Marvela opened her eyes.
But she still saw nothing but darkness.
Where there was once a sky full of stars and a blindingly bright full moon, there was only a black sky. Eventually, her eyes adjusted. The kitten wrapped her tail around herself and shivered as the world she had fallen into gradually came into focus.
Any light in this place didn't come from the sky; it came from the numerous glowing blue mushrooms and floating white embers surrounding her. The weak light barely illuminated the black skeletal trees with branches that stretched like reaching hands up through the pale blue mist that purveyed the area.
Marvela gulped. There was no sign of the portal that she had fallen through. It was gone. Vanished.
She was trapped in the realm of the spirits.
A ghostly blue moth, identical to the ones Slight had exhaled, materialized from the mist. With a shower of glitter raining behind it, it fluttered towards the trembling kitten and alighted on her nose.
And all at once, Marvela's fear left her. She raised a paw to scoop the delicate little moth from her nose. She held the creature in front of her, considering its ghostly appearance. The moth considered her in return, fuzzy antennae quivering.
"The Spirit Realm..." the kitten whispered. She observed her surroundings with new eyes.
She was in a forest. Its darkness and surreal blue hue was a stark contrast to the sunlit golden forest she used to roam, but it still reminded her of her Grudgewood Forest in a strange way.
"It seems we have a most unexpected guest..." whispered a breathy voice from the shadows.
Marvela didn't flinch when another skull-headed creature detached from the shadows and materialized in front of her. It stared down at her, two blue flames blinking in the sockets of its engraved wolf skull. The moth Marvela held left her paw and flittered up to rest on the tall spirit's fanged snout instead.
Behind the wolf-skulled spirit, more spirits peered around tree trunks to regard the tiny black intruder. Each one bore the skull of a different animal. Despite their vast numbers—and it was hard to even tell just how many there were for the darkness—they made no sound when they moved. The only sound in this entire realm seemed to be the beat of her own racing pulse that boomed in Marvela's ears. The kitten swallowed.
"Um. Hello there," Marvela said, her voice little more than a strained squeak. She forced herself to remember what Sable had taught her; that despite their appearances, spirits were not known to be hostile unless they were crossed. "Sorry for barging in. See, I was in the middle of fighting a witch and—"
The wolf-skulled spirit spread her jaws open wide, exhaling a breathy laugh, punctuated by the spontaneous appearance of more moths from her throat. "Ha. You must be talking about Asra. We're very familiar with her. That witch has spent more time communing with us spirits than her own kind."
A ram-skulled spirit stepped forward. "With one spirit in particular, that is," he sighed.
The wolf-skulled spirit shook her head, making the moths that rested on her disperse. "That Slight," she droned. The disapproval in her tone was audible despite the hushed whisper she spoke in. "We've always told him that it's dangerous to meddle with humans so much. They always want more than we can give. We knew his dealings with that snake of a witch would come back to bite him."
Marvela padded closer to the spirit at the front of the group. "Do you know what Asra is planning on doing?" she asked her. "That she's trying to enslave one of your own? And will then try to take control of the Spirit Realm? Of all of magic? You need to go and help him!"
Urgency made the kitten's voice higher and higher as she spoke. Her fluffed-up tail thrashed behind her. She dug her claws into the cold soil of the Spirit Realm.
Yet none of the spirits moved when she spoke. None of them responded to her warning.
At least not in the way she had been expecting.
Echoing laughter reverberated from every inky black tree trunk in the forest.
Marvela spun around to gawk at the chuckling specters. "Wait. What's so funny?" she wailed. "This is serious! Slight needs help!"
A tiny spirit, barely taller than Marvela and adorned with the skull of a mouse, stepped from behind the wolf spirit, tittering with laughter like a tiny bell. "Slight should've listened to us."
Marvela glared at the little creature. "Stop laughing!" she said to him. She turned to regard the wolf-skulled spirit, the only silent one. "Spirit! I need your help! I need to go back somehow! Send me back and help me defeat Asra!"
The wolf-skulled spirit raised a clawed hand, her blue eye-flames flickering. "You can just call me Slender, little witch-cat."
Marvela sat back on her haunches and froze. "You know I'm a witch?" she questioned. "Even though I'm just a cat and not a human?"
Slender's eyes continued to flicker. Though her engraved boney maw was incapable of expression, she strangely appeared to smile down at the kitten. "Yes," she said, breathing more moths into existence. "The magic in you is potent. We can all feel it."
The kitten threw her ears backward and curled her tail around her paws. "That doesn't bother you, Slender?"
Slender tilted her skull to the side. "Why would it?"
"Your gift... Magic. You gave it to humans."
"Magic was given to humans originally, yes."
Marvela floundered for words. They don't care that I have magic of my own? She shook her head. There were more pressing matters at hand. She raised her chin. "But now humans aren't even using magic for its intended purpose!" she mewled up at Slender. "Asra is using it to destroy other witches! Does that bother you?"
"Yes."
Marvela sputtered at the spirits who continued to gawk at her, unbothered by her pleadings. She rose to her paws. "So help me!" she yowled at them all. "Do something about it and help me!"
The kitten clawed at the dirt, willing another portal to open again. But no void of light appeared before her while she furiously dug.
Slender sighed and then settled onto the ground next to the tiny kitten. Her bluish-black fur rustled as she patted the undisturbed earth beside her. "Sit, witch-cat," the spirit said. "Sit and listen."
