Chapter Text
Amanda stares into the murky contents of the glass flask.
The brackish liquid swirls as she moves the flask, causing the contents to glitter in the candle light. That one small bottle of potion had cost her dearly. It had taken many lives to create, many souls to cook up this ultimate solution of health. It had even cost the life of the previous occupant of the little hut she now inhabits.
She couldn’t drink it herself though. It didn’t work like that. She needed someone to bond to. Someone willing to imbibe her health potion willingly, someone she could keep near her.
That is why she had taken on the likeness and name of the healer woman that had lived in this hut before. The woman had been kind, giving, someone that many people trust. Amanda needs to be trusted by just the right person.
So she opened for business and continued the healer woman’s work. She grew herbs and healed up farm animals and village residents as the old healer used to. Amanda adds only a touch of her own magic into the process, a gift to these villagers that they hadn’t earned from her, but the better she is at healing, the more likely she is to be brought someone that fits what she needs.
Someone who will listen to Amanda, trust her to fix them.
Someone who needs to be fixed in the first place, someone that the small minds of these villagers see as broken regardless of the fact that they aren’t, an outsider, forced to loneliness by how different they are.
The lonely are easy to control after all.
The answer comes to her in a form she doesn’t expect.
A child.
The birth of a child is supposed to be joyous. After the hardships of a pregnancy, there’s a baby, a new perfect little life. And it had been, for a while. The first year, they never really noticed that anything was wrong.
How could they? A baby isn’t expected to do much of anything at all.
But their son never seemed to grow, not in the way other children were meant to. He didn’t speak. He didn’t play. The bigger he got, the more apparent it became that he was built differently. Wrong.
He sat and listened, silently, when the adults were speaking, spent time going through the scraps of wool that were left after the yarn had been spun.
When he was touched, he would scream and scream and scream, and they didn’t know what to do. He was odd, and he was eerie, and so they took him to the kindly healer who lived in her run-down house on the outside of town. Reynold had been there once before, as a teenager, when he’d been covered in boils, too feverish to sleep. The woman’s kind, cool hands had soothed his aches, and her calm demeanor had eased his panic. If anyone would know what to do with their odd little child, it would be Amanda.
Because Connor, for all the love they gave him, never seemed to love them back. He took, and he took, and he took, and he never learned anything, and he would wail whenever they tried to teach him.
So they’re bringing him to Amanda. Maybe she can tell them what’s wrong with him.
They walk along the path to the home where Amanda lives, and Caitlin finds herself constantly looking over her shoulder. As soon as Connor had learned to walk, he had refused to be carried, and he refused to hold a hand, so instead he slowly trailed behind them, unwavering and focused in a way no human child ought to be.
When they knock on Amanda’s door, the boy flinches. It’s the most reaction they’ve gotten out of him in days.
Amanda ushers the small family into her hut, barely big enough to fit them all. She listens to the concerns of Caitlin and Reynold, parents that feel unloved by a child that Amanda knows is simply different.
Amanda, world weary as she is, has seen children like Connor before. They have quirks and feelings that drive them to loneliness, drive others away from them, but there is truly nothing wrong with them.
Connor, for instance, is overwhelmed by touch. Amanda would even go so far as to guess that he wants the contact, but simply cannot stand it.
She knows how to work around his curiosities, and he is young enough to guide how she wants him to grow.
So she knows exactly what to say to the scared parents of a child that is simply just a bit different. “Your child is cursed. I can slow it but I cannot cure it. One day, he will become a monster.”
She pauses for dramatic affect. “Unless…”
Reynold leans forward in his seat, and Caitlin tightens her grip on his arm. There’s a strange bit of hope there, knowing it’s not their fault. No one wants their child to suffer, but the curse is clearly already taking their son from them. He might as well already be barely human, if Amanda is to be believed.
He was born wrong, not ever really a little boy at all.
Reynold looks over to Caitlin, and she nods, once. Beside her, Connor is playing with his hands, rubbing his thumb over his fingernails again and again in an odd, repetitive motion, like a beast kept locked in a cage.
It makes sense.
“Unless what, ma’am?”
Amanda pulls a coin from the satchel on her skirt and offers it to the child, giving him something to occupy his fidgety hands. “I can bind the child to me. As long as he is with me, he shall not become the monster the curse would make him.”
To seal the deal, Amanda smiles fondly at the child. “Instead of becoming something horrible, he will become my apprentice. A healer, not a monster. He could never go home, but he would be happy and healthy, alive. It is the best I can offer.”
