queen;

“Yes, of course I know that. But people are even more petty these days. I nearly beat the life out of Sean Pride, I only held off because Meg would have never forgiven me and her loyalty was slim as it was. I wish I’d killed him now.”

“Unfortunately, he’s one of the humans I cannot let you kill. Sean and I became strange friends before I left and I think I would miss him if he were gone.” The witch smiled and waved her hand dismissively. “I know, I know, I’ve gone soft.”

Molly simply rolled her eyes. “Oh please, I was making it better. And I really wouldn’t use a threatening voice on me. “ She warned

Circe had to keep a smile off her face. Now this girl was making threats? It looked like it was getting very close to time for this girl to learn a thing or two. “Really?” she replied dryly. “And why is that?”

“Oh, come on,” Marie said, rolling her eyes. “Just because I’m only sixteen doesn’t mean anything. I’m probably more mature than most adults, and you know that’s a fact.”

Circe’s lip quirked into a smirk and she gave the girl a once over. “You may think yourself mature, but what I know for a fact is that you’ll look back at yourself in five years and cringe at how ignorant and stupid you were at sixteen.”

“ Your hair should be different.” Molly raised her hand and brushed their hair away from their face. “ There. Much better. People want to see your eyes not your hair.”

Circe’s nostrils flared in annoyance and she flipped her hair back to its previous location. “Don’t ever touch me,” she warned, her voice low and threatening.

“Never said you couldn’t be paranoid. Just not as paranoid as me. Only thing I have to defend myself with is a gun. And I only have that so often.” 

“You have your brain,” she replied, tapping his temple. “That’s plenty powerful.”

“Just the amount of complaints that we’ve had this week. I am enjoying my power, certainly. But people are petty.”

“You’ve known that,” she pointed out. One did not get to be two thousand years old without realizing that humans were petty. “Honestly, I’m shocked I’m not hearing about more murders. I fully expected you to kill one of these petty idiots within days of meeting them.”

“I always have a stick up my arse. This is rather a decent mood of recent days….want a drink, dear Circe?”

“Of course,” she responded, a smile toying at the corner of her lips. “But you have to tell me what’s got your mood all rotten. I would’ve thought that a position of power in this place would make you eternally happy.”

Woody laughed, walking closer to his friend. “Hold on, you thought that the powerful ageless witch was allowed to be the paranoid one in this relationship? Yeah, I don’t know about all of that.”

“The powerful, ageless witch with many, many enemies. I’m allowed to be a little paranoid.”

“Oh the petty troubles of the public…oh, I’ve lost my child! Oh my wallet has been stolen. What troubles do you bring to the table? I’m sure it’ll make my life a little less worth living.”

“Someone’s got a stick up his arse. And here I was hoping to find you in a decent mood.”

Woody was sitting in the barn, trying to plan out some new ideas for the show when he heard a sudden noise out in the barn. He rose from his desk and walked out into the main area before looking around. “Who’s out there?” He called to the unknown figure. 

“It’s just me, Dick,” Circe replied. She had no real reason to be in the barn, aside from wanting to bother her old friend. “Take a chill pill. I thought I was the paranoid one in this relationship.”

Circe stood in the center of her tent, across from the beautiful Elsa Dell. It had been awhile since the witch had offered her help to the less experienced woman, but she found that she was excited to help someone master their magic. Even if she hadn’t studied elemental magic as much as she likely should have. This would be good practice for the both of them. 

She had cancelled her show for the day and set a light quarantine spell around the perimeter. Not a strong one; those who truly needed to find their way into the tent would. But any feeble minded people who walked up would be suddenly reminded that they wanted to be elsewhere and leave the two girls to their work. 

“Absolutely, I would,” he responded without hesitation, though that made him pause. “Ah…I get it. I can’t really judge then.” He wanted to say that he wouldn’t do it if it meant his sister’s unhappiness, but if he was perfectly honest, he would tell himself she’d understand one day and forgive him. “I never pegged you as a Queen Anne type, but the more you talk about your life, the more I’m convinced you are.” 

Scar’s brow arched at the smile she gave him. It wasn’t one he trusted, but it was one he wanted to know the reason behind. “Honestly, you’d think that if a witch threatened you, you’d listen. If only he’d died in a way that he understood the agony he put those women through. I feel like dying of ‘natural causes’ isn’t appropriate. Unless you had something to do with that and the history books are wrong on that account as well?”

For a brief moment, he felt honored that she had shared her personal collection of scotch with him, but became more interested in her explaining her magic and how it worked. It only raised more questions, but for now he stuck to one. “So the blood…that came out of some living…thing? Is it dead now? Or will it never notice the amount you took from it?” 

"I am not one that can be easily pegged down,” she retorted. “Horatio knows a different version of me than Kieran, who knows a different version of me than even his brother Douglas. I am enigmatic. That’s how I survived so long as a woman in ages that looked down upon my sex. I taught myself to adapt. I am certain that if the two of us get to know each other better, you will learn a different part of me than any before.”

Circe shook her head and played absentmindedly with the hem of her skirt. “No, the books have that aspect correct. His death was entirely natural. But if I’m exacting revenge on a human, I want the pain to be lasting through life. If I were to kill him in some painful way, it would be over quicker than the suffering I gave him and the thought of that was simply not enough for my vengeful soul.”

“Don’t need to justify too much” he grinned “I’m more off a shoot-first, ask later type. Besides, anyone who holds a gun to an animal, they’re asking for the same treatment. That’s good enough a reason as any”

“I like how you think,” she murmured, returning the man’s grin. “I don’t think I ever caught your name; all that seems to come to mind is Robin Hood, and I know that cannot be accurate.”

“If you can enchant the fabric to sort of, change color every time a light hits it, almost like it were iridescent, then I can create something that can change in length and style.”

Circe smiled magnificently at the woman. “That sounds like it would look truly incredible. I would be happy to enchant some fabric for you if you think you can make something like that for me.”

“Well…there is their fur. I mean, I’ve never seen a lion fur coat, but, I wonder what that would look like.”

Circe quirked an eyebrow at the woman. Surely she could not be serious. “Probably beautiful,” she replied. “But not nearly as beautiful as the living thing. And definitely not worth taking the life of a magnificent creature.”

“That truly is awful. Anyone who does that deserves what’s coming to them. Karma’s a bitch, especially if it pisses off the right people,” she added with a vague gesture toward Circe. Ursula chuckled softly and nodded in agreement. “Boar certainly are difficult to get your hands on. I think my favourite is honey badgers. Or wolverines. But I don’t often need to kill them. Animals are usually more useful to me alive.”