It was breakfast time. Bacon culled from the flesh of a beast beyond mortal comprehension sizzled in a pan as Sevel, the Witch of Service, occasionally flipped it over, ensuring in time that every corner of its ashen surface would be burnt to a delicious crisp. The smell of the mysterious meat wafted throughout the manor, and eventually found its way up the front room's stairs, took a left, and ended its journey at the door where the lady of the manor slept.
Beyond that heavy wooden portal, Amel slept away the day with a look of contentment on her face. Just the day before Lady Tem, the Witch of Time, had been over and the two of them had one of the nicest afternoons that Amel could remember in recent days. Occasionally she would roll over in her happy sleep, scratch her nose, or even yell aloud some half-remembered statement, but she would not budge from that bed for just anything. No, it would take an act of a being far beyond the power of a mere god to pry the Witch of Creation from her comfy bed...that, or the smell of breakfast.
The smell of fat and flesh sizzling above a magical flame crept through the keyhole of her bedroom's door and invaded the space like a well-trained assassin, silent but ultimately powerful. While the gods of man couldn't have moved Amel to action, the mere smell of Sevel's cooking could. and as soon as the smell of that morning's meal reached her nose, Amel jumped from her bed, leaving little regard for the pillows, books, and blankets that tumbled to the ground as she did and dashed downstairs with great haste.
Her tongue salivated at the mere thought of Sevel's cooking, just as it had every morning for the many many years since the Expeditionary Witch had become the head maid of the Mansion at the Center of Creation. Though she could no longer recall how many years it had been since she had started every day like this, Amel still responded with the same excitement she had the first time it had happened. As good food -that she didn't have to make herself, mind you- was always an event to be celebrated.
"Sevel! Is that bacon?!" Amel yelled as she found her way into the manor's kitchen, and nearly crashed into a wall due to her sheer speed.
The maid witch laughed and turned over the bacon in her pan once more. Her lady may have been one of the eldest and most powerful beings in all creation, but she sure acted like a small child sometimes. "Yes, I am, my lady. Today's breakfast is a spread consisting of the eggs of a crocodile, bacon made from the flesh of a nue, and juice made from some oranges I picked from the garden I started in the manor's basement. All of them are very fresh and I'm sure you'll enjoy each and every part of the meal I've prepared for you."
Amel took a seat at the same simple wooden chair in the kitchen's adjoining dining room, one of several in the manor, where a plate, fork, knife, and spoon hand forged from some otherworldly metal lay waiting for her. "I'm sure, you're cooking is just the best, and I mean geez, sometimes I think that if you weren't here all I'd eat was nuts and cheese."
"You can't be serious," Sevel called from the kitchen as the meal in question neared its completion. "Even before I was contracted to be the head servant here, surely were capable of something so basic as cooking a simple meal for yourself..."
For a very long moment, Amel was silent. Sevel in turn peaked around the corner and beheld the Witch of Creation with her head hung low and a rather sad look on her face.
"Seriously?" she asked, repressing all of her urges to laugh.
Amel nodded, and Sevel's restraint broke, causing the younger witch to burst into laughter so powerful she was nearly brought to tears.
"Don't make fun of me!" Amel shouted in a depressed tone. "It isn't my fault I can't cook for myself."
Stifling her laughed for a moment, Sevel spoke. "Sorry, my lady. But the image of you sitting like that with a plate of nothing but cheese and nuts is simply too silly to resist. But seriously, you are the Witch of Creation, couldn't you just, you know, "create" some food for yourself?"
Amel pouted, now on the verge of tears. "It isn't that easy! Creating things is hard work, and every time I'd try to make something for myself, I'd end up more hungry than I started even after I ate. It was a negative equation, so after a while, I just gave up and started eating anything interesting I could get from different worlds and universes." she said quivering like a lonely rabbit.
"I should have known that my lady. I am sorry, that was rude of me. I'll return to my station in the kitchen at once."
