celebration. My birthday often falls during the Spring Festive, a week-long celebration of the new cycle — The Empire’s new year and as such, their largest and most important festival. During this period the Empire is inundated with feelings of hope and new beginnings. Every big city holds their own Spring Festive, with the largest one being in the Empire’s capital, Oravanca.
Oravanca is the largest city in the Empire and also its economical and political centre. Most nobles have at least a secondary home in the city — many nobles have states in other parts of the country, but all grand noble houses have villas in Oravanca, it’s as much a showcase of financial power as it is of political influence. In the margins of the capital many other small cities and villages were born. The furthest one of this surrounding villages is Marion — the forest I lived was in the outskirts of it. And although the village doesn’t hold it’s own festival, all the caravans and merchants going to Oravanca used Marion as their last stop before moving forward to the capital. And so we also got to experience a small spring festival of our own. Mother took me there every year, and on my 11th birthday it was no different.
Many caravans came to town and every important institution in the Empire had it’s own huge caravan: the Wizards Tower Parade, The Holy Church Procession and, of course, The Royal Palace Armada. The Royal Palace Armada always came last, establishing their position as the one real authority in the Empire. Like in all past year, hundreds of soldiers wearing fancy uniforms spread in an organized fashion through the streets securing the passage of the Leading Prince — the prince selected to lead the caravan that year. That honour would usually fall either to the Second or the Third Prince, as the Crown Prince would be considered much too important to parade through the land for over a month. But this year was different.
Leading the Caravan was a dark-haired and light-brown skin boy, maybe a couple years older then me. His scruffy long hair fighting to stay tucked away in a braid made him look even more tired and destitute over such a huge and imposing black horse. He was surrounded by the Moon Guard, all using a dark blue uniform. The Moon Guard are solely responsible for the Crown Prince protection, they are at his and Her Royal Highness Anahi, the Empress, command. As did I, many people in the crowd thought it was weird that the Crown Prince of the Empire would be out and about on the streets, especially followed by both his siblings — it was a rare sight, to see all three of them together. They were known not to be in good therms, and parading all three princes like that was a security hazard.
“That’s Prince Augustus, the Crown Prince” — Mother said, gesturing to the boy with dark hair. “And behind him are his younger brothers; Emmanuel, the second prince and Vincent, the third prince. Something is off, though.”
“They look nothing alike” — I said. While the Crown Prince had light-brownish skin, dark eyes and dark black hair, his siblings had pale skin with golden hair and clear eyes.
“That’s because they have different mothers. The Crown Prince is her Highness the Empress’ child and the other two are children from the Royal Concubine.”
“Oh, so the younger one’s are bastards?” I asked, intrigued by the royal gossip mother was suddenly offering me. Which reader of fantasy stories has never heard of a bastard? My mind started to skim through all the books I had read that featured bastards. But mom knelled down to meet my eyes and, while caressing my hair, said:
“No child is a bastard, Alana. Children are just children.” I blushed, ashamed of my gossipy comment and shook my head in accordance. “The adults make them bastards, and they who do so are the ones at fault”.
Suddenly, we felt the air go cold. One of the horses neighed in pain, and the crowd went silent. A deep and painful scream followed – the third prince was now bleeding and screaming on the floor, his horse dead and split in half. A hoovering shadow flew rapidly through the crowd and became a moon shaped fog figure in the sky. The figure stood there for a second before disappearing. The street was stained with bloody red, people started running and screaming, and the knights organized a protective circle around the royals.
A soft white light started to emanate in the middle of crowd — a frail-looking girl broke the knights’ formation. Her long white straight hair and her long white dress formed a teardrop shape as she knelled before the injured second prince. As she held the prince’s hand and started to chant a prayer the white light that at first only surrounded the girl echoed through the crowd, and whispers started claiming “the little saint, she’s healing the prince”. Knights, who were at first hesitant with the girls’ presence, knelled down as if watching over her.
As I looked at the young saint healing power casting a soft white glow around the young blond prince I knew that, if this world was indeed inside a work of fiction created in my original world, both of them were the protagonists. And if a Saint was the protagonist, that most probably meant a Witch was at least one of the antagonists.
With my soft but hoarse child-like voice I once again let out:
“Fuck.”
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