Day of the Witches

"Has this never happened before?" Serila asked, her voice and face filled with concern. "Don't tell me it's because of the transference... Did I... Did I screw up again?"

Dot shook her head in response, looking sort of distressed now. "No, never! I've never felt anything like this before! It feels like my whole body i-"

POPPOP

Dot clutched her head with a scream, the pain starting to get really noticeable now. "I don't get it, Seril! What's going on wit-!" Dot's thoughts came to a screeching halt as she looked at her hands. They were...glowing? That's most definitely new.

"Seril...y-you're seeing this too, right?" It was as if they were coated in some sort of pink aura. Pink...Dot knew that color enough to instantly know this was bad things. Magic for her only got Pink when it was about to explode, violently.

"...Seril, I think things just got really, really bad."

"This is my fault... It's because I gave your more magic... Your body... Your body can't hold it..." "And that's why I told you to never do a magic transfer ever again, didn't you learn from last time!?" Chatty swooped in, quickly absorbing the magic overload from Dot's body. His own body glowing almost like it was going to burst but after a couple of seconds it was over, all the warm and fuzzy feeling that Dot had been feeling was gone as it was the pink aura and the popping sound.

The lamp fell to the floor, looking severely exhausted but still managed to glance at Serila with an annoyed look on it's face. "Chatty I..." "I told you to never do that again, why can't you listen, didn't you learn from what happened last time!?" The last time Chatty mentioned also end badly, it wasn't an overload but the fact that the last person who received it, Serila's own sister, Sila, had become so intoxicated with power that end up costing her her life, something that Serila still blamed herself for at this day. "I know your intentions were good, but you know it always has consequences. So stop doing it."

Serila knelt down, taking Chatty on her arms. "I'm sorry Chatty..." She then looked at Dot, who was still trying to process what happened. "I'm sorry Dot... Way to begin your teaching huh? I'm so sorry..."

Dot was panicking at the pink glow emanating from her hands, terrified of what would happen if something touched it. Would they blow up? Would she blow up? Was Serila in danger of being her because of her own magic?

Before she had time to process any of those thoughts though, and she had the most peculiar sensation happen all at once. It felt like all of that magic and a little more was being suctioned out of her like a vacuum, at an incredible speed. By the time it was over, even for only a few seconds, she was extremely dizzy and unable to stand, falling to her knees with a thump.

The color from her hands was gone, and so was that awful noise. Part of her was so incredibly relieved no one got hurt, but most of her was incredibly, extremely woozy.

"I-It's...not your fault, Seril...y-you were just...trying to hel-Ulp!" She brought her hand to her mouth as she stifled a burp, her whole body feeling like it was going to collapse. "Ugh...wow, I feel awful, all of the sudden...I'm just gonna...take a qui..ck...na...p..." She said, before collapsing to the side, looking completely disheveled as she lost consciousness.

"Dot..." Serila took the unconscious girl on her arms after placing Chatty on a nearby table before heading towards Dot's room with the girl on her arms, placing her on bed before sitting on a chair next to the bed. "I'm sorry... What a teacher am I..."

If Serlia was expecting a quick recovery from Dot, then she was sorely mistaken. That warmth she had felt while she slept last was gone, ripped from her forcibly, and the witch might notice Dot shiver in her sleep a little. She felt cold, empty, almost. But the force of the action was enough to completely exhaust her to the point where such things didn't wake her up from her slumber. And she slept, with Serila watching over her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two days passed with Dot in that bed, all that time showing no signs of waking. Her breathing seemed regular, so she wasn't in any danger, but the occasional shiver showed that her body never quite got used to the sensation. But, after all this time, Dot finally started to stir in her bed, slowly coming out of her dazed unconsciousness. She looked groggy as all hell as she tried to examine her surroundings.

When Dot finally woke up, Serila was asleep, leaning on the bed, Dot could noticed a a couple of towels and a bucket with warm water, Serila had been placing them on her forehead when she started to shiver. The red haired witch didn't noticed Dot's awakening.

Dot groaned a little as she lifted herself out of bed, looking completely out of sorts. Her hair was frizzled and stiff, and she looked exhausted. Her body still hadn't really recovered from that sudden burst of magic being taken out of her, but she was at least awake now.

Off to the side, she noticed Serila asleep on a chair next to her bed. She had, some towls...and a bucket? Had she stayed with her this whole time? How long was she out? Her mind was racing as she tried to put everything together, but they were put to a stop as the thought of it made her head hurt.