"Wait..." Amel said looking at her servant with watery eyes.
"What is it?" she said concerned.
"Do you remember when we first met?" Amel asked while wiping her eyes free of any stray tears that had breached her emotional defenses.
"Of course, but why do you ask?"
"I was just thinking about it since we were talking about what I did to feed myself before you got here."
"That was a strange turn of events that led me to this place, wasn't it?" the maid witch laughed.
"It was..." Amel recounted. "It really was."
***
It was not so long ago, in the time frame of a Witch at least, legends of many a world spoke of a young woman with a long and heavy blade strapped upon her back who had felled more beasts and monsters than any other single figure in all of history. It was said that there was no creature in all creation that could stand against her blade, and no human alive who could challenge her skill with a sword. It was the stuff of myth, and through the years, that was what it became. Across creation, though few of her name, and the details of how she looked, acted, and spoke often differed between accounts, all agreed that she went by a single title: "The Witch of the Hunt."
In truth, her name was Sevel, and she was simply one of the few hundred or so who held the honor to call themselves Expeditionary Witches. While most witches are bound to a single place and simply serve as the eyes and ears of the Greater Witches, Expeditionary Witches are free to travel as they please, coming and going between worlds as easily as a person may move from town to town walking on an old dirt road. Each of these Witches had earned such a privilege by accomplishing some great deed worthy of gaining a title of their very own, and in Sevel's case, it so happened that she had nearly depopulated an entire world of dragons, thus earning her place as the greatest hunter the people had ever seen.
With her newfound freedom, Sevel had traveled from world to world, seeking stronger and stronger foes, and then often dining on their flesh over a roaring fire afterward. Thus she had honed both blade and pan in a single lifetime and became equally adept in both. In her was realized a strange set of skills, both swordsmen and chef, warrior, and gourmet. But that which she made from the remains of her prey was of little concern to the people, who only saw the Witch of the Hunt only as a destroyer of monsters, and not the cook she postured herself after each and every kill.
It was after one such hunt, under the starry skies of a world whose name no Witch actually remembered, that Sevel's cooking had attracted the sound of light footsteps that echoed through the empty fields of night and recalled a small animal.
"The night sure is lively." Sevel thought aloud to herself as she roasted a particularly large piece of meat over an open flame.
She was dressed in a ragged set of armor constructed from the hides, pelts, and scales of over a dozen gigantic beasts and held together with a bit of stitching she had done herself, a talent she had learned from a human long ago after tiring of her garments going to waste after just a few pitched battles. Before she was a shallow pitch from which roared a great flame that warmed a thing of meat skewered upon a rod and held aloft with two sticks that Sevel had constructed for just this occasion.
The smell of the slowly rotating meal was delicious and, like many a foodstuff prepared by the Hunter Witch often did, seemed to have attracted the presence of outsiders.
"Do you want my meat?" she joked. "Then you might as well come out and say it, otherwise I might have to greet you with my sword!"
From the unlit darkness the footsteps that had been light just moments before grew heavier, until they were so loud that whatever had produced them couldn't be more than a few feet away.
"I think I will take you up on that offer." someone called from the darkness.
Sevel took pause. It was rare to hear human beings active in the dark wilds of night. They were too scared, of being eaten, and of themselves. So to hear a call like this was disarming, to say the least. Quietly, she moved one hand to seize her oversized sword, which lay at her feet in case of emergencies such as this.
"Show yourself!" she shouted. "Or my I'm afraid that you will have to make friends with my sword!"
"Very well, as you wish.."
From the darkness appeared a woman who could not be older than thirty-five dressed in a gown far too elegant for a place like this. It was colored the same red as the setting sun and seemed to almost glow if looked at from the right angle. Her face was pale like that of a doll, and wholly inhuman in appearance, as was the rest of her exposed skin, which seemed to reflect the pale moonlight like the surface of a gentle lake in mid-summer. The mysterious woman was also strangely tall and her stride wide and confident.
