honey eyed boy.

Kit knew he was probably holding onto the witch a little too tightly, but he can’t help himself from allowing himself this warmth anymore. In spite of his naked state, it’s all he could feel when Taylor sank to his side. Solitude was not good for someone as friendly as he was and five years of it made him starved for contact. It was pathetic how long he would have been willing to stay like that but he wasn’t going to force Taylor to stay in his arms the entire day. When they pulled apart he blinked at the witch, noting the tears and aching. He sadly realized he had nothing to offer Taylor to wipe at his face. Kit bit on his bottom lip before bringing up his knuckle to Taylor’s face to catch a stray tear that managed to fall but there wasn’t much else he could do. His lips twitch up at the questions. He was used to switching back and forth between his human and fox form when he had his witch, but the real reason he’s smiling is because of that word he’s so unaccustomed to now. Home. Even though he’s slept here for the past five years, it’s not a home. She was a home, the cemetery felt like a personal prison he put himself in for letting her down. Maybe enough time had passed though, maybe he could even forgive himself. Or start trying, he couldn’t let his guilt hold him back from protecting and taking care of Taylor.

“I haven’t felt her here in such a long time,” he sighed, he had been holding his breath as he watched the witch touch her gravestone. She was able to move on, no longer tethered by the pain people had to experience. Kit was the one who couldn’t move on though, scared of growing attached and hurt again. But he watched as the witch approached the tombstone, listened to his considerate questions and he felt… hopeful? He always felt like if he ever had to leave her grave, he would feel nervous and scared. But this felt right and part of him hoped that this is what she would have wanted for him. Kit gave Taylor a curious look, thankful that he wasn’t being drilled with questions about her, he knew he wasn’t ready for that yet. “Um. There’s something I’d like to bring here tomorrow. If that’s okay. You don’t have to join me. Then I can take of it with some clothes on,” he rubbed the side of his neck, not able to look at gravestone or Taylor for a moment before shaking his head. “If you’re ready, we can go-” home, he almost finished but he bit down on the inside of his cheek. He didn’t want to be presumptuous. “Can we get some food?”

     kit seems a little uncomfortable now-- he doesn’t look at the grave, or meet taylor’s eyes, so the witch decides that it’s better to not press the issue. it feels like it’s a tender spot that he shouldn’t press on just yet. he approaches his new familiar and reaches out, threading his fingers through kit’s messy hair, before his hand slips down to gently grab the nape of the boy’s neck and pull him in. taylor catches him in a tight, warm hug. it feels right-- like when you fit the last piece of a 1,000 piece puzzle into its spot, or when you finally get to crawl into bed after a long day. holding kit feels like.. home. it’s been a damn long time since taylor felt anything like that. “you can bring whatever you need. just make sure you pull all those weeds up and clean off her headstone, okay? leave her something nice.” he sniffs, letting kit go and stepping back, and then he beckons for the fox to follow him as he begins trekking out of the graveyard, pulling the canvas tote full of the foraged plants and roots he’d found that morning higher on his shoulder. “and change back to a fox--! i don’t want everyone staring at your butt when we get back to the city,” he barks playfully over his shoulder, his eyes crinkling into happy crescents as he grins wide.

@spellbks

his eyes are hazy as he finally manages enough collect enough strength to open them. there is no bright light, but a pain still makes him wince – as if someone had made tiny paper cuts all over the surface of them. he presses them close right away, instead shifting the remaining strength elsewhere ; to wiggle the tips of his finger and sharpen his hearing. there are no sounds he can register, no way to identify where he actually is.

after few long minutes, belus finally forces his eyes open yet again, this time the pain is far less severe and lets him keep them open.  the ceiling is unfamiliar, so is the scent of the room; he can not recall ever being there.  a small huff of annoyance passes his lips as he moves his head from one side to the other, trying to pinpoint something in the room that would provide him answers to the questions forming in his mind ; where is he? why is he here? and who is in charge of the current situation? – but of course, the list of suspects when it comes to the last question, can be considered endless. 

and whoever is guilty, they know what they are doing.  its rare, if impossible, for belus to feel this… this worn out.   like all energy has left his body, leaving him this languid, so open to danger. and of course, he despises such feeling ; and silently, he promises himself to make sure the guilty one will suffer. very, very slowly.

