Chapter Text
Violet Sorrengail had never encountered a problem that couldn’t be solved with the right book. She believed, in her heart of hearts, that having knowledge at one’s fingertips was essential to being a good witch. And Violet was a very good witch. All the residents of Basgiath agreed.
The small town, nestled where the Iakobos River met the Emerald Sea, really should have been a port town, any merchant would tell you so, but the islands that dotted the coastline protected Basgiath’s shore from the tides, creating shallow marshlands inaccessible to large merchant vessels. So instead of a bustling metropolis, Basgiath was a sleepy coastal village known for salt marshes and rocky cliffs, and the small, cozy cottages that overlooked them both. It was a peaceful, if eccentric, place with goodhearted people.
Well, alright, some of the people could be quite meddlesome and others downright presumptuous, but Violet was their witch, and it was her duty and privilege to support her community. To bring all her books to this corner of the world and help them with potions and poisons and spells.
Which was why it was so frustrating that she couldn’t find that damn book.
“I’m really sorry, Mr. Kaori, I just don’t know where I put it.” Violet scanned her bookshelf again, trailing her fingers over every spine, even though her brain had stopped processing the words about five minutes ago. She really didn’t want to have to use a location spell to find Kaori’s book. What a waste of components that would be.
“It’s alright, Violet. I’m sure it will turn up somewhere.” Kaori's eyes dropped to the mess that was her living room. Books and paper were strewn everywhere, stacked in misshapen piles on the coffee table and floor. A tower of parchment even sat on her armchair. The couch would have more piles if Tairn and Andarna didn’t insist on having somewhere to relax. Her familiars could be quite demanding.
“That is not a very nice thing to say about your bondeds,” Andarna trilled from the windowsill. It brought a smile to Violet’s face despite the scolding. The small, white kitten stretched in the sunlight and blinked her golden eyes at Violet in that sleepy way that only soft, fuzzy things could.
“Little Golden One, must I remind you that it is not bad to demand what you are owed? The Silver Witch merely speaks factually.” Tairn looked down upon Violet from atop the bookshelf, his thick black tail flicking happily.
Violet never bemoaned having her familiars in her mind at all times. She loved them both dearly and couldn’t imagine not having them with her, but she couldn’t deny that it was moderately distracting in times like these.
"It’s just that I thought I saw a new variation of the Orange Firebelly Newt on my walk home from town the other day,” Kaori whispered, as if the statement were a filthy secret.
You see, Mr. Kaori loved reptiles, but the book in question was his personal journal cataloguing every type of newt in the region. He was quietly contemplating expanding his expertise to amphibians, but had confided to Violet that doing so would feel like a betrayal to his first love — the lizard.
Violet was trying her best to convince Kaori that expanding one’s love of nature did not diminish one’s love of any aspect of it, but he could not fathom how this could be true. This did not dissuade Violet, who remained convinced he would come around eventually. Until then, their conversations on local amphibians and the double lives they led would remain clandestine. She was happy to serve this purpose for Kaori, even if a small part of her wondered whether he would still confide in her if she couldn't concoct Reptilia Audire, a potion which allowed him to understand his beloved creatures for up to an hour at a time.
Violet dropped to her hands and knees and began looking underneath her furniture — it was the last place the book could be. The only place. “No, Mr. Kaori, you lent me your journal with the intention of getting it back.” Violet crawled on the floor, dust gathering on her palms, and looked under the coffee table. “It’s long past time I returned it to you.”
She peeked under the couch, and there it was — a small leatherbound notebook covered in a fine layer of dust and cat hair. She reached her arm under, contorting her body in a way that probably looked as ghoulish as it felt, and snatched the book.
As discreetly as possible, which was not very discreet at all, Violet brushed the dust from the journal. Kaori was still standing by the bookshelf, his eyes lifting to Tairn in a way that seemed more anxious than interested. The poor old man probably thought Tairn was readying to jump on his head. Little did he know, the fluffy black cat simply took great pleasure in appearing menacing from atop tall objects.
