Bambi and the Duke

She stood behind the dark bark of the tree which camouflaged her presence with the cloak that she wore, with the hood in place. Her green eyes stared at the village, the busy bustling crowd walking everywhere in and around. It was only a few weeks ago did she come to see the changes that had taken place to the village yet the nauseous feeling of the past still lingered in her mind and in front of her eyes.

Somethings changed outwardly while some stayed the same just as it was. To think that this place once used to be her home. She smiled at the irony her life had pushed her into.

Taking a deep breath, she took her feet forward into the village which was the main heart of Valeria, the West land of the four empires. The houses still resided the same way she had last seen them, they had turned rustier in appearance. As she entered the village with people passing by her from back and front in the streets, she had her hood placed over her head to cover her face. She doubted anyone would recognize her but it was always good to be under the precautionary measure. The last time her irresponsible action had costed lives and the thought turned her mood dark.

The sunny morning of Valeria was warm on her skin. She had spent her good years here and though what happened didn’t sit well with her, there was nothing she could do. It was as if her fate had already written itself and this was what to happen. It was as she had told Father Connor. She had sensed danger, a dark omen hovering over the Carmichael’s but she had done nothing to it. Sometimes you had to wait and see everything roll as hindering the course of life would only involve other people who were not meant to take part in it.

It had been years, thought Sister Isabelle but the memory was still fresh and the pain could still be felt which hurt her heart. Walking towards the main centre of the village it was as if memory came to flash through her mind on what happened.

”Mama,” she could hear her child’s voice.

Unlike this sunny day, that day it had been particularly cloudy but it never rained, not a drop of water had been shed until she was gone.

The friend she thought had turned out to be an enemy as she had tried to expose the secrets of the council. There were some who were causing trouble and when she had tried to bring them to light it had led to where she was now. She could still the fire on her skin and bones as the villagers burnt her in the name of being a black witch in front of her son.

Sister Isabelle wasn’t a mere white witch but she was a smart woman who had been cautious from the beginning. Her only fault was that she had trusted someone she didn’t know entirely.

”Mama! No, stop!” she heard her son cry out for her as the villagers burnt her, setting her body on fire.

The body she had now wasn’t hers but was borrowed. Having learnt best in her young years, she had separated her soul from her body before her entire body had turned to ashes. Making use of another body she had diffused her soul to it which she doubted would last long. A soul without the original body was of no use and no matter how much magic she would use, it would soon come to deteriorate. Looking down at her hand, she saw the skin that had come to peel off as if she had an irrecoverable disease which wasn’t a lie.

Before her body would give up and entirely perish, she had to get those documents which had been misplaced a few years ago. Those were important parchments of papers she had acquired which had to be given to the head council.

Walking across the bustling streets she came to walk in the much more quieter part of the village which was deserted. There had been mass murders taking place by the black witches but she was certain it wasn’t everyone’s doing but one certain witch whom she had once locked horns with in the past. Upsetting side of the story was that Sister Isabelle couldn’t recollect the black witch’s name nor the councilman whom she had called as her friend. Both the name and appearance on how they looked were lost with her death.

With her soul being transferred to another body, some of her memories were a blur and some as if missed which made it difficult for her to move around. Due to this, she preferred to stay in the church all this time but she couldn’t stay there anymore without resolving what she had taken up before.

As if God had graced her, she caught sight of the tall man who walked with a red-haired man next to him into the village. She watched them closely, looking at the taller man with pitch black hair and piercing red eyes she saw him say something to the man next to him. A smile came to form on her lips, who knew she would be getting to see him this close.

Her boy had received his father’s features. Strong jawline, straight nose, prominent cheekbones with a dark aura. She couldn’t stop comparing her son to her husband who had died a few days after she had passed away before her soul went to harvest itself taking form and then using the dead entities to look alive again.

Isabelle missed him. Having lost her life in front of her, she could see in what way it had affected her son. He was wary of humans, and the hate he felt for what they did to her must have still been running thick in his veins which she hoped could pass. People around one changed in time and only time could heal that part. Her Alexander had turned to hard man, his features daunting to an outsider but she knew her boy well. After all, she had birthed him. From far away, she noticed the chain of hers which now hung around his neck.

It was a cross of fate and luck that contained red stone in the middle which was called charm stone. A chain that had been passed from three generations within her family. Charmstones were rare stones that couldn’t be found anywhere, they were made by the witches in the past which now had been stopped. The stones had been made in bulk before which were stolen by the humans or the vampires who forcibly took them away from the witches. Each charm was different from another and only a witch or an expertise shopkeeper could tell the value of it.

