undergrounds | Imbolc

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Imbolc

The festival of Imbolc marks the end of winter and the coming of spring. It may not seem like it, but the days are getting longer and winter's grip is beginning to thaw. What better time to celebrate new beginnings and make a fresh start?

That's exactly what the witch community is doing, as Samantha Okeke takes her place as the newly anointed Mother of Witches. The event is being held at the Redbright Institute, courtesy of Sylvia Redbright the previous Mother, and will take place entirely outside. Carefully placed warming spells ensure that the air temperature in the grounds is comfortable rather than freezing.

The event begins at 5pm (after sunset at 16.52) and finishes at 8pm.

Order of Events
5pm-5.30pm: Flowers and Candles
The first half hour allows time for guests to arrive and mingle. The main area where guests will arrive first is the lawn and pavilion. Here there are two stalls selling a variety of early spring flowers and candles. A third stall is selling hot drinks where you can buy tea, coffee or brandy, a fourth is selling a variety of fruitcakes, cupcakes and seed cakes, and a fifth is doing excellent business selling plant pots filled with earth blessed by the new Mother of Witches and a variety of plant seeds. A sign on the stalls proclaims that all proceedings will be used to fund a new centre for magical innovation, sponsored by the Mother of Witches.

At the pavilion there is an altar where guests are encouraged to light their candles, lay down their flowers and wish for good health in the year ahead. It is also traditional for young witches to wear flower garlands, so expect to see a lot of flowers around in general.

5.30-6.15pm: The Mother of Witches
At around 5.30pm there will be a ceremony where Sylvia will officially pass on her crown as Mother of Witches to Samantha. Guests will be ushered through to the quad to witness the ceremony. A podium has been set up in the middle of the quad where Sylvia will wait for Samantha to arrive on a raised chair carried by four male witches. Wearing a white dress with gold lace trimming, Samantha represents the purity and fertility of the upcoming spring.

It's then time for Sylvia to symbolically hand over her power by giving Samantha her wand and setting a crown of jasmine flowers on her head. The final act is for Samantha to light the candles that have been placed around the podium, a symbol of new beginnings.

She will then give a speech, addressed to the witches of course, but she is aware that there are others in the crowd who will be interested in what she has to say.

6.15-7.15pm: Offerings
Samantha will be sitting on the raised chair which has now been set down on the podium, flanked by the four male witches. A small white cat sits in her lap. Now is the opportunity for all guests to bring gifts and offerings for the newly anointed Mother of Witches. Every coven will nominate a representative to present a gift and say a few words. It would be courteous for guests from other factions to do the same, though not everyone will.

In the meantime, the gardens are open for guests to wander around with fairy lights strategically placed to help guests find their way.

7.15-8pm: Mingling
The remainder of the event is open for guests to mingle as they please, with the quad, front lawn and gardens all open. The stalls will be selling food, drink and other wares right through to the end of the evening.

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Mogget knows his way around the Redbright grounds, though he's only visited the school rarely. That's why the moment he's done with the tedious business of watching Samantha accumulate a ridiculous number of gifts, he skulks off into the gardens on his way to the fishing lake.

It's more a big pond in his opinion than a lake, but nevertheless it is full of fish and that's why Mogget can be found sitting still at the water's edge, staring keenly into its depths. He'll go back to the lawn later on to observe the guests as instructed, but not until he's caught a fish.

Edited 2017-02-03 21:48 (UTC)

Following her surprisingly uneventful conversation with Samantha, Nancy had made her way back to Cooper. Cooper, it turned out, was in the middle of an important conversation, and Nancy really didn't feel like standing around being eye candy. She'd done that enough as it were, thank you very much. So, that meant time to wander the grounds, which brought her here. To the lake.

Carefully, she approaches, noticing the cat. The fact that it's the same from Samantha's lap is something she'll realize later. For now, she softly calls: "hullo, kitten."

That's cute, Nancy, but he's not a kitten. He looks up at her once simply to establish that he is in fact choosing to ignore her, and then goes right back to staring at the water. She isn't a Daybreak witch which means he's under no obligation to do anything she says. And if she wants to talk to him, she can at least start by not calling him a kitten.

Kitten applied to all cats. Like Puppy applied to all dogs. It only made sense to her, but apparently the cat took offense at that.

Stranger things have happened.

"Trying to catch a fish, are you? I could help, if you like."

He speaks without turning back, still staring intently at the water. "I doubt that."

If she had a fishing rod, sure. Human girl on her own? Not so much, unless she just happens to know a spell for catching fish.

She does not know a spell for catching fish, unfortunately. She gives a small awkward laugh. "Pardon, I didn't know you could speak."

She watches him, not moving towards the cat, but rather remaining still.

"Apology accepted."

She's hardly the first to think he's an ordinary cat. Mogget sounds uninterested, his attention firmly concentrated on the water before him. Is that a bream he can see swimming in the depths? His ear flicks. Just out of reach...

She's always loved cats. Juliet alone provided hours of entertainment, and Nancy found herself studying the way Mogget moved. The way his ear moves. She knows better than to interrupt again. So she'll just watch, for now.

The fish is getting closer. He leans out over the edge, lifting a paw ready to swipe... Then there's a minute disturbance in the water, a ripple caused by the night breeze or something like that, and when the water clears the bream has gone. Mogget withdraws his paw and turns around as if he wasn't really interested in the lake anyway–

–And the witch is still there. Watching him.

That's not creepy.

"If you're thinking of a spell to trap me," he says, "it won't work."

He doesn't trust any witch, whether they're from Circle Daybreak or not. Why won't she go away?

