When marked by fate

DATE 16th of february
PLACE Saga's boutique, little lamb
WEATER Cold, but sunny
ATTIRE outfit

“Move!” Artemis shouted as she pushed an older looking woman out of the way, her whole body was tense and screaming for punching someone straight in the nose. Fate had screwed her over so brutally she might need one of those donuts pillows to shit on, if it had been a physical affair. A man yelled after her, that she couldn’t go around pushing old ladies, Artemis turned around with a big smile on her lips, and then gave him the finger. Shocked he just stood there, with the lady in his arms, with a sigh she turned around and kept walking.

Deep breaths she told herself, but it didn’t help she was fuming, so mad that some higher power thought that Antony fucking Wayne was the perfect match for her. He was nothing but a winy, disconnected and panicked puny man. She was meant for greatness, born to help create more power for her old coven, if you didn’t mind the fact that they were going to sacrifice her to an old god in hope for more supremacy. Might had been a better fate than this.

Her heals spread the sound, as she passed Pandoras box, she continued knowing the way by heart that she might be able to find it, with her eyes closed. Which was a good thing, as she was not in the right state of mind, fuming with anger and regret. Maybe she should have done what Saga most likely would have done, turned the other way and run away before the mate could lay eyes on her. But her cockiness had taken over, it had been a detention class not book-nerd convention, so how should she had known that this scrawny looking man would be on the other side of the room?

Two streets down, now left. She always felt more at peace here, the old cobblestones that created an echo from her shoes up against the old architecture that were the houses here. Finally, she saw the little sign; little lamb. If one could help Artemis out of this predicament, it would be Saga. The small bronze bell would tell that a new costumer came in. “Saga?” Artemis called, and walked through the small store, the smell of herbs calmed her raging spirit and a small smile finally appeared on her lips.

Saga? The recognizing call of her name rang all the way through, not only the store front, but the entire three-story building. With no actual door blocking all sound from travelling from one floor to the next, wouldn’t the little witch even need to be on the first floor to hear it. Artemis was surely a woman with a piecing voice. A voice that really pushed itself forward and demanded to be heard at any time. Just how her appearance always seemed to command eyes to way her. These were some of the very first things Saga had come to observe from the younger witchling.

A crow with pure white feather’s was the first one to greet the witch, as it cawed at her from the top of a shelve, filled with magical knickknacks such as dried herbs in glass jars and other magical items. Circe was pretty much indifferent towards Artemis. She was of no threat to their bonded-witch but neither were they as giddy when she came by for a visit. They weren’t so fond of getting scratched by those long black-painted finger nails either, so that might be one of the major reasons why the crow stayed at its spot rather than flying down to meet her by the payment desk - a beautiful antique table made of oiled wood. Not long after the chime of the bell above her door, more or less at the same time, as the bird had given sound, the dark haired witch emerged from a small side-area of the L-shaped boutique layout and her intense eyes automatically found their way to the illusionist. “Artemis,” she simply said, in close to the same manner as she had called out to her. Only like an answer to her question this time. And of course, the neutral nature making her voice seem almost monotone.

Carrying a cardboard box, Saga took the last few steps to the desk where she carefully set it down, making what was inside rattle ever so slightly against each other since the sender had been quite sparse with the packing peanuts. Then she clapped her hands together to brush of potential cardboard fluff and pushed her already pushed up sleeves as she had felt them slipping. “What brings you all the way to Oakheart?” With the question she turned towards Artemis again, tilting her head a bit to one side as she tried to figure out the answer purely by analyzing the witch’s face and overall person. A lot could be found out simply by looking, after all.
Even with the smile on her face, Saga noticed the slight indentations left behind by a previously frowned in between Artemis’s dark and thick brows, perfectly complimenting the bleached hair and burned caramel complexion.

”Hello, to you too Circe” Artemis said, and nodded towards the bird. They had never had a friendship, mostly because Artemis despite being a witch never really liked the thought of animals. Which also was the reason she hadn’t called forth her familiar. Her brown eyes glided up towards the small petit woman stepping through to the store with a carboard box in her hands, Artemis made a little nod with her head to let her know that she heard her. The dark-skinned woman had always had the trait that she took after other people’s personas, to a certain degree – in this instance she toned down her voice and didn’t really bombard with questions or filling chit chat.

