Paying Back Potion Debt [Bell]

“I mean, you’re still, like, fourty-percent bad, but that’s better than a hundred, right?” Maybe it was just her background, but artificial human just wasn’t that big of a deal to her. Orion was Orion, and hey. If he didn’t have a childhood then it just meant she saw what she got.

She chewed thoughtfully as she wondered what she wanted to talk about first. “Well, I don’t remember if I ever told you, but I’m actually only half-witch. Hence the not-being-very-good-at-magic thing. I didn’t get picked on as much as I could have, but y’know, people treat you different, or they assume you can fly and put stuff way up high where you can’t reach it, that sort of thing. It’s just kinda unfun.”

“My dad was the dud, as they call them. There never was a real term for nonmagical folks, they’re just duds or boring people or not all that useful. And he was! I mean, he was interested in stuff, but it was obvious he just didn’t get potions and such the same way mom and I did. I stopped making fun of him for it when it was obvious he was taking it to heart, though.

“But me and my mom ended up in a fight at one point, right? Because she kept saying ‘no, you can’t do this, you can’t do that,” and I snuck into her shop at the oddest hours and blew stuff up and nearly killed myself as a matter of course to compensate for not being able to do traditional magic – and so to stop all the fighting he came clean that he came from outside the village. And that’s the first time I ever heard someone say ‘science’.” She grinned. “Took a while to get used to.”

“Awww, you’re sho adorable. Stop it, I’m gonna hafta pinch your cheeks.” Despite the mocking tone in her voice, she was smiling. It was a longish story, but he only commented on the simplest things, turning everything positive in just a moment – well, Orion was good at that sort of thing.

“I don’t, actually.” She said it easily as anything, not a shred of uncertainty or unhappiness in her voice. “It just isn’t done. I left the village, you know? I should have never been born anyways, being half, but I was allowed to stay for all of my childhood, as was my father – that’s a blessing in itself. The only way I’m seeing either of them again is if I walk back, and I probably won’t be doing that for another few years at least.”

She closed her eyes in thought. “The last time I had contact of any sort with my mom was when I went up into the mountains to make that potion for you. You could say I prayed to her and she answered.”

“I can’t drive anyways, Orion, I don’t have a license. Your flying thing is the first experience I’ve ever had with a car. I swear I could have done better if I knew what I was doing!”

Oh hoh, she’d caught his attention. She decided she would leave things out of her explanations more often. It was always fun watching Orion’s face when he realized he’d missed something important.

Bell put a finger up to tell him to wait while she enjoyed a slow chew of pasta and swallowed it down. “No, no, no and yes. Nobody ‘summoned’ the wind, it was a side effect of the movement of some part of her soul. There was no possession. She was just in the air, watching, probably judging. And it wasn’t all her. In fact, most everything was already in place. All she really had to do was look around, see that everything was well with me, and give me her well-wishes.”

“We had a little chat. I mean, there’s a ritual to it, and you have to say things in a certain way, but I’d thought out the speech beforehand so we’d manage to get a dialogue going. She referred to you as the ‘unknowing one.’“ Bell grinned. “Apparently I am to teach you my ways, for you are as of yet unformed.” She waved her fingers around in the air mockingly.

“Hey, shut up. I’m clearly a natural.” She swatted at him idly. “I didn’t even break anything, you should consider yourself a lucky man.” She was pretty damn good at breaking things, normally by testing their limits and going a liiiittle too far.

It was true. This sort of ritual was always a little too weird and esoteric for her liking, even if she had gotten used to it over the years. She’d asked her mum, once, why people couldn’t just talk normally over the sacred plane that connected physical to spiritual, and she’d gotten a terrible talking-to. Bell wasn’t sure exactly what her mom meant, but she probably had a good guess. “You aren’t dumb, you’re just ignorant as balls as to the ways of anything that could possibly be important. At least, anything important to a witch.” Bell laughed lightly. “I think you get that, though. You’re a science man, and my mom is extremely traditional. I don’t even know how my dad wormed his way into her life, really.”

Wait, what was Orion asking? “Like, is she dead?” She confirmed the question easily enough, but then realized she didn’t know how to answer. “Uh. Well. I guess I never thought about it. It’s been a while since I left home, and she was getting on in years, so. Who knows, really.” She frowned. “Maybe I should visit at some point. I dunno.”

Bell wasn’t looking to break any awkward tension. She didn’t feel awkward so much as she felt sombre and thoughtful, but it wasn’t a state she really minded that much.

Her mother always said people who always smiled were stupid or willfully ignorant. ‘Not that it’s not a valid path,’ she’d said, sighing. ‘It just isn’t one I want you to take.’ Bell wasn’t sure, but she probably smiled too much for her mother’s liking.

“Food synthesizer?” Whatever quiet contemplation Bell was lost in was chucked out the window at those words. “Sounds great!”

She got up before she realized Orion had grabbed his plate, and she reached back to get hers as well, placing it into the sink before walking right up to him and peering over his shoulder.

“If you’re having double chocolate, I’m having triple chocolate. …Is there a triple chocolate?”