APPLE WITCH (girlxgirlxgirl)

11. Two out of four

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⚠️mentions of death, threats, mentions of drug use and abuse ⚠️

"Hi"

Melora stares at the white haired boy. He stares back, even after saying something. The spring witch doesn't know how to respond. She gets a clear view of him for the first time, since it was night time before. His white hair, very light blonde like it's supposed to be, looks exactly like the snow from earlier. His black eyes are almost the complete opposite to his hair, showing a stark contrast that somehow works very well in terms of his looks. A sharp face with somewhat youthful fullness to his cheeks, and a few gentle freckles over his nose. The winter boy looks almost exactly like she imagined he would, he looks like winter itself.

Does that mean that she looks like spring? Melora has never thought about it that way. With an absence of mirrors throughout her life, it was really only in the human world where she caught a glimpse of her true looks. In her old village, there definitely weren't any mirrors among the wooden stock houses. At the towers there were mirrors, but not in her little cell, which she rarely left. In the dungeons or on this trip, there definitely haven't been any mirrors either, so the only spot possible was the human world. There, she saw herself with strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes inherited by her parents, a green mark on her forehead, a round face with relatively full cheeks, and a cute smile which she loved. It doesn't look like fresh spring, rather she looks more like her name. An apple. All around cute and sweet on the outside, with sour memories on the inside.

So if she has some possible resemblance to spring, and Adar looks like the embodiment of winter, does that mean that the other seasonal witches look like summer and autumn? Melora finds herself strangely excited despite being on a suicide mission such as this one, because all throughout her life she found it impossible to ever meet the other seasonal witches. And yet here she sits, right in front of another seasonal witch, with the possibility of meeting a third and fourth looming in the air.

So with all those thoughts, she decides to say something more.

"I'm Melora, the spring witch"

The winter witch stares at her for a moment. His eyes move up to her mark for a moment, and Melora lets him. She doesn't know how much he knows about himself and the others. Perhaps he's been completely isolated from the rest of the world. Eventually he finds himself, and opens his mouth to speak.

"I'm Adar, the winter witch"

Melora doesn't know where to take their conversation from there, sitting there beneath blossoming apple and willow trees in a bright opening in the forest. In a place where only she knows where they are, only she and the vampires. After traveling nearly all night, they stopped before sunrise and led their horses to an opening in the forest, where they set open camp and slept for a while. Melora slept deeply, and long, considering how high the sun is in the sky. She hadn't slept in a long while before this. And despite her not knowing what to say, Adar is quick to demand information from her.

"Why are you here and not at the tower?"

Melora understands why he is asking this. Witches are taught by their parents that seasonal witches all get taken by the tower and are kept there forever. Some stronger witches are also taken despite not being one of the four seasonal ones. That is why using magic is considered taboo now, especially if the magic is too powerful, because the vampire government might take those that use magic well. Those witches that manage to hide or overall live with freedom are considered lucky. Much of it is fear mongering, since only a small minority of witches actually get taken by the government. But it's a reasonable fear for the seasonal witches, since only those that hide really well for the entirety of their lives manage to escape the government's clutches. It raises the question of whether it's better to live in complete hiding for the rest of one's life, or instead live a more full life in captivity... Melora doesn't know which one she would've chosen, if she had lived a life like Adar's.