She sighed a little to herself. Recollection was starting to form in her head about the last time she was awake. Serila had tried that magic transfer...thing. And clearly her body didn't like it. But, she had done it to help, and she couldn't be mad at her for trying. Apprehensively, she brought a hand to Serila's head and gently petted the top of it. Something about that was...calming, for her. And right now, she needed calming.

That day, she felt like she was that close to something terrible happening. She hadn't even used a spell and she could feel that same energy welling up in her. If it had continued, she could only imagine what might have come of it. And all of those thoughts terrified her. Something to ease her nerves felt necessary, but it didn't do much to make her feel less down about herself than ever.

Serila had a worried look on her face as she sleep but the moment Dot started to pet her head, that worried and sad look turned into a smile but only for a brief moment before her face turned sad once more, tears running down her cheeks as she mumbled something of which Dot only managed to understand one word: Sila.

"Finally awake?" A voice said to Dot, it was the lamp, Chatty. "She has been restless watching over you." The lamp floated until it landed next to Dot. "She blames herself for what happened... Today and in the past... But she has good intentions and it seems she has take a liking for you, she will probably try her best to teach you."

"Sila"...it seemed like a name. She watched Serila's expression change from happy to sad at the mention of it, and her tears, at that. Clearly this name was very important to her.

She gasped a little as she heard Chatty's voice, however, not quite used to a talking lantern yet. "O-Oh, hey, Chatty." She looked back down at Serila, who was clearly thinking about things in her sleep. "For the record, I don't hold it against her. She...only wanted to help."

Petting the top of Serila's head, she turned back to Chatty. "How long was I out for? And...who's..'Sila'?

"You have been out a couple of days, usually the power drain isn't so rough but it was an emergency, I didn't had time to be gentle, I had to remove that power from your body." The lamp explained, at Dot's question, Chatty let out a sigh and looked at Serila before glancing back at Dot. "Sila is... Well, was, her little sister..." She stopped for a second to let the thought sink, specially the emphasis on was. After a couple of seconds Chatty continued his explanation. "Sila, just as Serila has developed her magical abilities but they weren't as strong as Serila's, in fact, Sila's was really weak. That really depressed her and Serila thought it would be a good idea to share some of her power with her little sister but... It didn't go well, Sila's new powers got to her head, she thought she was invincible until one day, well... You can... Imagine the rest..."

Serila seemed to have calm down after Chatty's explanation, she still had some tears on her eyes but her face had returned to a neutral state, seems like whatever she was dreaming with now was much more pleasant, she even smiled after a while.

A couple of days, huh? She certainly felt like it. Her entire body ached still, even after this long. He wasn't kidding with it being "rough". She felt lethargic, and there was probably some bags under her eyes. She was really hungry too, but that could wait.

Her own expression turned somber as she listened to Chatty's story, however. A younger sister...she must have loved her so much. She could see it in Serila's pained face as she slept. So this technique had failed before, and it had costed her sister's life...

Dot sighed a little, looking down at the sleeping woman. Her expression had changed for the better, at least. All this time, she was thinking about her sister...Dot wondered if she had seen a little of Sila in Dot.

She continued petting the top of her head as Dot slumped back into bed, unable to keep herself up anymore. "Hey, Chatty...if she wakes up before I do, don't tell her we talked like this, alright? I think I'm...gonna go back to sleep for..a while..." She yawned a big yawn, the tiredness catching up to her again. She still wasn't fully recovered from how fast her energy had left her, but hopefully she wouldn't be out for too much longer. Chances are hunger would wake her up before long.

"My lips are sealed, after all, I need to rest too you know? I have been from one place to another non stop!" Chatty protested before floating into the living room to rest, Serila on the other hand seemed to have fully calm down, she was sleeping with a smile on her face.

She giggled as Chatty floated out of the room. He seemed like a grump but he was a good person...lantern...familiar. Something, he was a good something. She kind of wondered what kind of person Chatty was when he was human. She had mentioned that he was a human soul kept in a lantern, after all.

She didn't have much time to think about it, though, as she dozed off back to sleep, her hand dropping to the side from Serila's head. The shivers took her a little, but they were less pronounced than they were earlier, even if they were still noticeable to anyone keeping an eye on her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Slowly, light peered in through one of the windows in her room, waking her from her slumber. That, and her growling stomach. When she woke, she found that Serila wasn't next to her anymore. Maybe she was somewhere else in the house. Plus, she couldn't afford to be a lump anymore.