Overall, the woman gave the impression of an existence beyond even divinity, indeed beyond anything, witch, human, or otherwise she had ever beheld in her very long life. And by aura alone it made Sevel feel that she should bow in fealty for reasons she couldn't readily explain.
Unable to speak, Sevel's body quivered in fear or awe, she wasn't sure quite which it was. She could not speak, nor draw her sword. Instead, she merely sat in place, her meat sizzling over the roaring fire that mirrored the strange woman's dress, and spoke not a single word. Indeed there was nothing to say, as her mind was blank and free of thought. All she could do was watch as the woman with the bearing of a being beyond all that was or ever would be walked from the darkness to her little encampment smiled gently, then sat down beside her.
"I had heard the meat of the beasts here was excellent and had just popped into this world looking to pick up a bit of it for dinner. But then I got lost and ended up wandering around in the dark for nearly an hour before I spotted your fire from some distance away. Or maybe I could smell that thing you have cooking there," the woman smiled with teeth whiter than the purest of snow. "It's been ages since I've had a homecooked meal, and I guess I just couldn't help myself but to come over and check it out!"
Sevel was still utterly speechless, even as the woman spoke so kindly to her. That aura, it was too bright and shone like the morning sun! What right did she have to sit next to such a being? Indeed was anyone in all creation fit for such a grand honor? Both were questions that Sevel contemplated in vain as her mind drew a blank and her body adapted in kind by vibrating in fear like a small dog.
"Hellllloooooo, Universe to Witchy-Poo, you there? The meat is going to get overcooked if unless you join us here planetside soon!"
The other woman waved her hand in front of Sevel's expressionless face, an attempt to restore sanity to a woman no longer able to process her current situation.
"What?! Whoa..." Sevel jumped to her feet, one hand still on her heavy sword, and looked at the radient woman beside her. "You!" she yelled at the top of her lungs like a woman possessed, "Who in the name of the Nine Grand Witches are you?"
"Me?" she asked pointing to herself.
"Yes, you!"
"Oh right, I should have told you my name by now. Sorry, I don't get out much and sometimes forget how you Expeditionary Witches work." she stuck out her tongue and rapped her closed fist against the back of her head before returning to her usual state of grace. "I am Amelith Gertrude Selvia Vespaerous, and it is very nice to meet you, my fellow Witch."
Amel stood and curtsied at Sevel, whose anger drained from her face and was soon replaced with a very specific sort of shock reserved entirely for those who have just met face-to-face with a being that, for all they knew, should not exist in this, or any other world.
"You..." she said, lifting one quivering finger at Amel and pointing. "That name, you are the Witch of Creation!"
"Correct again." Amel smiled.
"How can you exist? You're nothing more than a legend spoken of by Apostle Witches when they're drunk, there is no way such a being could exist in this world!" Sevel spoke with great haste and terror, as the very foundation of her worldview was shaken to the core.
Amel, on the other hand, only sighed.
"I do get that a lot from Witches who have never seen me in person, but I'm very sure that I not only exist, but am here right now, and am very hungry. So whenever you're done with your episode, I'd like to be served some of the meat that you promised me a few moments ago."
"This means...the greater witches, they're not just a legend?"
"Yes."
"And you're one of them?"
"Yes."
"And...."
"And?
"And you created this place, every person here, and every Witch as well?"
"Well most of them, I can't keep track of who made what with who knows how many worlds out there drifting about in Creation."
Sevel slumped back to a seated position, her head swimming with a bevy of world-shattering knowledge, and put one hand on her forehead. In moments like these, she needed to sigh as well.
"This is a lot to take in, my lady Amelith."
Amel smiled. "I know. But you don't have to address me like that. It makes me sound like the head of some stuff church or government. Just Amel is fine."
"Lady Amel?"
Amel sighed, there was no getting past that title, was there? "That is fine, but what is it?"
