WHO: Emilia di Carlo + whoever would like to join her.
WHEN: Throughout the month of March.
WHERE: The village of Ke-Waihu.
WHAT: Arrival, settling in, wolves, and horrors.
WARNINGS: Will update this as needed. As a note: My starters are in prose but I love prose and brackets equally. Go with your preference if you have one, and I will gladly match.


Emilia di Carlo does not arrive to the village of Ke-Waihu quietly.

For a near two decades — the only two decades an ancient curse allows her to remember — she was the dutiful and responsible daughter. The one who obeyed her family's rules and erred on the side of abundant caution. She stayed to the light and did all things a good witch must. She hid herself and contained her magic. When the hateful brothers roamed the streets in search of those with devilry in their souls to burn them at their pyres, she bit her tongue and swallowed the resentment. Closed her windows and kept her twin close at the bosom. Served food at the monastery the next day, for who would be suspicious of the one who nurtures?

It did not keep them safe.

Now she cares little to make herself palatable, to do as she is told even as a deep sense of responsibility lingers. Tension lines her jaw as she is stripped of her bearings, furious in her dignity. Suspicion crowds the sharp of her gaze when presented with a brew, one her Nonna Maria would tell her under no circumstances to drink. Won't you, she is asked, and she decides that she will not. No one can make her, not even the merchant's liaison Taksui, he with the vicious eyes. She is vicious, too, and has learned to bide her time.

A villager woman, her eyes kind but distant, fails to understand Emilia's unwillingness. Shows Emilia the marks of her own curses, as though they are gifts upon the skin. She is willing, even, to take a fourth curse upon herself should Emilia deny them. Whispers to her of the other villages, including one where all curses can be broken. Emilia, already cursed, doesn't readily believe. Neither does she ignore.

Theirs is a precarious situation. Under no circumstances are they to blow their cover, she knows. But there are certain concessions she is unwilling to make, and certain answers that will not be withheld from her. To demand this of her without question is not reasonable, no matter how desperate she is. She knows this, too.

And so they are given days. Days to think it over, days to speak with the villagers, days to decide. The more she learns, the less she is assured, but so is she reminded of her dwindling options, too. One curse atop another. One mission that blinds her to all else.

She drinks the brew.

The frustration, the wrongness of it — the anger — sits in the space between her ribs, and grows. ➥