Reluctantly, she pulled herself out of bed, hoping to get herself going, luckily she was still clothed, so that made things simple. Her legs were extremely wobbly, but using the walls as leverage, she was able to stumble her way out of her room. She wasn't going to get anywhere if she just sat, and the feeling of numbness was only going to get worse. She had to get going, and get something to eat. Using the wall as a prop, she slowly made her way through the hall, hoping her wobbling legs wouldn't give out on her. Maybe she could make some food really quick for herself...

Serila woke up a couple hours earlier than Dot, Chatty had told her that the girl woke up and that lifted a weight from Serila's mind. Seeing Dot still asleep, the red haired witch left Chatty to watch over Dot while she headed out into the market to buy a couple of things, that was when she heard a familiar voice calling up to her.

"Well if it ain't the fire princess herself! Didn't expect to find ya already in this part o' town!" The woman hollered loudly towards the rosy haired witch.

If there was anything to say about the woman's appearance it would be blue: blue hood, blue hair, dark blue open-cut jacket that ends in blue elaborate gloves, light blue tight leather pants that ended in blue boots, blue belt fastening across her belt with several pouches. The only things that weren't blue are her vivid golden eyes, dark red lips, and copper colored pistol holstered in her belt.

She stood next to a barbeque grill stand throwing away a paper plate and skewer into the trash before she strode over to where Serila was standing. "Howdy, Serila! Haven't seen you since the ceremony. How ya doin'?"

Serila turned around to look at the newcomer. "Camli! It has been ages!" She flashed a smile to the blue themed woman. "Well, I'm staying im this town for a while, even though it's my hometown feels kinda weird for me to stay longer than a day." She said with a light chuckle. "What about you? What brings you here, Cam?"

---

Chatty noticed Dot trying to walk towards the kitchen and floated towards her to give her a hand. "You woke up. Serila went to buy some groceries, she prepared breakfast for you in case you woke up again, here let me help you." Letting Dot to lean on him, Chatty guided Dot to the table where Serila had left her breakfast ready. "She went a bit crazy cooking." As Chatty said that, Dot could see the table filled with food for breakfast.

Dot was trying to scoot her way along the wall to keep herself upright when Chatty came to meet her halfway. "O-Oh, Chatty! Hey...still kinda, out of it a little, heh...Thank you, Chatty..." She didn't protest as Chatty offered to help, hanging on to him so that she could leave the side of the wall and make her way forward, wobbly as it was. She felt like a decripted old woman, and part of her kind of hated that, but she had been asleep for a while.

"A bit crazy? I hope she didn't work herself too hard for my sake. She'd already done...so...much.." Her voice trailed off as the table came into view. He wasn't kidding when she said she made breakfast alright. And what a breakfast it was. She didn't think she'd ever seen so much food on a single table before, and especially not for one person. For a moment, she stood transfixed on all of this wonderful, delicious smelling food, all for her. The tiniest strand of drool escaped her before she snapped out of it and, with Chatty's help, slowly waddled her way over to take a seat next to this extravagant meal waiting for her.

She gently placed her hat on the chair next to her, before immediately digging in, loudly downing bite after bite. She didn't think she could remember ever being this hungry, but even with the hunger helping it along, she could tell Serila was a fantastic cook. Every few bites, she'd stop to shiver just from how good it all felt, like the new rain after a long drought.

It wasn't long before Dot had horfed down everything that was waiting for her, a meal that could have fed 3 people all finished off by the extremely hungry witch. She had to catch her breath after it was all over, leaning back in her chair with a look of pure contentment on her face as she sighed happily. Chances are she wasn't going to be able to get up from this seat again without Chatty's help, but until then, she felt satisfied.

She looked over at Chatty, who was no doubt watching the display with a look of shock. "Seril's a really good cook." She had a big grin on her face and giggled as she said it, clearly very happy with herself. "Hey, Seril mentioned that you were a human once. Was that true?"

"Well partner, heard some varmint was stirring trouble on the outskirt of this town.  Decided to ride into town, and after a bit of roughin' up, they skedaddle out faster than a starving man over flapjacks."  A grin and a firm pat of her pistol holster made it clear of her usual methods of handling trouble.  

"Got a chance to fire things up and makin' some hard money, two in one I say!  Plus they serve some good grub."  She punctuated the last sentence with a burp.  "And I get to meet up with ya too!"  She threw her arms around Serila in a firm hug.  "How ya holdin' up?"