Artemis sighed and used her long fingernails to stroke her chin, as the other hand took ahold of her arm I the nook were the arm bended. “Meet my mate” she explained and took a deep breath, trying not to let her distain show, but it wasn’t very successful. “So, I remembered that you talked about trying to remove the mate-mark for good” no time for being discreet or hold back her own thought in the matter. She herself had tried the painful experience to lose two mates, and now she had gotten the worst kind of person she could have thought up herself. “And to offer my assistance, if you need anything to make it easier for the ritual to be completed” because this needed to be fixed before she ended up losing another mate, she was not about to go through that pain again. Maybe it wasn’t possible for people to remember pain, but for her, she could still remember with every fiber in her being. How her magic had exploded from the pain, like someone had ripped a tiny piece of her heart out. So yes, she needed this to happen, for Saga to succeed.

Saga froze shortly with a baffled expression in her eyes as the fellow witch declared her business for coming. It wasn’t a too long trip from one city to the other but it was still a ways out when she didn’t come by to deliver supplies. But this… this made it make much more sense. The little witch had a very strained relationship with the mate-ship herself, something that might have been part of the groundwork for their closer acquaintanceship. She had at least expressed her utter distaste for the mark herself in the past. As well as shared her desperation in finding a way to get rid of it. For good. Not only a way to rid one of the death or pain it might bring with it. Few witches out in the world had already been either born with such ability or loop hole or figured out how to obtain it. It was ultimately from those instances which Saga built her own research upon. “I take it, that he didn’t turn out to be satisfactory for you then, considering your mood,” she commented and not thereafter, she gave her even more to confirm the theory. Artemis didn’t state directly that she wished her mark be removed, simply that she wanted to help it further along. However, reading between the lines, Saga was sure of her statement.

Contemplating, thinking, considering accepting this offer, she glanced towards the white crow on the shelve and met with the glimmering golden beady eyes of it the bird as if communicating with it through the bond. And then she returned back to Artemis. “My research has yet to go much farther than that of theorizing. My attempts has been very few and far between. It has turned out to be a matter of much more difficulty than one would think. However…” Her veiled being almost perked up, her chin and overall posture getting straightened out just as she looked to the side a couple of seconds before she actually ventured around the desk counter to the employee-only side of it.
This project was pretty personal to Saga. She hadn’t brought much help in on it over the many years she had worked through it on the side-line. She had been collecting thing through favours or business. Not through the kindness of friends and family. So completely letting Artemis in on it wasn’t a clear choice. But maybe… Saga squatted down behind the desk and reached both hands out to grab a wooden box, decorated with Enochian symbols, from one of the lowest centre-shelves, built in and then rose again. With an elbow, she carefully pushed the cardboard box of bottles a little more to the side to make proper room for the wooden box to be placed there instead. “Are you familiar with these?” she asked, turning the box around and opened it up for Artemis to see. The inside the box, the interior was upholstered with a navy-blue velvet, nesting a glass bottle with a big white feather sealed inside it.
Saga’s intense eyes rose to Artemis as if she’d be able to see an answer in her face before a verbal one.

A small one syllable laugh left Artemis mouth, as she was asked if the mate hadn’t lived up to her expectations, that was almost too weak an assessment of what she had felt. In fact, she didn’t even know how describe her distain for the whole ordeal, mostly because it wasn’t because he was a bad man; that might be the worst of it all! She liked him, she wanted to be near him, touch him, kiss him and worst of all she wanted to take him with her in her bed. And she was sure that it wouldn’t be like that, if she didn’t have the mark on her collarbone.
“Well, no, to say the least” Artemis finally give in, not really wanting to actually tell her that she was in fact not opposed to spend the rest of her life with this Wayne – or was she? Because he was mortal, which meant that as soon as he would die, she would die with him, not being able to live a life without worrying about getting old. What a joke.


