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This month's news from Alternative Views News

Front page article in the London Lambast Daily, 21st March

Mother of Witches announces new Magical Innovation Centre in Richmond
By Daisy Connell, Witch Correspondent

Yesterday Samantha Okeke, the Mother of Witches, officially announced the chosen location of her much-vaunted new Centre for Magical Innovation in Richmond. The selected venue is an impressive, modern building on a university campus in Teddington, Richmond, better known as a hub for scientific research.

The venue boasts state of the art facilities, including several laboratories, and was selected based on a combination of its cutting edge technological equipment, high security and excellent location.

Speaking on-location at the site for a press conference, the Mother said: "I am delighted to announce the location of our first new Centre for Magical Innovation. This inspiring and modern environment will enable us to be forward thinking, creative and rigorous in the application of new magic to address the challenges we face in today's society."

Refurbishment of the venue will take place over the next month, with the centre due to open by the end of April.

Summoning magic to become legal again?
The Mother also hinted that the Night Council is set to soften its stance on the use of magic relating to fae. She appeared to confirm rumours that Circle Daybreak have submitted a petition to the Night Council requesting that summoning magic no longer be classified as dark magic.

The previous Mother of Witches and current President of the Night Council, Sylvia Redbright, has always been known to be strongly against the use of any magic relating to fae.

At the time of writing, President Redbright was unavailable for comment.

For more on this story, go to page 5.

Article buried on page 9 in the London Lambast Daily, 21st March

Shopkeeper disappears
The proprietor of the dress shop Pins and Needles disappeared yesterday. "Mrs. Lotus" owned the dress shop in Harrow but did not turn up to open the premises on Monday. Believed to be a Seelie, local residents reported that it was typical for the rather odd shopkeeper to close up shop during summer months.

"I'd usually expect her to go when the clocks go forward, you know," said Alex Farley, the business owner next door, "which would be this weekend, so maybe she decided to take the time off a bit early. She forgot to lock up on Sunday afternoon too, so the shop was left open and empty all day. I don't know what that's about."

A request was put forward to the Night Council to investigate, and received the following response: "It is common knowledge that Seelie and Unseelie move back and forth between this world and the Other Realm. We do not believe this matter to be of any significance."

Front page article in Worldly Weirdness Weekly, 25th March

It's official: the Mother of Witches DID submit a petition to make summoning magic legal again!
By Charlene Pinter, Night Council Correspondent

Worldly Weirdness Weekly can officially confirm that the rumoured petition to the Night Council to make summoning magic legal WAS submitted by the Mother of Witches, Samantha Okeke. We can also exclusively reveal that:

• The Mother has already informed Circle Daybreak that summoning magic is not only allowed, but ENCOURAGED.
• She wants to train young witches to summon and control fae.
• She wants ALL witches to have their own familiar.

Go to page 4 for the full story and to find out why the President will HAVE to accept the petition.

Front page article in the London Lambast Daily, 31st March

Night Council makes U-turn in law on summoning magic
By Daisy Connell, Witch Correspondent

Today the Night Council announced that it has formally accepted the petition put forward by Samantha Okeke of Circle Daybreak to amend the definition of dark magic to no longer include summoning magic.

"Summoning magic is about protecting ourselves," said Peter Vrinak, the Night Council Vice President. "There has long been a hole in the law where spells to banish and trap aggressive fae have technically been counted as dark magic, even though they are absolutely vital for self-defence. We have seen fae activity in London especially increase over the past year and I for one welcome the opportunity to ensure that witches are trained to defend the supernatural community from these creatures. Efforts to contain the infestation in Bromley and Bexley have so far met with little success. This is a wise move from a new Mother who is unapologetic about putting London's needs first."

The revision to the law means that the following magic will now be allowed by both the Night Council and Circle Daybreak:

• Summoning fae
• Banishing fae
• Commanding fae (once summoned)
• Entering a contract with a fae (once summoned)
• Travelling to the Other Realm

Dark magic is still forbidden – but summoning magic no longer counts
After more than fifty years of summoning magic being forbidden by Circle Daybreak, much of the craft has been lost. It is expected that the Mother of Witches will seek to train young witches and build up expertise in this tricky and delicate area of magic.

When asked if she believed that dark magic should be allowed, the Mother responded: "I am against dark magic. I fully support the Night Council's efforts to ensure that dark magic is not practised in our community, and that we do not damage the hearts and souls of our young witches by encouraging them to practise it. I am proud to lead Circle Daybreak and to continue to use our magic for good, for the betterment of the community, and to improve the lives of thousands of witches up and down the country."

