Sense of Self

A Lesson

As Professor Blackwood retrieves a book from his desk, Evanora focuses intently focuses on his moving lips, hoping to catch a spell of some sort in real time. To her delight, a piece of chalk lifts from its place in a cup and begins tapping at the board. 'Medieval Era: 450 AD' adorns the board as others begin flipping through their textbooks, and Evanora can't help but bounce gently in excitement as she follows suit. The act triggers a raise of a brow from her tablemate, but he shakes his head in a slightly fond way, nonetheless. 

"Now we last left off around 450 AD when class ended," Blackwood begins. "It was a bit of a late start to the last session, so we only managed to get through the first 50 years of the Medieval Era, but we're closing in on an interesting set of notes so make sure to pay close attention."

Given what events happened in her own people's history around this time, Evanora was eager to see if they would, in fact, be covering the events she recalled. There were so many huge names to consider after all...

"We had mentioned that for Britain in particular, the Dark Ages began when the Romans withdrew in 410. However, the rest of Europe was still catching up on this phenomenon. Now Romulus Augustus was no arch mage, but his magic did hold the empire together far longer than one could've expected. It seemed as if they would overcome the war single-handedly, but in 476, he suddenly became stricken with an unnamed illness. One so dire that not even he could conjure a cure. And with his death, the empire fell, bringing forth the chaos of the true Dark Ages."

Evanora jots away notes swiftly, completely enthralled. Already, the details were finer than in the tales told to her by her aunt. She especially wondered what the perspective of mages would do for the greatest tragedy in witch history. 

"The sickness that took Augustus would go on to plague areas of the continent that he had never even been associated with and would go on to be called the Silent Fog for its sneaky nature and tendency to pop up in the mountains. Now the Fog grew into more than just sickness... With anarchy and barbarism taking over, the open countries were abandoned for those wishing to seek shelter from the spiking monster populations that had overrun phantomized war camps. And as there were fewer people in the woods and mountains, the greatest population to spike in numbers was that of witches. They had families of offspring in sets of six to seven, all born towards the end of the war, and as 485 rolled around, they reached adulthood and began tearing through the continent."

At this, Evanora quirks a brow and tilts her head in mild confusion. The phrasing of 'offspring' instead of children, and being included in the same vein as 'monster populations' was off-putting... 

"You may recognize the name Hecate from bedtime stories that your great grandparents would have spoken about hearing as kids. Hecate was one of the only named witches that we have cataloged information on in this 400-year span to this day. She had been carefully captured following the last seeds she had sown of the bubonic plague in Britain. Now, these names won't be on the test, but it's important to remember the more prominent names of the era involving plagues or catastrophes. Among these are also Ragnarök, who was said to have made women and children fall dead simply from a direct gaze to the eyes; Grimshaw of the Dark Woods, who decayed anything he touched and roamed in a straight line across Europe through even rivers and lakes; and Linora, who was said to have eaten unattended children and animated their corpses to return to raise hell on earth upon their grieving parents."

The more that was said, the more Evanora's smile faded, and the excitement drained from her. These tales had truly been warped in their retelling as far as she was concerned. To think history had been so twisted into such a grotesque amalgamation of horror stories.

At the mention of the first of the named witches, Balthier's forehead furrows, and he finds himself tilting his head from his relaxed position in his chair. He squints down at the desk, seemingly wrestling with an incoming thought. An odd thing for him... He takes a moment to jot down something in his notebook before quickly closing it and losing himself in thought throughout the rest of the explanation.