Brothers Wittebane

03

AN/TRIGGER WARNING: Implied/mention of sexual assault

1613, September 25

I don't want to talk not after last night I still feel like crying even though Caleb had shouted at me hours ago. I was only trying to help.

They could still see the smoke as the stallion took to the trees, deeper and deeper into the wood. They shouldn't go to far they don't know the lands here. They would get lost, but stick to the stream and the townsfolk will find them, after they probably had stripped the Taylor home bare of what ever had survived the flame. Come after the brothers and hang Philip and Caleb in the name of justice for the Taylors. The Taylors that had been hated by all.

"Slow down!" breathed Pip, he was too small for a full-grown stallion and could feel himself slipping. Caleb held the boy tightly. He was a better ridder than any of those townsfolk. He'd been ridding for as long as he could remember. His mother had taught him. Out in the ever-green fields of their village along the coast of England. Against the crashing grey waves of the sea to compete with the ever-thunderous grey skies. A stone throw away from Wales, his mother's home.

Why? Why did you leave me? How do I raise him right? Caleb rode faster. He was filled with too much. He didn't know what to think of first. Philip started that fire. Philip stole that family's gold. Philip- he couldn't bring himself to say if. He was so furious. Caleb pulled on the horse's mane. The stallion went skidding to a halt. He dismounted and as he was helping Philip down he couldn't hold back his rage anymore, "What in God's name were you thinking?!!" Philip flinched as Caleb had set him to the forest floor. Bare feet to the ground he could feel the cold moss between his toes. Caleb looked livid. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, his black eye didn't do him any good to soften the burning anger on his face, nor did the fact that Caleb towered over Philip. Twice his size and out weighing him.

Caleb had never raised his voice at Philip before. Never gotten upset with his younger brother. So the look on Caleb's face was terrifying for Pip. His silly ever joking ever gentle older brother was twisted with rage. Philip's eyes immediately welled with tears. "I-" he began to reply, "You set that house alight with people inside!!!" Philip's face hardened, Caleb's breath caught at how his little brother's eyes began to freeze, "They hurt you," Philip whispered coldly. "That gives you no right to hurt them back!" "Of course it dose!" Philip started shouting now. How could Caleb be upset at him for them. He swept the back of his hand over his tears to whip them away. "Nobody hurts you!"

"No Philip!" Caleb had almost never called him Philip, "Why the fuck not?!" Caleb felt his anger bubble he felt like striking Philip across the cheek. He had never before raised his hand to Philip. "For fucks sake you stupid boy do you not realise what you have done!? You've fucken killed those people!" "Who ever fucks with you, I will fuck with them ten times harder," Philip's voice had gotten cold again and his eyes, those blue eyes were aglow in the moon light, carrying such devine retribution. "You cannot play God Philip!" "I cannot wait for God to get off his arse and punish those who deserve it!" How? How a child so young? How could he do something like this and not feel any remorse? Caleb was sick to his stomach the look in his little brother's eyes, and that dirty mouth, and the fact that Pip had murdered the Taylors because they had dared laid a finger on him. Before Caleb knew it his hand had flown out.

Philp was on the ground. Brown locks falling over the side of his face. His little shoulders began to shake. He looked up, a red handprint over his cheek and tears splashing down his face. Caleb felt his heart fall out his body. "Pip-Pip, I'm sorry," he said dumbstruck that he could lift his hand to the one little boy who was his whole heart. Caleb started crying to. "Fuck you!" Philip said from the ground as he cried harder. Caleb laughed bitterly, "You don't understand," he was smiling still crying, "The world doesn't work that way you cannot do things like this. You're-you're just a child!" "So are you!"

For the first time in his life he realised it. He was only 16. Caleb fall to his knees and pulled Philip to his chest. They were both sobbing now. "Forgive me my Pippin," cried the boy, "I forgive you," whispered Philip he was hiccupping now, and even softer he said, "Please don't be afraid of me,"

Caleb cried harder.

1613, September 25

I know what I am. I have heard all these strangers whisper it. They call me the devil's child, witchblood, No good Christian lad has eyes like that. I've accepted it, I think I have always known, from the time father took the rod to the backs of my hands because I was writing with my left hand. It's devil's work he said. I'm glad he's gone. He was the first to go, so happy to make his fortune in the Orient , to only drown at sea on his way back. Caleb was relived to, so was mother. They'd never say it but I knew. I think mother was afraid of me because father had cursed me with his eyes. That's why Caleb misses her the most, she loved him the most.

But if Caleb is afraid of me. I can't take it. I won't be able to take it. I think I'll cry everyday until I have no tears left, until I've drowned in them.

I don't care that the Taylor's are dead. I know what they've done. Nobody pay's attention to me so I hear things. Mr Taylor had hurt so many of his old servant girls. They try to run away. Some do the other's are buried on his plot. He can join them now. Let's hope they eat his bones. Mrs Taylor was already a ghost. She took her hate out on most of the servants, even Caleb. Once he had brushed one of her earrings under the bed by mistake. She'd pulled at his ear until it bleed. He hide it from me them. I was so stupid not to realise. He was always sending me away when he knew the Taylor's would lash out. I'm so fucking stupid. And James well James was just like his father. Poor Susie Smith tried to tell everyone just what James was like. They burnt her as a witch.

I know Susie wasn't a witch. I know real witches when I see one. Maybe that's because what people say about me is true, so I know then what's real and what's not.

I have to protect Caleb from it even if he doesn't want me to. Even if he says what I do is sinful. He's the only person I love.

Fuck the Taylors

AN/Hey you know what? Lets just give Philip a whole new personality! Wouldn't-Wouldn't that be crazy? Em I right? So I am pulling my bullshit here and giving Emperor Crusty some redeeming qualities when he really has like- fucking none. Sprinkling that morally grey pixie dust onto British man (so fucken random, but both Philip/Belos' voice actors have hot voices??? Just me???💀💀💀lol)

I was trying to experiment here, and just free write Philip as a kid. It kinda stuck with me that Belos' inner self is his child self. Like why would that be? Willow's inner self seemed to age with her and the only time we see tiny Willow is when Amity begins to make amends on the pain she caused Willow as a child, but otherwise I think Willow's inner self is her at her current age.

So it got me thinking that maybe the inner self reflects the true self--if that's even a fucking thing--but having Philip write that he feels no remorse for his actions and that he was just, speaks alot to Crusty Old Philip who believes that it's his duty to rid the world of witches.

He gives himself a task, motivated by a specific reason and doesn't stop until he achieves it. In both cases (as in my garbage and in canon) the center of that motivation is well Caleb me thinks.

Anyway point is prepare to watch Philip's personality do a 360 in this fic, for whatever reason you're reading this. Pls leave while you still can.

Anyway Philip be like: