Witches (The Order)Revised

Chapter 20

Noch

I watched Merianna drag Nelia down into the crowd of members, and to the dance floor while laughing like a maniac.

I chuckled and leaned against the archway just looking over them all.

"Things are certainly going to get more colorful from now on." Fog's voice drifted up to me from my left.

"What are you talking about old coot? It has already been more colorful for the past 3 years now than it had been for the past few centuries." I replied while eyeing him in my peripheral vision.

He chuckled. "Aye it has yes, but now it's going to be even more so." He said vaguely with a knowing smirk as he started going down to the wine barrels.

I huffed in annoyance at his words, but I did know what he was talking about. Since the girls had come to stay at the Order, everyone had a small part in raising them. They were the Order's two special children now, and they were loved by every member here, whether they knew it or not.

Soon, the two of them will be taking on bounties of their own. Or rather Merianna would, Nelia would most likely stay at the Order as healer while the Ga's went where they were needed.

I silently wondered who would be taking Merianna on her first bounty. I could see a game in the near future to gamble the honor of taking Merianna on her first bounty. Especially between Ara, Jasnine and Raska. Now, that would be fun to watch.

I watched while Merianna and Nelia twirled and laughed as they danced to the tune of the music. I could feel the happiness and joy radiating off from the members present. Everyone was happy to have the girls join, and I was happy that everything seemed to feel complete now. Sure the little demon child was a terror, but it just wouldn't have felt right to not have the two of them as full members.

Tonight was the celebration, and tomorrow, their names would be added to the wall.

I looked behind me on the archway's wall that I was leaning on. Next to me, and all the way to the top, spanning over the archway to the other side, the wall had been rubbed smooth and flat. It was all one big slab of stone that had sat here even before the building was constructed, which left the smooth surface in many variations of grey. I spied all the names of current and past members that were etched all along its expanse. There were many names etched in neat script underneath each other until they reached the bottom, then started at the top again. So many names were inscribed on its surface, and yet it still had more than half of its space free.

I moved away from the archway a bit so I could get a better look at the names. A sense of sadness washed over me as I scanned over the names that were filled in with blue, red and black. The spells on the names during the ceremony enabled the names to be filled with blue whenever a member left the Order, red for when a member perished, and black, for those who have been exiled...

There weren't many names that were filled in with colour, but there were enough to make you feel the loss, especially since more were filled with red than blue. Those were members that would never find their way back again. Those were the ones that had made their final stops in this realm.

Looking back at the girls who were happily dancing and drinking wine, I wished that they wouldn't meet such a fate too soon.

And for that to become a reality, I had some work to do.

I turned away from the party while grabbing a goblet of wine from an unsuspecting hand and made my way to my office.

It was time to do some digging and see what the Hunters were up to.