Hecate kept alert, watching the edges of her property as everyone else got comfortable around the fire pit.
After Singe finished placing the wood around the pit, Bobbi placed some crumpled pieces of paper near the bottom and pulled out a lighter.
“Why don’t you try, Bobbi,” Singe suggested.
Bobbi groaned.
“Not this again. I can’t do fire. We’ve figured this out.”
“No, we haven’t,” Hecate corrected.
Bobbi grumbled, clutching her scarf tight in one hand—an instinct she’d developed since returning from wherever she was taken—and snapping next to the starters with the other. After about a minute without change, she took the normal lighter, starting the fire without issue.
Singe took the lighter back, setting the paper ablaze. They watched as the wood eventually took to the fire, and they all had to move back from the heat, except for Bobbi, who leaned in.
“Are you going to explain your purpose Ms. Fayner?” Thoth asked.
“Oh right,” she sat up, “I just wanted something calm for a moment. Sitting with you guys around a fire just felt right.”
Thoth nodded.
“Did you bring activities for us to do,” Syren asked, “Like s’mores or something, or are we just going to stare at it?”
“You don’t even like chocolate,” Drake said, “What would you do with a s’more?”
“I like marshmallows,” Syren muttered.
“The tradition where I’m from is to do a story round,” Singe offered.
“I did bring s’more supplies,” Bobbi said, pointing to them on a table on Hecate’s porch. Based on the containers, the resources seemed to be homemade. Syren went up to grab some for herself, along with a stick to put her marshmallow on.
“Is a story round where we go around telling scary stories?” Drake asked.
“I’ve lived plenty of those at this point,” Bobbi said.
“No,” Singe explained, “We go around telling stories that are meaningful to us. By the end, we know a little more about each other.”
“Why would I tell you guys about my life?” Bobbi asked, “No offense, but I actually kind of like my privacy.”
“It doesn’t need to be your life,” Singe said, “It just has to mean something to you. I’ll start: My mother,” he began, “Was an orphan, so like many orphans in Mineria, she went to work for the royal family.”
“What’s Mineria?” Bobbi asked.
“Water Kingdom, essentially,” Singe said, “Most of the population are Marin.”
“Marin?”
“Mermaids,” Hecate explained, “And similar.”
Bobbi nodded. Hecate could tell she was still confused.
“My mother worked for the royal family,” Singe said, waiting for another interruption, “When she had free time, she watched the court wizard, Mirsham, giving lessons to Prince Neri and Princess Marina. She practiced in secret until Princess Marina noticed how she picked up the skills better than either of the young royals.”
“Oh no,” Syren said, “Was she banished?”
Singe laughed.
“Mirsham started giving her formal lessons, brought her closer to Neri and Marina. Eventually, with a vow to return and act as the new court wizard, Queen Clarisse sponsored my mother to go to the Wyrd Sisters academy, where Wizards are trained.”
“Wizard’s a job position,” Bobbi deduced.
“Ask your questions at the end,” Drake recommended, “Let him tell the story.”
Bobbi crossed her arms, drifting closer to the fire again.
“Yes,” Singe confirmed, “Wizard’s a job title,” before returning to the story.
“My mother became close to the other representative students, Lord Avery of Draconis, and Epiphany Craddock of Avalon.”
Bobbi’s lip tightened as she withheld a question about the kingdoms named.
“It became clear that one of the instructors favored the more… typical mages over ones like Avery and my mother, a dragonrider and a Selkie, respectively. He assumed they wouldn’t have the power to carry the same spells the others could. Supposedly their magek was less focused.”
“Sounds like bullshit,” Bobbi said.
“It was,” Singe confirmed, “And after a certain point, they were sick of being treated that way. My mother specifically fought his lack of respect by reminding him that Selkies aren’t Marin, technically.”
“How are they not mermaids?” Syren asked.
“Selkies are a diaspora in Mineria, some of the last remaining Animal Mages after Animalia was destroyed during the Fey Wars.”
“What did they get nixed for?” Bobbi asked.
“They didn’t have any kind of protection while they protected feyries. Animalia falling was what made the other kingdoms actually treat it like a war.”
