Minkyeung sits at the altar, flipping through the pages of her books. After the disruptions of the previous days, Minkyeung needed to focus and continue with her plans, the ones from when before she had been disturbed. Finger tracing ancient spells and riddled instructions, she finds her breath heavy with unrest. Her thoughts wandered in the forest of her mind, desultory with no end. 

 

The runes escaped right under her, each line of writing replacing itself as soon as she tears her eyes away. She shuts the book and grabs another, dusting the fading cover. Though easy to read, it was still indecipherable and no matter how long she spent hunched over at the letters, Minkyeung could not make out anything from such. 

 

Jotting down her minimal findings into her spellbook, Minkyeung waves her hand in one swift motion and the lamp in her room blows out, leaving her shroud in darkness. Her heart picks up, recognising the environment of the ritual.

 

She flips to the very back of her spellbook and lays it in front of her. With a pricked finger, she traces a silhouette beneath her on the floor, a picture embedded in her memories. The wet sticky substance dried quickly, creating a dark red outline that contained her body within. 

 

She retrieves her staff from under the cloak and holds it in front of her, and she begins. 

 

The room starts to chill, and Minkyeung closes her eyes despite her trembling arm. 

 

a fortiori ad meliora 

 

Her faint whispers ricochet around the room, and Minkyeung can hear the walls respond to her, reiterating her words but she cannot falter. Gripping her staff tighter, she focuses on the movements of her lips to enunciate every syllable. 

 

quid quo pro

 

Her lamp starts flashing, a flame igniting again and again, screaming for attention. Minkyeung had gotten to this point before, and she knew very soon it would explode. 

 

Yet, she cannot withstrain her flinch as it bursts, contrasting the previous empty of the room. Minkyeung keeps her efforts up, knowing that this time, she had emptied everything vital in the room that could be lost upon a fire. 

 

Something tickles the palm of her hand, and she feels the wood of her staff cracking. Frisson dances on the corner of her lips as she finds herself beyond the usual impasse, and she continues, her heart beating faster, the tips of her hair lifting and the stinging of her blood dripping fingers urging her further and further. 

 

The staff cracks, and as quickly as the staff falls to the ground, so does Minkyeung's fervour. 

 

Staring into the darkness, Minkyeung drops to the floor, scrambling to confirm whether or not her ears grew myopic between her excitement. Her hands brush against the dried flakes of her blood and she finds a grasp on the staff. 

 

Ignis

 

Light appears from her palm, the fire illuminating the broken staff in front of her. She turns it around and grabs the other half on the floor. The light flickers as it dawns on Minkyeung that it lay still in front of her. 

 

She closes her palm and the flame disappears. Grabbing the snapped staff she bursts out of the room and removes her cloak. Grabbing the book left in front of her shelf, she slices her fingers on page after page as she tries to locate any solution or explanation in the book. The red hues paint the book's edges in a glistening sanguine tint that flowed from chapter to chapter, all the way to the hardcover of the back that signified the end of Minkyeung's fruitless search.

 

abluite 

 

The blood seeped pages return white and crisp, but her hand still burns with pain. The intention of the process was for her staff to disappear after breaking so that all power could transfer directly into herself, to become stronger without the hindrance of an object as the source of strength. 

 

But the glorified stick lies present and broken. Nothing surges through Minkeyung as she holds it, and certainly, she does not feel anything gained. Her eyes skimmed hurriedly page after page once more, but no words inscribed reflected the condition of her staff. 

 

Minkyeung collapsed on the floor, leaning against her musty shelf as she clutched her staff. 

 

Deafening silence surrounded her, watching from afar with detachment, and Minkeyung finds herself drifting in a pool of despondency as she watches her tears start to cover her staff, coating the powerless snapped wood.

________________________________

 

Deception never sat with Yaebin, it appears no matter how much she ran, it always seemed to lurk right behind her. 

 

She wasn't sure how much contact the witch has had with vampires, she was certain not much, but she had solely relied on that to leave and lead her life. Control is not something that was so easily obtained or given, especially from someone as powerful as Roa. Though Yaebin's ego twinges, as it is unable to refute that Roa was likely a more powerful witch than she was a mage or vampire.

 

But thirst was not something she had taken into account. Her insides churned with yearning, clawing at the walls of her body for the sweet taste of familiar blood, and Yaebin could not place blame on either two of them. Perhaps the witch's power is what had led to this unforeseen craving that seemed to override all the efforts she had taken to repress her innate desires. Never had she had more than a of the blood of someone more skilled than her, and however much Roa had given her was proving to be more than she could handle. 

 

But true to her word, she left, and the witch let her. Had Roa not wanted her to, she had everything in her power to make her stay. Her full name whereas Yaebin didn't even know her real one, not to mention how it was her own residence she was under. Power she had, and it was restraint that she had chosen to use instead. 

 

Her body aches for something Yaebin is unable to provide to it and she stumbles across the woods. Every step she took echoed a demand that she could not garner supply for. 

 

A rustle disturbs her from her yearning and Yaebin jumps to alertness. Perhaps her thirst, while cannot fully be quenched, can at least be temporarily subdued by whatever unfortunate creature has found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

 

She leaps forward in the direction of the hedge, and as she expected, the animal jumps out and Yaebin pricks the end of her finger, a fluid secreting from her tip extending into a whip-like rope. She lashes at the small animal, the whip slamming the creature onto the ground, twitching vigorously in a red pool of blood. 

 

Yaebin finds herself done with the creature in a matter of seconds, the rivers of blood on her hands. Fresh kill was always sweeter than most, and it roused her appetite for more. Trudging along the battered paths, she keeps her eyes and ears perked for anything else that could be of aid to her. 

 

Her vision goes dark for no longer than a second. The sense of smugness and pride returned to her again, because this had not been the first time Roa had done so since she had left, but such fickle and complicated joy subsided faster than it had arrived. Really, it means nothing and Yaebin needs to keep in mind that power is power, no matter how safe she had once been. Roa could easily turn on her whenever she pleases, and Yaebin certainly had more to offer than another typical lost mage. 

 

The picture of the canopy flashes before her eyes, and it had been for more than a mere moment, as when Yaebin had returned to her own body, she found herself falling forward. Without much trouble, she recuperates and stares. No pleasure courses through her. 

 

Hesitantly, she continues on the path, no longer on the lookout for a feed. She heads deeper into the forest, where the density of the trees would match those of the canopy she had seen in Roa's vision. Mind spinning round and round inside her head, her own thoughts were starting to suffocate her, yet her emotions too were restricting her thoughts. 

 

A spear through the waist.