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“Curses,” Yves took off his gloves and rubbed his eyes. He opened and closed them, repeatedly switching to second sight and back, but that did not change anything. It was getting worse much too fast. He stood once again hunched over sheets of his own notes scattered on the table, surrounded by a pile of tomes and artefacts that were essential for deciphering them; a vast sea of knowledge to navigate his research — an unconquerable expanse. He felt utterly lost, treading water, dreading time.
“Curses on all elves,” his harsh voice was but a whisper in the storm's uproar. The elements raged on with relentless force, the howling wind battering the lighthouse with great fury. Waves crashed against the rocky shore, sending plumes of spray high into the air. Thunder added its voice to the chaos of the night.
Midnight remained unaffected by the battling elements that hurled their forces against the lighthouse. She lay stretched out on the artefact chest with her eyes closed. But Yves, seeing how her ears flicked, knew that she listened.
His gaze drifted from her along his shelves to the corner shelf. Midnight lifted her head. Yves’ eyes darted back to the tomes in front of him. He halted his mutterings and put his gloves back on. “I’m fine.” He was not. He had not been fine for a long time. What he really meant was that he would stop whining and get back to work. He knew that she understood it that way.
Still, Midnight kept staring. And as Yves did neither respond nor look at her, she sat up on the chest, filling the room with her presence, demanding acknowledgement. There was pride in her composure.
Understanding that his harsh tone was unwarranted, Yves straightened up and turned to her. And in that moment, his posture truly conveyed “I will keep my shit together for now,” and his strained eyes said, “Thank you”.
Midnight laid back down, her presence fading and her form once again merging into the shadows on the chest. Yves returned his attention to his tomes.
"What if everything I do in the mirror dimension always also affects our plane?" Eventually, it all came down to this. "What if every shard structure has a correlating counterpart in our reality?" And if that were true, what were the witch mother’s secret intentions with their arrangement? What did she really seek to gain from the mirror realm? What would the mirror world do to Yves if he dared to take in its energies again, if he dared to alter it?
He rubbed his eyes again, this time using his sleeve. He could not be bothered to take off his gloves again, but he did not yet feel suicidal enough to touch his eyes with the same fabric that had been in direct contact with the tomes.
Regardless of the witch mother’s intent, their arrangement had always seemed the only way for him to stay alive. Now, with his recent transformation, Yves was not sure whether he would even remain alive long enough for her to honour her part of the arrangement.
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His transformation in the mirror dimension had caused unexpected consequences in this world. Yves had not only influenced this world from the mirror dimension. After his return, his eyes had changed.
Yet again, his fingers drifted through the weighty pages, lost in the frustrating and fruitless research from this night. For the following hours, Yves was so immersed in his own drowning, that he closed his tomes only seconds before the witching hour.
From 1:41:42 until 2:22:22 a.m., he and Midnight sat silently. Cautioned by the echoes of those countless nursery rhymes that Yves would still recall when even the last spell had long faded from his memory, they remained attuned to what may linger concealed amidst the storm-stirred world energies. Even in these most desolate expanses of the Northlands, they strained to catch the whispers of witches, a vigil shared by every other sensible wizard on the continent.
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THE WITCHING HOUR — WIZARD NURSERY RHYME
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One-forty-one, the witching hour's begun,
When Teharun rises and darkness is spun
Witches emerge, sinister and cold,
With malice and mischief, their curses unfold.
One-forty-one-forty-two, dread the dark brew,
Of potions and hexes, where shadows accrue.
Wizards, take heed, for danger's afoot,
Under Teharun they dance, spells that none refute.
Wise wizards hush until two-twenty-two,
No words to be spoken, no magic to strew.
The witches are cunning, their tricks hard to see,
In this silent vigil, true safety shall be.
From one-forty-one to two-twenty-two,
A pact with the night makes the deadliest shrew.
Wizards, stand guard, your senses be keen,
For in this darkest hour, the witches convene.
Let not your spirit be twisted or swayed,
By their sly incantations in the moon's serenade.
A whisper, a cackle, a rustle, a hiss,
Signals the hour when in greatest power they bliss.
In shadows they linger, in secrets they revel,
To thwart their deceptions, stay quiet, stay level.
For the witching hour is a precarious feat,
Within Teharun’s reach, where witch mothers meet.
So heed the warning, oh wizards so wise,
From one-forty-one, till Teharun leaves the skies.
Protecting your magic, your voices, you might
In the silence of night, keep safe from their sight.
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