#I don’t go a day without thinking of the 9 circles of hel

[hxxrtsurgery]

Boy said I was weird for having a dead squirrel as my phone wallpaper. Men will never understand the delicacies and torment of what it’s like to be a woman.

[nitewrighter]

Of Blades and Broomsticks Pt. XIII

*heelies in four months late with starbucks and an update/conclusion to the current story arc* ‘Sup. Got sidetracked. Let’s do this.

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12

Witch AU on AO3

---

The witch hunter awoke in a cavernous hall, with the soft sound of lapping water. He wasn’t sure if he could call it waking up. He felt no sensation of his eyelids sliding open, rather, his vision seemed to clarify itself as his consciousness sharpened. His body felt a constant push and pull of interior warmth against exterior cold. He could feel something like a flame flickering in his chest, blazing against a wet, sinking cold that soaked in from the outside. The strength not quite in his muscles yet, he gave a glance down to the soft material he was laying on. He seemed to be on a mattress of soft damp dead leaves, set upon a high dais of petrified wood. He moved to get up.

His body got up, his head did not.

“What—-“ the word fell out of him, soft and horrified. It didn’t sound like his own voice, but deeper, wetter, more raking. His body swiveled around to look at his head, but since a headless corpse had no eyes, all Gabriel could see was the bloody stump of his own neck looming down on him.

“No—No….” more words escaped him. He had to get his head back on. Simple enough. His body seemed to respond to his will, mostly. Head back on. Pick up the head and put it back on, he thought. His body lurched forward but only managed to knock him (the head) rolling toward the edge of the dais. “No—Catch me—Catch me!” he said as the body lurched again and clumsily knocked him off and sent him bouncing and rolling painfully along the floor.

“I realize this must be very jarring,” a voice, feminine, clear, and deep cut across the still air of the hall, “But you’ll only make things worse by panicking.”

“What is this—!?” Gabriel managed to say before a clumsy foot from his own body sent his head rolling across the floor again, only to be stopped under another foot.

“Is that any way to talk to your old friends, Gabriel?” A tall woman with short-cropped red hair  stooped into his view. She picked up his head and held him at eye level smiling at him.

“You…” Gabriel started.

“My dear Witch Hunter,” she said, tilting her head, “Gotten ourselves into quite the mess now, haven’t we?”

“What have you done to me?” he demanded.

“What have I done to you? I wasn’t the one who beheaded you, and it’s not my magic flowing through your veins binding you to this… form. I just…” she gestured, “Cleaned some things up. You’d probably be some horrible amalgam of man and gourd unable to even walk if it weren’t for my intercession.”

“Man and gourd…?” Gabriel said quietly as his body finally managed to make its way to the red hared woman and his hands flailed out.

His head was not his head.

It was rounder, smoother, warm to the touch. The redheaded woman managed to push past his clumsily grabbing arms and set his not-head on his neck stump, where it stuck with a sick wet “shluck” sound and swiveled as he took in more of his surroundings. The whole hall seemed to be made of the same petrified wood as his dais, and there was a throne at the head of it, flanked on either side by an intricately carved fresco of the Green Man with water pouring out of both of their gaping open mouths. Well there was the source of the sound of lapping water, at least. Gabriel’s hands went up to feel at his not-head again.

“Mirror,” he said.

“Come,” the red-headed woman hooked her arm in his and lead him over to one of the fountain frescoes, which, it turned out, were pouring out into two unsettlingly still dark pools on either side of the throne. She motioned to look into the pools of water, and he got down on one knee to look at his own reflection.

His head was not his head.

His head was a pumpkin. A pumpkin carved with cruel eyes and a wide, sharp and mocking grin.

“I did the best with what I had on hand,” said the redheaded woman and Gabriel suddenly sprang up and picked her up by the front of her loose linen tunic.

“What have you done to me!?”  He roared.

“You’ve already asked that, and I’ve already said,” the woman remained perfectly calm with her feet about two inches off the ground, “You were beheaded in a field, but somehow you perished with the flame of creation on your person. This would bind your life to your corpse, so I made sure your corpse was actually…. viable.”

“Beheaded in a….” the memories came rushing back to Gabriel. The witch at the stake. The column of fire in the square. The green vortex and the nightmarish mass of black tentacles that emerged from it. The blazing-winged figure and the green dragon tumbling from the sky. The witch, still with those blazing wings, staring him down, and the bite of the demon’s steel, cold and sharp and deep.

“The witch and her demon…” Gabriel said softly.