“What did she do to the instructor?” Bobbi asked.
“She never told me, but he was thoroughly chastised.”
“Oh,” Bobbi said, “She wasn’t expelled?”
“Those in charge of the school sided with her, but that’s not important. What is important is that Avery, as the brother of Draconis’ sovereign at the time, had a guard, who was charmed by my mother’s defense of her peers.”
“Is this how your parents met?” Drake asked.
Singe nodded.
“Olivier Tyrain I, who most people called Singe, fell in love with my mother on that day.”
“Wait, you’re a junior?” Bobbi asked.
“You copied your dad’s nickname?” Syren asked.
Singe shrugged.
“His friends all called me Singe Jr. After he died, the Jr. part kind of dropped.”
Bobbi nodded along.
“So what we learned is that Singe isn’t your real name.”
“But I’d like you to keep using it,” Singe warned before his tone turned less intimidating, “You go next, Bobbi.”
“Wait, you choose who goes next?”
Singe nodded.
Hecate could feel Bobbi’s frustration, not that she hid it well, focusing more on the flames before leaning back with a sigh.
“I can’t top your parents’ first meeting,” she said, “I’m not even going to try, actually.”
She took another deep breath.
“I have gone to prom once in my entire life.”
“What’s prom?” Singe asked.
“Haha.”
“I’m serious.”
Bobbi watched Singe with sheer confusion.
“This is Australia all over again.”
“Don’t—” Singe began.
“What about Australia?” Syren asked.
“Singe doesn’t know it exists.”
“I know now.”
“Prom?” Hecate redirected.
“Prom is a big dance that high schools in America hold, that involves popularity contests and sneaking in substances human children aren’t meant to consume.”
“I have a feeling most people are less cynical about it than you seem to be,” Singe noted.
“I’m not so sure,” Bobbi said.
“Anyways, I’ve been to prom once in my life. Junior year of high school.”
“Junior year?”
“The year before the last year,” Bobbi explained, “Junior year of high school, my lab partner asked if I wanted to go with him, and I said ‘why not’.”
“Sounds romantic,” Frank said.
“There were a lot of reasons not to go with him actually. You see, he thought I was interested in him because I liked talking to him and complimented his eyes once.”
“So there was a gross misunderstanding at the start?” Drake asked.
“You got it. The second was that he didn’t think fish counted as meat.”
“It doesn’t during lent,” Frank said.
“So we grab dinner first,” Bobbi said, “And I didn’t realize it was fish, because I haven’t eaten meat in years.”
“Why not?” Drake asked.
“I throw up every time I eat meat. People don’t feed it to me, and I don’t pursue it, obviously.
“So,” Bobbi continued, “We have dinner. I think it tastes bad, but I’m not going to be an asshole. We head to the dance, and my stomach starts hurting in the car, which is when I ask what dinner was, and he tells me it was salmon because I can’t eat meat. We have a debate the whole way to the school until we make it there, have our first dance, and I throw up all over him.”
Everyone cringed.
“He wasn’t my lab partner after that.”
“So now we know not to feed you meat,” Drake said.
“Yep.”
“Who’s next?” Singe asked.
Bobbi looked around all of them.
“Syren, what do you got?”
Syren straightened herself out, eyes looking straight forward at nothing.
“Something amazing has happened,” she said, as if reciting an essential text, “This morning, Solomon told me he found a baby. I followed him to where the baby was. I’m not sure it was a baby in that moment, as what I saw was a small vaguely humanoid creature made of some black substance. As I picked it up, the child solidified, turning lighter, almost matching my skin tone exactly. I recognized her from photos, as this baby had become the spitting image of Syren.
“I called Thoth and the others for their opinion, which eventually came to Ms. Emery identifying her as a changeling. I’ve filled in the gaps by going around town, as it would seem the child is mine, so to speak. Whoever her parents were, they’re entrusting her to our care as a family, and as a mechanism to keep their children alive, the babies will turn into someone lost from the life of whoever they ‘imprint’ upon, in this case mimicking my missing sister. We’ve named her Syren and are working on the paperwork to adopt her as a foundling
“Samson Eves, February 17th, 19—”
“How do you have that memorized?” Bobbi asked, “Who’s Ms. Emery?”
