Herbs Herbs Herbs

[±Witchcraft±]

Tempest sighed as he trenched across the deep grassing around the Light Forest. The Moon was shining bright and full above him. That is why he was here, he needed to replenish his herb supply and the full moon was always the best time. After he was done he would pull down the moon if he had the time.

He wasn’t sure if he would have enough time. At first he would only need to pick a little bit of everything to replace what he used or what got too old, but not he had to get a pile of catnip to remake the essential oil. His roommate broke the vial he had and got high off of it. He would have to make sure he cast a protection spell on his drawls where he keeps his stuff from now on.

He stopped for a moment and stared up at the moon, feeling its energy flowing into him before he bent down to cut some herbs with his atheme and putting them into a special pouch on his hip.

[Cyndon]

Cyndon looked intently at this new person in the forests. He hadn't seen this person before, and this person was less than likely to see him, as he was bending the light around him with water. He was a water elementalist after all, so this was his own form of training, thinking of new ideas and putting them into practice. He had Camellia in hand as he began to concentrate, talking with her.

"Be ready, just in case we have to do something to defend him."

"Why are we doing this again anyway?" Camellia mentally sighed as she complained.

"Because we were lucky to get the good graces to come here, i'm not about to let people think i'm taking it for granted!" Cyndon explained rather nobly as he took a few steps out of some brush without thinking. There was an abrupt rustling noise as he brushed past some bushes, and he audibly gasped as he heard it. So much for any element of surprise in defending him...

[±Witchcraft±]

Tempest rose quickly the hair on the back of his neck rose and his scars burned slightly. He looked over his shoulder toward the noise he heard. He slowly turned and squinted into the twilight as he tried to see who came through the bushes. Was it just a small animal, a large creature, or even a person.

He looked toward the moon and it gave him confidence. He gave a deep breath and said in a clear voice like he did when he was casting a spell in a circle.

“By the light of the goddess that shines down upon us, and her union with the god, I command you, whoever is there, to show yourself unto me.”

Tempest’s knees went weak for a moment and he took a stumbling step forward. It felt just like when he cleansed the area of his room. He didn’t expect it to work unless it was another wiccan who was there. What he said was a request to show yourselves and if you didn’t you are hiding from the god and goddess as well which was not good.

[Cyndon]

Cyndon gave the guy a strange look while still cloaked figuring that nothing would happen. He was sadly mistaken as soon there was a twinge in his mind, as if something was forcing its way in to break his concentration. He grabbed at his head as a slight pitch began in his head and the small layer of water that surrounded him cloaking his appearance seemed to evaporate around him. He was purely shocked as he had never really seen a magician do this in his life!

"What the heck was that?!" Cyndon was still clutching his head as the pitch was persisting, though it wasn't physically harmful it was keeping him from concentrating drastically. Camellia was beginning to work on her own, forming small tendrils of plants along the ground. They were slowly winding their way towards Tempest, but Cyndon soon interjected:

"Camellia Stop." The plants stood stock still.

[±Witchcraft±]

“Um...” Tempest said looking at the other boy with wide eyes “I don’t know, I didn’t expect it to force you to do anything. Oh boy...this is bad, you should never do magic on somebody against their will. Oh my, oh my, I hope that karma is merciful on me for my ignorance.” he ranted mostly to himself. “If you want I can try and fix that.”

“Um...Um....By the light of the moon....relieve this person of their pain....I did not know what it would do....and I did not mean to maim.”

The spell was crude and rough, and only slightly rhymed but it was the best he could do under so much mental stress and fear.

[Cyndon]

Cyndon slowly felt the pitch go away as he let go of his head. He finally walked up to the boy, straightening his clothes and such as he made himself more presentable. He held out his hand and warmly smiled and introduced himself.

"My name is Cyndon Kouvindao. I'm a freshman here at the academy, and the headmaster asked that i should escort you around out here. Though with the way you handled yourself there i wonder if its necessary..." At this he chuckled a little. Then he looked around at the landscape around him.

"I've always loved the night time... such a peaceful time as this!" He inhaled deeply and sighed.

((lol strange moment of inspiration at the end there, don't ask me, i just work here))

[±Witchcraft±]

“Tonight is wonderful, the moon is full with all the goddess’ power. Though even that wouldn’t have made either of those spells happen right away. I am really new here and am starting to get a bit freaked out. All the spells that should take weeks or longer to take effect are happening instantly.”

He plucked random blades of grass from the ground and pulled them apart with his fingers to keep his mind from running away from him again.

