The truth is, no Wizard truly knows what happens in Witches covens. But every wizard worth his beard brush acts like he does, and does a lot of blushing besides when they think about what they think occurs in one.

Witches certainly aren't telling, but they sure do cackle loudly when asked....

— Encrypted excerpt from Grand Wizard Virgil Borengirdles late night Pondering (decrypted by then Apprentice Wizard Barnibus Jefferson Montgomery Barnwinkle)

* * *

There once was a grand Wizard who lived a wholesome and fulfilling life in his humble little library.

He tinkered and dabbled and Pondered quite a lot and generally bumbled around discovering new and exciting potion ingredients and eventually made some highly questionable statements about the nature of magic which some other Wizards liked quite a lot.

His wife, Agatha the Nonchalant and not at all Revolutionary corroborated those statements and then some Witches jumped on the bandwagon, and those ideas spread.

Together, this Wizard and Agatha lived out their lives in harmony.

They had five children who each went ahead and made their own somewhat questionable discoveries, and eventually the Wizard died at the rather respectable age of seven hundred and two in his humble library. His wife post dated his death by seven years and eventually slumped over in the center of her small coven during a summoning.

This Wizard's name was Emanuel Mordechai Menovchinsky, and his rather questionable discoveries were the two part bisection of the magical phenomenon, or, more colloquially discussed as Anima and Mana.

The end.

...

Or, the beginning.

For around the grave of the Wizard, his library grew.

Wizards came from far and wide to add books to his shelves and hang their hats on his walls.

With so much magic in the air, the walls expanded, twisting and curling in on themselves until the confines of the previous construction became too tight, and they burst from their constraints.

They unfurled rapidly. Growing and shedding their previous shabby wood frames in exchange, first, for mud-fired brick, then rough hewn stone... and then just hewn stone.

They twisted and tangled and stretched and spread.

They grew shelving like tree moss and wizards dutifully added books to them.

The magic grew.

More Mana attracted more Wizards and the walls helpfully provided benches and chairs for seating and contemplation. Wizards sat and thought and pondered... and the magic grew.

The Wizard's Hats grew large with insight and their beards long and heavy with knowledge.

So the walls vaulted the ceilings high... and high ceilings allowed the Wizardly Imagination to take off and soar and tumble like dandelion seeds... and the magic... grew.

Wings were added and then floors, then columns to hold the floors. The library grew.

Laboratories grew like knots and Wizards used them, and brewed in them and sometimes exploded them.

Artificeries bubbled up around the Laboratories like air drifting to the surface of ponds of possibility, and Wizards hammered and carved and etched and sewed talismans of great power.

... And the Magic and the Library and the Hats and the beards... they GREW.

Agatha's coven experienced a similar progression, except, instead of growing to contain the Wizardry, it sank under the weight of their Witchcraft.

The library eventually became known as The Grand Wizard Emanuel Mordechai Menovchinsky's Memorial Library and was known to house the most inspired wizards in the land.

Agatha's coven grew to be called The Chalant Coven of Revolution and Witchcraft and the Witchcraft practiced there, was known to be the most powerful in the land.

* * *

The great, twin doors of the The Grand Wizard Emanuel Mordechai Menovchinsky's Memorial Library's main Library were three-inches thick of solid wood inset with tablets of engraved stone and encrusted with silver and gold filigree.

The tablets were very specifically tablets, not tiles, and inscribed on them were the last words and secrets and ponderings of every Arch Wizard of the Library since Grand Wizard Emanuel himself.

Needless to say, there were a lot of them, and equally needlessly said, the doors were quite heavy.

So when the doors boomed open and slammed against the stone walls as if flung open by a giant, every wizardly head spun.

The silence was deafening, and into that deafening silence...

"Well look what I've found, sisters!" Cackled a voice. "I did say, 'By the prickling of my thumbs something wizardly this way thrums.' Did I not?"

A Witch strode in, cackling, her arm outstretched as if she had just pushed the double doors open single handedly.

Which... she might have.

She was big! Tall and burly, with beefy arms which stretched the fabric of her black Witch's Gown, and her hat, very carefully tipped at the top, increased her size even more. Wizards had to crane their necks to see her face and not a few of them blinked in bemusement.

It was a good thing the ceilings were so vaulted, or her hat might have worn down from scraping against them!

In contrast, the Witches who trooped in after her were far more to scale.

"Say I was right!" The burly Witch boomed.

"You were right Maybeline." One of the other witches supplied dutifully with a roll of some very vivid, green eyes.