“A not-quite ally who lives in town,” Thoth answered.
“The Eves are just like that,” Drake explained.
“Thoth,” Syren said, “You go next.”
Thoth took several moments to think of something.
“I don’t like sharing much about myself,” he said.
“Why do you think I asked you to tell a story?” Syren asked back.
“Right,” Thoth said, “I suppose there’s nothing else to do.”
He took a few more moments just staring at the fire.
“When I was young, older than half the people here, but young compared to my age now, my people were declining so to speak.”
Images in Thoth’s mind were so vivid, Hecate couldn’t help but watch.
She saw a library, whose texts remained untouched, with nothing new added to the shelves.
“Our purpose meant little to us, as very few people enjoy doing the same thing for centuries.”
She saw a man, mediterranean, with a blond halo of hair. Through Thoth’s eyes he was beautiful.
“I met a stranger. Both completely different from and exactly like myself. He changed the way I saw the world, made me wish to leave my home. He said I had potential that he would hate to see wasted. I didn’t know what he meant then.”
And suddenly a great building was on fire. The stranger, though his features were the same, was now horrific.
“He advised a conqueror to destroy the home all of my people were in. It was a place of knowledge, a powerful representation of the kingdom.”
“Your home was destroyed while you weren’t there,” Bobbi said, “You’re the last of your kind.”
“In some ways. I’m certainly not the only person with abilities like mine, and there may have been others who missed the blaze, but I’m the last one to remember it, or at least that’s what it feels like.”
“Wait,” Syren said, “Your people died in a fire, and my aunt set the library on fire when she left? Did she know?”
Thoth gave a quiet nod.
“Holy shit.” Bobbi muttered.
“Mr. Drake,” Thoth said, some amount of cheer returning to his voice, “Why don’t you tell us a story next?”
Drake took a deep breath, watching his audience.
“What should I tell you about?” he asked.
“Well,” Bobbi said, “Our topics have been Singe’s parents’ falling in love, vomiting on my prom date, Syren’s adoption, and the genocide of Thoth’s people, so your options are wide open.”
“What’s a story that impacted you?” Singe asked.
“Well,” Drake said, “My parents met in a cemetery.”
“They would,” Bobbi accused.
Drake chuckled.
“My father had moved to England because our court’s home was becoming unsafe for us, so he was searching for a new one. He also met a woman whose psychic abilities left her uncomfortable in most company, but Vampires are resistant to such abilities.”
“A nuisance and a blessing,” Hecate confirmed.
“My mother had an ability that made her extremely likable. She loved her friends, but she didn’t trust that their care was real.”
“That’s useless,” Syren said, “People like people for the most arbitrary reasons.”
“Would you feel comfortable loving someone who only loved you because of powers you couldn’t control?” Drake asked.
“At that point it’s just a personality trait.”
“Your dad was resistant to your mom’s powers,” Bobbi redirected, “So he was the first guy she could trust liked her for her?” Bobbi asked.
“That’s how it was explained to me,” Drake said, “But as my father’s presence was kept a secret, and he was nocturnal like most vampires, my mother’s friends began to suspect something was wrong. Everything went wrong when she got sick.”
“What did she get sick with?”
“She never told me. The point is that she was bedridden, so my father snuck in through the window, unaware that her friends were holding vigil.”
He stayed silent as if begging for an interruption.
“What did they do?” Hecate braved.
Drake pulled a locket from his pants pocket, revealing an image of a child with two parents on one side. He held it for everyone to see.
“My mother was a skilled artist. My father was killed before I was born, in front of my mother’s eyes, at the hands of her friends.”
Hecate looked at the couple. The woman’s hair was more orange, but it reminded her of Bobbi’s color.
“It broke her,” Drake said, “She yelled at them, suddenly turning from the gentle girl they knew to an angry creature, so they assumed something had been done to her mind, and locked her up. As far as anyone else knew, she was dead.”
“Shit,” Bobbi said.