“A true witch?” the woman suddenly snickered and Gabriel shot her a glare, “Forgive me, but I was wondering when you’d stop burning hapless hags for brewing pennyroyal tea and actually go toe to toe against a right and proper sorcerer. Now if you don’t mind—-“ she swatted his hands off of her tunic and landed neatly on the floor, “I’m willing to ignore that slight because I know humans to be unfathomably stupid when they’re emotional. You would do well to remember that I am not your enemy, and that you would be very, very foolish to make me an enemy.”

“Why keep me alive?” said Gabriel, looking at his hands.

“I’m not the one keeping you alive,” said the woman, walking away from him and alighting a golden sphere on the tips of her long fingernails, “You are enthralled to whomever is bearing the flame of creation.”

“The witch,” said Gabriel.

“Until she dies or releases you, you cannot die, Gabriel,” said the woman, “And if your supposed ‘mistress’ is not even aware you’re alive… I’d consider that very useful, wouldn’t you?”

“So I need to kill her,” said Gabriel.

“Not a very creative type, are you?” said the woman, “You can’t die, Gabriel. Think of what you could do with that.”

“This existence is cursed. I will not suffer any second more of it than I must,” said Gabriel, “Do not think I will have any more dealings with you, either. Our…”

“Partnership?” the woman suggested.

“Our briefly mutual interests were long ago, and when I was younger and more desperate.”

“Yet they served you very well, as far as I recall,” said the woman.

“Just get me out of here and I will find my own way,” said Gabriel, now angrily pacing around the hall, looking for an exit.

The redheaded woman sighed in exasperation. “You continue to be a killjoy,” she muttered, then stepped up next to him and put a calm hand on his shoulder, “You’re alone in this world now, Gabriel. You’ve seen your reflection. You’ve seen what you’ve become. If you truly intend on destroying this witch, do you think you can do it walking the earth as a man?”

The pumpkin head swiveled toward her, those glowing yellow eyes boring into her.

“What do you get out of this?” asked Gabriel.

“Same as always—-I don’t like competition,” she said, smiling, “And if there’s someone bearing the flame of creation walking the earth… well, I find that very interesting.”

“This isn’t a game, Moira,” Gabriel snarled.

“That’s what people say when they don’t know how to play,” said Moira with a smile, “I look forward to working with you again, Gabriel.” “Hmph,” Gabriel glanced off, “‘Working with me again.’ All you ever did was give me a rock.”

“And what a useful rock it was,” said Moira, “Now tell me, where is my adder stone now?”

———

On the ramparts of the city walls, Pharah tossed the rock with a hole in it up and down in her palm restlessly, looking out over the tops of the pines and having half a mind to see how far she could throw it. It didn’t feel exactly right to hang onto it, but somehow she felt like leaving it or throwing it away would be worse.  Four days had passed since the Witch and her demon had made their escape and while the slightly burning sulfurous smell still hung in the air, most of the town was forced to return to its work. In spite of all the horror and reality seemingly uprooting itself in the span of the few days of the Witch’s capture and escape, there were still fields to till, still forge fires in the smithing district to keep, still guard rounds that needed posting, and a whole lot of rebuilding that had to be done. Several days of searching the surrounding areas of Adlersbrunn for the Witch Hunter had only yielded a bloody spot in a pumpkin patch. There was no body. Pharah wondered if seeing the body would improve the situation by at least giving the townspeople some closure over the Witch Hunter’s fate, or if it would stamp out whatever last few embers of hope remained.

Pharah had her hands full just keeping the townspeople calm—-nerves were frayed, an anger and a fear hung in the air. The sense of helplessness was collective and inescapable, and it stung her all the more deeply since she was guard captain—-it was her job to keep the city feeling safe, and she couldn’t do that. Half of her guardsmen were pushed far past the point of exhaustion with their numbers depleted by the attacks on the town, and her fatigue had ebbed only a little as time passed on from the whole incident. Lord Von Adlersbrunn was hardly being a help at all—-with the involvement of Junkenstein, a craftsman under his own commission, the people’s faith in Von Adlersbrunn’s judgment had all but dried up and he could hardly take counsel with his circle of the town’s nobles and clergy without everyone shouting over him. A great many people left the town, heading west for warmer weather and hopefully fewer witches and demons—away from the shadows of the Black Forest, but for many, there was no where else they could go.

“You are the guard captain, correct?” a weathered voice spoke and Pharah caught the adder stone and quickly pocketed it.