Marvela paused and regarded the spirit for a moment, pouting in sullen silence. She ran her tongue down the raised fur of her spine to settle it, bitter that her coat was once again singed, and sat beside Slender. Begrudgingly.
She tried not to consider what could possibly be happening that moment back home while she was stuck here with these spirits.
Slender's eye-flames narrowed at the kitten. "What do you know of the First Witch?" she pondered.
Marvela's ears twitched. She kneaded the dirt impatiently. "The First Witch..." she began, recalling her lesson to Curious. "She fell into the spirit realm. And... And..." She met Slender's eyes. "You gave her magic. And then you gave magic to other humans, creating witches."
Again, the spirits gathered in the dark laughed.
Slender shook her fanged head. "No. That is wrong," she breathed. "We never gave the inhabitants of your world magic. For it was never ours to give."
At the spirit's words, a breeze swept through the dark forest, rustling the branches above and making the glowing mushrooms on the ground nod. The glow emanating from them grew brighter. The embers in the air seemed to dance.
"Magic is alive," continued Slender. "It is a living essence. It shifts. It changes."
"It changes..." the kitten repeated under her breath.
When the breeze rustled the kitten's fur, the magic within her responded, swelling and spiraling in her chest. The kitten shivered. Her heart quickened. It's alive, she thought. Just like Sable had said...
Slender watched the embers twirl and pirouette in the air. "This world is the origin of that essence," she explained. "It's bountiful here. It's what keeps us spirits alive for so long."
Marvela, too, watched the embers. She batted at one of the specks and sent it spiraling away. She couldn't help smiling to herself.
The spirit beside her laughed too. "We didn't open the portal between our worlds all those centuries ago," she explained. "Magic did. It was searching for something. And it found it in the girl who would become the First Witch. It chose her. Just like it chose every other witch born after her."
She laid a furred hand atop the kitten's back. Marvela purred in response to the spirit's gentle touch. "It chose your witch," the spirit whispered to the kitten. "It chose her sister, Asra, too. Perhaps it saw some good in her in the beginning, but like magic, people change. Sometimes for the better, but sometimes for the worse."
Marvela stopped purring. Her gaze fell to the dirt at her paws. "Magic didn't choose me, though," she mewed. "My witch gave it to me. I shouldn't have this power. I shouldn't be the one who has to stop Asra. Because I don't know if I can do it on my own—"
"Witch-cat," interrupted the wolfish spirit. "Look around you."
The black kitten raised her head.
She let out a shuddering gasp.
A brilliant white light filled the woods, throwing pitch-black shadows of trees and spirits across the ground. Spiraling in the clearing in the woods was a mass of white embers. It was as if an entire galaxy had fallen from the inky black sky, stars and all, and landed at everyone's feet.
And it all orbited around Marvela.
"Wha—? What is all this?" Marvela mewled, raising her paws to bat at all the tiny stars. A warmth filled the woods. A pulsing hum throbbed in the air. "What's happening?"
Slender's eyes flared. "Magic did choose you," she said, laughing, to the frazzled kitten. "I can sense the growing potential within you. The fact that you were made a witch was no accident."
Magic, Marvela thought, finding herself grinning at the light that she was the heart of. This is magic.
Pure, wild, untamed magic.
Slender prodded Marvela's white star spot. "You are the first of your kind, just like the First Witch was the first of hers. Maybe you are the first of many. We laughed when you asked us for help, because we are not the ones you should be asking."
The spirit raised a hand, letting the glowing specks filter playfully through her long fingers.
The magic Marvela had inherited from Sable writhed inside her while the kitten observed the magical essence surrounding them both. "Magic is," she whispered, finishing Slender's thought. Reeling in the revelation, the kitten bit her lip, hesitant to speak to the magic enveloping them, lest it change its mind about her. She remembered her naivety, back when she had scoffed at Sable's suggestion that magic was more than a tool, that it was a friend. Alive. Her ears burned.
Am I worthy? she thought.
Then she swiped her tail across the dirt and swallowed the doubt that rose in her throat.
She knew the answer.
Yes. Of course she was.
Marvela stood as tall as she could on her rear legs. She cleared her throat and raised her voice to be able to be heard over the humming of the feral magic. "I... I want to stop Asra from hurting anyone else," she told it. "Please. Will you help me?"
The magic that enshrouded her froze, just for a millisecond. Then, with a crack of thunder, the spiraling swarm condensed into her in a flash of lightning and vanished.
It joined Sable's magic inside the star-spotted kitten's chest. A rush of energy engulfed Marvela like electricity. She raised her forepaws to her face. Sparks of orange light crackled from her claw-tips.
Another portal of blinding white light spun into existence at her paws. Lightning flashed, and the wind picked up, almost knocking the kitten over. But Marvela kept her balance as she observed the portal with a toothy grin stretched across her muzzle. Her orange eyes were aglow.
Slender stepped away from the kitten, nodding. "Now," she said. "Go save Slight so we can make sure he'll never hear the end of this." A chorus of echoing, snickering laughter arose from the crowd of spirits lingering in the shadows. "Go save your friends," Slender continued. "Go save your world."
With a cloud of blue moths hovering around her, Marvela stared at the light and thought of everyone waiting for her back home—everyone that depended on her.
Let's go, she thought to the magic she carried. I know what we need to do.
And Marvela dove into the light.