“She escaped, and found where the court had moved itself, joined as a thrall. My uncle eventually recognized me as his kin, and to make sure I wasn’t dealt the injustice of being a mere thrall’s child, married my mother.”
“Gross,” Syren said.
“Alright, Hamlet,” Bobbi accused.
“You forget that I know my uncle had nothing to do with my father’s death. In fact, when the time came for me to go on an outing after taking the gift—”
“The gift?” Bobbi asked.
“Vampirism. It has to be transferred. You can’t inherit it, not completely.”
Bobbi nodded.
“Anyways: When I went on an outing after taking the gift, I sought out my mother’s friends. She’d spoken so terribly about them, I wanted vengeance.”
“You killed them?” Bobbi asked, scooting away from Drake on their shared seat.
“No,” Drake confessed, “I planned to, but the first two I’d found… they’d settled down together, had a son, named after one my father had managed to lethally wound while they destroyed him. I had suffered for only having one parent, even after she remarried. I didn’t want to inflict the suffering of losing both on another child, so I ran off to do something else, met someone, brought them home with me, then ran away again after my mother passed.”
“Why did you run away again?” Bobbi asked.
“My mother died,” Drake insisted, “Nobody wants to stay home after their mother dies.”
Bobbi scrutinized him with focused gaze. He watched her right back.
“Dracula! You bastard!” Bobbi suddenly exclaimed.
“I did explain that my parents never married, yes?”
“That’s not what I fucking mean, and you know it, you asshole!”
“What is it, Bobbi?” Singe asked.
“I recognized Whitby when you first mentioned it, but I didn’t remember where—it’s Dracula!”
“Where do you think I got Drake from?” he asked.
“I figured that out now!” Bobbi stood up, “And obviously the book told a different story, but the kid sold it for me. Johnathan and Mina Harker named their kid after the cowboy.”
“The cowboy?” Hecate asked.
“You almost killed Johnathan Harker?” Bobbi asked as all realizations hit her.
“I didn’t know his name,” Drake said.
“You’re mom is Lucy?”
“Was,” Drake corrected, “She passed, but yes, that was her name.”
“And your dad was Dracula?”
“Vladimir Dracula III. Elder son of the Second.”
“They kept calling you Dragon, so I didn’t put the pieces together.” Bobbi was leaning her head on Drake’s shoulder in shame.
“Franklin,” Drake requested, “Would you take a turn, please?”
Frank nodded, sitting a little straighter.
“Since our dear Master Drake decided to give us a literary lesson,” he began, pausing for Bobbi’s groan of indignation, “I’ll offer my own.”
Hecate knew this story well. She’d seen it in Franklin’s most-loathed dreams.
“My creator had died,” Frank began, “He’d told his side of the story to an explorer, and I’d heard it all. I pitied him in some ways, but mostly I was just angry.
“I made clear my plan to the traveler. I was going to burn Victor’s body, and then my own, destroy myself and any chances of making another creature like me.”
“But you’re alive,” Syren said.
“An astute observation, Ms. Eves. I gave Victor the funeral I’d promised, but something kept me from joining him. I assumed it was because I still held the fear of fire since the time I was burned by it.”
“Not a bad fear to have,” Drake said.
“So I put a note in my coat pocket, asking anyone who found me to burn me, as I hadn’t been able to do it myself. Then I tried to stab myself, realizing I couldn’t produce the guff to actually do it. All those years of self-loathing, and I nonetheless wanted to live.”
After a moment of silence, as they realized Frank had finished his story, Thoth spoke up.
“I’m glad you chose to live.”
“I didn’t really,” Frank said, “I just couldn’t choose to die.”
“That’s better than having you dead,” Hecate said, “What would I do without my darling?”
“You’d have managed, dearest. You were put together by the time you found me.”
“You could tell us about that though,” Bobbi said, “It’s your turn to tell a story.”
“You aren’t the one who makes that choice,” Hecate noted.
“You are the only one who hasn’t told one,” Frank said, “And I would love to hear a story from you, dearest.”