The Witch with the green eyes panned the library with them as she stepped forward next to the giantess, caressing a small black cat in her arms who also had rather green eyes.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The cat was purring and treating everyone equally to an aura of tangible disdain.

"Of course I was right! Why wouldn't I be? Humph! By my moonlight curdled yogurt... Have you ever seen such a ragged bunch of long-beards in your life, Montress?"

Montress sniffed. "This is not our first time in this Library, Maybeline." Montress answered cooly, "Just last year we" —

"Ex-cuse me!" Blustered a voice thick with Ire.

Two hands slapped a table and the Wizard, both his hat and his beard bristling with outrage, shoved his chair out from underneath himself and stood up.

The chair flew several meters away and crashed into a shelf, knocking a book down which another wizard quickly caught in his hat, and returned.

"What. Is. The. Meaning. Of. This? Show resp — this — Merlin's Hat! This is a Library!" He hissed. "Show respect!"

The Witches blinked, perplexed.

"A library?" One of them asked faintly, looking startled.

The witches turned and conferred between themselves for a moment. They adjusted their hats, scratched the crests of their noses a bit, and peered about and up at the ceiling. A couple peered down and scuffed at the polished stone floors with their slippers bemusedly.

Just as the Wizards started to relax and nod to each other in Satisfaction — obviously there had been some mistake here — Maybeline boomed out, "Yes. We agree."

"A-Agree?" Another Wizard with a grey beard and turquoise hat asked, blinking over his half moon spectacles. He looked uncertainly to the first wizard.

"This. Is most definitely a library." Maybeline scrunched her nose in disgust and her troop of witches — there were thirteen of them — burst out into uproarious cackling.

Another piped up, "The Pondering sure is strong with this one, sisters. How long do you think it took him to figure it out? A month?"

"I think we should snip some of that growth on his face and distill Duration from it." A spindly witch with a dark grey bodice said reasonably. "He's probably been wondering where he is for at least that long."

More cackling erupted.

"Now see here! You lot!" The first Wizard exclaimed, turning red with Outrage. His hand tightened into a death grip on his beard which caused even more tittering —

— "Look at his beard! So grand!"

— "Is he trying to hold it at bay, do you think, Tabitha?"

— "I heard Wizard beards grow to be prehensile, if they get long enough."

The Wizard's complexion started to shift into Embarrassment. He tried again.

"I am Wizard Nidus Southlandsider" — he blinked when all he received was guileless stares, but he rallied — "Wizards", he sneered, "know how to show respect when we are guests in other persons venerated establishments." He gestured grandly to either side of himself while other wizards hurumphed and nodded sagely. "You don't see us barging in to your covens and pissing on your dream catchers, do you?"

"Our dream catchers would turn that piss into a right nightmare and send it right back at ye, you uncouth lummox!" Montress rejoined while her sisters jeered. "Really, how uncouth do you have to be to piss in a dream catcher anyway?

"About as disrespectful as barging into a library! You uninspired gaggle!"

"Or - or is it a cackle, Wizard Nidus?" A Wizard in blue piped up in a reedy voice. His beard was expansive, almost wider than it was long and an alarming shade of orange. His hat was also blue and pushed up high on his head so you could see equally orange hair poking out from underneath its brim. "We wouldn't want to refer to our guests incorrectly. T'would be a black mark I say! Unbecoming."

Several other Wizards Guffawed loudly. One in particular almost too loudly.

"Oh, have at Wizard Fire Scruff!" The Witch with the grey bodice retorted. "And what are you lot here, a Shuffle?" She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Or is it a Puffle?"

Wizards throughout the library shuffled their feet — until they realized what they were doing — wagged their beards and muttered angrily.

— "No respect"

— "Witch covens — all the same!"

— "Thirteen of the— who's ignorant enough to walk in groups of thir —"

"Respect?" A witch with a round face and long nose asked. "Respect what? You wizards whiling your time away with your noses in old parchment? A book?"

She made a show of sniffing the air. Then she Followed her Nose to a nearby stand of books and selected one from the stack.

"Ah! The Aroma of Ancient Knowledge!" She breathed. The witch flipped through it while her sisters laughed and then she dog-eared one of the pages!

That was it!

"That tome was older than the Byzantine Empire!" A voice grated.

Chairs scraped on stone as Wizards around the grand room stood up sharply in response, and others stepped out from behind bookshelves, laying their scrolls and books carefully down on tables, or sometimes, just in neat stacks on the floor and rolling up their sleeves.