Artemis nodded respecting that research for lone witches wasn’t something that they would give away just like that, you had to be careful because even the strongest witches, would never be as strong as a whole coven standing against you, and she knew more than one which that was against removing something that could threaten the natural balance between nature and mankind. Not that Artemis really gave a rat’s ass about that, she wasn’t about to get weighed down by some mortal anxiety wreak.

Her deep brown eyes followed the petit witch every movement, waiting patiently as she found a small box and placed it in front of her. As she opened it, Artemis wasn’t in doubt she knew what it was, but never had she seen one actually acquiring such an amazing magical object, and she was well known as the person to go to, to find the most alluring and strange things.
“How did you get that?” Artemis said in awe, as she looked down, finally she looked up; “You intended to harness the power from it, for the ritual?” she asked, almost like she was holding her breath. What Artemis wouldn’t be able to do with an angelic essens.

Saga calmly lowered her eyes from the witch and down to the bottled feather, where she then thought back to just how easily it had been obtained. A simple request from the right person, really. She thought back to the angel which the feather belonged to and his valley green eyes. The desperation in his face when she had had to pleasure of meeting him for the first time after hearing countless of tales of him from shady tongues. And she got reminded of how this feather had been a beginning of a rather favourable business partnership. “It was payment for an addiction treatment. Given to me willingly,” she responded, exposing just how potential valuable the feather was. It had not been plucked with force, tainting the purity of it in any way. The priors owner had even been kind enough to seal it in the bottle immediately after bringing it so the corrupt air that was everywhere to be found in Gaia and the magical countries surrounding, hadn’t gotten to it. And of course, she had yet to break the seal by even opening the bottle. Although she had many times been tempted to touch the feather and feel its unspeakable softness.
“I am, yes. I believe it might be just strong enough a component to purity the witch’s mark. Purify the curse completely so it won’t just return as other ‘cures’ have done.” She gently closed the wooden box again,  tapping the top of the lip with a finger to re-do the magical lock-seal she kept on the box, just in case she had visitors of someone with long fingers. “That is if the mark is truly a curse despite how I might look at it.” Her eyes returned to Artemis, not actually knowing for sure if the witch shared her feelings about that as passionately as she did. She couldn’t help but get the feeling that the chocolate-skinned woman simply saw the mark as an inconvenience now that her mate wasn’t of the right …quality. Artemis had shown to be a woman of certain needs, after all. Never to settle for less.

In poised movements, the little witch leaned in over the desk, arms laid crossed on top of the wooden box as she stood straight-backed only few centimetres from her chest resting on her arms. “Have you bonded with this mate of yours yet?” she asked nonchalantly. She had heard of witches loosing themselves completely when first coming across their mate. Every inch of them being controlled by an almost primal lust. That was what Saga feared most. The loss of control. It was what had kept her from even so much as meeting a mate of hers. She praised her mindful control larger than anything else. Her mental strength. She was not about to let it be compromised by something as ancient fate. She decided when things as love would be welcomed into her heart.

A pure look of disbelief formed in her facial features as Saga told her how she got the feather, not only had she not stolen it, even as Artemis thought about it, it would have been most impressive feat actually, unless she had used a sleeping potion. Suddenly Artemis was swallowed by her own mind thinking on how one actually would deprive a feather from an angel’s wing, before a small sound, not sure if it was the white feathered crow Circe that had cawed at her, letting her know she was slipping away from the conversation taken place right in front of her.
She tuned back just in time to here, that it might be just strong enough.

A curse, that had to be one of the most descriptive ways of viewing the mark. Everything about it just whispered that someone at some point thought that witches was too powerful, and they needed an anchor that could become a liability. Why else would they die if the marked partner did? Why else, would a witch die if the marked partner would reject them? No matter how she turned, looked and inspected this, how could it not be a curse? “Could it truly be anything else than a curse? One witch might be lucky that one’s mate is the love of their life, but the pain, the torture and the odds of dying because of it, how could it not be a curse?” Artemis said with a voice almost as low as a whisper, if it hadn’t had the pure volume of a scorn woman behind it. She shook her head to make an extra point, on how much she hated everything about it. Just like Saga, she never showed her mark, even as she walked around with bare shoulders, it was her magic that removed it for other eyes to see.

