Blood and Silver: First Bite

Phoenix

62 years earlier:

In the dead of night, a young woman lay in the middle of a moon and lantern lit field, surrounded by dozens of other women in brightly coloured robes, chanting and singing while she hummed and rocked through her labour with her first child. She was surrounded by wildflowers and ornate lanterns, and the women around her were part of her coven.

This coven of witches was extremely powerful, and they practiced the old ways. No men were to be present during labour and childbirth, and they supported each other while chanting spells of good wishes, health and prosperity.

The woman’s breathing became more hitched, and she let out a guttural yell.

‘She’s close,’ said the oldest witch to some of the others, and she laid a flower crown,

that she had been weaving as she chanted, on the labouring woman’s head.

‘Breathe Aurora,’ she said softly. ‘It won’t be long until that precious babe is in your arms!’

Aurora did as she was told and steadied her breathing, and with a final contraction cried out as her baby made its way into the world.

The baby let out a strong, boisterous cry, and the old witch lifted the baby to pass it to Aurora.

A series of disappointed sighs, followed by mutters and whispers followed.

‘Silence!’ Shouted the old witch.

She handed the baby to Aurora.

‘I’m sorry dear,’ she said. ‘We will hope for a girl next time.’

She stroked Auroras hair, placed a blanket over her shoulders, and she and the rest of the coven made their way back to their homes, leaving Aurora alone in the field with her newborn son.

A single teardrop rolled down her cheek.

‘It’s alright my little Phoenix,’ she said. ‘Mama will get you a beautiful little sister soon.’

Phoenix Corrigan was born and raised in the mysterious little town of Moonshadow Falls. He had no idea who his father was, perhaps a wandering traveller who came through the town and his mother liked the look of. The witches were a matriarchal society, and the only use they found for men was for the purposes of procreation. The town was teeming with shifters, and the humans tended to give them a wide berth, sending something off about them. The witches had and allegiance with the shifters, and the shifters offered them protection. The witches, in turn, assisted with guidance and remedies, using their foreshadowing and wisdom to protect the wolves from enemy threats.

There was a bar on the outskirts of town that the witches would often frequent when they were fruitful, in order find a man who was willing and able to give them a child - more often than not, keeping their intentions hidden.

When Phoenix was two, he had been left at home alone while his mother went back to the field to birth her second child. She came home hours later, surrounded by cheering women and carrying a tiny little baby in her arms.

‘Phoenix, this is your baby sister, Hazel.’ She said as she entered the house, her facing beaming with joy. ‘Isn’t she perfect?’ She continued, fawning over the little pink bundle in her arms. Phoenix raced up to give his mother a hug and she pushed him away.

Phoenix grew up playing with the other boys that had been born into the coven. They were the outcasts, often neglected and left to fend for themselves. Witch powers could only be passed down to girls, although the boys might carry the genes to have a witch daughter one day. At one stage, the boys had been used as breeding stock once they came of age, but due to the relatively small size of the coven, this was no longer possible, and the results of such prior conceptions had not survived long after birth due to complications of inbreeding.

Although they lived amongst a large population of males, witches did not want their bloodlines tainted by wolf blood, which also served the purpose of not allowing the relationship with the packs in the area to become complicated.

Phoenix watched his sister be showered with love, attention and affection while he begged for scraps. He hated witches and everything they stood for, and couldn’t wait until he was old enough to leave. When he was ten years old he went out wandering into the woods near the town and found a young girl, crying and alone.

Phoenix was wary of girls, but this one seemed different.

‘What’s wrong?’ He asked, making her jump in fright.

She sobbed harder.

‘My family doesn’t want me. I’m not like them!’ She cried.

Phoenix sat down next to her and put his arm around her.

‘My family doesn’t want me either. They don’t want boys.’

The girl gasped. ‘You’re one of the coven boys?’ She asked.

‘Yes,’ Phoenix sighed. ‘I thought humans didn’t know about us?’

The girl put her head down.

‘Yeah. Humans. I’m a human born into a Wolfpack. My parents sensed it and one of those bad witches confirmed it. I hate the witches!’ She sobbed.

‘Me too.’ Phoenix said. ‘I’m Phoenix by the way.’

‘I’m Sandra,’ she replied. ‘Everyone calls me Sandy.’ She wiped her tears and perked up.

Phoenix and Sandy met up as often as they could. They could disappear for days one and before anyone wondered what happened to them, so they took the opportunity to build a fort in the woods and sleep there, having picnics of food that they had managed to scavenge from their family homesteads.

When they were 18 they ran away together, to a town far away with no witches or werewolves. The attempted a life at normalcy and when they got married, they took the opportunity to change their names too.

They became Mr and Mrs George Moore, and their little family was complete when they welcomed their daughter, Laura, to the family.

This was a worry to them, a girl child with the prospect of becoming a witch, the thing they despised the most. They tried desperately to find a way to suppress her nature, which was coming more apparent with each passing year.

They had heard whispers through coven boys who remained in the town about the town being under seize by a rogue army, and how many from the coven had been slain in the attacks. The battles had since moved further out from the down and surrounding territories, and it was then that they decided to return back home, knowing that the people that may recognise them were either dead, fighting in the war, or defected to the rogue pack.

George knew that his sister, Hazel, was still alive, and he decided to pay her a visit. They asked that she suppress their daughter’s magic. She didn’t want to agree to it, especially with coven numbers down, but she felt guilty about how her brother had been treated and did not follow the old ways. She had become the Silvermoon Witch, and with the rising tensions between Silvermoon and Blood Crescent, where George’s wife, Laura’s mother was from, she couldn’t risk being accused of aiding or being a spy.

She agreed as long as Laura could stay with her every Summer. She told George that needed the time with her niece in order to slowly drain her of her growing power through the years. Yes, this was true, but Hazel also wanted to plant information deep in Laura’s psyche, which could be activated when she needed it.