Hecate took a deep breath. The last thing she wanted to do was reveal anything about her past. It was a tapestry of sorrows that the joys only served to enhance, and she could practically feel Frank’s disappointment at the idea of telling a story about her time with him, so she wouldn’t speak about herself.
“Names are power, to know a name is to have power over them. This is very true for demons, and is the reason we call each other by title, even when we’ve heard each other’s names in passing.
“There is only one exception to this rule,” she truly began, “The name every Demon is taught, and every demon can say, is Mnemosyne.”
“The Greek Goddess of Memory?” Bobbi asked.
“And I share a name with their Goddess of Witchcraft,” Hecate said, “Though in this case, I suspect our Mnemosyne predates the one of human lore.”
“So she’s real old?” Syren asked.
“One of the first, if legends are correct.”
“First what?”
“Demons.”
Everyone’s eyes widened, the thoughts on their minds clear: Demons are immortal, so how old would one of the first have to be?
“I have a gift beyond normal Demons, it is why I am called Charmer. Mnemosyne also had a gift, so she was called Seer, because she knew the future.”
“People don’t see the future,” Thoth corrected, “Only probabilities. Just ask an oracle about their accuracy rate.”
“My people are unable to peddle falsehoods,” Hecate explained.
“Well they don’t peddle in specificity. I’m sure many of her predictions came true.”
Hecate waited for the air of smugness on Thoth to become less overwhelming.
“As our opposites, the Angels naturally had an opposite to Mnemosyne, one who could see the past. His name is not one that we speak.
“The one who could see the past thought he could end the war between our races if he could understand the demons choice to continue it, so he let himself get captured. Mnemosyne demanded that the Satan released him into her care.”
“So she knew he was special?” Bobbi asked.
Hecate nodded.
“There are two conflicting accounts. One says that their abilities did not work on each other, and in revealing this, they realized they’d each found their similar opposites. The other says that she’d seen him, and what he meant to her, in her visions, and that he knew her instantly and fell in love.”
“Love at first sight?” Drake scoffed.
“At first touch, assuming the first account is correct. Either way, they loved each other. Eventually they ran away together, leaving a prophecy in their wake. Peace would only come to the celestial races when one of Celestial and Mortal blood either conquered the angels, or destroyed the Satan.”
“A mage,” Singe noted.
“And who’s the Satan?” Bobbi asked.
“The leader of the demons,” Hecate answered, “And he had no intention of letting something as valuable as Mnemosyne slip from his grasp.”
“Mnemosyne and her lover are together the closest thing the Celestials have to living gods, for they are the only Celestials that can be killed.”
“How does death make them worthy of divinity?” Thoth asked.
“Because they would be reborn, the Bard and his Muse, new faces, new lives, He will always remember her, and she will know how much he means to her, but love can’t save everyone.”
“Which one died for real?” Bobbi asked.
Everyone stared at her.
“Is that not where this was going?”
Hecate nodded.
“Angels can shapeshift, as long as they avoid their blood being seen, they can pass as human. Demons are not so lucky,” she pulled her hair back to show the bones protruding from her forehead that looked a bit like the front of a circlet, “And the wrong deal can force even a goddess to stay asleep.
“In her last life she never developed abilities, so when she was killed, she was never reborn. They say the Bard still seeks her out, believing she will return to him one day.”
“What do you think?” Bobbi asked, “We haven’t really learned how this story tells us anything about you.”
Hecate looked around the circle. This would never be her home, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t care for the people she surrounded herself with. They deserved some truth from her.
“I think I understand his loneliness,” she admitted.
They stayed in sympathetic silence until Singe made a loud clap.
“And that’s a story round!”
“Maybe we can do it again sometime,” Bobbi ventured, “I like getting to know you guys.”
“I’m flattered my story of almost murdering a family didn’t make you run screaming,” Drake said.
“It was close.” Bobbi pinched her fingers in example, “But I’ve seen too much shit for a story to do much for me in regards to moral disgust.”
“You can never be sure,” Hecate said, thinking of her younger self. It was better not to tell them. She hated being pitied.
This was something of a rest, and an excuse to drop some backstory/lore I've kept in mind for years. It also might not be our last story-round with these seven.