A Witch always looks! The abyss gazes, so we stare right back. We are Witches. And we do not shy no matter the Black.

— Witch Maybeline of The Chalant Coven of Revolution and Witchcraft

* * *

The world is full of forgotten places.

Holds and forts that lay abandoned. Mountain passes that no one walked and paths that none still talked about.

The stories just... stopped.

But it was known in a sort of Silent way, that once, Mankind grew and expanded. That they conquered mountains and valleys and sailed oceans....

That they cut and burned the forests and turned them into cities and cut the stones of the earth and broke them and formed them into fortresses and towns and roads.

That they dallied with Others. That they created items of such power that the world quaked beneath them and the heavens burst open and sang — though none really knew what that meant anymore.

It was also known that Mankind shrunk after that.

They fled the oceans and they walled up their cities.

The Others disappeared and the ones that were left, Mankind fought bitterly and slaughtered.

They built Towers of Magecraft and they broke those old and ancient holds and fortresses.

And the ones they couldn't break, they did worse.

They forgot.

* * *

Thirteen days before Winter fell, one of those lost places stirred.

In a forgotten room, in a lost hold, a hole burst open.

Space bent and twisted, and the fabric of the world Screamed as it was forced to split and tear, a little at first — and then wide open.

The world Screamed and... cackled?

A Witch toppled out of that hole and it snapped shut behind her... and for a moment that seemed to stretch just a little longer than it should have, that lost place fell back into Silence.

But only for a moment.

* * *

The Witch toppled. Then she did what any falling Witch would do.

She snatched at her hat before it could slip too far off her head and swished it through the air saying in a clear voice — "Featherly Feverly Fall But Cleverly!" And the world — Listened.

The Witch spun upright and slowed, her Witch's Gown barely fluttering about her ankles, and landed elegantly and lightly on the balls of her feet, just as she should.

A Witch, always lands on her feet. And she was obviously a Witch.

The Witch peered around at the dim room. Then she sniffed at the air, sneezed twice and wrinkled her nose, grimacing.

Then she balled up Light in her hands and threw it high up into the air above her head where it cast a warm glow over her surroundings.

"Morgana's Spectacles!" She rolled her eyes in Dawning Consternation. "I knew it. They never can manage to hide that Aroma of Ancient Knowledge. It's like they actually like that smell!" The Witch sneezed again and stalked forward into the —

"This. Is. Obviously. A. Library."

'Well, I dare say they do, dear. And were all those theatrics quite necessary? Shards Of Day Break don't just hang on pegs, you know! Why, I think just a little bit of Lasting Ember or Flickering Dissonance or...'

The Witch pointedly ignored her hat in favor of traipsing delicately between the tables and chairs strewn about the place and the odd stand of shelves or two.

As a point of pride, this Witch ventured into Libraries infrequently and only as necessary, but, she could tell that this was the foyer simply because this was where all the tables and chairs were and what seemed to be candlesticks but were actually enchanted Something's that felt like Radiance.

No, the shelves and stacks were looming grandly quite aways ahead of her still and she was taking her time approaching them because who knew what would happen with all that pent up Understanding pressing in from either side.

"Hat, can a Witch grow a beard if she...?"

'... No, dear. I cannot recall a single instance where —'

So even Hat didn't know!

The Witch dithered and instead of venturing into that forest of shelves and ancient tomes, bent over gingerly to investigate one of the candlestick-light Somethings which had toppled over on one of the tables.

She had to be ginger about it — even though her hair was in fact rather dark in its braid — because the Aroma of Ancient Knowledge tended to transfer very easily to clothing, as did the heavy layering of fine dust carpeting the table... and the chairs she was leaning around... and everything in this Library.

This Library was old. Old. Elder than Old. And there was no one left to clean it up. None left to sit and read in it either. None left to....

That made her sad, she noticed. Old things did not deserve to be abandoned. Even, Libraries.

Radiance, The Witch thought, as she studied the Something. It was well made. It had to be for it have lasted this long. But the Radiance was interesting, the Witch thought, and she couldn't help but note that that also didn't hang on pegs — though, of course, Hat wasn't commenting on that.

Curiously, she poked at the webbing of Mana with a single finger and then again with the pale wand she drew from the curiously small satchel hanging at her waist.

The Witch closed her eyes and focused for a moment and when she opened them, they were sharper somehow, and she Saw.

"Oh." The Witch drew her thin, Witchy eyebrows down low, and scratched her nose.

Then she rubbed at her thumbs distractedly.

"OH," She said again. "Kelpie Tenticles! This is ludicrous, even for them!"

'Is it, dear?'

"Well, yes! They've combined Unbridled Satisfaction of Discovery with globs of Memorized Passage JUST so they can extract the Unbridled aspect in a pure Mana conversion." The Witch sniffed. "Pure thematic pedantry! There are simpler ways."

