The Haze Witch

By Ami E. Bowen

The smell of wax and burning filled the room, dominating it. Olivia Dunstun stood in the near the sink, gazing at her reflection in the mist-covered mirror. Her colorless hair hung limply about her bare shoulders, falling down her back in lank strips to briefly touch the soft swell of her buttocks. Her eyes glowed an uncanny hue in the light of the flickering candle placed on edge of the tub reflected in the mirror behind her, a wan golden brown. Smiling, she turned towards the tub behind her, it\'s water smooth as silk and a fine hazevapovapor rising from it\'s surface.



She allowed the ivory towel to fall from her body, exposing her pallid flesh, already damp with sweat, to the warm air. She sighed deeply before glancing momentary at the ebony candle, long and elegant, wondering if the flame would dance for her as long she wished. Last night it had gone out before it was time. That had been bad, very bad indeed, and it had taken her a whole segment to recast the light, not an easy thing to do for a novice such as herself.





She knelt slowly into the water, lay back and closed her eyes. The mediation had begun.

She breathed thrice, in deeply and out idly, filling herself with peace, calmness and serenity. When at last she felt content with herself and the world she knew, she granted her eyes permission to open.

T FAT FACE=\"Tahoma\" SIZE=2>She gazed unseeing at the flame before her, the flame of the candle, and studied it\'s aesthetic dance in a vaporous daze.



Softly, languidlordsords began to rise into her mind, forming like whispers to bounce from the tf hef her tongue.



\"Cantalorastia, Rectaoratic, Mootocjkaa,\" She did not understand the words, nor their meaning, they came as they always came, unbidden and unknown, to her mind and lips and were lost from memory once they had been uttered.



She cnuednued to recite the strange chant, the syllables running across her tongue like the sweetest honey, and silently awaited a response. There is always a response.

It came.



She watched the candleflame sputter, expand until it was half again as large as she, though she did not cry out or cringe in fear, she did widen her eyes and her heart skipped a fraction of beat beneath the voluptuous augmentation of her breasts.



The flame began to disseminate and fall apart, as she watched, and come together again as a wh

It began to take form.



A man altered of flame, burned down at her, unblinking red-rimmed flame-blue eyes. She watched and waited, knowing the lesson was far from finished.



She gazed up at him, as he hovered above the candle wick, masculine beauty evident in his Apollo-like form, his hair a mass of flame cavorting about his head, allowing her eyes the luxury of embracing him as her flesh could not. His warmth was untouchable, yet it harmed her not to gaze at him.

He smiled faintly, opened his mouth to speak, and a thin line of smoke, gray and waifish, issued from within that gapping hole.



\"How goes it, love?\" He asked, with just the hint of an English accent, \"Calling me forth just for peering at, are we?\"

She did not speak, only continued to watch. She reached idly for the bar of ivory-colored soap which smelled of lilic and plum and began to lather a washcloth which had materialized in her other hand.



\"Ah, not speaking, are we?\" He asked, and laughed, the movement causing him to flicker, \"Well, then little sister, I shall speak for us both...\"



She waited, the washcloth and soap leaving trails of suds in the wake of her hands across her flesh, a quant shadow of a smile upon her face.



\"You and I both know,\" He began, she she sighed as she always did at the beginning of a lesson, \"That times are changing. It is now frowned upon for student and teacher to engage in conversation as we have been doing.\"



She blinked. This was not the speech she had been prepared for. The soap dropped from her grip to land with a muffled splash in the w bet between her legs.



\"The candle-flame is being snuffed even as I speak,\" He shuddered in horror, \"In Haze-Homes much like this one....they are claiming that a frost-element is a better teacher for the young Haze-Witches. I cannot say that I agree. As we both know, a student should stay in his or her own right, therefor...\"



\"Therefor,\" She gasped, surprised at how soft was her voice, \"Flame-elements should stay with flame-haze students and Frost....\"



\"Frost-Elements with the Winter-hazed,\" He finished, nodding at her, \"Correct, little sister. Oh so correct.\"



They were both filled with silence for a moment, for a year in a moment. At last, she said, \"I don\'t want you to go....\"



\"If I leave,\" He said kindly, as she watched the bar of soap bobbing in the milky water betwixt her knees, \"Another Flame-element shall take over for me...when you light the candle...\"



\"I don\'t want you to go!\" She cried out, forgetting that Flame-elements detested shouting in any form, and lapsed back into silence, ashamed.



He wavered before her, almost extinguishing before her eyes, then steadying himself, whispered, \"Remember my words. Nothing matters but the heat, without heat there can be no love and without love there can be no passion and passion is what I am to teach, passion is what you are to learn, Olivia, it is the whole of exisestince, the essence of life and it is the soul of change and growth.\"



She sighed again, thankful that the lesson would continue on as planned. The words were not new, she had heard them a dozen times in the past, and would, if they did not find out and take her mentor away, be heard a dozen times more.



As always, she grasped the meaning and forced it deep inside of herself, down into the darkness of her soul, where she would feel it burning there fer. er.



\"Time for me to go now,\" He said, waking her from her reverie of serenity, \"You know what to do, little sister?\"



She nodded and reached out with her hand. He lost form and flickered down to the size of her thumb, dancing on the end of the wick.

She waved her hand over the flame, droplets of water from the bath fell upon the flame and it went out.


NT FNT FACE=\"Tahoma\" SIZE=2>Casting the room into darkness.



Casting her heart into darkness.





~ End ~