“Can I hel—-Your grace!” Pharah turned her head and then quickly bowed it as Bishop Petras walked toward her, “I—Yes. I am the Captain. I am at your disposal, your Grace—”

“You need not worry with such formalities,” said the Bishop.

Pharah cleared her throat and raised her head. “To what do I owe this audience?”

“I take it you already know of Sir Gabriel?” said the Bishop.

“I was the first one they reported to,” said Pharah, “I’ve sent out one last search party in case there was anything more, but with my guard stretched out as thin as it is…”

“Of course,” said the bishop, softly, “He spoke rather highly of you in his reports to me.”

“I abandoned him,” Pharah said, looking down, “I couldn’t—-“

“I know,” said the Bishop, “There was no abandonment—-you are a guard captain before you are a Witch Hunter. I understand that much.” He looked out over the surrounding farmland and forest past Adlersbrunn’s walls, “We set out to destroy evil and alleviate everyone’s fears, and yet we feel more helpless and surrounded by evil than ever thought possible.”

“So what do we do about it?” said Pharah.

“I’m afraid protocol demands that I go to the Vatican to report this incident and pray I don’t get laughed out as a madman and pray the people here won’t think God abandoned them in my absence,” said the Bishop, “As far as your path… this city will always have need of a guard captain, but I feel it is worth asking ourselves if we will ever truly feel safe knowing what’s out there now.”

“Your Grace?” Pharah said his title in question.

“There were very few people in Sir Gabriel’s line of work that I felt I could trust….I feel whatever path you choose, though, I can trust you. Take care, Guard Captain,” said the Bishop, walking off. Pharah watched the bishop disappear down the stairs to the city gate where a party of several guardsmen awaited him along with his own horse. Pharah watched as the Bishop and his contingent rode off away from the city, then pulled the Adder stone back out from the interior of her doublet.

“What’s out there…” she said quietly closing her fingers around the stone.

The prison cells within the castle were all but unguarded with how stretched thin the city guard was now. She grabbed a torch and walked by the one guard posted, heading down several stone steps into the dark. She wasn’t sure what she hoped to find in here—all she knew was that in the span of 2 nights in this prison, the Witch had gone from paltry fireballs to massive columns of demon-summoning flame. Holding up her torch aloft, she looked into the now-empty Witch’s cell—-Small, depressing, with naught but a pile of hay for a bed and a bucket for a chamberpot. She looked down at the floor—there were a few drops of blood next to the iron bars of the cell, but nothing else. No sigils drawn out or anything. Pharah felt the weight of the adder stone in her pocket, then slowly pulled it out and held it to her eye and gasped softly. Through the little hole in the stone, all sorts of burning symbols and writing in a language Pharah could not understand glittered like embers on the walls, ceiling, and floor of the cell. The script didn’t look like it was written out in a human hand, but rather it burned itself into being. Unthinkingly, Pharah pulled open the door to the cell and stepped in for a closer look. As she drew closer, she squinted at the script and wondered if her senses or her belief in the adder stone were betraying her, or if the cuneiform-like symbols on the wall really were reforming themselves into words. She brought the adder stone down from her eye, but the writing was still there. The Witch Hunter used the stone to train himself to see what others could not, Pharah thought to herself, Could I do the same?

Seek me if you have the sight, they read. Seek who? The Witch? The Witch seemed hardly eager to have anyone follow her out of Adlersbrunn, riding off on a dragon and everything. Pharah remembered a steady gaze of two amber-colored eyes with slitted pupils. Not the Witch. The Woman. The Dragon. Neither and both. Pharah’s head fogged briefly—-a mess of panic-distorted memories rushing around her yet coming to a head a the same time, but in all that mess the image of those eyes burned into her mind and kept her fixed in place. The rush of memories seemed to fade itself out to a thrumming, hissing whisper.

What’s out there? her own voice whispered in her head.

Seek me if you have the sight, the writing on the wall answered.

Pharah extended a hand toward the writings on the wall and felt a heat coming off of them, still the extension of her hand pressed steadily onward, she wasn’t sure if she would even notice if it burned her—-

“Y’know, you shouldn’t just go walking into cells,” a deep but warm voice spoke behind her and snapped her out of her haze.

“What—What?” her head jerked up and she turned on her heel to see a tall man with shoulder-length brown hair in a black hat, arms folded and leaning one shoulder against the cell bars.

“I said ‘You shouldn’t just go walking into cells’—‘specially with your guard spread thin as it is. Some miscreant could waltz in and then just up and shut the bars on you, then wouldn’t you feel a damn fool?”