“That is categorically false. I do not appear menacing, I am menacing.”
Violet bit back another smile as she handed the book to Kaori. “You’ll have to tell me if this newt you found is distinct.”
Before he could answer, the front door chimed.
“A visitor!” Andarna exclaimed, jumping from the windowsill, ready to welcome their new guest.
“Goodie.” Tairn groaned.
Violet scurried into the front room with Koari at her heels and Andarna weaving between her ankles. She stumbled through the threshold. But it wasn't the crowding that nearly made her trip — it was the sight before her. The largest man she had ever seen was currently hunched over in her doorway, being hauled into her workspace by Rhiannon Matthias, the elderly woman and busybody who lived in the green cottage down the hill.
What in the Whistling Winds was Rhiannon doing, dragging a giant into her home before the sun had even crested the treeline?
“I’m really fine, Mrs. Matthias," the stranger said. His voice had the rough edge of a sawtooth blade.
“How many times must I ask you to call me Rhiannon?”
“Apparently twice.”
“Don’t give me lip, young man, unless you want to kiss me.”
He seemed to give up the fight at that comment and let the old woman drag him into Violet's cottage. Once inside, he finally straightened, and the soft black curls atop his head nearly brushed the ceiling. Violet's cottage was small. Cozy. It suited her five-foot-nothing frame quite perfectly, but even still, people came and went daily, and she had never had this problem. Standing at his full height, with his broad shoulders and muscled arms, Violet estimated he took up a quarter of the room. His presence took up the rest. Irritation and impatience vibrated around him like the charged air of a thunderstorm. But somehow, it was neither his size nor his demeanour that seized Violet so thoroughly. It was the way the red, rising sun poured into the room and bathed him in a glow as bright and beautiful and devastating as a forest fire.
It had the most paradoxical effect of settling her and awakening her all at once.
It was terrible.
Violet felt a swift thump against her back as she was pushed forward into the room.
"Oh, Violet, my apologies," Kaori blustered from behind her, "You should warn the person behind you before stopping so abruptly."
"Perhaps if he didn't walk on my heels," Violet lamented silently to her familiars.
"No one understands personal space anymore," Tairn agreed as Andarna sat down on Violet's foot.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Kaori, I was just surprised." Violet addressed the old man; she knew she did, but her eyes remained on the stranger standing in her cottage. He was looking at her now, too. That paradoxical feeling swelled again. A calm sort of alertness, like every nerve in her body was waiting for something impossibly good to happen and didn't want to miss it. "How can I help you, Rhiannon?"
The man's eyes raked over her before landing on Andarna, who had stretched across Violet's foot to reach the sun spot on the floor. His shoulders tightened ever so slightly. Violet might have missed it if she hadn't been incapable of tearing her gaze away from the stranger.
"Oh, Violet, thank goodness you're up," Rhiannon sighed, "Do you think you can take a look at him?"
It was then that she noticed the beautiful man had an actively bleeding cut bisecting his brow.
Normally, town witches were not healers, but in such a small village, everyone did what they could to help each other, which meant that Violet found herself tending to wounds and ailments more often than other witches might, and that suited her just fine.
"I can take a look," Violet announced, her voice too loud for the small space and the early hour. Nerves had that effect on the diaphragm. Why, Violet was nervous, she did not know.
Perhaps the stress of locating Kaori's book.
"Delusion is unbecoming, Silver One," Tairn warned.
Violet bit her lip a little harder than necessary. "Please, sit," she said, quieter this time, and gestured for the beautiful man to make himself comfortable at her work station.
She hoped his long legs would fit beneath the table and that his large body would not break her stool, which would truly be a shame because the town carpenter had recently passed. A devastating occurrence — for him and any future woodcrafting needs the village may require.
As the stranger sat down, Violet wondered whether he would look like an adult at a child's tea party. He really was so large. But he sat down at her table and made the whole thing look disgustingly effortless, even while actively bleeding.
