Jane's Last Witness to the Battle of the Beast

Jane's Last Witness of The Battle of the Beast

No matter the consequences or dire warnings, Quentin Coldwater always finds his way into the magical realm of Fillory. If I weren't such a skeptic, I would believe that Fillory had chosen Quentin as the hero to save this magical land. I know better now that the magic of Fillory and the ram gods are as ambivalent to the children of Earth as they are in preserving peace with the Lorians. Needless to say, Fillory wouldn't be in a constant state of war if they provided more care in these matters.

Instead, they are only interested in attending to their gratifications. It's up to me, the last of the Chatwin Royalty, to try to save this dying magical world from the Beast, who when finished devouring the wellspring will destroy this land. In a sick case of irony, he happens to be my poor, lost, and corrupted brother Martin, who like me, was once the royalty chosen to save and protect this land.

As a child, I completed a request that resulted in me earning a magical watch that could manipulate time, and I assumed the identity of the Watcher Women when Martin became the Beast. My watch allowed me to travel in different timelines and live through various loops, where I learned the horrible consequence of Martin's devouring of the wellspring.

As the Watcher Woman, I enmassed the support of the dwarves, centaurs and countless other races and factions in Fillory, but the subtle politics and resentment towards each other's differences never brought about enough power to defeat Martin. I had to accept that the creatures of Fillory could never beat the corrupted power of a magician from Earth, and resorted to looking to other children of Earth as a means of defeating him.

I seduced and recruited Dean Fog when he was young. I had watched over many powerful magicians over the years, and I recognized his talent could defeat Martin. After a few attempts, I learned that his infatuation with me hindered his full potential and his continued sacrifice to save me could never stop Martin. Instead, I encouraged him to seek a position of power that might help us to cultivate the people who could break Martin's tyranny.

I watched him work his way through magical academic politics, and become Dean of Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy. There, I found the ultimate resource for finding worthy Children of Earth. However, after the many failed attempts with students over the years, Fog became skeptical of Martin's defeat and wanted to abandon saving Fillory. After the devastation with class 2015, he forbade me to interfere with any students. That is until Quentin discovered Fillory on his own.

At just the moment I was going to move to another school, Dean Fog had informed me that another group of students had found their way to Fillory, without my clues or aids. The traveler, Penny, was inexperienced but crafty, discovering that the buttons could help him bring a group into the Neitherlands rather than just himself. Of course, he had help from Julia, who loved Fillory and recalled the buttons from her childhood books. Margo and Elliot, who provided the resources and insight that their junior class would have never discovered. They were also the morale support, revealing the best of each magician. The odd ones of the group were Quentin and Alice, who formed an unlikely relationship during their trials at Brakebills South. It was Quentin's real love for Fillory that united them all, but Alice who both empowered and distracted him.

It was interesting to watch them discovery Fillory on their own, and watch how their relationships formed. Like the previous class, they were so eager to perform quests and find their purpose in Fillory. Once they discovered the Beast, and how he was destroying Fillory they felt the same need to put a stop to him.

They never had a chance. In attempts one to four, Alice was the Beast's primary target. She was the most gifted, but my brother can sense magical aura, and always knew he had to snuff the life from her first. In attempt four, she almost succeeded in setting him on fire using an incantation of words alone after he physically bound her. The slight burns were the first physical harm that he ever encountered, so since then, he cast a spell that turned her words against her, causing her to spout them in blood.

In attempt eight, Elliot finally discovered the manifestation of his physical magic when he froze the Beast momentarily. To counter his ability, he directed the target of his attacks to Margo. After that, I didn't see his freezing ability manifest. He still performed strong physical and telekinetic magic, but after he felt the pull of his direction to Margo, he countered it himself by directing it at himself to lessen the blow.

In attempt fifteen, Penny used his powers to travel back to the Neitherlands. There he recruited the help of some of the local magicians, who the beast who later turn on him in future attempts. They would later unite with the Beast because Penny had inadvertently gotten them expelled from the libraries after an attempt when one managed to escape and tell the others what was happening.

Julia and Quentin, upon seeing their childhood fantasy turn into a nightmare, relied on one another to fight the Beast. They supported each other but were new to the magical world, and their lack of experience got them killed. For a while, the cycle of their deaths continued, until attempt 38, when Julia's magical transformation into the blue power of the niffin almost destroyed the Beast.

What changed everything was Julia getting expelled with Kady during their study in Brakebills South. Julia caught Kady stealing, but unlike previous settings where she was the one responsible for outing Kady causing her expulsion, she took a different turn in trying to protecting her, forcing Mayakovsky to expel them both.

I suspect this occurred because Julia felt some rejection in discovering Quentin and Alice forming a strange relationship after they refused to do the mind control experiment. Mayakovsky sensed the attraction of those two and decided to cultivate their relationship further in attempt 38. He told me that the most powerful magic could come from love or infatuation. I never saw that love of in their friendship or realized the potency of that kind of magic I witnessed how it brought them back together again.

Even though Quentin was starting to fall in love with Alice, he could not travel to Fillory without Julia. Julia managed to escape Brakebills without losing her memory, and she and Kady grew stronger in the hedge witch world, a resource I never considered. It was sweet to see them reunite during summer break with the mission of returning to Fillory.

When the Beast finally found them he didn't count on Kady and Julia's new sudden strengths and unusual magic. While he was busy disposing of Kady, who had a new found fury after Penny's hands were cut off, Julia cast a deeply powerful spell that ignited her whole body into energy. It was Quentin who stopped her. By burning his body in a fiery embrace, he stopped her final transformation, and she ceased to become a niffin. In that quick moment, the Beast broke both their necks in one swipe of physical magic.

How could he have known that I witnessed their deaths 37 times before, and how this was the first opportunity that showed real potential! Niffins are all powerful magical entities of pure energy, and even my brother could not stop a full attack against one. Had he let her transform, she could have ended Martin, and ended it all.

I was foolish. I disclosed this to Dean Fog, and rather than let me make one subtle change, he intervened. In the start of attempt 39, he prevented Julia entry into Brakebills. He was not alone in his decision, having sought counsel from Mayakovsky, and assumed that Julia would become even stronger once she made her way back to Fillory. Mayakovsky persuaded Fog that Alice was also capable and a likely catalyst for becoming a niffin, despite her caution after learning about the fate of her brother.

As of now, I have no control over this loop, which greatly distresses me. Martin is getting smarter about the ways he obtains information, and I suspect he has been sending probes into Earth, using the last of class 2015, to learn how to take them down. He too, is growing weary of my loops, and I wonder what it will take to finally put an end to his corruption.

For now, all I can do is hope. I have to have faith in the weeds who return year after year. They may not be the most beautiful of flowers, but they have strong roots in the belief of saving Fillory, and they refuse to give up. It's all I can hope for.