Chapter 20

Bridges Built to be Burned

Witch

All of my newly hung pictures rattled on the walls with the force of Luke pulling the door shut behind him. "I'll see you tomorrow then." I spat, my brow furrowed and the hand on my hip clenching tight. "Brat! As if I didn't just terminate our contract and throw him out of my home!" I fumed, starting to pace around the room while I tracked his aura as he made his way out of my forest.

"You were friends?" I mocked, halting in my pacing to look over the pictures of Cara that had caught Luke's attention. "Tch, as if I've never had any friends…" I sniffed, dragging my fingers through my hair before tossing it back over my shoulder. "As if it's so impossible to think that I've been living in this forest for so long and I stumbled into someone else before I stumbled into you. As if it's so weird to consider that people I don't force to visit could still want to visit."

I couldn't stand to look at the pictures anymore, couldn't stand to look at her smile and see his. I couldn't stand to see light blue and think of dark. I collapsed onto my couch and stared into space for approximately 3 seconds before I realized how utterly fucked I was. Things had not gone according to plan. The whole point of this set up was to drive out Luke and all of his related annoyances, but now when I told him to leave he just promised to come back. I'd dug my own grave instead of his.

"So this is it then. I'm stuck with this idiot for the rest of his mortal life." The sentence was meant to be melodramatic, capped off with a long sigh, but I nearly fell out of my seat in shock when I felt butterflies in my stomach instead. Butterflies? Honestly, I'm the Witch Princess, not a blushing schoolgirl with her first crush! I groaned, long and loud, and told myself that this couldn't possibly be happening. That I most certainly was not feeling some sort of fulfillment from this idiot wanting to be around me. The whole idea was just ridiculous; I just wanted him to leave me alone! But the more I thought about it the more I realized that I didn't really mind the idea of him hanging around anymore; over the last few months I'd somehow become used to his presence. I'd somehow come to the point of desiring Luke's companionship.

It was only natural I supposed, after seeing each other every day for so long. After hurting him and healing him, talking and listening, discretely hiding my laughter at his silly antics and jokes. Who was I kidding! This wasn't natural for me, no, not at all! I should have been more irritated at the idea of forever with this doofus. I should have been running him down with harsh words and assignments not taking it easy on him and talking to him because he seemed upset for the last few weeks. I never should have healed his sickness, either! "Oh Goddess, I'm a mess!" I exclaimed, standing up from the couch and moved for the door. "I really fucked this one up. Something's wrong. Something has to be wrong, there's just no way." I stepped out into the frosty evening without a second thought, barely noticing the thin blanket of snow that was starting to build up on the branches and pathways. My heels crunched in the icy dirt as I picked up a brisk pace towards town.

There really was no other explanation, I assured myself as I stepped out of the protective canopy of my grove and into the fields. Of all the possible outcomes of my dealings with Luke, this simply wasn't one of them. No, there had to be some other factor in the equation.

I burst into through the door without knocking, not even taking a moment to look around the candlelit room before I started to shout. "You cursed me, didn't you!" I shrieked, pointing my finger wildly into the face of a sleepy-looking Gale. Like flicking on a switch he was out of his desk chair and alert looking, hands fisted defensively at his sides. "Didn't you!"

"I don't… I don't know what you're talking about, Vivi." His tone was low and even as he backed away from me slowly, pushing his chair back slightly under his desk. He was trying to placate me, obviously, but I wasn't going to have it.

"Hexed me then! Set an enchantment on me or poisoned me with a potion full ill intent!" I wasn't in the mood to argue semantics or play games, I wanted a straight answer. I advanced on him, my feet lifting off the ground with an uninhibited overflow of magic. My aura was all over the place and I wasn't bothering to mask it from him at all. If I didn't get some answers soon, there was nothing stopping me from starting a fight right then and there.

"Vivi!" He snapped, his brows lowering over his mismatched eyes. "Whatever you think I've done… I didn't do it." He raised his hands from his sides in a supplicating gesture, taking another half step back from me. "I haven't used magic on you with any sort of malicious intent in over a century, don't be a fool."

"Ugh!" I shrieked and rose to nearly a foot off of the ground. "The goddess then! I don't know! Damn it all the hell, there's something wrong with me and I'd bet my fucking staff that there's magic involved!" My stomach rolled and I grit my teeth against the growing feeling that I needed to vomit, needed to eject the roiling acid in my empty stomach.

Gale's expression twisted into a deep frown and he reached up to me, hands coated in a blue aura, and pushed down gently on my shoulders. Slowly, carefully he guided me back down to the ground, surrounding me in a calming wave as he muttered a lengthy spell. "Relax." He murmured. I felt the tension slide out of my back and arms, the grimace fall from my face. What was I doing? What was I doing with myself running off into town and into Gale's house to start a fight? Something was wrong, something had thrown me seriously off kilter. I couldn't seem to ground myself. My stomach continued to roll and my hands felt cold and shaky at my sides.

"Fix it…" I whispered, feeling like a child.