What was he trying to prove?
"Oh, Kaori, lovely to see you here," Rhiannon said, interrupting Violet's frankly unprofessional spiralling. "I was just on my way to tea with Felix when I stumbled upon this gentleman. Care to join me?"
She was up to something. Violet wasn't sure what it was, but she knew this with absolute certainty — Rhiannon was always up to something. Be it arranging a courtship for Violet and the Baker's daughter or whipping votes to ensure her theme was selected for the Summer Storms festival, Rhiannon was a puppet master and one could not underestimate her clever and tricksy plots. Violet wasn't sure if Rhiannon was a friend, exactly, but she had every intention of remaining in the woman's esteem. She did not want to imagine what it might look like to her enemy. May the Winds never see to it.
"Oh, that sounds lovely. Violet's just returned my journal on —" his eyes shifted to Violet with a look of pure panic, "Just my journal."
If Rhiannon was confused by the old man's behaviour, she didn't let it show. She simply held out her arm and led him out Violet's front door, calling to the witch inside as she left, "I hope to see you at the market this week, Violet!"
And then she was gone, and Violet was alone with a stranger. With Basgiath being the small, isolated town that it was, Violet rarely even met a stranger these days. She wasn't sure what to make of it. Of this man, beautiful and bleeding and unfamiliar in her sanctuary. What she did know was that she was acutely and unaturally aware of her body. Of the way she moved in her own home in relation to this stranger and his gaze.
She sat across from the stranger at her work station, ensured all the materials she might need were within reach, and tried to steady herself. A witch could not work with shaking hands. "I haven't seen you before," she said. Unfortunately, it came out like an accusation.
"No, you wouldn't have," he answered.
Violet picked up a dark amber bottle and unscrewed the cap, pouring disinfectant onto gauze so she could clean his wound. The pungent smell filled the air, and it calmed her. This was her purpose — to transmute. To turn the mundane into the magic and use it to morph hurt into healing. She would help this man, whom she suspected was new to town. Her town. This was her role as a witch, and she would fulfil it.
Violet lifted her gaze to find the stranger eyeing her warily. Andarna jumped up on the table and rolled over, exposing her soft belly to the stranger. His eyes cut to her briefly before returning to Violet's.
"Why isn't he petting me?" Andarna asked. "It's insulting."
"Or polite."
"This may sting," Violet said as she leaned forward, readying to clean the man's eyebrow. "So you're new to town?" she asked, touching the gauze to his skin.
"Yes," he winced.
"When did you arrive?"
"Last week." He did not elaborate.
"You call that polite, Violet Witch? It seems to me he is quite rude, actually," Andarna quipped, then leapt off the table.
Mere inches from his face, Violet dropped her voice low. "For this to be a conversation, you're going to have to contribute a little more. You're offending my familiar."
She noticed a slight twitch of his lips. It looked like the beginning of a smile she very much wanted to see.
"I didn't realize we were having a conversation," he said.
"Two people talking is not a conversation to you?" She continued gently dabbing the wound.
"You're the one defining the terms."
She couldn't help the scowl that took over her features.
His lips twitched again, bigger this time. "Forgive me, miss, I thought you were simply treating a patient."
"If that's what you'd prefer."
"I never said that."
"You haven't said much of anything," Violet deadpanned, putting the gauze in the bin. "You don't need stitches, but I can give you a salve."
"Please."
Violet opened the tin and dipped her pinky in the medicinal balm.
The stranger took a deep breath, the kind that was supposed to clear your mind of doubt and distraction before making a decision — one that mattered, then steeled himself. "My name is Xaden Riorson. I'm a crab fisherman and oyster harvester, and I am bleeding in your home at sunrise because a cat commandeered my boat and scratched me when I tried to take it back. So now, I suppose I am Xaden, newcomer, fisherman, and defender of maritime vessels against feline pirates. What about you? You are a witch, and?"
He looked at her as if he expected she would have something to add to this list, like Violet, witch, bookworm, and defender of the forest against faerie blight.
