The Spell Called Love - Empires SMP S2 AU: Nature Wives

Chapter 11: Odd (Katherine)

Dawn came fast and Katherine rose with the sun to get as many things as she could possibly get done. Katherine was up and out of her room in two seconds flat, her mind bubbling with determination to clear her schedule before the day ended so that she would have time to go see Shelby for a bit.

She started with helping the villagers to construct their houses, building and colour coding them according to professions, then, when she had finished, attended a necessary meeting with Princess Gem of Dawn, discussing how to increase the sale profits of their tiny alliance business. After being interrupted for a second by a nosy pirate, Katherine made haste to make a public announcement in Sheep Square about the future improvements and renovations.

Katherine exsasperated and exhausted when she was in the middle of a heated discussion with her fishermen about relocating their nets when Katherine spotted something, or rather someone, flying through the sky towards Glimmer Grove.

Katherine blotted out the fishermen's raised voices and tracked the flying figure through the sky until they came spiralling downwards in front of the castle. Katherine lost site of them as they disappeared behind the fishing huts.

"Give me a second, please, gentlemen,"

Katherine left the bickering fishermen and ran to the front of the castle to see her visitor.

The figure was sporting a familiar witch hat.

"Shelby?" Katherine approached the figure.

The figure looked round and Katherine froze.

"Katherine,"

It was indeed Shelby but with half her arm covered in a sort of blue icky substance. The icky substance she had seen only a day (roughly) ago.

"What happened?" Katherine approached her, rather concerned by her sudden appearance.

"Katherine, I need a favour," Shelby narrowed her eyes at the oncoming princess.

"Sure, anything, but Shelby, are you ok?"

"Yeah-" Shelby replied as Katherine reached for her arm only for Shelby to flinch away.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Shelby hissed and whipped her wand out, pointing it threateningly at Katherine.

Katherine's eyes widened but she didn't back away.

"Katherine, the sculk is contagious, if you touch me you'll-"

Shelby stopped mid-sentence and her head jerked upwards towards the sky, her mouth opened in silent scream.

Katherine jogged forward, very concerned at this point, and approached with her hands up, "Shelby, I think-"

Shelby's head jerked downwards at the mention of her name and fixed Katherine with a piercing stare. Katherine took note of the change in Shelby's usually amber eyes as they had changed to a deep turquoise colour.

"Katherine,"

Shelby's voice seemed to echo in Katherine's ear even though they were out in the open.

"Katherine, touch the sculk,"

Katherine took a step back as Shelby took a step forward, remembering what Shelby had told her earlier.

"But you said-"

"Katherine, join me,"

The Shelby-but-not-Shelby had raised her voice, demanding Katherine to obey her.

Katherine felt something tug at her heart, she wanted to be with Shelby more than anything, but where was Shelby?

"No, Shelby I can't, you told me not to-"

Shelby hissed and spat on the ground, "Nevermind what she said, just touch my arm already!"

Katherine, thanks to her agility, managed to avoid Shelby's arm which had jabbed suddenly at her side. Katherine grabbed Shelby by her not corrupted shoulder and hauled her backwards, taking care to dodge the swinging blue arm.

Suddenly, Shelby started to choke, falling limp in Katherine's iron hold.

Katherine was breathing heavily, eyeing the witch wearily for any sudden movements.

Once she was certain that Shelby was unconscious, Katherine breathed a somewhat sigh of relief. She had no guts to battle against Shelby. It would tear Katherine apart.

Katherine bent down, laying Shelby carefully on the neatly trimmed grass and sat down next to her, taking hold of her limp hand and began to massage it gently, pleading Shelby to regain consciousness.

The pulse of Shelby's infected arm quickly drew Katherine's attention.

The entire arm was swaddled in dark blue slimy stuff and their were tiny specks of an entrancing turquoise that pulsed gently with the rise and fall of the witch's chest.

Katherine was so puzzled by Shelby's state that she didn't notice her coming round.

It was only when Katherine felt her gently squeeze her hand. Katherine looked down at the witch who had a small smile spreading over her face.

"Hey," Shelby whispered, her face in a beaming smile.

"You good?" Katherine asked in return, concerned.

"How did I end up on the floor?" Shelby asked, sounding genuinley confused.

Katherine opened her mouth to explain as well as she could but Shelby interrupted her, "Holy cow, I got possessed again, didn't I?"

"It certainly seemed that way cause that definitely wasn't you," Katherine nodded, "You also freaked the hell out of me and threatened me at wand tip."

Shelby went beet red, "Yeah, I remember that part... sorry about that..."

They lapsed into silence for a good few minutes, staring deep into each other's eyes before Shelby asked:

"But did you touch the sculk?"

"No..."

"Katherine, I'm serious," Katherine could already tell by the graveness of her voice, "did you touch the sculk or not?"

"No."

"Good, it spreads into you when you touch it and it slowly... takes you over... and you lose control of yourself..." Shelby shivered at the very thought.

Katherine stroked Shelby's hair soothingly before she proceeded to ask, "How can we cure it?"

At this Shelby became skittish, glancing around herself to double check her surroundings before whispering to Katherine, "The Council of Witches have the only one..."

"The same one that don't want you being a witch anymore?"

"Pretty much."

Katherine looked down at Shelby and seeing her frown at the thought attempted to cheer her up, "We'll find a way out Shelby, I promise,"

This bought a radiant smile to Shelby's face as she looked into Katherine's honest eyes.

Have I ever told you that I love you?

Katherine itched to tell Shelby this, but Shelby obviously had a lot going on and she didn't want to add to her existing problems, so she left that thought in the back of her mind.

Katherine became aware that their hands were still intertwined, but made no move to untangle them as she asked Shelby:

"So why d'you drop in?"