For more on this story and rumours of the Maiden's involvement in the original petition, go to page 4.

[OOC: This post is open to anyone who wants to react or talk about any of the news! If you want to grab an NPC, just say so in your comment.]

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She's missed Eames. A lot. So she's disappointed when he's missed a few of their usual dates. Nancy likes their time together, it's important to her. Honestly her relationship with Eames is just important to her.

So she figures he's busy, maybe he forgot, and he gets a few sad texts. So finally, she's taking matters into her own hands, and arrives on his doorstep. When he lets her in, she does as bidden, taking a seat, and making sure to give proper attention to the pupper until Eames is off the phone. Once he is, she smiles brightly at him.

"Hey. I've missed you!"

He's pretty good at multitasking, wedges the phone between his shoulder and his ear while he takes out a pack of biscuits from the cupboard to set down on the table and flicks the kettle on. Eames rubs his ear with the heel of his hand and finally moves back to the table once he's hung up, still standing so he can attend to the tea, but at least she has his attention now.

"Sorry," he shrugs a shoulder, "been a busy month."

"It's alright," Nancy says automatically, looking up from Boxer to Eames. She keeps scritching at the dog, who seems very happy to see her. And she's happy to see him, too. Juliette is a sweetheart, but she's a cat, and that means she's a little standoffish to begin with. She won't say it out-loud, but sometimes, she really misses having a dog around.

Or two.

"How've you been, then?" She wants to wait a few minutes, or something, slowly lean into the subject she's brought here to discuss with him. Unfortunately, it's not her favorite subject: Fagin's done with her, according to Dodger. And if anyone's going to understand how exactly that effects her, it'll be Eames.

"Well Daybreak tried to make off with a bunch of fae and then the Council reversed its position on summoning magic," Eames says it all very casually as he makes a couple of cups of tea, a hefty dash of whiskey in his and a more acceptable one on Nancy's, tone and body language even as casual like it's no big deal. "So about as good as one can expect, I suppose."

Nancy rubs her temples. "Christ- I heard about the summoning magic- fucking bullshit, is what it is." Summoning magic was what had got her into her life from the get-go. Summoning, making deals, fucking around with the fae. It was dangerous. She knew that and she respected the fae. They weren't all the good sort like Eames was. There were people like Fagin out there, and with summoning magic allowed...

She remembered Kenzi on Halloween, her hand clasped tight around her wrist, twisting, crushing, breaking it with strength that wasn't her own. And for a time, she'd been afraid of Kenzi. Not on purpose, but deep inside because she hadn't recognized the look in her eyes. How different it had been from even Bill.

"I hate Samantha. I told you about meeting her, yeah?"

He'd laugh if she ever called him 'the good sort' out loud, but on a grand scale his dealings are pretty petty. No bartering for people’s souls pr children or anything of that sort.

Still, in this instance he doesn't much care about who's a good fae and who's a bad one. There's far more important issues to consider and he barely even pretends to be interested as he brings the teas over and sits down with a soft, "you didn't, no," to Nancy's question.

"It was on the Night Train," she says, launching into the table anyway, because it's a good story, or she'd like to say. "I was going to tell you, but-" ghosts, man. ghosts. She continues on anyway. "I went to speak with Sylvia, just to say hullo," because she is an idiot, "I figured it'd be better to talk to her rather than let her find me." It was no secret Sylvia was not Nancy's number one fan.

"She didn't know Cooper was my boyfriend- I said I lived with my boyfriend at the hearing, but she never asked who, so I never said. She got snippy about me deciding not to join a Daybreak coven. Anyway, that's when Samantha came up, and Sylvia explained it to her. Samantha wouldn't even let me explain before calling me a traitor. Can you believe it?"

As Nancy speaks, she's accepted her tea from Eames, and taken a first preliminary sip. "Anyway, it gets worse. She said back wherever the fuck she's from, traitors weren't even considered witches anymore!" It hurts, honestly. She'd found a place she'd felt like she belonged, away from Fagin, and Daybreak had destroyed it. Now they wanted her to join them, and when she didn't, they essentially shunned her.

"So fuck her, I say."

He snorts and murmurs something about 'fucking northerners' under his breath, but past that he's not too engaged with the conversation. Nothing about it is shocking or surprising considering what he's seen of her so far.

"Mm, Daybreak seems to be her everything," Eames says a little absently, newly occupied by a dog that's come and put his paws on Eames' thigh to stand on his hind legs and quietly demand some attention. Boxer's the true victim here. "She seems to have little care for anything else." He bows his head while he scratches Boxer behind the ears, like he's addressing him instead of Nancy, though he does recoil a little when Boxer meets him to lick his face.

