"You're staying here!" Liesel yelled loudly enough that it woke Aislinn from where she slept leaning against a tree. After her shift of watch was over last night she apparently hadn't bothered to lay out a bed roll before dozing off. From the position of the sun it looked to be about mid day, but their sleep schedule had always been… odd to say the least. Now she found Liesel and Tanith squaring off in the middle of the clearing. Neither of whom had bothered to wake her before getting at each other.
"Over my rotting corpse! I'm coming to get witchlings with Morrigan and there's nothing you can do to stop me!" Tanith shot back, not even glancing at Morrigan, who was leaning against a tree across the clearing, seemingly indifferent as she looked on. Lor lazed on a branch in the same tree, currently braiding back her ash blonde hair with deft efficiency.
"No you are not, not after last time, I don't need you making a mess of things again!" Liesel snapped, normally it took alot to get under Liesel's skin, but lately it hadn't taken much to rial her, Aislinn had a mental note to ask her second about it later.
"I'm not the only one who makes mistakes you know! You make them all the time!" Tanith barked.
"Yes, and letting you run around doing whatever you please has been one of them. And the others don't do shit like this every other week!" Liesel lashed and there was a flicker of hurt in Tanith's eyes but it quickly dissolved into pure furey and blood lust.
"I don't think that's your call to make second." The wrath in Tanith's eyes was burning, not wild but controlled and far more deadly. "But you've always wanted to be the coven leader, always wanted Aislinn gone."
"I never-" Liesel started in outrage but Tanith plowed ahead.
"You always wanted to be incharge, always wanted to be the favorite, but you aren't, Aislinn is, so it's her decision not yours, so I'm going." They both turned to her and she felt the weight of the gaze of everyone in the clearing, not just her coven but the seconds in training. She had to set an example, a president for the witchlings to follow. So she just looked at them and said,
"It is not my responsibility to settle trivial disputes among my seconds, that being said, I'd prefer there be no brawls between my seconds period. I do think however that it would be best that Tanith uses today to rest-"
"I don't need rest, I need to do something!" Tanith asserted, Liesel's jaw tensing at the interruption.
"...or to blow off steam, So Tanith and Cybil are going to take the day to acquaint the witchling with a dagger, and Gwyndolyn can teach them the basics of helpful and poisonous plants." Tanith huffed but didn't contradict or defy her, simply stalking out into the woods beyond the small clearing, absently calling back,
"I'm going to go find something to eat." Leisel looked as if she might run after Tanith and apologize but Aislinn gave her a look and said,
"Don't, just give her a moment to get it out of her system, I don't feel like bandaging you up if she gets it into her head that the best way to get her anger out is a brawl." Liesel nodded absently before looking up sharply.
"What do you mean bandaging me up? I can hold my own against Tanith."
"In this state, I think Tanith could take on an entire legion of trained soldiers and walk away unharmed." huffs of amusement from Lor and Morrigan though they don't contest it, but Nerissa and Cybil, both watched where Tanith had gone into the woods, with a grave sort of look. As if they too knew what it meant, what Tanith needed, what none of them could really give. Aislinn knew it wasn't just pent up anger, or a need for a fight that had driven Tanith into the woods. It was the nerves humming under her skin, nerves that sensed a threat to the coven and now pushed at her to do something, to help, to stop whatever it was that posed a threat to the coven. Glancing up to where the sliver of the crescent moon hung in the lightning sky, she prayed to the goddess that her seconds would reconcile. That the tension in Liesel would loosen and the pent up energy in Tanith would release without a massacre.The goddess listened, but if she thought to help them she gave no sign.
Tanith wasn't back yet when the witchlings woke up, so Gwyndolyn began instructing them on the various berries and flowers that were safe to eat. Alita seemed excited mostly about the poisonous plants, how and in what forms they were most deadly. Tamasi on the other hand sat quietly chopping the leaves and roots of a few dandelions Gwyndolyn had found under a tree, using a dull throwing knife Sedona had supplied and a flat plain of rock Olive had found. Olive was walking around the clearing, identifying medicinal herbs and their uses, Gwyndolyn naming all the ones she didn't get. All the while Cybil suggested various towns they could visit to Aislinn, Liesel, and Morrigan, Nerissa and Neve chiming in every once and a while with towns where they'd seen girls that seemed eligible, she commented absently on the various suggestions. They we're about to leave, her and the shadows to a town a few miles away, where the shadows had said there was a girl that looked like she needed a home. Morrigan and Sedona were headed to a town about a half a day's travel there and back, which Cybil had suggested based on the location and large population of misfits. Liesel and Lor were to go to a small river town just east of the nearest territory border where Neve had said one of her eyes told her a girl sung to the moon on cloudless nights. Tanith still hadn't come back and Aislinn was starting to wonder if she should go looking for her second. Liesel seemed two moments away from hunting her down and either asking for forgiveness or screaming at her for disobeying the plan. Sedona must've seen the look because she whispered,
"Don't worry about it Liesi, she'll come around in her own time."
"I know, I know." Liesel breathed before closing her eyes and taking a breath. When she opened her eyes the worry was gone and she was again the determined unshakable second Aislinn counted on.
"Alright then, everyone be back here by sunrise tomorrow, and remember," she looked to Morrigan who was already grinning with a killing gleam in her eye, "don't leave a mess behind you."