     long black hair fine as silk. pouty lips painted red, twisted into a permanent scowl. high cheekbones, nice and sharp, and tinted with a dash of rouge (buyer beware). soft pale skin. and a glimmering, icy blue eye-- just one. singular. a patch covers the other socket, embroidered with thread depicting flowers and thorns. colette is beautiful, albeit permanently scarred from the fight which her left eye was burned right out of her head-- and the culprit that did such a heinous thing is taylor, a young witch and a nuisance who had a habit of meddling in her plans years ago. if you asked him, he’d tell you it was either his life, or maiming her a little, and that’s all the justification he needs. but if you ask her, you’ll see rage manifesting itself, and her voice goes dark like tinted glass, a flickering glint in her eye that reads something a little more insane-- a little more unhinged and bloodthirsty. colette’s been after taylor since.

     through a portal, the sorceress has traveled from deep in the french countryside to the busy city of seoul-- catching double-takes from everybody she passes as she seems to glide down the sidewalk, tall, foreign, elegant and swathed in black, but she spares no second glances to anybody herself because she’s intent on accomplishing her goal, which is no doubt revenge. one of her familiars had found the boy and reported to her his whereabouts. and as she approaches the building where she feels the familiarity of his aura, she spies something.. very interesting through the dusty bookstore window, glancing through the glass cautious to not be seen. taylor, and.. taylor? two? her eye narrows, manicured brows furrowing in confusion. there’s an identical man in the shop with him, and by feel she can tell that he’s got magic, too. maybe his energy is muddy and less pure when compared to the boy wearing a canvas apron beside him. they seem close-- colette thinks-- or maybe she can just tell by the way taylor’s eyes shimmer when he’s gazing at them. maybe they’re identical twins, or.. maybe something unnatural is afoot.

     with ideas brewing in her head, she leaves just as quietly as she came, ideas brewing in her mind that will no doubt cause trouble for both witches.

     exercising the art of manipulation, colette has witch hunters get him first. she learns that his name is belus, and he’s been alive too damn long (just like her). witch hunters are usually sloppy, angry, brute-- strong and violent. less cold and calculated like her. so it’s no surprise that when she enters the room where belus is tied up like a gift just for her, that he’s already covered in contusions and bruises and cuts-- blood spilled all over the floor, so much so that the room itself smells like iron. stiletto heels click against hard wood as she paces through the large room, making a wide circle around the chair the man is in, and she draws in a slow breath which comes exhaled as a sigh, slim arms crossing. “if you’re finding yourself wondering why you’re here-- it’s simply because you keep bad company,” colette says, coming to a stop in front of him, arms dropping and one of her hands propping itself up on her hip. “the hunters worked you over, mm? look at you, all beat-up. unfortunately, dear, this is just the beginning. i’ll get to have my fun with you too, at least until he shows up.”

    the first time they met, taylor was staring down the barrel of minjun's gun with a hex waiting to roll off his lips, witch forced into submission-- cornered. both of them were hurt and nearly torn to shreds by the same beast, and the likelihood that the other one was that very same beast in human skin was a very real possibility, hence the hostility of them both. the setting was some old chapel with a very full moon hanging low in the sky. somewhere deep and forgotten in the middle of no where, and after figuring out that they'd both been in pursuit of the same creature, they became unlikely friends in an even unlikelier place. even together, they were unable to kill the wolf in that old chapel that night. in the month that followed they'd work together in an attempt to become a cohesive partnership so that they might return and try again before anybody else fell prey to the monster's teeth.

    sometimes taylor wonders if the werewolf had hurt minjun a little deeper than the hunter had let on. sometimes taylor notices minjun's sudden discomfort-- a bouncing knee, shifting positions or posture as if he can't settle down.. sometimes taylor notices when minjun falls prey to an unstable moodswing over things that he would normally find insignificant. it's a strange shift in energy each time, too, where something more malicious tries to peek through the veil, and the witch is staring it in the face each time, trying to figure it out... something always ends up feeling off. and though taylor promised minjun he'd never use magic on him without his permission, occasionally.. occasionally, taylor finds soothing spells being murmured under his breath, to calm and ease the hunter in soft and subtle ways. it's a delicate balance lately and the blonde finds himself at a loss more often than not.

i have a starter i owe and i’mma pick at some replies today but i gotta take my kitty to the vet so my stress is pretty high (plus i’m p. tired) so we’ll see how far i get!

     i thought we hit rock-bottom, but then the floor gave out      it was hard back then, it's even harder now ...

     it’s another slow day at the shop. dreary outside, too. chilly fall-time weather. the blonde has one earbud tucked into the shell of his ear,  while the other dangles on its wire resting against the comfortable oversized red flannel shirt he’s wearing, some acoustic song he’s heard a hundred times over blaring barely loud enough to make out the melody if you’re standing a few feet away from him, but none of the words. he’s got the sleeves cuffed up, rolled snug just below his elbows, and he’s sorting through stacks of dusty old books, sitting cross-legged on the floor like a big kid. taylor has been here for a decent amount of time now, and it’s already become rinse and repeat. he's found a sort of comfortability as old lady kim's apprentice-- learning plenty from the old witch late at night. but during the day he's expected to help run the magic shop fronting as second-hand bookstore, tending to a whole menagerie of clients that come through the doors. either looking for a good read or something more.. otherworldly. honeybrown eyes turn to the clock on the wall now-- and it's coming to nine AM. the bells on the door chime and a person steps through that has him getting up onto his feet, dusting his hands off on the seat of his pants.