Caitlin’s eyes sparkle up with tears, and she glances rapidly between Reynold, Amanda, and Connor. Connor’s staring, enraptured, at the coin, and Amanda looks-
Well, she looks like she might love Connor more than Caitlin does.
And their boy will survive. He won’t become a monster. He won’t be there to exhaust her and Reynold anymore. They can try again, have a proper child to continue the family name, and Connor won’t be the awful blot of shame that marks their registry in the church.
Connor doesn’t even try to follow them to the door.
It didn’t take much to get Connor to drink the potion after his parents left. He is a sensible child, despite his young age, who understands when Amanda says it will help him.
Amanda didn’t want his parents influencing him, so they fled the village that very night. She made the hut look like something had attacked. She left behind spilled animal blood and notes about Connor’s monstrous curse to dissuade the simple villagers from following.
Connor grows and Amanda gives him what he needs. Love he can handle, education to fuel his frankly brilliant mind, and training so that he can do as Amanda needs.
She finds him to be a most useful man when he reaches adulthood. Connor is capable and willingly would follow her to the ends of the earth.
And he does.
Amanda spends 113 years with him, seeking out her own power. To Connor, she is a witch who poses as a simple healer so as not to draw attention. She teaches him that witches aren’t evil, simply misunderstood.
She teaches him that a lot of things are necessary that might be considered evil, all in the name of breaking his curse.
They mostly stick to large cities, picking up and leaving every ten years or so. Amanda gathers new power wherever she goes, always the kind healer woman, always sending Connor out for the more… delicate ingredients she needs to tend to her power.
So when they come to Heartrun and settle into a slightly run down two story house, this isn’t new for Connor anymore.
“What do you think of the Heartrun, Connor?” Amanda sits on the roof of their newest home, Connor standing beside her. She looks out at the lights of the night, the glittering city, full of so many lost souls as every city is. The ocean edges the eastern docks of Heartrun, and that is what she looks out over.
Connor cautiously rolls his coin across his knuckles. He’s had to relearn it a few times, over the years, because his hands have grown odd and taloned, and it’s harder to do the tricks while wearing gloves.
“I imagine the city will be good for business, Amanda. We should be safe here for some time.”
He’s done some reading on Heartrun. The city has a higher population of magic users than average, though the use of magic is limited to the upper crust. As such, Amanda will likely be able to do a lot of good for the poor of the city, those who can’t afford the gilded spells that are cast by those with more money than sense.
The crowds will be easy enough to disappear into. Even with everything covered, Connor still won’t stick out much. There’s enough people for anyone to fold into the shifting masses and vanish.
“What would you have me do first?”
Amanda has an idea of how to grow her power here, but she hates to start Connor off with bringing her people. That can come later. “To start with, I need the skull of a child. I’m sure you could find one in the graveyard. Take your time though. We’ve only just settled in, after all. I haven’t even put the sign up on the door to welcome customers yet.”
Amanda smiles softly up at him as she stands and brushes herself off. “The child should be under the age of ten. You know the rules. Don’t get caught.”
She looks him over carefully. His hands are gloved, as they always were when they are outside. He wears the tunic she sewed for him to keep him covered and booking presentable. “We will open for business tomorrow morning. I imagine the poor people here will be glad to have a couple of healers.”
Connor nods. As they had transported their belongings into the city, it had been quite clear that Heartrun lacks the infrastructure to take proper care of its lower classes. Many of their healing supplies are still tucked away, packed in linen and warded against decay, so he disappears from the roof of their home and traipses down to the first floor, where their shop will be.
He’s efficient, quick to unpack and organize everything they could take with them. In a place like Heartrun, one can usually purchase everything they might need for crafting magic, but the prices tend to be exorbitant and the access to the shops often limited. Amanda never registered with royalty, as she knew that would limit her ability to help the common man, so she may be forbidden access to the places that might have the best ingredients and spell components.
Besides, the immortality she had been so generous as to shoulder for Connor’s benefit means that any registry might notice how long they’ve been around, and put them in danger. Curse magic is forbidden, and though Amanda has been nothing but good to Connor, helping him manage his curse, the crown isn’t likely to agree.
He’s finished unpacking the shop supplies by midnight, so he sets off into the city, flitting through darkened streets as he familiarizes himself with the movements of Heartrun at night.