The cross that held the red charmstone was rare as the rest and unlike any other, as it was not only used for fate and luck but also a sign of promised relationship. The charmstone usually went in the possession of females and sensing that he hadn’t taken it off would mean that he was yet to find the woman who would accompany him for the rest of his life. She was glad to see that even after years, her son had taken such good care of it and in her memory wore it around her neck. She was aware that he had buried her ashes in the Delcrov’s mansion, she wished she could tell him about her existence but it was too soon reveal. And no matter how much she missed him, his life was not out of danger.

Isabelle knew that like Lord Rune, even her son was under observation by the council. Though Nicholas was under the radar for different reasons, her son was on the list as he was the offspring of a pureblooded vampire and a white witch.

It was evident that her son was more than a pureblooded vampire, though in appearance he appeared to be one of the night creatures, in reality only she or he would no his true nature. A dark witch, whose blood had been mixed with both pureblooded vampire and a white witch’s blood. Dark witches were rare, a higher superiority on their own. And if one placed the dark witch in the current food chain that they had drawn upon, the dark witch could be set to be placed in the peek.

All these years she had avoided coming here but she had to come here to check if the massacre was going to take here too. Most of the information which the council received was confidential but the white witch had somehow managed to get them to protect what was dear to her from a far distance.

Now that she had come so close, she wanted to talk to her son, to hear his voice and maybe run her hand on his head out of motherly affection. Changing her appearance to one of a measly beggar, she walked in the direction where the two men were walking towards her.

”I don’t know about you, but Oliver has run through her background to make sure she is reliable and she holds decent merit to stay in the mansion,” she heard Alexander speak to the red-headed man.

”Oliver knows nothing when it comes to woman. I just find it hard to think....” their voice drowned as they passed by. Happy to have seen and heard her son speak and their eyes merely catching each other gaze, she decided to take a look around the village for any possible markings.

Alexander who was had come to take ’fresh air’ according to Elliot which was actually to pick up women to drink on. He had been talking to Elliot when they passed a woman with shabby clothes with a cloak and a hood covering her face. One side of her face was entirely covered by the hood that she wore while the other half didn’t hinder her eyesight. After a few steps, he stopped to turn and look at the woman who walked farther away from them before disappearing within one of the many alleys.

”What happened? Someone, you know?” Elliot tilted his head in question.

”Hmm. It felt as if I have known her,” said Alexander staring for a few seconds before turning around.

Isabelle walked around the village, walking around the perimeter and inside all the pathways to see no markings being made. It seemed that the witches hadn’t come here to cause the mass murder which was a relief. Most of the times one could sense the presence of black witches, the trace they would leave behind them by which the white witches always strayed away from their path to avoid unnecessarily getting trapped in the council’s ploy in catching the black witches.

After the transfer of her soul, Isabelle had tried to recollect memories of her which had taken more than four to five years. By that time, the time had passed and the man she loved had perished before she could figure out she had a family back here.

Exposing her identity of being Lady Delcorv wasn’t a feasible option in her eyes as it would put her son, Alexander in focus. Look at what had happened to her? For the mere word of witch associating with her, the people who once looked up at her whom she cared and took care of had burnt her alive as speculations had arisen of her not being a white witch but a black witch.

The public was easy to sway. They would move with the wind blindly following its path without any question. All one had to do was present them with lies and that was all.

She wasn’t angry but she couldn’t deny that it had upset her once she gained a part of her memories while the rest still were missing. Isabelle had grown to know the hate they had to bare because of their other sisters on the other side of the coin.

The wind blew across the land and Isabelle had to pull her hood in the front to make sure it didn’t blow off away to reveal her face. Hungry she went to a fruit vendor who was selling a variety of fruits in the market place. At the same time, two children came to the vendor, begging for two fruits out of hunger who had no money to spare.

The fruit vendor was well equipped with the orphaned children who often came to his store with no penny to offer him.

”Move out of here! You won’t be getting anything from me,” the man spoke gruffly without sparing a look at them as he picked the apples which Isabelle had asked for so that she could carry them on her way back to Bonelake which would suffice in the long journey, ”What do they take me for? I will run into a loss,” the vendor muttered under his breath when the children moved to walk to the next food stalls.

Once she had brought the apples, Isabelle walked to where the children were, touching their shoulder to gain their attention and when they did, she had handed them two apples each and disappeared in the local carriage.