“In Chicago, I would cast the circle and then channel my power into a spell. And, if I couldn’t do it any other way, and was lucky, the spell would work giving me the effect I wanted. I don’t know here...and truthfully, I am kind of scared. Who knows what might happen if I say something without thinking, any little rhyme could be considered a spell.”

[Cyndon]

"Continue to worry like that and you are headed for a breakdown which will undoubtedly bring about the very thing you fear!" Cyndon belted out almost monotonously, as if he had said this countless times in the past. And in all truth he had, all of his friends constantly told them their fears and this is exactly what he would say. He had read about it one time in the past; termed as Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. He chuckled a little as he continued on:

"Besides, that's something you've come to this school for to begin with! To gain more control over your powers is one of the first mission statements of the school grounds. Another is to find others with unique abilities like yours, of course. I can only guess that the reason your spells take immediate effect around here is the mass of magical energy that has been accumulated here through the years... Though of course i could be dead wrong." He rattled his speech off with incredible speed, it would have been a little more than difficult to hear it all at once. He was nervous about what was going to happen next, and with good cause so he quickly added "Shall we get to work searching for the herbs?"

[±Witchcraft±]

Tempest chuckled and regained his composure some.

“I guess that’s why they call me Tempest, always shifting always changing.” he said still laughing as he spoke.

“And I guess you might be right about my powers, but I came here because my overly religious parents booted me out when they found out I was a witch. And this place seemed better then the streets of Chicago.”

“Yes, over coarse the herbs...” he said getting back on task. “Um...I only got one atheme. And do you know anything about herbs? I left my herb book at home, didn’t need it anymore and wanted to pack light.”

[Cyndon]

After all this he had to know what herbs he was looking for... This could be bad.

"I've never really taken a look at herbalism, erm... whatever its called..." Cyndon shyly chuckled as he looked around at the plants on the ground around him. He began to slightly wonder what Camellia was capable of when it came to herbal knowledge, but soon the thought was left in his mind. "I suppose for now i'll just have to look after you and help if things get a little more than unsafe if you catch what i mean."

[±Witchcraft±]

“Well, catnip isn’t that hard to find. It is a small plant with leaves that look somewhat like poison ivy, but has a bunch of light purple flows on the top. They might be closed now though I am not sure how they react on the full moon. I will need a good bit of them since I am reducing them down into essential oil.”

Tempest bent down again to cut a few shoots of the green and purple plant from the ground. After he was finished he was going to sprinkle compost over the area that he picked to give back to the earth. He was busy with his own thoughts so he didn’t hear a small rustling coming from deep in the forest.

[Cyndon]

Cyndon listened attentively to the information given to him. He wondered silently in his mind if it would matter between picking or cutting the herb, but figured that there couldn't be too much of a difference. He began to search around and for a while he plucked a couple of things here and there, hoping that he was getting the right plant. It had indeed had purple flowers on it, and it did look like poison ivy, he just hoped that it wasn't actually poison ivy! Soon he was more confident in what he was picking up, but he was interrupted by the rustling noise in the trees. He stopped picking herbs and perked his ear a little more, hoping that nothing was going to come out and attack them.

"Don't mean to alarm you... But we might have a guest in our midst pretty soon." Was all he said to Tempest as he stood stock still, waiting for the next clue as to the creature's position.

[±Witchcraft±]

Tempest slowly stood, not sure to do. He never had to defend himself really. He couldn’t harm another creature. He got in trouble when he did it by accident he didn’t want to think what would happen if he did it on purpose.

“What do you want me to do?” he said, taking a few steps back and getting really tense from fright.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do at all. He didn’t even want to take part in the hurting of an innocent creature that was probably just lost.

There was another crunch in the twigs and underbrush that seemed to come from behind them...

[Cyndon]

Cyndon was just as nervous as Tempest was, but only because he wasn't sure he could defend them both. He realized that it could just be an animal out there, but it seemed to be trolling around a little too much for Cyndon's comfort. He could see Tempest getting tense, and figured that it was only because he wasn't used to fighting.

"The only thing you can do at the moment is keep on alert... I'll have to see what i can do." He turned to the sound behind them and simply called out:

"Show yourself!" He figured that if he did this, whatever it was would either be scared and run away or threatened and attack. The innocent never attacked he figured, so if the thing attacked he had no problem roughing them up... If it was even a "them" and not an "it". He still felt silly as he called out to the darkness; he figured that it was just an animal after all... He just hoped that he wasn't mistaken.

[±Witchcraft±]

After Cyndon’s yell a large amount of rustling rushed toward the group. When they hit an area where the grass was low they could see it was a large group of...hamsters. They were no ordinary hamsters though. They had pure black fur and piercing red eyes. They gnashed their teeth angrily at the two boys in their grass.