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+----- Thread: Daughter of the Ancients | Katie (/showthread.php?tid=1068)
Daughter of the Ancients | Katie - Julia Barlowe - 05-23-2026
Tuesday, October 31, 1922
Samhain
9:00 PM
Samhain
9:00 PM
"Before the Romans invaded our island," Julia said quietly, her wand illuminating the candles that sat in a wide circle before them, "our people were open practitioners of magic and worked in communion with nature." She took her daughter by the hand, leading her to the center of the circle where she pulled her hood back, allowing her brown hair to fall over her shoulders.
“Our people were revered as seers, holy men, healers, and keepers of the veil between this world and the next. We weren't relegated to the outskirts of society due to fear or ignorance."
From the bag she wore at her shoulder, Julia retrieved a small knife, her travel apothecary and a spool of thin black silk thread. Setting them on the old table she'd summoned for the occasion, she smiled at her daughter. "Your grandmother and all the mothers and aunts before her kept our people's practices alive through the centuries, knowing there's no such thing as 'dark magic' or 'light'."
She tapped the table twice with her index finger, indicating for Kathryn to place the pair of starlings she'd found earlier that morning on the table while she set about arranging things. It was a rare night away from Jude - Julia having finally given into Maddox's suggestions of an occasional bottle.
Samhain - or Halloween as it was now known in Anglo society - was the night when the veil between worlds fell thinnest, perfect to amplify rituals of blood magic and necromancy. Her daughter had been collecting corpses for far too long now, and while Julia took no issue with harmless curiosity, it was becoming a problem when they began to decay, especially with a rambunctious toddler and curious infant around.
"Eventually my love," Julia said, picking up one of the dead starlings to inspect it carefully, "we'll need to find a way for you to manage these rituals on your own, but for now, we'll do them together." Kate would need to overcome her refusal to speak, at least in these matters, unless they could find another avenue for her.
Surely, she wasn't the first mute witch to exist.
The bird's bodily integrity was fine, no outward flaws that she could see at the moment. As the forest trees brushed with the night breeze above them, she took a quick glance at the other before deciding both would work well.
"Necromancy has many interpretations, but tonight, I'm going to show you how to preserve and reanimate, so that we're not just collecting rot." She beckoned for her daughter to hold out her hands. When she did, Julia placed one of the birds gently in her hands, indicating for her to cradle it.
"Life and death go hand in hand, and to revere one, we must respect the other. You'll need to understand that what we do tonight is not about domination." Her fingers came beneath Kathryn's wrists, correcting the position with gentle tenderness. "Hold it gently darling, not like a possession. This starling is your guest."
RE: Daughter of the Ancients | Katie - Kathryn Barlowe - 05-25-2026
The night was a treat.
While the little girl was often loathe to break with her schedules and routines, it took very little for her to make the exception on this occasion. An hour before curfew, she typically sat in a corner of her common room, reviewing the day's lessons. For some, it may have been a light means of winding down from the day. For her, it may as well have been etched in stone. There weren't many things that could remove her from that well-worn armchair with the scratch along its back leg.
Her mother helping her with a ritual could.
There was no Jude. When Julia had suggested they head into the forest on Halloween night, Kathryn's anticipation had been tempered by the knowledge that, outside of classes, the baby was seldom seen out of her mother's arms. She didn't want to spend the night in the forest with them both and had been rather sullen for that fact.
Then she met the woman in her private quarters and...Jude...wasn't there.
Evander wasn't there.
The only person that waited was her mother with the materials they would need and the peace that came with the realisation that, just for that night, she wouldn't have to share her with anyone else.
Kathryn watched her mother light the candles, accustomed to her proficiency with a wand, while remaining indifferent to the idea of gaining that proficiency for herself. Mr. Maddox had warned that she might fail her classes if she kept it up, despite how well her theory kept her grades above water. 100%. 0%. They weren't so different for her. Abstract scratches on paper, usually in red, never changing a thing. Whether she got 100% on a worksheet or essay or 0% when told it was time to demonstrate what she'd learned, the little girl still woke promptly at 5:30AM. She still had breakfast at 7AM; classes until lunch; too many people she was meant to acknowledge as siblings, and a boy who thought she needed to hear of his every triumph and sheep-related anecdote.
She listened attentively to all her mother explained about the witches who came before them. Her family, not theirs. Kathryn didn't suppose she knew much about the Cuddruns. Had they ever been good at any of this? Had they ever tried? Was their entire legacy a glass bottle of bitter juice and silent consumption of radio programmes?
"Eventually my love, we'll need to find a way for you to manage these rituals on your own, but for now, we'll do them together."
Someday, she supposed. But not tonight. Kathryn saw no issue in spending some time alone with her mother, watching her work and having her lend her expertise to what would otherwise amount to little more than curiosity without an engine to propel it forward.
"Necromancy has many interpretations, but tonight, I'm going to show you how to preserve and reanimate, so that we're not just collecting rot."
Her expression brightened. It wasn't by a degree most people would notice – not helped along by the darkness that enveloped them – but enough for someone as attuned and perceptive as her mother to notice. Over the years, Kathryn had found many fine specimens, but with time, they all inevitably rotted, and then she was ordered to remove them from the castle. More often, her mother vanished them herself, leaving the girl in silent turmoil.
