#konette

Going Insane by Vivian Girls

Bulletproof Heart by My Chemical Romance

I Believe in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness (cw: flashing lights)

I'll Catch You by The Get Up Kids

I Melt with You (7" Mix) by Modern English

Oh! by Sleater-Kinney

Good Good Things by Descendents

Should I Stay of Should I Go by The Clash (cw: flashing lights)

Sunshine Of You Love by Cream

Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds (from The Breakfast Club)

Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters

I Want You Around by Ramones

Every Day's the Weekend by Alex Lahey (cw: flashing lights)

What I Like About You by The Romantics

See Her Tonite by The Damned

She stepped closer to him rather than backing away. He smirked.

“It seems to me that many of the things we end up doing in life are things that were chosen by others,” she said. She turned back to her cauldron and stirred before adding, “I am sure that is something you were already made aware of.”

Clearly though, he did not appreciate that response. He grasped her arm and pulled her away. Her grip remained on the stirring rod, but as he dragged her it slopped the potion within over the sides. The flames crackled as the mixture hit them and the stick dropped from her hand and fell nearby.

“No one dares make choices for me anymore,” he growled.

She screamed and struggled to pull away but his biting grip was latched around her arm. With nothing to reach out for to inhibit him, she attempted to pry his fingers off as they moved further away from the distant village. Her feet scraped a dusty path before she got them under her, trotting to keep up to ease the pain in her arm. There was no one around to hear her cries for help, even if they would risk themselves to help her.

She lived a distance away from the village to insulate her parents from her craft. They never said a thing but she could see how the other villagers had started to look at her and then them by association. It was a hardship they didn’t deserve.

She likely did not deserve the hardship but she had been young when she was marked. She told no one about what had happened. The man had cautioned her against anyone ever knowing. He told her that she was special and others would cause her harm if they found out about her abilities. She had believed him. He had branded her with a ladybug imbued with magic. She could see connections now but it had led to her solitary life.

It had only worked because she had been so young. He stayed around for awhile and he always seemed to appear when she felt like sharing what had happened. She kept quiet, fearful of what he would do. Now, she had been marked long enough to recognize that he had limits. He was definitely a mage and could have made things hard for her but if she had told her parents and they had gone to the elders, she would have been protected. By the time she was old enough to realize this, the man was nowhere to be found and those touched by magic were feared.

—

It had been hours.

He dragged her away from her little hut out of the way of everyone and left her bound on the ground of a cave. She doubted anyone would miss her for some time. She had visited her parents yesterday and brought along herbs for others in the village. Mostly she dealt in cooking herbs to trade for the few things she could not get on her own. Her parents loved to use them in their breads but other villagers would use them too. Publicly, that is all any of them would accept from one such as her.

It was only in private that a few sought her out for other potions. They wanted an advantage to their life or to cause harm to those who had more than them. Sometimes they just wanted the love of a particular person. It was all the type of magic that Marinette didn’t like. Personal, self serving magic. The kind the same people hated all magic users for, unless they decided that they were the exception. Their own wants were somehow acceptable when they wanted her skills.

She heard him enter, but he was behind her. She struggled to shift herself that way and nearly wished she hadn’t.

“Is that for me?”

She used the defiance in her voice to cover the terror. There were many rumors about how to get magic from a witch. Most of them were merely unpleasant if you happened to be a witch. People tended to be a nuisance, trying to get a little bit of emotional connection in order to get the good luck that was said to come from a witch. She wondered if they would believe any of that if they saw her now. The darker methods of magic acquisition involved blades or flames. He now had both and she was at his mercy.

There was a fire burning on the far side of the cave. It had been burnt down to next to nothing while he was gone, leaving her chilled to the bone. But apparently he had tended to it before he approached her. The flickering lights of the flames glinted off the long blade of the dagger he held as he approached her.

“Do you think I would be bringing you an offering or do you perhaps think you could be the offering?”

His teeth glinted in the flames as he smiled menacingly. She scootched herself up to a sitting position, nearly tipping herself but used her feet to manage it. She reached out with her bound hands.

“Let me have a closer look and I will determine the best use.”

He laughed slightly at her cheeky reply as he slowly walked up to her. His steps were thudding louder than they possibly could be. Perhaps it was her own heart thudding as she tried to keep her breath even. He was taller than her when she stood but with her on the ground, he towered over her hunched frame. He bent down and displayed the blade, just too far away for her to lunge for it. She thought he was going to tease her by handing it to her, instead he tucked the sharp end right under her jaw and pushed up until her neck was painfully extended but she still could feel exactly how sharp it was. He waited for her to flinch or plead but she did not. So instead he dropped the blade down and cut the ropes on her wrists.

“Come along Little Witch.”

He moved quickly and did not look back for her but she had a feeling he would know if she didn’t keep up and he would make her. Her arm was still sore from where he had dragged her before. Also, he still carried the knife and it definitely looked like it would do well if it were thrown at someone fleeing.

He stopped in a clearing high on the hill. They could see around for miles but he watched her.

“You know what I am, Little Witch?”

She studied him for a moment, he had said it like a question, but it was more of a threat. She had been fairly certain when she met him but had only ever heard descriptions of any were; she had never met one. He stepped closer again, towering over her with the rising full moon at his back. It was very clear. The changes were already happening. He might even be growing taller right before her eyes. His shadow definitely seemed to be covering her more.

“You know what your kind made me to be?” he grated in a whisper next to her ear.

She nodded again. He grasped under her chin and tilted her face toward him. His eyes were darkening; she was definitely witnessing the beginnings of the change. Looking into his darkening eyes might be the last thing she did.