Hat coughed. 'Well yes, and of course you could have used Firelights Flickering Dissonance to —'

The Witch glared at the brim hanging just above her horizon and sniffed. "I used light as light should, Hat, and none of my sisters would say different!"

"Yesss, and I suppose you burn silk for tinder too, dear? What would your sisters say about that?"

The Witch pointedly ignored this and peered back at the Something with a smirk.

"But look what they've done! They've taken and warped it into some sort of amplifier? Or extractor?..."

The Witch's eyes drew even lower and her eyes almost seemed to leave grooves in the Something as they danced over it.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Gah!" She covered her eyes, but her mouth was smirking in mirth. "They didn't! HA!" And she cackled.

It started small as these things often do, pulling her shoulders in and her head down while she shuddered uncontrollably, and then it grew and belted out of her in a rush!

"They did! Those are artifice marks! They literally melted down bridle iron, for the mold!"

'My, those are sharp ey...'

"— siphoned some Unbridled and stripped it of its Un qualifier for the control and then reapplied Un to Shadows of Mystery — probably scraped from underneath all those books... cast across using the Chalant method —"

— 'They call it the Menovchinsky Method, actually.' The Witch waved this away.

"— Un-Shadow gives you Radiance. Un-Mystery gives you Discovery...

'Yes, dear, but —'

"Well, I bet they just let all that Discovery waft away! Wouldn't want that to Out-Shine their Radiance, would they? HA!"

The Witch devolved again back into cackling while her Hat sighed and tried to be patient.

She shuddered against herself and then threw her head back to let it all out — the absurdity! — and, of course, that gave her an excellent view of the Thing with teeth hanging upside-down directly above her.

'Oh,' The Witch had the time to think before the thing dropped. 'So thats why my thumbs were prickling!'

Then it was upon her.

* * *

The Thing tore into her with the abandon of the Ravenous, with teeth as long as fingers and even longer claws which looked serrated somehow.

It only stopped when —

— "Scarab Skin!"

The beast released the non-bleeding and non-rent Witch in Confusion and watched, befuddled as she shrunk down to the size of a doll and promptly fell apart into torn up fabric and fluff.

It spun around, falling ungainly onto its side and rump before righting itself and stared —

"Well — no, I — Montress said that a Witch always goes around with spares so I — Hat. What. Is that Thing doing here?!"

The Thing was black, with bristly, hairy and disproportionate shoulders that rose almost to The Witch's own and hind quarters that were oddly squat and close to the ground.

Its mouth gaped... possibly still in Confusion but also possibly because its teeth were actually that long and its bulging black eyes fixed on the funny, black clad and pointed hatted figure glaring at it from where she had started across the foyer.

Then it lunged.

"Halt!" The Witch hissed in a voice that drew like a blade.

For a wonder, The Thing did as Something that glimmered almost like Memory flickered in its eyes.

But only for a moment.

It sprang at her.

* * *

And The Witch twisted away and cut bladed Ravening snatched from its jaws all the way from the top of its belly to the bottom as it passed.

She watched the Thing as it quivered in sudden Exhaustion on the floor where she had stood, and she continued watching as Memory flickered back into its eyes, dimmed and then brightened again.

A Witch watched the entire time as the beast curled in on itself and finally died shuddering — and remembering.

Only then did she turn away, and realized that she had been weeping.

Ravenous was a horrible way to die — even for a monster like this.

But, Witch Maybeline had been clear. 'A Witch always looks! The abyss gazes, so we stare right back. We are Witches. And we do not shy no matter the Black.'

And only then did she realize, that the Beast had been gasping and yelping and gurgling but she had not heard, because she had not been Listening.

Maybeline, had been very clear about looking. But no one had ever said anything about Listening.

But now she had to because Hat was talking and —

'Quickly dear. There are more. We have a purpose!'

Of course.

The Witch scrunched up her face, wiped her eyes and tore back down through the foyer again. Past the tables and the chairs and the ridiculous Somethings on the tables.

She didn't dither and look around this time and she didn't so much as hesitate when it came to dodging into the looming shadows of the shelves, even though she did shudder and draw in on herself.

Deep. She had to go deep, she remembered. All the way to the center.

Why a Witch would... but it didn't matter. Hat had never answered, and she had not pressed the issue. Deep.

It was like Retracing Steps now. Around this corner, straight down that aisle and around that misplaced table. All the way to....

And there it was. Just where it had been before. An alter in the middle of this forest of books and shelves and cabinetry.

Something leapt at her —

"Nay!" She slashed her wand around herself and poured Anima into —

Her voice did not come as a breathless yelp as it should have. It snapped like the crack of whip! And echoed long after her actual voice faded.

"Nay!"

The creature slammed into nothing and collapsed as if it had bounced into a wall. Then the rest piled on as The Witch swayed against the alter and watched the black, hairy Things crawling over her lesser warding.

A Witch always looks. But she didn't have to look forever, This Witch thought. She had a purpose. So presently, she turned and stepped to the alter.