"Why are you here? What does the creator of all things want with a place like this and an unworthy Witch like me?"
"First, I was hungry. Second, you have food. The two work out nicely, so if you'd be so kind, please pass me some of that meat before it burns."
"Oh, yes! Just a minute."
In a panic, Sevel quickly quashed the consuming fires roasting her meat with some dirt, and took the massive lump of finally toasted animal meat from where it hung. It was a good size of flesh, carved directly from the stomach of some lizard-like thing the size of a large elephant, and smelled so glorious that even the gods themselves would have been jealous.
As she did, Amel looked on, her mouth dripping with spittle from a hunger as vast as the cosmos, and leered at the meat like a predator over freshly killed prey.
"That looks delicious." she remarked as Sevel handed the Great Witch a plate from her sack of things with a good sized portion of meat balanced on top of it.
"It should, aside from my skill as a hunter and warrior there isn't anything I'm more proud of than my cooking. See for yourself, I can assure you it's quite good."
Sevel then watched with great apprehension at what the greatest of all witches would do next. Would she, like some god from a human's collective memory, simply absorb her meal, or perhaps use her cutlery to sup upon it like a noble or royalty? So she gazed with great longing, but neither of those realities would ever come to pass, as Amel simply took the meat between both of her rather dainty hands and began to set upon it like a shark in a bloody frenzy.
She did gnash at her meal like she had not eaten in weeks, and all the while retained the same level of happiness she had displayed smiling just moments before. It was both an awful and awe-inspiring moment, and caused Sevel's brain to fight against itself just to parse what she was seeing. The creator of all things, the greatest witch, a being who she had until now thought only to exist in myth and legend, now sat before her devouring a hunk of meat like a wild animal.
If she could have hung her head low in shame, and high with admiration for the greater scope of creation she now possessed at the same time, she would have without regret.
"You must be quite hungry, Lady Amel," she said, knowing nothing else that would make sense in a situation like this.
"Vy Wuz!" Amel said with her mouth full of food. "Viz nut lik we witches have to eut al za tim, but I stul gut hungry sometimes."
Sevel had once thought that should the Greater Witched actually exist, they would be the most refined of beings in all the cosmos. Women whose mere presence could bring whole worlds to their knees in worship, and who spent their days locked in quiet contemplation of the very workings of existence itself. Great beings befitting their title and station. But now she knew that such faith had been very, very, mistaken. As humans often say there is nothing more disillusioning than meeting your heroes, perhaps the same could be said one hundred times more so when meeting your creator as well.
Amel then finished for the moment, wiped her mouth clean with the side of her arm, and then returned the plate she had been offered to its owner. "That was excellent, I'd praise you more, but I'm afraid I don't know your name, Little Witch."
"I'm Sevel, and people call me the Witch of the Hunt," she said hurriedly as she took Amel's plate and placed it in a sack with her other dirty wares. "I killed the beast that our night's meal came from myself, it was a hard and long-fought battle, but I think this meat was alone worth the effort.
"It seems it was, and to carve it yourself too! You are rather impressive even for an Expeditionary Witch. I really do wish some of your sisters were more like you. Some many of them seem bent on using their powers to cause trouble or get people to praise them over and over, what silly people they are."
Sevel laughed awkwardly for a long moment. How else should she respond to praise from the Creator herself? Awe? Reverence? All good ideas, but all she could manage, was to laugh. At herself, at the absurdity of the situation, at everything and nothing all at once.
"Thank you," she said aloud the only words floating about in an otherwise blank head.
"It is no problem, really! I do love occasionally seeing the lesser Witches at work. But it is funny that you're best known for killing beasts, from the amazing work you put into just this meat alone, if I had to say, I'd think you were more a Witch of Service than Hunting."
