KIDA DADE.

"Please, you don't need to explain anything you're not comfortable with. I was just.. curious, I guess. I don't know much about my own coven. Technically I don't have one." She didn't count Anastasia, Diedre, or Veronica.

Comfortable was a tricky word in this context. Kida didn't think she'd ever be comfortable with the loss of life no matter how beneficial it was. How necessary it had become. The news that the caster had no coven gave Kida a moment of pause. "No coven?" She knew it was possible, but it was unfathomable to her. Her identity remained tangled up in hers so tightly it would be impossible to bisect. "Is that a choice?"

"It's complicated." Weren't most things? Kida had grown up motherless. The loss of her had hung heavily over the coven due to her father's unrelenting grief and resulting anger. "And I hardly think you know enough on the subject to comment on it."

Henley found herself eyeing the bag of herbs the other girl had as she raised a curious brow. It was getting late, and the last thing she wanted was trouble. No trouble was good. She was fully preparing herself to need to shift and run out of there if this other girl really was a caster, but thankfully she seemed to mean her words as the two of them stood across from each other in the forest. "What coven do you belong to?"

Before, it would have been a question she didn't dare answer. Kida never would have put herself in the position to speak with an outsider in the first place. Now, it was different. It was not like before. "The Atlanteans," she said, light eyes moving to mark the woman's response. "You're not a caster, though."

The coven had little interest in getting involved in whatever turmoil was brewing in Walt's Landing, but Milo had made it sound like things were bad. If they were bad enough, they'd impact her people. Then, they'd have no choice but to care. She was considering this preventative measures from getting that far.

"You do know that wandering around the woods at night is stupidly dangerous... Right?" Henley didn't think it had to be said out loud, but she was feeling snarky. It was rare that she wandered into anyone else this late at night while out in the forest.

Silence stretched between the two for a long moment. Competent hands deftly sorted the recently gathered herbs into the satchel she carried. It hadn't been long since her coven had been revealed to the rest of the town, but Kida wasn't skittish around outsiders. If anything, the ticking time bomb of the coven's traditions had emboldened her. "Are you saying that to try and scare me?" It wasn't working. "I want no trouble."

“What is wrong?” ”Oh, it’s nothing. I just… got something in my eye. You know, my grandpa used to tell me stories… about this place as far back as I can remember. I just wish he could be standing here with me.“

PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH NEDAKH Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

TATI GABRIELLE ph. Raul Romo for Flanelle Magazine (January 2020)