* * *

"Hat?" The Witch cringed at how suddenly vulnerable her voice sounded, while beasts piled atop each other and fought at the edge of her warding. "Is this truly necessary?"

"It is child."

"I can come back," The Witch insisted. "I bet — when its all over — I can come back and —"

'Nay, child. Time meanders at spaces. It twists and turns and detours. It stretches, but ne'er does it break. Best not try. And I am Old, dear.'

The Witch huffed silently, and wiped at her eyes again, but this was an old conversation and it had the sound of it too. "If you're certain, Hat. I will miss you. Even if you are a know it all!"

And so saying The Witch reached up, and gently and reverently pinched Hat's brim between her thumb and forefinger and lifted it from her head.

The Hat dragged as she lifted, seeming heavy suddenly as it had never seemed before. But The Witch grit her teeth and set herself.

This was how it was, and must be. And she was a Witch. And a Witch always looked. She never shied away.

So The Witch pulled and the hat lifted, and the girl placed the hat on that ancient alter in that ancient Library where it belonged. Somehow.

"As will I child," The Hat whispered. "As will I. Even if you are an ignorant pip squeak. You'll have to make a new hat, dear. Best not to remain unhatted for too long."

The Girl sniffed again and wiped at her eyes. "Oh, I think I have just the one already."

And she reached a hand into the satchel she kept by her side. Deep. Deeper than she'd reached in a long time.

Past potion bottles and catalysts and amulets that she'd long forgotten about. She reached and pulled out —

It was a small hat and rumpled, with uneven stitching and a brim that drooped slightly under the weight of its seams. It's tip was bent and kinked and the band around the base was dark, black and dusty.

She looked at it, and somehow, the hat on the alter looked at it too despite not having the eyes to see it with.

"It's a good hat," The hat said finally.

"Yes."

"It will more than do, dear."

The Girl nodded and wiped at her eyes again.

"A Witch may wear many hats in her lifetime, and almost none of them are as Old As Time. Remember child. A Witch IS. No matter the hat she wears."

"A Witch IS." The Girl echoed. And slowly, oh so very slowly, she raised the small and rumpled hat, and pulled it over her braid and down over her forehead.

It fit snuggly as it was always meant to, and just like that, A Witch stood in the Library once more.

It was a smaller Witch, lesser than the one that had entered somehow, but —

The Witch touched the brim of the very, very, VERY Old hat sitting on the alter one last time, then she turned away.

A Witch always looks. That's what Maybeline said. Always. But not forever. Because there were always other things that needed to be looked at too.

And presently there were quite a number of them crawling above and around and onto her lesser warding which was wavering in a fashion that seemed to indicate that it was not going to be warding much of anything for very much longer.

Also.... The Witch set herself.

She had a purpose.

"Well," The Witch said to the crawling Things.

And they all seemed to pause, as if actually listening.

"Tabitha always did say, In a room without a Witch, be the Witch. How about an ancient Library of an Elder Time? How about a world that has long forgotten my own kind?"

The Witch gazed at the crawling, snapping and biting things as they gnashed at her failing ward and she looked at the shelves of books reeking of Ancient Knowledge and she remembered a completely different Library that had as well.

A library with robed and bearded men who learned and studied and experimented and ridiculously debated and created and Grew the shelves and Lofted the ceilings high with wisdom and ingenuity.

A Library she could very well imagine being illuminated by those ridiculous candlestick Somethings and the air thick with spent Discovery.

A library, where, she thought, it might have all began.

A library, Grand beyond imagining and filled with....

When she spoke again it was in a Witch's voice of Bleakest Cold and not a hint of a cackle.

"I stand beneath shelves of my elder's kin.

I stand amidst ruins of all that has been.

I stand on ground that....

Have yee no memories you fallen things?"

And they bit and flailed and clawed at her warding mere feet from where she stood by the alter.

The Witch's wand appeared in her hand again. It was long, thin and pale. Her other hand delved into her satchel again, touching, remembering, assessing.

Some Broken Silence from when she had first appeared. A potion of Health, and one of Stealth. Bladed Moonlight and a Curl of Wind — Northerly it felt like — and... she needed none of that... not yet.

She stood in a desolate hall of her elders kin. One fallen to these Things and forgotten until even time misplaced it. One carpeted in layers of dust from generations of infestation and rot and disuse. But a hall of her elders kin nonetheless.

She spoke. And in the absence of even a single Wizard, this Library was more than happy to pay fealty to a Witch.

— her elder's kin.

"I. AM."

Because of course. A Witch IS.

And it echoed like thunder among the shelves.

And then it was thunder as the ancient shelves and cabinetry and books and Knowledge that had stood frozen for stretched ages of forgotten time bowed... and came crashing down on them all.

* * *

Thirteen days before winter's cold truly touched Landsend, the following occurred.

A Witch stepped foot on forgotten ground.

A Wizard awoke, though not from slumber.

A Library stirred and found darkness where it had known light.

* * *

And someone noticed.