"It's bullshit," she says, stirring her tea. "I hate her something awful." She shakes her head and takes a sip of her tea, deeming it acceptable. The subtle taste of alcohol below the milk and sugar helped focus her again.

"Sorry- I just really dislike her. What were you saying?" she takes the time to settle back into the couch.

"I wasn't saying anything," Eames says, fingers curled around his mug as he settles into the armchair. He sighs, rubbing his face tiredly, "did you want something?"

He tries not to sound impatient, but he's impatient about everything these days. There's simply too much on his plate for him to dedicate any real time to anything.

Nancy's brow furrows.

"You missed our usual time," she says slowly. "I wanted to come check in on you, say hi. Is everything alright?" Obviously, no, it wasn't. But she wanted Eames to tell her.

"Why would you ask me that when I can't lie?" There's an upturn to his voice, lightly teasing. It's a joke, let's move on from this topic.

Nancy balks for a moment. "Because- I completely forgot." It was easy to, despite her heavy dealings with fae.

Which was really what had brought her here in the first place. "If you don't want to tell me, then we can talk about something else. I met with Dodger the other night- y'know the one, right?" She was giving him an out. She'd rather talk about Eames and his Feelings about the current political climate, but Eames didn't seem the sort that did well with Feelings unless they were about Dogs.

He'd like to talk about something else, but he should do Nancy the courtesy of explaining why he didn't show at the very least. It's not like they need to get into feelings for him to share his opinion that Cooper is a garbage person who'd facilitate the enslavement of an entire race.

"Your boyfriend..." he starts, looking down at his tea with a frown, "voted in favour of Samantha's petition to allow summoning magic and one-way doors." Not that he has any proof, but knowing definitively which way some would vote makes it a very educated guess. "I'm not setting foot in that flat."

they can talk about Fagin some other time.

"no. There's no way Cooper would do that." She believes that he wouldn't vote to support Samantha. "It wasn't his vote. Cooper knows better than that." He had to. He knew the shit she went through with Fagin. How awful summoning magic and deals could go. More than that, he was old enough to know how wrong slavery is.

"You've got the wrong person." She crosses her arms. She isn't mad, no, just irritated Eames would jump to that conclusion.

Eames sighs, there she goes with her feelings again, refusing to see things for what they are.

"It's a hung jury without him," Eames responds with a tired frown, "only thing that makes sense."

she shakes her head. "It's not him. he would have told me." she had faith in him, in that regard. "we tell each other everything, Eames."

Uh-huh.

He doesn't say anything, just raises his eyebrows and gives her a look that's the facial equivalent of "mhm, sure," because even the best, most trusting of couples isn't completely open about everything.

She sighs. "You don't believe me."

Of course he doesn't.

Nancy takes a moment to take a nice long drink. When she's done, she looks up at Eames. "Fagin's completely done with me, you know." Dodger had told her a few weeks ago.

"Surprised it took him this long," he's glad for the topic change, and he sighs. The casual dismissal of her problem isn't because he's without sympathy, but he knows Fagin better than most. People who aren't useful to him aren't his friends.

He gives her a thoughtful look, thinking about what the final straw would've been. "Because of your career change?"

"I think? It's not like I'm not still giving him money for the boys." She settles back into the couch, wrinkling her nose.

"He assumes things are going to go bad and I'm going to come crawling back to him. Dodge said he's hoping for it, just so he can say no. Wasn't it enough to put me in the hospital?"

"It's never enough with Fagin."

That should be lesson one with the kids, he takes everything until they've got nothing and then tries to take some more. Eames has seen hundreds of kids drained over the years and then left out to dry.

But that's not useful. Eames tilts his head, considering. Fagin's a waste of breath and energy, look to the future.

"How's that going-- the job?"

He took and he took and he'd take as much as he could. It was awful, so Nancy nods. "never will be. My mum upholding her end of the deal wasn't enough, either." Which was what brought her into Fagin's service to begin with.

"it's good! nice to wear jeans to work, not have to put a hole in the O-zone with hair spray every night. I like having a real job. It's fun."

'Fun.' Eames laughs softly, that says a lot about how vastly different her life experience is to most people.

"Cash in hand, yeah?" It's a roundabout way of asking if she's a Real Girl where the law's concerned.

Well it's not like freezing your ass-cheeks off on a street corner is necessarily fun.

"All cash," she says. No, she's not a Real Girl. She's got a file at the Night Council, but that's it. "Gotta have a bank account to get a direct deposit."

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