It was with curious eyes that Artemis watched Saga lean over the box towards her. The younger witch had always been in awe on how the other woman moved herself, with such self-awareness of her body, and she wasn’t even sure that Saga really thought about it, it just came so natural to her that it even seemed more graceful than any other person she had laid her eyes on. So, at first she was more occupied watching her dark raven hair as it fell over her piercing blue eyes, the poised look as she was almost looking into Artemis soul and learning her secrets without even words spilling over her lips.
So, at first, she didn’t reply; have you bonded with this mate of yours yet?
“No, No I haven’t” she said with a hoarse voice, as if she had been screaming for hours without end. Then Artemis pulled herself together and coughed a little “He invited me on a date instead, and he might have thought I would kill him, if I had the change, not that it didn’t cross my mind, by the holy mother he is one case of being shipped off to a rubber cell” it wasn’t because he wasn’t a nice and warm person, he was jut, not what she wanted! Not powerful, not self-assured, not someone that could bring her closer to the success that she so wanted. So why not get rid of the ball and chain, this being the mark and make history with one of the most powerful witches she had met. So she wanted in, even if removing the mark would kill her, then she would be known as that one, that made it possible in the end, that was how sure she was of this ritual.

“Please” Artemis huffed as she waved her hand a little dismissively, this might be Rebekah Sinclair they were talking about, that she wanted to keep her mate. But the fact that generations of witches all over the world after that, was marked by the same fate? That was just poor judgement and idiotic if one asked the young witch. She might cynical and didn’t see the point in binding yourself to someone like that, besides she hadn’t been in the shoes of loving someone so strongly, that you would do anything to keep them around.
Well now it seemed like this grandmother of witches was just failing around doing her own thing, being married again and all that. So much for the great love she couldn’t live without. It just felt like hogwash and as Saga has said, insecurity. If Artemis should be totally honest Rebekah Sinclair seemed like a spoiled brat, that just didn’t want to let go of those things that she loved. And when she couldn’t get it as she wanted, everybody should suffer the consequences of her broken heart.

Artemis turned around and looked over some of the ingredients and potions that Saga was having on her shelves, it was clearly for her that she hadn’t been very good at hiding what she was feeling about her mate. It wasn’t purely the fact that it was a horrendous curse, that shouldn’t have been there in the first place. But that she had gotten the mate she had.
“No, he” her fingers glided over the dark wood shelve and turned around “He is a human” he almost spit it out like it was something untasteful in her mouth “A mere weak human, he doesn’t have any great powers, he doesn’t really know how to construct a small sentence without almost swallowing his tongue in fright” its bloody walking disaster! But she didn’t say the last part; “And the worst thing is, I was pulled so strong the mark that I couldn’t even think straight – I dressed up, I went on a date with him, I wanted to do everything to make him feel alright. It was like I wasn’t even me!” and that might have been the worst part of it all. The fact that she didn’t feel like herself. Like some other person madly in love with Wayne and grabbed the steering wheel of her car and just – pushed down the speeding pedal, first stop love town. She hated it! And the next day she had woken up finally feeling like herself again, and well now she was here.

“Shouldn’t be a problem really” Artemis then followed, when asked for blood and hair. “Frankly I don’t really care, as long as I get his name off my collarbone”

Saga’s dark brow shot abruptly up, visibly taken back. So he was human. Suddenly it seemed even more like a cruel joke by the hands of fate. And the further the ebony witch went on describing her newly found mate, the more it sounded like a shackle being put around her ankle. Naturally, she hadn’t met or had anything to do with this mate but she still couldn’t help but envision him to do much more than to hold someone like Artemis back. It could, however, be discussed whether or not something like that would be potentially good - slowing her down just a bit. It was like it wasn’t even me. That was all Saga really needed to throw away the positive thinking revolving this mate. Because it really wasn’t a question about the mate himself. It was what the magical bond did to the ones involved.
She lowered her brows away, slightly knitting them together in the middle as she continuously observed her fellow witch. “If that’s the case, simply bring the whole of him. It’ll make things a bit easier,” the little witch said calmly while she lowered her gaze from Artemis and lifted the wooden box up from the table. “Hearing what effects the bond had on you I can only assume he’ll be willing. Until then, come with me.” Letting go of the wooden box with one hand shortly, she held it towards the mahogany door and with a slight gesture the familiar sound of metal on metal sounded as the lock was turned, locking the entrance.

As if it was all choreographed and trained over many years, the white bird set off from its position on the shelve just half a second before Saga herself took the first step out from behind the desk to lead Artemis with her up a spiraling metal staircase. Circe floated gracefully all the way down to land perfectly on their witch’s shoulder, where to, she barely took much note of it. Artemis would’ve understood, had she gone through with the summoning of her own familiar.

The first floor they got too was quite different from the store front. It was a living space. Rather modern and open space. The only room separated by any kind of wall or door was the bathroom in the one end. A soft couch with lots of cushiony pillows and blankets was to be found in the other end where, by the help of a backless shelving unit placed nonparallel with the wall, it created a little nook partially separating it with the kitchen area. Which was very standard. In the middle was a dinner table and though decorations were sparse, there were some around making it ‘lived in’.
But that wasn’t the floor they were ending on. Saga kept going up the staircase as it continued further up to the top floor. This floor was like the other; open-plan. However it was a bit bigger since there weren’t any bathroom. The different was the slanted roof and the slightly darker and more crowded interior design. In the opposite end as where they came up from the staircase was a queen sized bed pushed into the corner. A messy desk stood right beside a big slanted window whereas a big flat-topped chest stood beside it right under the window, where it mostly was used as a stepping stone to crawl out of the window when the little witch felt like it. It had the same kind of chaotic organized clutter like the store on the ground floor while also presenting a bit more fresh, green plants here and there. And still the middle of the room was bare of furniture, except a carpet and a few scattered books. All easily removed when needed. Much like then.

Circe flew from her shoulder again, dissolving in midair into a white swirl until taking form again as it reached the bed. Elegantly landing on its cat paws and sitting down. Fluffy tail wrapped around themselves and pointy cars perked. All the while Sage held a hand towards the carpet and with more strength than her natural was as well as a movement to the side, she throw the carpet over itself, revealing the wooden flooring beneath. Clean, for now. But knowing her, one could only imagine how much of her blood - and other’s - that had seeped into the wood over the years of countless drawn circles in that exact space. “Have you attempted methods to get rid of the mark yourself?” she suddenly broke the silence with, placing the wooden box and going over to push the carpet the rest of the way away before standing and finally looking back at Artemis.

Artemis couldn’t hold back a small snort as she said she should bring all of him. Somehow, she didn’t actually think that would be possible. Heck the poor boy had been almost been shitting himself just sitting in front of her. What had it been again?
You have eyes, right she had eyes. Not beautiful or pretty eyes. Just the stated fact that she had them, in her head. Worst part, it had made her laugh. Artemis was not a laugher. She smiled yes, mostly a creepy smirk to get people to back off. But a straight up friendly even smitten laugh? No. “We’ll see, I could just drag him here, wouldn’t pose much of a problem for me” she said with a low voice, following her towards the spiral staircase.

She took it in, she hadn’t really been up in her private quarters. She had been here bringing her supplies she had acquired for the older witch, which also had been how they had met in the first place. Being a renowned collector of the occult, and great tracker in such. Well to be fair you could also just be brazened and call it what it was, she was a smuggler. For the right prise Artemis could find almost anything.