“I—I’m guard captain. I’m investigating,” said Pharah, turning her attention back to the writing, but finding it wasn’t there anymore.

“So I heard—-the guard captain part, not the investigatin’ part,” said the man.

Pharah narrowed her eyes at the man. “Who are you?” she said, stepping out of the cell to look at him in the torchlight.

“You heard tell of the Witch Hunter’s apprentice, haven’t you?”

“Gabriel said he had an apprentice, yes,” said Pharah.

“…Just the apprentice part? No… ‘failed apprentice’ or ‘disgraced apprentice’ or ‘excommunicated apprentice?’”

“You’re excommunicated!?” Pharah took a step back, realized she was stepping back into the cell, then sidestepped and grabbed her torch from its sconce.

“Only officially,” said the man with a shrug, “In terms of purity of soul and intention, why, I would rank myself among the most—-“

Pharah held out the torch warningly to maintain a distance between the two of them.

“…pious,” the man finished, looking at the crackling torch.

“I think you should leave,” Pharah said, furrowing her brows.

“Look, I’m investigatin’, same as you,” said the man, “Let’s start over.” He extended a hand, “Name’s Jehoshaphat Maccrea of Helsing. Folk who find that a bit of a mouthful call me ‘Jesse.’”

Pharah remained holding the torch between them rather than extending her hand.

“I know what happened to Gabriel,” said Jesse.

Pharah looked down.

“Well, I mean I heard. Doesn’t seem like anyone can say for sure what happened to him, but we can all agree it was nothin’ pleasant. Now, we didn’t part on the best of terms, and I’ve been hunting a quarry of my own, but I owe it to him to see closure on all of this.”

Pharah broke her sight away from the cold stones of the floor to look at him.

“You’ve seen some shit too, huh?”

Pharah pursed her lips. “Depends. Would you call a terrible red demon ‘Some shit?’ Would you call a dragon woman in a column of fire ‘some shit?’ Would you call a horrible purple creature with--with---with a face that looks like a mass of slugs ‘some shit?’”

“I’d categorize it under a ‘helluva lot of shit,’ rather than ‘some shit,’” said Jesse, “It was a lot for me to take in at first, too. But you get better at it. And you---man, steady as a rock. Lot better than me when I was starting out, too--”

“Wait---Starting out---No. I’m not ‘starting out’ on anything---” Pharah started.

“I mean--you don’t have to,” said Jesse, “But I know there’s two kinds of people who come out of a mess like this: There are those that stick their heads in the sand and pray for their lives to go back to normal, and there are those who know it’s never going to be normal again, and choose not to be helpless.”

“I’m not choosing to be helpless, my city needs me!” snapped Pharah.

“...So you still feel helpless,” said Jesse.

“Just because I---!” Pharah started but then caught herself and fumed, “What are you suggesting, exactly?”

“Not suggesting, offering,” said Jesse, “I think you want to see whatever evil that attacked your town brought to justice. You want closure. You want to see your people safe. I think the best way you can do that is by coming with me and hunting these demons down.”

“So I should just drop everything and tag along with an excommunicated witch hunter,” said Pharah flatly.

“Just ‘hunter’ is fine. Turns out there’s a whole lot more scary things than witches in this world,” said Jesse.

Pharah maintained a steady glare.

“You want me to be more honest?” said Jesse.

“Usually the preference is that people be as honest as they can with each other,” said Pharah, frowning.

McCree snorted. “Trust me, Miss Guard Captain, people do not prefer that,” he said with a smirk before catching himself, “I mean--” he stopped and cleared his throat, “To be frank,” he said, pressing his hands together in front of himself, “I know if I go up against any of these things alone, I will die. If you go up against any of these things alone, you will die. You knew when to call it so that the whole town didn’t go down in flames. These things we’re going to fight? This isn’t a battle you rush into. You gotta play the long game and you gotta learn. I need someone who knows when to call it. All you need is someone to show you how to flick holy water, and you’re gonna get that down real quick from the looks of you.”

“You don’t want a student, you need a partner,” said Pharah, looking off.

Jesse made a finger gun at her in confirmation. “Or.. y’know you could organize guard timetables for the rest of your life and pray this magic shit does’t drop itself on your head again. Your choice,” he said with a shrug.

Pharah quietly set the torch back on its sconce.

“I’ll give you a night to think about it--I’m staying at the least-burned Inn in town and leaving at dawn. Meet me at the city gates if you’re in,” he said, turning on his heel and heading out of the castle prison.