“The moon has almost risen,” he said. Then added, “Fix me.” with a shove to her shoulder, knocking her down.

“I–” she started but stopped. “I can’t.”

“Your loyalty to your kind is commendable,” his tone didn’t quite convey his words. The steps he took towards her conveyed the opposite. “Stand your ground and I may just take a bite out of you.”

He turned away. She pushed herself up to a near sitting position, looking around desperately. But even if she ran, she would not likely be able to escape. Her scent would be the first thing he found after the shift. She couldn’t outrun his instincts.

“It isn’t loyalty. I don’t know how. I have never tried anything like that. I have never even seen the spell.”

He tossed a book at her and she managed to catch it just before it hit her face.

“If you are feeling like I somehow deserved the fate, I will assure you that I was a boy taken from my family and I did nothing.” he paused. “You may not believe that so I will point out that if you fail, it will not only be your life you risk. Your parents’ house and the entire village you grew up in would be in the path of the beast.”

“I do believe you,” she whispered.

She had a knack for reading people. She could usually tell when people were being dishonest. She couldn’t always tell why and that was often more important than the lie. But in his case, it didn’t matter. She quickly flipped through the book to see what she would need to do to help. She tried to ignore the dark stain on the page. It looked like blood and she feared how it might have gotten there and who else might have had the very book needed to help him. She might have found out why witches were disappearing by becoming one of them.

“It doesn’t look like it will take too long but collecting the ingredients will take time. I need my cauldron to brew and plenty of ingredients,” she said, mildly panicking.

He motioned to her with the knife he still held in his hand. The leaves hung down low at the edge of the clearing and there on the other side was a fire already going and her cauldron had been brought. Apparently he had been busy while she was tied up.

“The time is short. I expected to be working together yesterday, but I couldn’t find you.”

“I spent the day with my parents and returned this morning. I like to visit before the full moon because I am typically busier just after.”

She explained while she was distracted reading back over the process. She realized that the knife he held was a part of what was needed. She swiftly walked over to the cauldron and began taking inventory of what he had collected compared to the ingredients in the book. It was not a lot of ingredients or a long process but it could be a tricky thing to manage.

“I assume this is holy water,” she said, pointing at a sealed vessel nearby.

“It is,” he responded from right behind her.

“Seriously, what the hell,” she nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise. She hadn’t noticed him crossing the clearing to her.

He merely chuckled deeply as he moved away, still holding the dagger as if that would motivate her. The moon, nearly fully risen, was all the motivation she needed.

She lost track of him again as she focused on her work. She was chanting softly while adding the ingredients in precise amounts. She switched the direction of her stirring for just under two rotations and then stopped.

She removed the stirring rod and then doused the fire, not risking moving the completed potion.

He was on her in an instant when he saw she had finished. His eagerness betrayed his true desire. He didn’t want to turn and risk her. He wished to be free of the curse.

He grabbed her chin roughly, “You drink it first.”

His growl set her on edge, but she continued.

“It is not to be drunk, unless you wish to die to lift the curse,” she stated. “It is to be applied to your chest and then you sleep until the sun rises.”

He looked at her skeptically, but she turned away from him. She didn’t have any other cloth, so she tore the bottom of her robe and soaked it in the potion. He had apparently decided to believe her and had removed his tunic. In the course of her work, she had seen a few men bare chested, but perhaps not quite so much of one all at once.

She held her breath as her heart started beating more quickly again. Perhaps it was because this was the final moment to know if this would work. It was best done right as the moon was cresting so she wasted no time. The amount coming out of her robe didn’t seem to transfer to him so she instead scoop some onto her hands. It was thick and shiny in the moonlight as she rubbed it over his chest. She could smell the various plants mingling together along with his own earthy smell.

She guided the dagger he still held to the inside of her forearm and winced as it pierced her skin. She chanted as the blood dripped into a vial. She tied it to a cord and reached up to put it over his head.

“Last thing,” she said gesturing to the dagger, “I need to also get your blood in order to mingle our essence.”

Instead, he grabbed her by the back of her head and covered her mouth with his. His tongue swiped past her lip and she gasped. He only held her there a moment, but her head was spinning as he released her. She didn’t notice what he was doing with her hands until he spoke again.

“I no longer allow witches to use a blade on me. I suppose that should suffice to mingle our essence,” he paused and looked down at her, raising his eyebrow, “Unless I should try again?”

She looked away, noticing that in her distraction he had re-bound her wrists, “That should be sufficient,” she muttered.

She would be the first to pay if it would not be. The moon was bright overhead now. He looked pained and dropped to his knees. She leaned in front of him and looked in his eyes. They had turned fully black with barely any white reflecting the moon. She turned to see what she could have missed in the spell book, but he fell forward just then. Her attempts to catch him resulted in her falling first with him collapsing on top of her.

She was on her stomach, pressing down on her bound hands. Nothing she said or did roused him. She called out, but no one else heard her. No one would dare risk being out on the night of the full moon. Especially not this far from the village. She was fairly sure he was still breathing, but she could not move to check. Only if he woke, would she have any hope.

—

It was his shifting and groan that woke her. She made a noise from under him. He pushed up to see the sun rising. Bits of leaves and twigs were sticking to his still bare chest where it had pressed into the ground. He pulled her to him and turned her to face him.

“You did it,” he breathed with a smile.

He no longer felt threatening or angry. He vaulted up and jumped around laughing. She gave him a small smile, then pushed away from the ground, falling over, when he ran back to her with the dagger. He grabbed her wrists and cut the binding on them; then, pulled her to her feet. He yanked her into his arms and spun in a circle. Depositing her back on her feet, he held her by the shoulders.