Others fingered staves and adjusted hats, and still others summoned theirs from staff racks at the edges of the room to slap solidly against their palms.

"What?" The witch laughed as she danced back still clutching the book. "Can't at least one of you beards manage a simple de-seaming cantrip?

Montress's cat leaped to the floor from her arms with a yowl, and then grew to the size of a kitchen table.

"Hah! He did it! The lil goobers grow so fast." Montress beamed. As some of the closer Wizards yelped, stumbling back. "Well, that's what daily breakfast of Gumption and crushed Scarabs, nets you. See Tabitha?"

"I must have that recipe off of you, sister!" Said Tabitha, who was apparently the round-faced, sharp-nosed Witch who had dog eared the book.

"Nosey Dosey, pudinum pie! Sleepsy deepsy never peepsey!" Wizard Nidas thudded his gnarled staff against the stones and the kitchen table sized cat wobbled, then keeled over suddenly on to the stonework and began to make a sound like lawn mower from his nose.

There were cries of outrage and wands flourished into hands on the Witch's side.

"— He dare —"

"Hold on. HOLD ON!" Boomed Maybeline smirking. "I think we've forgotten our purpose here, sisters." Maybeline SNAPPED her fingers impatiently. "Snapsy Catsy Getup YE PATSY!" —

— "Really Maybeline?"

The cat burbled something and shook itself. It rolled itself to its feet looking woozy and then jumped back into Montress' arms back to its original size and looking incredibly chagrinned.

"They've got a purpose?" A bald, black bearded wizard muttered darkly, fingering a yew rod with a glowing crystal on one end.

"I'll tell you where you can stick your purpose, you big boned hussy!" The fiery haired wizard sneered.

Maybeline ignored him. "Yes! One of our number comes with a challenge!"

"A challenge?" Nidus spluttered.

"A challenge! Witch Aleinna The Forthright and Forewarned here — "

— "Aleinna!"

— "Get 'im, sister!

Maybeline reached back and tugged another witch forward by her arm.

Aleinna stumbled forward but caught herself. She tipped her hat and swished a brunet braid long enough to almost brush her waist and smirked from underneath her hat's brim at the assembled glaring Wizards.

"Witch Aleinna has a challenge." Maybeline boomed, beaming.

"A challenge?" Another Wizard echoed again.

"A challenge!" Tabitha called back.

"Of wit! So ye' shouldn't quit!" Montress smirked.

"And guile, so tis worth your while!" The grey bodiced witch supplied.

Witch Aleinna said, "A CHALLENGE!" And cackled a cackle of such pure witchery that a prickle ran down every wizardly spine in the room.

"I come afor, an ye follow after in fading light and dimming laughter! I am Witch Aleinna The Forthright and Forewarned and I challenge — where is he?" Aleinna glared around the room. "Where is that wizard?"

There was silence as the assembled witches looked at each other in apprehension — this wasn't according to script — and the assembled wizards darted glances at each other in confusion.

"Ah — echem. Which Wizard, Witch?" The fiery haired wizard asked after a moment.

"I challenge Wizard Barnibus Jefferson Montgomery Barnwinkle!" Aleinna announced.

The Wizards shuffled their slippers and peered back and forth and then one wizard raised his hand dubiously and asked in a thin, incredulous voice. "You mean... Apprentice Wizard Barnwinkle?"

"You want to challenge... him?" A beanpole, goateed Wizard asked incredulously.

Wizards shuffled and path began opening and at the end of it... There he was.

Barnibus blinked, wide eyed over a stack of books he had been lugging between shelves, his big blue hat nearly falling over his eyes.

He blinked around. "M-m-me-me?" He stammered.

"That's him!" Witch Aleinna The Forthright and Forewarned thrust her finger at Barnibus.

"Yippee!"

"Get him gals! Bring him forward!"

"A challenge!"

"A challenge most fell!"

And the witches unfurled, dancing down the impromptu isle, ducking around wizards and dragging Barnibus bodily forward as the books he was carrying flew into the air and surrounding wizards cursed and scrambled to catch them.

"Yesss". Witch Aleinna purred to Wizards Apprentice Barnibus Barnwinkle as her sisters dragged him forward and sat him down across from her at a table that just so happened to be in a suitably opportune location. "I challenge you to a game of wit and cunning. A game of guile and skill. I challenge you...."

* * *

"...To a Beautiful Game." Barnibus said to The Forerunner.