     "it's okay-- it's okay-- it's gonna be okay--" taylor's voice is shaking, he figures this is more to soothe himself than to actually soothe hyejung, maybe, but they're both covered in blood and his hands are absolutely trembling as he fumbles through pages and pages of spells and curses, the old pages crinkling in his fingers. this has gone horribly wrong. they must've done something wrong. maybe the sigil was drawn incorrectly, maybe they chanted the wrong words-- or maybe they bundled the wrong combination of wild herbs as an offering, whatever it may be-- they summoned the wrong entity. and now they're both covered in cuts from the outburst of malicious energy that occurred when they began the ritual, there's awful aura swelling in the room, and all the candles have been smothered out all at once, leaving them in impossibly dim lighting that has taylor's stomach churning. he's trying to find a banishing spell. something to cleanse them-- before whatever's in this room with them takes hold of one of them. there's a not-too-distant growl, low in the throat of something foul, that rumbles from the darkness of the hallway. 

     the wind is real heavy, blowing sheets of rain across the windshield. it smacks and spatters against the glass and he can hear it clearly over the post-punk snare beats and guitar pouring from the speakers, even with the volume turned as loudly as it is. he flicks on the blinker and takes a slow turn onto what he remembers to be the right street, and through the weighted rainfall taylor can make out a familiar apartment building, pressing his lips together as he maneuvers the small black car into a parking space along the curb. quickly, he's hopping out into the rain, tugging the red fabric of his hood up over his head and shoving his hands into old denim jacket pockets, and by the time he gets into the lobby of the building he's decently damp, bangs mussed in a rather charming way-- he rubs the bridge of his nose and fishes his phone out of his pocket, keys jingling on their carabiner when he clips haphazardly to one of his belt loops.

↳ incoming @spellbks​ gets a starter ! featuring: on the hunt

stretching his sore muscles, linkai continued to follow the other into the dark depths of the woods to the apparent cave of wonders located deeper within.    ❝ are you sure it isn’t cursed? ❞     he asked as they walked, pushing his bag back up onto his shoulder. it already had some antiques in it from his earlier travels in the day but he couldn’t resist the new find.    ❝ usually, i scout a location and obtain authorization to raid it. i’m guessing this didn’t happen this time. ❞     it didn’t bother him too much and, yes, he probably had far too much trust.

                                      @spellbks​  / liked 

  Esmond Chow isn’t uncostomed to long nights, coffee after coffee,  filling his mind with false energy, only to burn it thirty minutes later. Usually it’s spent on assignments, grading the different levels of professionalism and attention but tonight, his attention was stolen by something else.  A few herbs were written down on a piece of paper, a collective tea, a cure for an old friend.  He tires not to think about the fact that he feels guilty, for introducing one of his students to this sort of magic - sort of energy and now, he lay in a bed, sweating and    plagued   with nightmares.  The professor lowers his umbrella at the entrance of the shop, he ignores the few exiting costumers to make his way toward the counter, pulling out his crumbled piece of paper. “ Excuse me but, do you have any of these? Basil, Sage, Wolfsbane?” 

     old lady kim has taylor manning the front again, as per usual. another part timer has quit due to her eccentric personality, which can be downright demanding on the occasion, and so once more taylor is the golden-boy, venturing through rows of old books to help customers find the second-hand titles they’re seeking, and occasionally.. occasionally leading a different kind of customer down to the basement, revealing all the old magick and wares, potion-crafting supplies and charms and the like. the bookstore is old and hidden between two large buildings on some unimpressive street in a seedy part of seoul. typically, the people that find this place are guided here because they really need to. and when a young man enters, chiming the small bells tied to the front door, taylor picks his head of messy blonde hair up, blinking once-- and when the word wolfsbane falls from their lips and they’re smoothing a crinkled note out on his oak countertop, he blinks twice, and nods lightly. “sounds like you wanna brew up somethin’ special, huh?” the witch lets a lazy grin pull at the corner of his mouth, and he slides his hands into the pocket of his canvas apron, nudging his head over his shoulder. “follow me.”