Bonded to this realm

They were reaching their breaking point.

Raine whispers lived a blessed life. They had supportive parents, were gifted in music, and though they didn't always have that many friends per se, they still had enjoyable people they talked to from time to time. That was before the move.

Income, quality of life, and a whole bunch of other reasons younger Raine hadn't yet really understood, had led their parents in moving them to a faraway town.

At first it was cool. The town was so HUGE it rivaled an island! And everything in the place had some special type of technology that made everything work better, smarter, faster, etc. Their first school had mediocre people but the education was something they enjoyed at times. And when those people got too much and they transferred to a separate school, it was a little better.

The mayor of the town gave them mixed messages, on one hand, he knew how to run a place. The town itself had a precise system he had put in place and the protection of it was something he cared for deeply.

Another thing he cared for deeply was, magic. And not in a loving way, no he HATED magic and cared deeply that no one was affected by it. Before this place I hadn't even known magic was real, but if anyone here was to be believed it very much was.

He held rallies, meetings, big town announcements, and more to tell people of its dangers. Raine's family didn't have much care for the topic so only went rarely and made excuses why not to more often than not. In the rare times they had gone Raine picked up basic information as, there are multiple types of demons, magical creatures are known to be evil, and how to defend yourself if you ever came into contact. Though mayor belos's particularly hated cup of tea was witches. Witches had pointy ears and were the most evil of all magical creatures, the most basic witch knew information about the most skilled demon. And instead of defense tactics, he would show us ways he wanted to KILL these witches if he ever saw them. It was giving, 16-17th century witch trials.

The people, some better than others, had flat personalities is all Raine could describe it. They would say hi once and then proceed to ignore your existence, until needing to do otherwise. They had their life's cut out for them and went on that path without thought. They chose a teenage stereotype and stuck with it, and this ramble could go on and on. Raine who was once so confident and ready to show people who they were talking to, shriveled up on themselves. They hadn't even known how, before social anxiety took over them.

They had lived through it most days but, some were just too much for them. Like today.

It started as usual. them waking up, getting ready, and going downstairs to see their mom also preparing for work while their dad had already left. They had quickly eaten a small breakfast, before walking to school. During their trip, they tripped and scraped their knee hard, but didn't have time for that because they were already late. Once there, had to endure a horrible lecture with a bunch of other students, from the principal because he couldn't handle anyone being late for the life of him. Their teachers had decided today was the day we stress these students out till death and back, by almost all having surprise tests, luckily they were a good student and felt they did well enough, but that did nothing to calm their racing heart. They had found that the scrape on their knee was worse than they thought when they had started limping. And the others had decided to make it their mission to make them suffer for whatever reason it was this time. They had succeeded in enough humiliation by the end of the day that when they got a second to themselves to breathe, they should have gone to the nurse's office or called one of their parents. But Their mind told them to run.

Run. run through the pain, run away from the problems, run from the pressures, and run from the people. Their leg ached and screamed at them to stop but they couldn't. Their mind raced until their leg finally gave out, and they sat there for a few minutes before finally looking up.

Above them were dark shades of greens trying to cover a setting sky, around them the grass was long and short, with sticks littering its surface. No presence of modern civilization for who knows how far, meaning only one thing. They were lost.

They could feel panic trying to seep into them. 'Oh great, what do I do know!?' they thought even though for the next few minutes they did nothing but sit there. They looked around trying to see if they could find something, anything, to help. There was plant life around the grass of all kinds, tulips, daisies, and dandelions. The one that caught their eyes though was a small bed of snapdragons in a secured section behind Wich were some thick bushes, and moss curtains. A normal person would have stayed seated and saved their energy, but not this one. They may have gotten a little socially awkward but their wild nature never truly left it seemed so they hopped one-legged to the bed of snapdragons. As they leaned into the moss curtains to try and slide down safely, they fell through onto their back.

They cursed under their breath, using their hands to lift them back up into a sitting position before they looked around to where they were.

As if they had teleported to another dimension, they saw before them a mini-hilled land. The grass was not green however but red and orange hues, not dead but instead looking healthily flourished and nurtured. Littering atop the grass were dozens and dozens of snapdragons similar to the ones they had seen outside the moss curtains. In the middle almost perfectly in line was a hill not huge but noticeably taller than the others surrounding it, and if they squinted they could have sworn they saw someone. As they tried to get a better look, suddenly amber eyes summoned before them.

In front of them sat a girl on her knees. She wore a black jacket with a yellow shirt underneath, her pants were grey with a line of yellow swirling around them. She had big amber eyes, along with big long ginger hair. And through that hair, two pointed ears were visible.

"Ahhhhhhhh" they yelled trying to bounce back, but just ended up landing on their back again.

