Sun, 08 Sep 2024 20:50:44 GMT

Practical magic A.K.A. Katrina girl.

Tivit had been wearing the small fork in her hair for several days when the memory of another box popped into her head. She'd spent several days trying to untie all the knots in her hair and find the safe path through sifting strands. She was great at knots.

She was searching for where she began and ended. And shed finally found suitable potions and rituals to fall back on that told her what she could count on and control. They included home made ferriday cages and cutting internet connections.

That made this box timely .

As a young woman, Tivit walked winder shins while exercising in order to spend as little time as possible on the activity of living forever. Her favorite walking location was a lake that was almost in the center of town. It was really a drainage pond. But with fountains.

If you carried a large enough bag of bread, you too could have a train of Muscovy ducks at least 100 strong. They were not picky where they got dough and they were the best followers. They'd follow the entire circle, no quacks given.

It was late at night and she didn't need followers. She needed peace to think. When, randomly, a young woman asked if she'd like company. The young woman was about 16 years old and decided to sound Tivit out on all things astrology, occult, and magic.

Tivit was a witch. Tatiana was the 7th daughter of a 7th son. Tivit was her first. As a matter of course it seemed that while Tivit might not get everything she wanted, more often than not, she got exactly what she needed. She preferred to be an ethical scientific witch.

Meaning she knew all about cognitive biases and argumentative fallacies, particularly confirmation bias, and correlation isn't causation. If she was going to do magic, she wanted to know that it was actually her and not wishful thinking.

Tivit always adopted neutrality in order to not skew results. It also helped sort out people. They so often told her how she should react which gave her a world of choices when she did.

The young witch decided to tell her about a recent ceremony. "I'm very powerful, you know." She claimed. "My partner is too. He's 18.""Why did you do the ceremony?,"Tivit asked. "We wanted to find out our future together." The young woman gushed.

"What did you find out?" Tivit asked.

"I'm going to get pregnant with twins and they'll be the most powerful magic users in the world." She declared triumphantly. Tivit was a little set back but kept quiet. The young witch concluded, "Yeah! I'm responsible for hurricane Katrina!"

Tivit's stomach dropped out. She maintained composure but all of a sudden walking backwards with this young woman was something that she wanted nothing to do with. She walked the rest of the way back to her start and wished her a good night.

Tivit had no problem with other magical practitioners. It took all types and finding a story which helped with a sense of peace was nothing to shun. But she was very firmly in the "everything that you do comes back times 3" and "If it harm none" camps.

Her curses always came with exits for the betterment of herself and others. And since she designed them, she could exit as fast as it was said. But the level of Hubris in the young witch completely disgusted her.

Tivit had been watching the event unfolding in New Orleans after the hurricane had gone through. She wanted to know what she needed to plan for because she also lived in the world. It was a horror on earth.

The collapse of society had cops shooting bullets at people trying to flee the city over bridges. They trapped human beings in a stadium and locked the doors with no extra food or supplies than what the unprepared had brought with them with no protection.

The predators had acted on weaknesses. People drowned in houses that were below sea level once the levies had overflowed and the pumps stopped working. Whole families lost generations of wealth, knowledge and connect to each other.

Tivit never needed to read horror novels or see movies. She just had to use her eyes and her mind to cry and be tortured with them.

"It's like this,"She thought to herself, "If you're going to claim responsibility for the good parts, you need to do the exact same for the bad."

Tivit had reasoned that this young witch was so thrilled with how much grief and loss and death she had caused in her ceremony to start a family and have power. As if children should bear that much. As if anyone should have that much power over another human life.

Her walk was over but this was a very small town. She didn't know if she would come across this person again. She wished she wouldn't but a year and a half later she got to meet the young witch formally.

Tivit got to witness the woman get pregnant. She watched as the woman announced it was twins. She learned about the miscarriage after the young witch pan handled for money to catch a ride home. She gave her nothing.

And that was fine. Tivit concluded. A witch never needed to claim responsibility. She just needed to wait. As a scientist witch she could test and find out. It might not stop being magic once you knew how it was done but it never even needed to be magic at all.

Somethings, one controls and others, they don't. She mused. No matter what they might use to understand their place in occurrence and outcome.

She thought. I can only act to the best of my ability. But I absolutely never need to be nasty about it. Nor should I forget that I am one of a multitude where everyone counts. Balance will find itself eventually.

It was all simply action, reaction, entropy, quantum and time. "Besides", Tivit laughed, "Some days you eat the bear, other days the bear eats you."

Sun, 08 Sep 2024 20:50:29 GMT