Pharah frowned as he walked off, but she felt her fingers nervously running across the adder stone in her hand.

What’s out there? it seemed to ask in her mind, What’s out there?

---

For Mercy, seven days among the cultists passed in the blink of an eye. Rather, it was 2 days spent more or less sleeping the whole time, making up for the exhaustion of prison and near-execution and near-death and using far more magic than she had ever used in her entire life. After 2 days of sleeping, the third day was spent eating---The cultists’ food was salty, yet comforting, favoring snails and mushrooms. The fourth day was spent getting over the sickness of eating so much so fast on the third day, which proved a severe shock to her system. The fifth and six days were spent more or less getting acclimated to Zenyatta’s temple, which, she learned, was a fortress carved into the stone of a mountain with a hidden entrance. They had to earn their keep, to an extent. It turned out the stab-happiness of the cultist made her work as a healer invaluable. She was able to get clothes as well, purple robes, like the other cultists, which were surprisingly comfortable, and the temple to Zenyatta was a very safe fortress in and of itself---dark, certainly, but safe. 

Genji had told her that the cultists were very dangerous and quote ‘stabby’ but Zenyatta had assured them all that the schism had finally ended, and furthermore the cultists all struck her as very polite. Certainly very.... fixated on Genji’s master, but perfectly polite. It was surreal for her, not having children throw rotten vegetables at her, not feeling a glare at the back of her head, having people make eye contact with her and speak with her eagerly and interestedly in her studies and observations, being able to read and practice her magic as if it were as perfectly normal as hanging laundry on a line. She was accepted as perfectly normal among the blood cultists, and made a point of enjoying herself so long as she had the chance to. 

Still, Genji was... protective.

“You don’t have to be here, you know,” she said, as she stood waist-deep in the temple baths.

“You didn’t see these cultists before,” said Genji, sitting cross-legged with his back to her, “They’ll tear you apart as soon as look at you. Don’t have your firstborn with any of them, they’ll probably eat it.”

“Don’t have my what?” said Mercy running a sea-salt smelling soap bar along her skin and attempting to scrub the smoky smell from her skin.

“Your firstborn?” said Genji, “You know---our contract?”

“Ooohhh that firstborn. No, certainly not going to have it with any of them,” said Mercy.

“Good to know you have standards,” said Genji, folding his arms.

“Mm-hmm,” Mercy said mindlessly, dipping her head beneath the water and running her own fingernails along her scalp as the soap foamed off her skin and floated on the surface of the water.

“So you’re keeping watch?” she said, looking over her shoulder.

“Clearly,” said Genji.

“And it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I’m naked?”

“I’m a demon,” said Genji with an eye roll, “You could be naked every waking moment of every day and it would hardly make a difference to me.”

That earned him a splash of water at his back.

“Hey!” he turned around to snap at her, caught sight of her sweeping her wet hair off the back of her neck and then quickly turned around again, his face burning, “I mean I don’t see things through human eyes. Magic colors my vision. Shifts what I see---you remember what happened with that sigil back when the city guards were chasing you.” 

“Ah, so what does the great demon Genji see when he looks at me?” said Mercy, wringing out her hair.

“A light---or maybe a flame?” Genji said, leaning back and relaxing a little where he sat, his back still to her, “Something like one of those...Flame, probably, but a little one... Small, yes, but bright and flickering and steady.  At once illuminating and causing night-blindness with its own radiance.”

Mercy had stopped scrubbing this point and drew a string of wet hair back from her face, staring at Genji in silence. 

“Also magnificent breasts. But that goes without---” that last comment earned Genji another, harder splash which left him completely drenched.

“All right. That, is a slight I cannot permit, Witch,” said Genji, getting to his feet and turning around.

Mercy splashed him again.

“Do you want to start this?” he said, taking off his mask and revealing his scarred face, “I told you, I was born---”

“’In storm and lightning and water,’” Mercy said, mocking his whispery gravitas, “Yes you like bragging about that very often.”

“It’s not bragging if you can back it up,” said Genji, putting his hands on his hips.

“So back it up, Genji, Demon of the North Wind,” said Mercy, flicking droplets of water against his face.

“You back it up, Witch Mercy, Bearer of the Flame of Creation,” 

Mercy calmly took ahold of the front of his black tunic.

“...you wouldn’t,” said Genji.

“Witch,” said Mercy with a smirk, before yanking him into the bath with her.