Kate extended both gloved hands, receiving the little starling she'd diligently scoured the grounds for earlier. She'd found a lovely pair and was pleased to know they wouldn't meet the same fate as everything else.
"Hold it gently darling, not like a possession. This starling is your guest."
She looked up at her mother with bewildered blue eyes. Were they not her possessions? She had found them, and they belonged to no one else, not even themselves. Death claimed them now and her, their second owner.
Guests, her mother had said while the milky-eyed bird stared off into eternity, none the wiser that she held his entire frame between her fingers.
Her head cocked to the side, awaiting an explanation.
RE: Daughter of the Ancients | Katie - Julia Barlowe - 06-05-2026
The little head cock had Julia breaking into a smile. There were always small tells with Kathryn that her mother had learned to read with time. Sadness, fear, excitement, happiness, satisfaction, anxiousness. In this case it was curiosity, Julia's greatest friend and adversary, now read in the eyes of the daughter she led into the secret world she had been raised in.
It was a rite of passage in many ways, a mother passing on her knowledge of the old ways to the daughter that wouldn't learn to fear the 'darkness' but embrace it as a natural balance to the 'light'.
"We always respect the dead when we borrow from what remains. Nothing is owed to us, not even by bones. They're not ours simply because they can't tell us 'no'." While the vessels Kathryn experimented with would hardly resist, and would only be a memory of what they once were, it didn't mean they as witches didn't revere what had been and what had been sacrificed to allow them to have their rituals in the first place.
With Kathryn's hands in the correct position, there was something almost heartbreakingly young in her, standing inside the circle, her face shadowed by the forest above them. This brilliant child who had come to her with the unfair burden of trauma laced in her features and a curiosity for death in her pockets now looked at Julia expectantly.
Some mothers taught their daughters how to sew, host dinners and smile prettily through offense.
Julia Barlowe, apparently, taught hers how to return a bird from the edge of decomposition.
"Now," she said softly, "necromancy - death magic - lies in the give and take of life. To return something from death, you must offer it life." She picked up the small knife and dug the tip of the blade into her index finger. "Blood is memory and power. It's the lifeforce of all living things. Blood is evidence that something was alive, that it mattered." When a trickle of red streamed down her finger, Julia leaned over Kathryn, drawing a circle across the held starling's breast, a line down the center, then two branching marks that could be interpreted as veins.
"All blood must be given willingly. It does not have to be yours, but you can't force or take anyone's without their consent," she said softly, rubbing her index finger against her thumb to stop the sting, "But with your blood, your rituals will always be more powerful and potent."
Julia indicated for Kathryn to lie the starling back on the table beside the other. Uncorking a vial of ash, she handed it to her daughter, indicated for her to sprinkle a small bit over the bird's blood-painted breast. "This ash comes from Yew trees, which we often plant in graveyards. It's especially good for death magic and resurrection."
She nodded for Kathryn to go ahead, as she placed her hand gently on Kathryn's shoulder for support.
RE: Daughter of the Ancients | Katie - Kathryn Barlowe - 07-01-2026
"We always respect the dead when we borrow from what remains."
Borrow?
Kathryn didn't consider any part of the process to be 'borrowing'. For such a thing to be true, one first needed the intention of returning whatever they had in their possession. While she was always eventually forced to relinquish whatever she'd found, it was never her intent. Death had already claimed them once, so nothing could take them from her a second time. Well, she supposed decay still could, but that was their reason for being in the forest that night, wasn't it? They would finally solve the problem of the girl having to relinquish the things she tried to treasure. To imply that she was only borrowing would be to imply that even after that problem had been solved, she would still be made to let go.
"Nothing is owed to us, not even by bones. They're not ours simply because they can't tell us 'no'."
It was another thing that didn't make sense.
It seemed to her that that was the way the world worked. Others had the power of bending reality and altering ownership by virtue of not being denied. They'd told her she wasn't a Cuddrun anymore because she hadn't been able to refuse. They told her she was the daughter of Eleanor and George Longe, the daughter they'd always had and had spent some time raising in Sicily because 'no' wasn't an option provided for her. On that Sunday afternoon, at The Goring, ownership of her had been transferred from her mother to her mother because Julia said so rather than because of any request or refusal on her part.
The Laurences owned all their horses, claiming them without question. The horses had never told them that they wanted to be possessed, yet such was the way of the world. She couldn't understand why it should be any different now when it became her time to irrevocably lay claim to something.
The starling was hers, she decided quietly. It was hers; they both were until someone took them.
With that settled, she listened to the rest of the explanation. Blood. For whatever reason, the mention of it had made Avery pale. The boy had giggled about an eye inside a jar that looked back at its owner but shrivelled at the thought of something with the power to make possible what nature told her was beyond her capabilities. She didn't withdraw; she didn't flinch. Kathryn watched with silent reverence as her mother transferred her own blood to the starling.
Blood must be given freely.
The idea didn't strike her with any particular revelation, not because she'd had any preconceived ideas of morality around the subject but because the little girl had never been inclined to share her interests with others – certainly not to any degree that would welcome their participation, willing or otherwise.
When instructed, she placed the starling gently on the table before scooping a bit of ash. A small amount, just enough to dust over the bird's breasts.
Satisfied, she craned her head slightly to look up at her mother, waiting patiently for the next step in ensuring these birds never had to return to the earth.