"Fix what, Princess?" His voice was soft and slow, his hands rubbed gently against the tight muscles of my shoulders.

"Whatever is giving me this pressure in my chest... Whatever is giving me this unsettled stomach... Just find the stupid spell and counter it." I whispered, my head falling forward against his chest. As much as I didn't like the man sometimes, Gale and I had history. He was a constant in a life where nothing else seemed to last very long. Who else was I supposed to turn to?

I focused on the steady rumble against my forehead as he recited the words to divination spells his magic washing over and through as he checked for enchantments and abnormalities. Minutes passed. Gale's arms closed around me, pressing me tight into the warmth of his chest and the folds of his heavy cloak. "There is nothing."

I felt something break, something give, as those words reached my ears.

"Nothing." I echoed in strained disbelief, tears building in my eyes. "No, no it has to be a curse!"

"This is from within you, Vivi… Matters of the heart… Well they aren't fixed so easily with a simple reversal spell…"

"Matters of the heart! Of the heart!" I protested, fisting the front of his robe as I tried to not to have a complete meltdown. "How can this possibly be a matter of the heart? That blue-haired idiot, Cara's son, is an annoyance and I shouldn't feel this way! I shouldn't want him around, Gale." I shuddered, goosebumps rising on my skin.

"The heart… and the mind… You know the difference, Princess."

"Stupid distinction…"

"A very, very important distinction." Gale insisted, squeezing me tight against him before guiding me over to sit on the edge of his bed.

"I can't do this. I can't make another bond just to have it broken." I sniffed, pulling away from him and scrubbing furiously at my tears before they could fall.

"You've loved before." How could he be so calm about this? He didn't understand. He'd never really loved a mortal. Lusted after them, certainly, but never in my long memory could I recall the stoic sorcerer falling in love. He didn't know what I felt like to see someone you loved wither away in front of you, to see them lost to time.

"Yes but I've learned my lesson about all that, which is why I live tucked away in the woods. I let Cara stumble in and now I've made the same mistake! I can't do this!" Gale tucked me against his side and rubbed my arm reassuringly.

"Then… don't…." There was a pause in his council, as if he weren't sure of his answer. He was right though, I still had a choice in all this. Things hadn't gone too far just yet. I could live without Luke; I could set the woods back to turning him away from me. But… but wouldn't that hurt him? "You'll always have the choice. He will grow old and you will not. He will… forget."

"Forget." I whispered softly to myself. Would he really? I didn't want him to forget. "I hate that. That's the worst part, stuck here while everyone else moves on. While everyone else dies."

"I know."

"How do you do it? Live so close to them like this without losing yourself."

"Hm." The sound rumbled low in his throat. "You know I'm not exactly… friendly… And they think me a Fortune Teller," he hissed the words with distaste, "so they're only around to ask favors anyway."

"Fortune Teller." I couldn't but laugh. "Seems Master's crystal ball has come back to bite you in the ass then?"

Gale shot me a flat look and stood from the bed. "I have to do something during the daylight hours, Princess, and it earns me a decent living wage. Forgive me for not wishing to live the hermit's life."

"Hermits life," I scoffed, "is a severe underestimation of the luxuries I maintain for myself. You and I both know that I can bend nature to my whim and the magical shipping of goods has come a long way."

"Yes, yes I am aware." Gale took his place next to the crystal ball and set his hands gently on the shiny surface. It lit in a pale blue haze, the Wizard's absent flow of magic igniting its power. "What are you going to do then?" He asked, feigning nonchalance as he turned his eyes into the depths of his implement.

I stood from the bed and moved to stand across from him. "I don't know that my plan necessarily concerns you, Fortune Teller." He winced the name.

"You do have a plan then."

I tossed my hair over my shoulder. "I'll figure it out as I go."

"Vivi-"

"Don't, Gale. If I require your assistance, I will seek it." I said tersely, and turned for the door.

"Trust your heart… Better to have loved and lost…" His words reached my as a whisper just as my hand raised to the doorknob. Like an ancient recitation, an echo of Master or a mutual friend. I couldn't recall who had said them, but the words held a certain weight that I didn't attribute to the proverbs on their own. I paused, my hand wrapped around the cool metal of the doorknob, stuck in a no man's land of hesitation.

"I have loved… and I have lost…" I whispered back across a hundred years of space. So many faces danced behind my eyelids as I squeezed them tightly closed. Lovers. Friends. Families. Faded with time. Poisoned with sicknesses. Stolen by tragedies. "Sometimes Gale, I feel like I've loved and lost enough." I pulled the door open and closed it silently behind me, shutting out whatever response he might have had as I made my way swiftly back to my woods, wondering along the way just how to handle the mess I'd run myself headfirst into.

Author's Note:I'd hoped I might finish this chapter to post yesterday, but I wasn't quite sure how to find an end to it. I feel that this works well enough. Not too much longer left in this story now, but I haven't set the ending in stone. Fun fact! Making Mischief is officially longer than Stardust!

Thanks for your continued support and interest! Here's to hoping for some reviews.