Charming the heart of a man is a lot more difficult than it sounds. Especially when it's already bewitched by somebody else - literally!
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All that former witch-in-training Avalon wanted was a simple job to get her life back on track and forget abo...
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It took her father, Lars and Gil – once the latter had come back from the store with a whole arsenal of orange juice – the better part of the night to help Avalon prepare every little thing for undoing the love spell. After the initial shock had worn off, Chill Pills or no, Neymar had helped where he could, doing his best to distract himself from what was about to happen and how his family was faring. You could still see his mind reeling, his fists clenching, as he realised, time and again, how helpless he really was in this situation.
Avalon was painting the pentagram on the floor of the VME's backroom, the only floor in the shop big enough for it to fit, when she stopped, the chalk hovering over the floor, and the realisation fully hit her. He wasn't the only one helpless in this situation, was he?
Not even a day had passed since that Nina had pretty much PWNed her. Thrown her out of the house. Captured her teacher. Used the local coven like a bunch of marionettes. Held the family she, Avalon, was responsible for hostage.
Not even a day.
The storm had stopped, and the night on the other side of the VME walls was eerily quiet for a major city such as Barcelona.
"Can I help you with that?"
Avalon blinked, surprised by the voice pulling her out of her musings. She turned to find Neymar leaning against the door frame, the shop behind him lit up only by a few dim lamps so as to not attract any attention from people passing by outside; whoever was out and about in this part of town deep in the night. It seemed that her boss – and yet he'd become so much more to her, hadn't he? – had enough of the talk of the others in the front of the shop and gone to the only place that promised at least the illusion of peace and quiet.
The fruity smell of hibiscus tea hang in the air, owed to the ointment her father and Lars were finishing preparing for the undoing spell that was still boiling on a little pot on a mobile cooking plate. It painfully reminded Avalon of the wonderful little witch kitchen up on Neymar's roof that she suddenly wished she could be at. She could hear them explain the differences between witches and Völva and Vikings to Gil, who'd missed the big explanations and still had a whole sack of questions to ask them. Conversation had turned toward the weird kind of questions. The uncomfortable ones. Like how Nina could so easily "overwrite" Neymar's free will – if there were Goddesses, there was a God, and if there was a God, there was a free will, and that was supposed to be untouchable.
No wonder Neymar wanted to get the hell away.
"Avalon?"
Oh, she'd zoned out again. No surprise there. She felt like beside herself ever since that big revelation, her thoughts turning this way and that...
How was she supposed to win against an ancient magical being that had been powered by a Goddess? Of all things! Well. Could be worse. Could be the Goddess herself. Haha.
"You rather be alone?" Neymar asked, quirking an eyebrow.
Avalon visibly shook her thoughts off, then she broke the chalk in two, conjuring a smile for him as she handed him one of the halves. "No. Sorry. Here. Just don't add any funny stuff to the design and keep to the one you see on the paper–" she nodded to the sheet lying on the floor where she and her father had sketched the complicated pentagram for the spell before, "–and you're good to go."
