She was frightened for a moment on what danger has crept up on them before she realised Salem's sudden panicked voice was a result of her almost turning herself to fried meat.
"Hannah" he called to her again, this time his panic subsiding as he put her down on the ground. She fluttered her eyes in realisation and held her hand close to her face so she could blow mild air to the burn which patched itself steadily with every blow of air.
She drew a gulp of fresh air and tried to sort through her muddled thoughts. What did she just see?
"Maybe its time you go to rest little damsel" Salem tried to help her up but she remained glued in place.
"The fairy tales . . . grandpa said something about women dancing around the fire . . . could he have been obscuring a vital detail from us because we were still very young?" she questioned no one in particular and to Salem it sounded like she was having an introspective moment.
"And you saw something that contrast the simplicity of the story . . ." he prompted her to go on.
"They were dancing in the fire . . . like actually dance standing on burning coals . . . remnants of burning woods. They were happy as if . . . as if they couldn't be hurt by the fire. It was as if they were dancing on nothing but cool soil" she reiterated to him while he listened thoughtfully.
So the ancient ritual was no lore.
He offered her his hand and she took it and he helped her stand up. He deliberated on how much of the truth the little damsel can take without falling apart about the origins of the witch legend in the entire context of magic.
"Your old man was trying to ingrain the truth of who you are and where you come from using the legend of the witch paradise" he paused to see if she was still following and when Hannah raised her brows in question, he continued to say "There was once a time for necessary evil . . . what people refer to as human sacrifice. A time when a high mage resided among humans and witches alike and once every full moon, the high mage would perform a ritual that guaranteed a peaceful coexistence between humans and witches and the gods of fire and lava had bestowed upon her the ability to control fire and so were her female descendants. Humans got to be mesmerized by the enormous display of power, knowing they could rely on the high mage for good health and the prosperity of the land" he paused again to check if he still had her undivided attention but Hannah was intrigued by the story already.
"I can't foresee any catastrophic calamity in the unfolding events but I feel like there was a trigger, wasn't there?" she had already guessed that a significant event had changed the course of history, bringing the paradise to a halting end.
"But one day the high mage stumbled upon a badly injured male while making her rounds around the forest, her being a powerful yet kind creature, she stopped to tend to his injuries but even the most powerful of beings to walk the land couldn't detect a ploy. The male was a mastermind who had ill plans for humanity. He was born of darkness, bloodshed and death and so nomatter how much he could see the good in the high mage's heart, he couldn't help but fullfill his sole purpose for existence. Witches of her descendants were then cursed to loneliness to avoid falling to the trap of the dark mage which will exist until the extinction of the descendants of the high mage. What was a blessing turned out to be a curse for them, for all eternity" he sighed noisily and locked her eyes with Hannah's curious ones.
"Such a horrible story but I believe in grandpa's words and if they hold true, then there must be another way to break the curse" she felt the gears turning in her head before a loud yawn escaped her mouth.
"There might be an alternative to the curse of which you need a good night's rest to even have an inkling of what it might or might not be" He smiled coyly at her inability to conceal her exhaustion despite her best efforts and so they wished each other a good night and Hannah was the first one to make her way towards her designated bedroom while Salem followed meekly behind her.
She was such a curious damsel . . . does that even make sense? She was prone to danger and he could bet his life that she hadn't a clue of who she really was.
He grinned wickedly before a subconscious voice in his head reprimanded him so he shook his head and made his way to his sleeping chambers.
When the sun rose to the sky the next day, Hannah woke up to an empty room and panic raked her nerves as she shot up straight and out of the room to search for Kayla.
She flinched when the bright sun hit her face and she shielded her eyes with her raised right hand. Her eyes searched desperately for any sign of Kayla and cursed her ancestors for making her magic detection so low. Kayla could easily be mistaken for a human because of the low cycle of magic in her blood. She closed her eyes and tried to reach her thoughts, that's when she heard soft giggles coming from the back of one of the makeshift house so she followed them and sighed heavily in relief and scrunched her eyebrows in interest when she saw Kayla's source of glee.
They had their legs dipped in a lake, sitting close to each other while Salem seemed to have sworn the child to secrecy, he chanted what she took to be a spell to make the water swell in circles, creating a mild suction in its middle, a suction that let ut a burst of colors and starts that twinkled in beautiful raibow colors.
Out of all the colorful stars that twirled in the air, one caught her attention. This particular star was a liquid silver in color and had a misty blue swirling inside it. She followed its movements with her eyes and she could've sworn she saw the owner's cocky grin in one of it's twirling motions and she blinked twice. Kayla broke her trance when she bursted out laughing and this time, the joke was lost to her.
She made her way to them and stood behind them and their heads whipped around in unison, the burst of stars dying down hastily.
"But Hannah . . . " she wanted to complain for the sudden disappearance of her pool of glitters and now it was clear who the blame fell on. Hannah pouted innocently.
"You know Kayla, I wasn't the one making imaginery glitter out of vapour and I certainly didn't drop them back to the lake for whatever reason you may want to blame me for" she defended herself.
Now it was Salem's turn to act the victim with no words to defend himself, he just smiled slyly.
"Lets go make something to eat now, yes?" he directed his gaze to the child who seemed reluctant to let go of her fantasy but Salem took her hand and led her back to his dining room.