Artemis eyes never really left Circe; she didn’t have a problem with birds but –
They came up to the top floor, where sloping walls made the roof meet in the middle, giving it the feeling of being on a loft. And there it was, the bloody cat. Funny thing huh? A witch being afraid of cats, or as she would explain it. A deep uninterest of the feline creature.
She was pulled from her thoughts as Saga asked her if she had attempted to remove it herself. “No” she answered truthfully, she hadn’t really had a problem with it before being faced with it so brutally. The pain from losing a mate was something that you got over, but actually meeting it and looking your mate straight in the face. Seeing that it was everything you didn’t want?
“But I’ve heard about powerful artifacts that can remove any curse, so if you say is true and it is a curse branded on our skin, I will start look into these and see if there is something they have in common. Maybe how they were made could help us” she offered and put one hand on her hip while eyeing the darked hair woman. She might not be as well-versed in magic like Saga, as she only had ever really used her time on illusion. But she had her knowledge elsewhere, and if it would help speed up the process. Then Artemis would be more than happy to help, in every way she could.

“This should do.” She relaxed her hand and turned at her wrist, keeping the cut from bleeding and feeing the circle any more than she already had.

Artemis nodded a slow and assertive nod. “Looking into this magic that Rebekah wields, might be beneficial too” she added. This was the woman that had the most powerful magical powers, even as other witches and fairies slowly rose to the task. It never seemed like the arrogant woman seemed faced by the fact of how many lives she had ended with this mate bonding. Or how many unfortunate souls that was caught in emotions that they were no longer in control of. Wayne had almost made Artemis cry. She had felt the pain in her chest spreading like uncomfortable wildfire when he had comment on certain things.
As Saga started fold her sleeves up Artemis made sure that she stood in the background, her hands folded in front of her; observing what the older and more experience witch was doing. She reminded herself what a beneficial the meeting with her coven leader had been. How much he had taught her, and how she had used the much older man to become more powerful. She felt a cold shiver down her back as she thought that. A new feeling, something she would never had thought twice about, could this be the effect of meeting a mate? She wasn’t sure and kept to herself.

"I’ll reach out to my contacts and see how many powerful artifacts I can get a hold of” she moisten her lips and slowly titled her head while watching Saga “There is a teacher at the academy, I’ve let myself told that he is a very old collector of powerful items, I will see if he would be interested in going into business with me, if I find his collection worth our while” in these transactions it was a fine line between friendship and business partners. She needed her contacts to respect and like her enough to always get in touch with her first when they found a new object that would have any interest to her.

As Saga started bleeding into the circle and black marks started to appear, she almost hold back her breath and took in this session marked all the small things that was happening. That anyone could think that magic wasn’t the most beautiful thing created in this world. Would always be beyond her. This was such a magnificent thing to watch and observe.

Artemis furrowed her brows as Saga asked if it was Joseph Blackwood, this was indeed not the man she was thinking about. She knew of his abilities, she even worked quite close with the man, being his assistant teacher. But that didn’t mean she trusted him more than she could throw him. She knew the look there was in his eyes, the one that he would do anything in his power to get what he wanted. What he thought was rightfully his.
Insane would also be a word she would use about the siphoner. That he was even teaching at the school, always made her second guess what Levi actually did when figuring out who to hire or who not to hire. But before she could deny the claim Saga continued explaining that even if it might be so that he had talent when it came to artifacts, even competent. That he wasn’t a man they should bring into this. She agreed, she didn’t think anyone but them should be brought into what they were actually doing. But that was not for her to decide.
But finding people that could possess these artifacts they were looking for? That would require actually talking and somewhat recruit them.

Her eyes perked up when Saga somewhat describe the nature of their relationship. A small smile appeared on her lips. “Well, you can rest easy, Joseph Blackwood isn’t a man that I would ask for help I this matter” she slightly titled her head and looked at the woman sitting in front of her with a curious look in her dark brown eyes.
“I was talking about Adrian Thomas Pierce” she licked her lips and scratched her neck with her long nails. “I’ve worked with him before he started at the academy, not that I would bring him into why I need these artifacts, but I know he has one of the largest collections I have seen by far” she then nodded as she asked her to remove her glamour. With the snap of the fingers her illusion around her faded, and the mark on her collarbone appeared Anthony. Dread coursed through her body as she looked at it. Then a deep breath before she looked at Saga “There, all un-glamoured” the makeup was gone, days like these it was so much easier to use her powers to do the ‘hard’ work for her.