“Welcome,” Miriro said, floating like an apparition in the darkness of the woods. She was in a grove of the dense woods that was illuminated by the waning moon overhead and she watched as black forms emerged from the darkness and into the clearing.
Miriro had a smile on her face that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Her face was angled, harsh ones at the tip of her nose and chin, and at the height of her cheek bones as she smiled with delight at the gathering darkness in the large round clearing. She wore a simple black dress that stirred around her calves and she was barefoot, her shoulders exposed despite the chill in the air. She was an older woman but her skin was pristine in the moonlight and her curly black hair hung down past her chin.
When the black forms had gathered and stood like a shadow audience around Miriro, she held up a hand to rally the attention of the shadows that sounded like rustling winds and foliage.
“The first quarter moon is almost upon us,” Miriro said aloud, but she was not speaking to the circle of shadows. She looked up at the sky over the clearing. “And this moon has potential. I would seize it for me and my kind, and I will use you all to do it. Time is short, the next first quarter moon that is favorable to our kind emerges soon, if we are to seize it for the witches, we require more power. Go, do your mischief and gain strength, for the next time we convene, we will seize the moon! And under that Witch Moon, I can do what has not been done in centuries.”
“A true witch sabbath!” a snarling voice cried in excitement over the exaltations of the other shadows gathered around Miriro in excitement at the details of her plan.
“Can it be done?” another voice asked.
“She is a charlatan!” another cried out. “She cannot bring the Witch Moon! If she could, she wouldn’t need our help.”
Miriro lifted a hand and the winds began to swirl at her back, and then they rushed past her and swept a portion of the circle of dark figures onto their backs. The wind circled around the figure that had doubted her ability and it brought the figure to the center of the circle. In the light at the center of the circle, the figure was revealed to be a young woman, probably in her twenties, in blue jeans and a t-shirt and a golden amulet on a golden chain at her neck. She screamed as she flailed in the tunnel of winds that held her in the center of the circle.
Miriro flicked the fingers of her raised hand and the winds subsided as she approached the young woman who coughed and gasped for air. Miriro gathered the fingers of her hand into a fist and the young woman was forced up to her knees and she knelt before the intimidating figure of Miriro.
“I am older than all of the members of your bloodline put together,” Miriro barked down at the young woman who was visibly shaking and seemed to be struggling to move with no success. “I am Miriro, the exalted witch of this planet. I have lain with the Needy, I was a confidant of the dank weed Illuminatos, and I am the owner of pets so fearsome that laying eyes on them sends mankind into fits of mind melting horror. My pets hail from a distant world and they have come to add to my already awesome power as I ascend to my place that pretenders like Illuminatos cannot inhabit. The assembly that I will call under the Witch Moon will gather together the most powerful witches of this world to hear me, Miriro, declare my intentions, and introduce my beloved new pets. If you doubt my might and choose not to use your powers to my purposes, then I will take them.”
With a flick of her finger, the gold chain at the young woman’s neck snapped as though Miriro had ripped it with her hand and it floated until the ancient witch seized it in a hand and shoved it into her mouth. As she ground it to glittering dust with her teeth, shimmers of gold flakes crumbled from the corners of her mouth, the young woman writhed in agony, as though she were being chewed by Miriro, and when Miriro swallowed and wiped the gold crumbs from her mouth, the young woman lay near death on the forest floor.
“Go!” Miriro screamed and the power within her began to flicker as flames in her eyes and then consumed her head in an eerie, neon green flame that covered her being but did not consume her. The flame raged as she did, as a display of her ability, to inspire confidence in her plan to bring the Witch Moon. She would send those witches out to gather their strength by pestering regular humans and when they returned to her, she would channel their power into her own and enact the spell that would bring the Witch Moon.
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