Spoiled and Broken

Victor

   A few hours into the car ride, it was time for lunch. There was no place to stop restaurant wise anyway, so it had been a good thing that the cousins had decided to bring food along with them. The five of them stopped at a rest area, Keli immediately getting out of the car and racing for the bathrooms. Mantha could only watch her in amazement as she did, though, since the whole time the redhead had said nothing about needing to use a restroom. No one had spoken up about a need to, which is why they hadn't stopped earlier. Well, at least the smaller girl knew now that if she had a need for such a thing, she was going to need to say something in order for anything to be done about it.

Mati went to the back of the van, pulling out the cooler and beginning to hand out containers for everyone. Each person had their own meal packed that had been made for them by Mantha's mother. Mantha had her lunch so that the container was split in four sections, one for pasta, one for rice, one for a couple pieces of chicken, and one for salad. Tam had various pieces of barbecue, from chicken to pork to really small pieces of anything grilled. A couple of times there was a switch between the cousins though. A bite of pork for a bite of rice of pasta. There was no doubt that while there were obvious differences, there were also similarities between them. Mati had some soup and a small salad, there being lots of vegetables and things that the girl couldn't recognize by name but knew she enjoyed. She, however, kept quietly to herself. Victor had steamed vegetables, eggplant and zucchini, tomatoes and asparagus. He gave a couple pieces to Tam, but the younger male somehow managed to not notice the bits of vegetable that was placed in his container through the small pieces of meat and the random bits of carbs. Then Keli, when she eventually returned, had various fruit bites and carrot sticks as well as a small salad in her container. She too kept to herself through lunch though.

"Hey, Mantha, did you bring your book for me to look through?" Mati suddenly asked about halfway through the meal, causing Tam to go momentarily wide eyed and Mantha to look confused before realizing why Tam reacted the way he had.

"Talk about a deer in headlights Fawny. Anyway, yeah I brought it," the brunette smiled softly, sticking her tongue out at her cousin as he arched a brow at her.

"Hey, I'm not the one who is risking exposure," Tam retorted, giving her a warning look.

"Exposure to who? It's only the five of us here, and all of us know about it," Mantha shot down his argument without a moment's hesitation.

"That's true," Victor mumbled quietly, his friend's, boyfriend's?, widened eyes at full attention on him now.

"Wait, you know-" "Tam you're the last person to know that we all know. I'm your cousin's wife, Keli is her apprentice, and Victor is not an idiot."

The air went quiet after Mati had spoken up, her voice completing its task of calming the riled up male with ease. Everyone was silent, each person caught in their own form of processing the conversation they had just all been in before finding a way to add on to it. Only one seemed to come up with a continuation, though. The contact wearing Keli had a thought that made her suddenly grin, the quickness of which she switched between calm to excited startling and concerning her companions for a moment. Mantha gave her an arched brow in curiosity towards what could have possibly gone through her head in that amount of time to cause such a reaction. "I know why it is we all got together for break now!" The redhead grinned to them.

"Because we're close and the boyfriends over there needed someone parental approved to say they totally won't be having sex throughout break?" Mantha reminded her, the males blushing heavily at this as Victor's long brown hair fell into his face some and Tam gave her a look that could kill even the strongest opponent if such ocular abilities were possible.

"Well, yes, but no. We're supposed to form a group! Think about it, Fawny and P are cousins who are a witch and warlock, Mati and I are studying through what P has, and Victor can learn from Fawny what he needs to know so he can be our fifth person! We were brought together because we were meant to do this!" Keli insisted.

Once again a hush fell over the group. Although the idea seemed a pretty glamorous one, them coming together for group magic and being able to say they were an official group of witches and warlocks, but there was a lot that needed to be thought of before they could even say they were a group. For one, Tam and Mantha needed to decide on how to approach the family with this since their maternal lines, the sisters they were, were very against the two cousins studying magic. Then again, they had studied in secret, so they were not tied by any means to the family group so long as the new group was founded before they were caught. Then there was meeting times, if there were to be rules, the group symbol, if they were going to only let certain magic types in the group or would it be open to anyone who wanted to learn? There were so many questions, but as soon as they all looked at each other they seemed to connect on the same thought process. If they failed, what was the worst that could happen? With only five of them, there was no danger of other groups banishing them if it all fell apart, and if it didn't and their group became official, then there was nothing anyone else could do save death that would separate them once bound.

"Okay, we have some questions first then," Mantha finally spoke up, looking at everyone in the group and not just Keli now. "Such as one, what would we be called?"

"What about Balance?" Victor asked, noting the lack of surprised words at his lack of a disapproval.

"Can you explain why?" Mati inquired with a soothing and even tone.

"We have quite an array of types of magic here, black magic, darkness magic, potions, eclectic magic, and an unknown so far. We are all quite different, yet still band together in peace with a noticeable lack of conflict, as if we are all balanced to each other," the eldest of them besides Keli told her, a ghost of a smile held on his lips.

"He's got a point. All in favour?" Tam pointed out, softly raising his hand at the voting portion. He was not alone to raise his hand, joined by the girls and the one who had initially given the idea.

"Okay, now do we do a ceremony to bind ourselves as Balance?" Keli questioned, a little confused now on where to go from here.

Mantha got up for a moment, getting a leaf from the ground before the sewing needles she kept on her in a small kit made for any clothing emergencies on the go. Catching on, Tam got a lighter from the front seat of the van as the other three watched in curiosity. "Who knew our little game would come back?" They heard Tam whisper to Mantha before both sat back down. As kids, they would use the needles to prick their finger and use the blood to draw pentagrams on the sidewalk or trees. They called it a game, but they knew it was more of a binding spell that they would do from a young age when the shift began to show between the generations. Almost as if a promise to always watch out for each other no matter what happened. Once it was explained to the others, the needles were sterilized with the lighter before each person drew blood from their fingertip. They each drew a side of the star, going in order of experience from Tam, to Mantha, to Mati, to Keli, to Victor as the finishing line, and each held a piece of the leaf. "As this shape is held together by the blood of us all, may the bond we form today bind us in the magic held with us. So mote it be," Manth mumbled, hearing the others repeat the "so mote it be" before watching Tam light the leaf on fire and all of them place it on the ground to burn out on its own.