Violet didn't know what to make of this. It was the most either of them had spoken. She suspected this might be the longest sequence of words this man — Xaden — had ever spoken. And he had asked about who she was beyond Violet Sorrengail, the witch by the sea.
Somehow, all she could think to say was, "So, you don't like cats."
Xaden sent her a look that said, "Seriously? That is what you took from what I said?" if you were to say it with nothing more than a raised eyebrow. But all he actually said was, "They tend not to like me."
"I wonder why. You have such a lovely disposition."
"Well, compared to you, I'd imagine I do."
"Implying that the witch who is mending your pretty face isn't lovely? You are a bold crabber, aren't you?
"I do fight pirates," he smirked, eyes twinkling. Violet looked at him and felt a strange coil of indignation. A person's eyes shouldn't sparkle the way his did this early in the morning. These were the sparkling eyes of dancing in the kitchen at midnight, blissfully drunk on cherry wine. They were not the eyes of a stranger with an open wound at sunrise.
"You think I'm pretty," Xaden whispered, and Violet nearly poked him in the eye because, yes, she had said that. She had called the hulking, too-big-for-her-cottage man, pretty.
"I hope you didn't harm that poor creature," Violet deflected.
"You mean, as I have been harmed?"
"Well, you're —" Violet stopped herself before she could say anything else that might be considered embarrassing.
"I'm?"
"You obviously survived."
His mouth twitched again, like it might break open into a grin at any moment. "And so did the pirate."
"A merciful oysterman," Violet smiled, closing the tin.
"Do not mistake me for soft or kind, witchling. It will only get you hurt."
Violet hummed, as if considering his words. "Is mercy a kindness?" she asked.
He licked his lips in contemplation, and Violet felt she was too close to this man to be this aware of his mouth. "Do people often come to you for wisdom?" he asked.
"The wise ones do."
He smiled, a small one, not the one she had been hoping for, but somehow this was worse. Because, despite his warning, Violet couldn't help but notice how soft this smile made him look.
She leaned back in her chair, wiped her hand on a towel, and began putting her materials away.
"Then perhaps I will find reason to come to you again," Xaden said.
"I imagine you will." Violet returned his smile and stood from the table. "There have been attacks in the forest as of late. Maybe your pirate has been up to all kinds of trouble."
She turned to face him, hoping to see another glimmer of amusement on his face, but he looked as though he'd seen a ghost. Violet tried to think whether she had accidentally left out her communing tomes, but she hadn't touched them since Samhain.
"I should be going." Xaden stood abruptly, but still managed to make the movement graceful. One moment he was seated, the next he was standing.
Tairn chose this exact moment to stalk into the room.
"Cat," Xaden said. "Another one." His eyes lifted to Violet.
"Yes, two live here." She wanted to reassure him that her cats were friendly, but she could not in good conscience lie to this man.
Instead, she spoke into the mind of her familiar. "Don't scare him. He was traumatized by your kind today."
"I cannot help if the sight of me makes grown men cower. In fact, I prefer it," Tairn replied.
Violet rolled her eyes and hoped Xaden didn't think the gesture was meant for him. As he stood by the door, she picked a fresh tin of salve and handed it to him. "Keep it clean and apply this once per day to encourage healing."
"What do I owe you?" he asked. The sun was filtering through the trees now in that dangerous way that made moments like this romantic. Moments that needn't be.
"Nothing," Violet insisted. "Welcome to town, Mr. Riorson."
"Xaden."
"Xaden," she repeated. The syllables felt warm on her tongue, and Violet worried she very much enjoyed calling this man by his first name.
"Violet, was it?"
She liked hearing him say her name even better. She nodded, suddenly unable to recall how her voice worked under normal circumstances.
Xaden stepped off the porch, and Violet watched him walk away. His silhouette dark against the morning's red sky.
She had a sinking feeling, like a heavy stone in water, that her life was about to change.
And she wasn't sure if she was ready for it.