They heard a snort before the girl in front of them seemingly Bursts into laughter. They blush but quickly shook their head trying to think of how to get away, from this....witch?

Her laughter dies down as she notices Raine's scooting.

" Uhh, hi there. I know I can be intimidating, but if you wanna run you can. As long as you don't try to tell anyone about this of course." She says nonchalantly with a smirk and wink.

Raine stays quiet, they would love to run but knew their leg had probably already surpassed its limits. They didn't wanna continue scooting away though, as for one the witch had already noticed and two it's not like they could scoot home, they didn't even know where they were!!! The witch tilted her head and they realized they had stayed still this whole time. They opted to try and see if their leg could take anymore as they tried standing. This was a bad idea for as soon as the slightest bit of pressure was put onto their leg, they fell face-first into the red grass.

"Owww" the mumble face stuffed with grass.

They heard another snort before a golden light glew around their body, it Carried them and set them down gently. They looked around their body as the glow stopped before they saw the witch approaching. She held her hand at their knee before looking at them.

"Can I?" She asks and despite not knowing what the hell she was going on about, they give her an uncertain nod

She draws a circle in the air and the part of their knee that had been hurting lights up. " What the? How much pain did you put this through, were you trying to lose a leg to irreversible damage!?" She says accusingly at them.

They blushed about to defend themselves before she laughed again, shorter this time waving her hand at them " I'm kidding, trust me when I say I've probably done worse. Still, a little overkill for a human don't ya think? "

This time, they laughed. This witch was rather really good at luring people to their deaths, or really bad. Or maybe neither they thought as she drew a separate circle above their knee, this time face concentrated. About a minute later she stopped. as she opened her eyes looking tired.

"There. İt's not perfect but should be walkable on and heal completely in a day or two."

Their eyes widen. They look at their knee and back to the witch, and then back to their knee. They slowly begin to stand up and this time as they begin to put pressure on their leg.. it was fine. The witch said it would completely heal in a day or two, but to them, it felt healed already.

"H...h..how" they begin before the witch gets up herself.

"Uhh, magic," she says matter of factly waving her hand and pointing to her ears.

"Woah...WOAH! Oh my gosh, that was amazing! Thank you so much!! Why...why did you do that..?" They asked as the situation caught up to them. This was a witch, weren't witches evil? She didn't seem evil.

"You were clearly hurt and I wasn't about to just let you suffer there." "You humans tend to think witches are eviler than we actually are, or at least think we have no heart so pain is something we like watching??? Or something like that." She explains

" Soo Your welcome I guess. Are you fine going home though?" She asks them as they look up to the sky. İt was much darker than they had realized and surely one of their parents would be home soon. One problem.

"Uhhh, I would be if I knew where this was." They say awkwardly hand going to the back of their neck.

She looks at them before asking, " hmmm, I'd be willing to help. If your up for the witch way there" she looks at them mischievously.

And well, if you knew them by now. You knew they said yes.

They both flew high in the air on the witch's staff with an owl carved at the end. The owl they had also seen was sentient, was this like her aggh..... what was it called? They were starting to regret not going to more magic-talking events just so they could know more about the girl flying them home.

"So then you ran through the forest?" She asked as they just about finished recapping how they got into the situation in the first place.

"Yeah, I know maybe a bit of an overreaction bu-" they started to explain feeling silly for their actions as they looked over the story now.

"No! Don't. feelings are a complicated thing you can't always control. İf you felt overwhelmed then clearly you had a reason to, trust me those guys were idiots." She says defending them.

They smile, "thanks" confidence in those words they hadn't felt in what felt like a while.

"No problem, who knows maybe they'll get a little visit from a little prank of mine or two," she says while guiding her staff through the air.

They laughed " actually that sound like fun. Mind if I join?" They meant it as a joke but wouldn't lie that there was some truth to their words. İt would be fun. (And nice to see her again) what?

"Really?" Her smile grew

"Uh, yeah if that's okay of course," they said not expecting her to answer.

"Totally!!" Suddenly the staff was tucked down and they were met in front of a very familiar house. " How about this, I'll find ya when I'm ready to pull off this prank, and then we show those little suckers whose boss huh," she says as she dismounts from her staff them following a second later.

" I think that sounds great. Just were not killing them right?" They ask jokingly already expecting the answer.

"No... Well just give them a little of their own medicine"

They both laugh for a second before she lets down her Staff again. "Well, then I guess I'll see you then."

As she's about to fly off they shout "Wait!"

She stops looking at them expectantly. They blush embarrassed for a second before asking the question on their mind "what's your name?"

She smiles lifting her hand "Eda. Eda clawthorne"

"Raine whispers"