"You never change, don't you, Cam?" Serila replied with a smile while returning the hug to the blue woman. "Not bad, I got a place to live and someone to live with." The red haired woman explained.

Serila noticed Camli's weapon as she broke the hug. "I see you are still using your fire arm, is the enchantment holding up?"

---

"She really is a good cook." Chatty replied before raising a brow. "I was, yes."

Dot observed the floating lantern for a moment, who was clearly not one to share. She looked like she was sharing intently for a moment, before giving a heavy sigh and plopping back into her seat. "Sorry to pry. I just never heard of magic like that before, is all! I know about a lot of magic, but I just can't use any of it, is all..."

Reluctantly, Dot tried to pull herself from her seat, but found her legs were still too wobbly to make it work, and found herself falling back into the seat. She let out a frustrated groan at her sudden frailty. "Man, Chatty, that must have been some draining if I'm still like this! This is really new to me."

Internally, she contemplated what to do in this chair. Realistically, she didn't have to go anywhere or anything particularly big to work on. Sure, she couldn't really workshop out any new ideas, but doing that with guests would be rude anyway. She looked over to her side and noticed her trademark witch's hat. She'd made all of her outfits on her own, and she was proud of it. However, upon picking it up, she noticed a few cuts and holes in it. Likely due to that last explosion. There was a few on her outfit, too. That just wouldn't do.

She held her lanturn forward. "Alright, Florae, you know what to do!" At that moment, the small, wispy light streak that was Florae burst out of the lantern at breakneck speeds, moving through the air like a bolt of lightning as it stopped and started, darting through the house and dissappearing behind a corner for a moment, before coming back out holding a needle and spindle of thread. "Good job, Florae!" She took the two objects from her wayward familiar before patting him on the head. The whispy little creature made no emotion, only nodded, before darting back to the lantern, the impact of it entering enough to jostle it a little.

With that, she pulled some through the needle and starting to mend some of the holes, albeit slowly. Chatty, this close, now might notice that Dot's signature hat had clearly been mended quite a few times like this, with a few sewn over holes noticeable throughout the hat. "...I probably look like an old woman doing this, don't I?" She said to the floating lantern, not taking her attention off of her current work but not forgetting about her guest, either.

"Fire arms.  Mah trusty 6 six shooter been with me for a long time and will always be but when you end up against a whole posse of painted ladies, you need some more kick."  She pulled back her right sleeve, revealing a rune.  Right when it was displayed, the rune glows.  Before Serila said anything, the rune disappeared and in Camli's arm is an assault rifle with the same copper colored theme as her pistol.   The spectacle spooked a few onlookers thought but Camli doesn't seemed to react to their startled action.  "What'd ya think?"

"Impressive, seems to have a really strong kick but I wonder..." Serila approached Camli, wrapping her arms around her fellow student. "Would that help if I tried to seduce you~" They were face to face, lips almost touching when Serila pulled back with a chuckle. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding." After joking, Serila picked up the bag of groceries and looked at Camli. "I have to go leave these at my student's home, wanna come and meet her?"

---

"Honestly? You look just like Serila when she started to learn magic, always burning her things." The lamp replied floating around the room. "I wonder what is taking her so long."

That statement was enough to give Dot pause, as she turned back the other way to face the lantern. "Serila? Really?" The look she had on was nothing short of incredulous.

She turned back the other way to continue repairing her hat. "Everyone student worth their snuff in the academy used to know her name, and her talents. Even though some people didn't like the whole 'Witch' thing, no one ever denied that she wasn't incredibly talented." She cut a piece of twine with her tooth, having gotten more than accustomed to the act, showing she had finished the current hole and moved on to the next. "I guess it's hard to imagine, with how she is now."

Camli felt a bit of sweat building at the end of her neck and a tint of rose on her cheeks as Serila got really close. It was one of the things she like to do to tease the gun witch back then and had always garnered some reaction from her. Even if nothing came out of the teasing and things had always stayed platonic between them, Serila was an expert at this. Fortunately, Camli still retain most of her composure after Serila parted.

"Shucks, you always know how to rile a gal's blood, Seril. I reckon you'd be able to make any throw up the sponge with your pretty self callin'. Boy howdy..." Seeing that show time is over, Camli decided to unsummon her rifle. The firearm simple vaporized from her arms and its rune reappeared on her arm. "I got time to kill so let's mosey o'er to your hum. Need a hand with that baggage?"