While Amel may have spoken in jest, her words alone brought a wave of pain to Sevel's body and more than that, her soul. It was a creeping pain, like that of a terrible wave of barbs and spikes that coursed through every part of her body, binding it and preventing her from so much as breathing. It was a feeling she had experienced once before, years ago, after the people of the land had bestowed upon her the title of Witch of the Hunt for ridding their world of dragons for all times.
Titles are what separates a mere Acolyte Witch from the Expeditionary Witches such as Sevel herself. For a Witch, a title is not just a set of words, but a part of their being, bestowed upon them from others and then carved into their soul. A title given by humans could give a witch power, and authority, and even serve as a symbol of pride that put them on a level above others. But those given by a Greater Witch, even by accident, could warp a Witch's very being, twist their soul into an unnatural shape, and mark the passage from one sort of existence to another.
Such was what Sevel now felt. The title of Witch of the Hunt, which for so long has defined her very person, was slowly eroding away. She could feel it. Like ice melting into water, it flowed out from her soul and into the abyss where all ideas go to parish. The pain was great, she doubled over, unable to even sit upright any longer.
"Are you all right?" Amel asked thoughtlessly.
"Noooo...." Sevel grunted. "My soul, it hurts."
It was then that Amel realized what she had done. Though thought of by Witches in the same manner that humans might be their gods, Greater Witches are not infallible nor omnipotent. Just like the rest of living beings, they sometimes forget, do stupid things, and combine the former two to devastating effect.
"This is my fault! I'm so so sorry. Um..." Amel apologized with great haste as she grabbed at straws and a solution to this problem. But even for her infinitely long life span she could think of no way to fix this, as one can not simply erase a title from a person's being without reason. It took a year's worth of paperwork filed in triplicate to do that. "Just stay calm, you'll be A'OK in just a few seconds."
With a wide frown on her face, Amel could only watch as Sevel writhed in pain before her for a solid minute. Rolling back and forth across the earth, she dirtied her patchwork armor in a dull brown, and her skin soon followed suit. Looking at her as an outsider, one might even think she was locked in pitched combat with some unseen foe.
But even pain passes in time, as all things do, and after that minute all the pain that held Sevel in its sway was n a moment gone. She was free, to stand, to live, but not as she had before. Even if she looked the same, and her body free of damage, her soul had been warped beyond repair, she could feel that much.
"What did you do to me!?" Sevel yelled as she grabbed Amel by the front of her dress.
Amel looked away and held her mouth into an awkward shape. "Ummm...I gave you a new title, I guess!"
Sevel sneered and huffed at the Creator Witch. "And what does that mean? Will I still be able to go on as I always have?"
Amel could not look at the young Expeditionary Witch but spoke nonetheless. "Probably not, you know when I give a title to someone, it tends to be pretty important and they go POOF and suddenly they're really good at something related to that title, and pretty much nothing else."
Sevel then let go of Amel and turned away to try and pick up her sword. But she couldn't, her hand refusing to so much as grasp the handle of the great blade. Thus she tried again, and again, and again. But to no avail, she could not hold onto the weapon that had made her famous.
She sat again, hung her head low, and cried.
"What am I supposed to do now?" she said in a low voice.
"I dunno, but I guess with that title, maybe you could be a cook?" Amel thought aloud.
"What kind of weirdo would want someone like me as their cook?" she said with a sneer.
Amel then smiled. She finally had an idea.
"Well, me for one." She said rising to her feet and pumping both of her fists as if this was the greatest idea in all creation. "Why don't you come home with me and be my personal cook!"
"What?" Sevel said with a confused look.
"My cook! You know, the kind of person who makes food? I'm sure you know what a cook is, right?"
"I do, but why me?"
"Look, I messed up and hurt you. The least I can do is give you a place to stay and something to do until you get that title of yours back. So what do you say, are you coming with me or are you going to sit here and mope forever?"
Amel offered Sevel her hand and gazed and her intently with a smile as broad and as wide as Creation itself.