Nancy holds up both of her hands. "I wouldn't dream of it." She gestures at the collar. "You already belong to somebody, and I have a cat of my own waiting for me at home." A real cat, not a fae.

"And I'm really not one for making deals, either. I was just watching, that's all. Sorry." It wasn't awkward when you forgot you were dealing with a fae.

There's a pause as he regards her with wary eyes. "Why?"

Mogget has spent centuries being suspicious of unknown witches. He isn't about to assume that her intentions are innocent.

"My mother made a deal with a fae, once." She explains it simply. She never learned much about it, Fagin would never tell her, but she knew the story. "And in exchange, he took her first born. So I'm not about to make a deal, when I know how wrong they can go."

She had to hope her mother had no idea what sort of man Fagin was, or she would have never made the deal in the first place.

Fae stealing mortals away. Mogget has experience in that area – not in doing the kidnapping, but in rescuing mortals that have been taken to the Other Realm. Oftentimes such attempts fail, but sometimes there is a loophole to exploit.

Of course he hasn't done any of that in the past thirty years since he spent most of it locked inside one house.

"Who was the firstborn?" Mogget asks, showing a hint of genuine curiosity for the first time.

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Ghoul finds it very telling that finding a cat is the highlight of his evening.

He recognizes it as the one that had been with Samantha, because how many other white cats could there possibly be around here, but other than that? He's oblivious to what it actually is. All he knows is that it's a fucking kitty and he wants to try petting it. He crouches down a few feet away, gently tapping the ground in front of himself to coax it over. "C'mere, kitty kitty."

Oh, so that's why there's the smell of dog. Ugh. Some dirty youth with matted hair thinks he's a cat whisperer. No chance.

He turns around just enough to address the youth directly: "No."

And then he goes back to staring into the water.

His face immediately falls. What. "...No...?" Did that cat just tell him no.

That cat did not just tell him no.

It's not so much that he was told no specifically, he's more hung up on the idea that the cat can talk at all. Ghoul is weirded out enough that he turns to look around, checking for anyone nearby who might be able to confirm whether or not he's losing his god damn mind.

Obviously, there's no one else around. Just a cat by the lake's edge. And he's spotted a fish, Mogget's eyes following it intently while he leans further out over the water, though never enough to get his paws wet. He lifts one paw. It just needs to swim a little bit closer and then he can swipe it...

Ghoul's facing this dilemma alone. But he knows that cat talked. It looked right at him and did it. He's not crazy, right?

He's quiet for a fair bit, silently wrestling with his internal crisis, until he focuses his attention back on the cat. It seems to be fixated on something in the water, all poised to strike...

Which means it's the perfect time for Ghoul to smack his palm down against the ground and loudly say, "Hey!"

The noise startles Mogget to the point that his paw slips and he almost topples forward into the muddy water. As it is, his paw gets wet but with no fish to show for it, then he catches his balance and turns on the werewolf with an annoyed hiss.

"Are you deaf? Go away."

Aww, it did a little hiss—

No. No, it's not cute. That is not a normal cat. "I knew you could fucking talk," he snaps, lifting his hand from the ground and pointing accusingly at the not-cat. "What the fuck is that about?"

Why is he getting pointed at like talking is a crime? Mogget rolls his eyes. He blames Sylvia for this. If she hadn't made keeping a familiar so unfashionable, people would be far less surprised at seeing the occasional talking animal about the place.

"It's called magic," he explains in the most condescending tone he can manage. Which is extremely condescending. "Which I possess rather a lot of, being a fae. And before you ask why I don't take human form like the other fae here, I am forbidden from doing so in my mistress's presence. And I am trying to catch a fish."

Technically he's probably far away enough from Samantha right now that he could take human form, but being a cat is better for fishing.

It's hard to feel appropriately offended when so much condescension is coming from such a tiny furry face. It's also difficult to feel intimidated when he supposes he can just pick the damn faecat up and throw it in the lake if he needs to.

Or wants to.

"Your mistress?" Ghoul makes an odd face. That's a term that does not belong in a kitty's mouth, if only because of its very awful 50 Shades connotations in this day and age. He doubts that applies here, but all the same. Gross. It's double-gross once he realizes who that mistress most likely is. "Wait, Samantha, right?" Strike that. Triple-gross. "Feel fuckin' sorry for you," he mutters under his breath.

A moment later he realizes that's not the best thing to say. Maybe kitty likes Samantha. He quickly tries to cover his mistake by asking, "Why don't you use all that fae magic to catch a fish?"

Watching the range of emotions pass across the young werewolf's face is sort of interesting in its own way, as he oh-so-slowly works through the implications of Mogget's words. At any rate, Mogget has by now given up on the fish for the moment so he might as well give the intruder his full attention.

He yawns, revealing a small pink tongue and very sharp teeth. "Where's the fun in that?"

He doesn't actually have any magic he could use to catch a fish, unless one counts the fact that he can take a cat shape in the first place. But that's the fault of his collar and the small bell attached to it, sealing nearly all of his power away.

The little teeth... Why is he doing cute cat things? Ugh. Ghoul wrinkles up his nose. "Well, do you want fun, or do you want a fuckin' fish? If you can even call it that. You can only catch, what, a minnow? Why don't you turn in to a tiger or some shit and get in there?"

"And get soaked?" Mogget shudders. "No, thank you." Speaking of which, he starts licking his paw clean, the one that got all muddy thanks to almost falling into the water.

If wolf boy over there wants to go running into a cold lake at night, he can have at it. Mogget prefers a more delicate approach.