It was a smile that none could resist, for it embodied all that was good and sweet in the cosmos, everything that was, is, or ever will be, it was all there in the pearly white smile of one of the most powerful beings to have ever lived if one could even ascribe such a thing to Amel.
And Sevel was no exception, blinded by Amel's glory for a second time, she reached forward and just a bit up and took the Greater Witch's outstretched hand. She held firm for a moment, taking in the strange feeling of holding hands with a being above all others. But then, as if they were suddenly the oldest of friends, she smiled. It was the only possible response for someone to be close to creation itself.
"Let us go then," Amel said gently.
"Where to?" Sevel asked with a tilted head.
"That is a surprise." Amel joked.
And the rest, as they often say, is history.
***
"That was quite the day," Amel said as she consumed her breakfast.
"Indeed it was, my lady. It is entirely your fault I came to the manor in the first place, and your boneheaded decision that forced me to relearn how to use a blade from scratch. Do you know how long it took to regain my former hunting form?" Sevel sneered at the Greater Witch.
Amel thought, one hand on her chin, and a fork topped with meat in the other. But she drew a blank. She could honestly not recall just how long Sevel had been living in her manor, or how long it had been since she had stopped sneaking off in the middle of the night to train.
"Errrr...." she murmured. "I don't remember. Could you perchance remind me?"
Sevel sighed. "It took, in total 650,000 years to regain my full capabilities as a hunter. Half of which was spent dressed in the garb of a maid, as you might recall."
Amel laughed awkwardly. "Yeah, that was totally my fault. But the uniform suits you, and you look like awesome fighting monsters dressed in a frilly black dress. Most people could never pull off a combo like that, you know?"
"Indeed I do. Naught a day goes by that I don't get some kind of rude or puzzled comment as to why I'm stalking dragons dressed in a black dress and white apron. Amusing as you may find it. The protection offered by this gown is next to zero." She sighed once more before regaining her typical noble bearing. "But speaking of dresses, have you given thought to what you will be wearing to this year's Witches' Council meeting? It is a mere two weeks away, and I would hate for you to scramble to pick your dress and date the night before like you did last time. If you remember, you ended up pairing a prismatic gown with Lady Tem's pitch-black dress and looked like a complete fool. So for the sake of safeguarding your dignity, I would like to prepare an ensemble for my lady myself, if you don't mind, of course."
Her mouth stuffed with food, Amel only nodded. Though her face did not show it, her mind was in a panic, for she had completely forgotten about the Council Meeting once again. There was so much to do! So many people to consider as a companion, so many dresses to try on, throw in a pile in the corner of her room, and inevitably reconsider at the last minute! It was a hell she experienced but once a year, but a hell it still was, and its fires beckoned for her and would not be quenched quietly.
"My lady, are you all right?" Sevel asked of her vacant master. "You much resemble a beast I once killed seconds before I brought a blade down through its skull."
"I'm fine, really." Amel laughed, swallowing the rest of her last bite of food as she did. "Just thinking about what I'll wear, and who I'll bring to this thing. I swear it sneaks up on me every year."
"That is because you forget about it every year, and have for the last few centuries. Though lazy you may be sometimes, it is your obligation as the Witch of Creation to attend. Thus I will take charge of you this year. Do not worry, my lady. Your dress and companion will be afforded to you without a single finger raised on your end, I can assure you of that." Sevel bowed as she spoke, truly she was a maid fit to serve the creator of all things.
Amel nodded in the positive. Her heart returned to its normal rhythm, and her mind settled into a bit less chaotic state of being. But she was still worried, as she always was this time of year. "Just one question," she asked.
"Yes? What is it?" Sevel answered.
"How are you going to pick who I'll be going with?"
Sevel smiled, or perhaps it is better to say she smirked.
"Leave that to me. I have just the right person in mind. You'll love her. I'm sure of it."
As much as Amel trusted her head servant, something about those words sounded just a little bit sinister.