• a gang of girls
• a group of dangerous femmes
• comes and knocks

//

• that witch that has gone by a hundred names
• rowan, birch, juniper, oak, and sage
• tall and thin like a tree
• shaking in the breeze
• opens their heavy locked door

//

• looks across the gaggle of fighters
• and sighs
• knows why they have come

//

• undoes the baker’s dozen of locks
• and lets them in
• out of the cold world.

//

• the witch asks for the materials
• that a crow had told them a week ago
• and that the gang brandishes
• alongside their knives and baseball bats and brass knuckles
• no guns
• majyk wont help something so impersonal

//

• they take the seven vials of blood
• collected from shaving cuts
• and mixes them into a stone bowl
• throws in a pinch of rock salt and asphalt dust
• from the street they fight so hard to protect
• and dips in a sharpie
• to start the protective sigils.

//

• the leader recoils
• the old way was tattoos and they both know this
• but no person should have to have fighting permanently attached to them.
• the witch has seen too many suffer because they couldn’t stop.

//

• and the witch begins
• a series of matching sigils
• as the gang sits in silence
• and the older witch hums an ancient war tune
• from back in their own fighting days.

//

• knuckles get sigils for inflicting pain.
• forearms and hands get protection sigils.
• palms, sigils for redirecting energy.
• after each stroke
• the witch dips back into that slowly decreasing pool of blood
• that binds these warriors together
• at least for the time being.
• the breast
• gets both a sigil for luck and the witches symbol,
• protecting them from the influence of others.
• shoulderblades get an ancient symbol of solidarity,
• that feeling of someone having your back.
• dozens more
• until the witch almost runs out of blood
• and pours it back into a single vial
• the sharpie likewise almost spent.

//

• the witch waves them off
• every protective ward they can think of applied
• to these earnest warriors.

//

• none of them will die
• unless they all do.
• that is the power of this witches spell.

//

• like so many before them
• they are young and full of life
• and ready to fight

//

• like so many before them
• if they don’t eventually stop
• and change
• and grow
• they will wither and die.
• no one can fight forever.

//

• the witch closes the door
• locks her heart away
• and looks in the mirror
• at those old fighting sigils
• still tattooed on their chest.
• even the roses
• and vines
• and the thorns
• that wrap through and around them
• can’t mask the pain
• and the age
• that comes from a lifetime of war.

//

• that is why
• she will not tattoo sigils
• will not lock anyone elses heart away

//

• because people deserve to change
• and grow
• more than she has or can or will

//

• those warriors will be back
• and she will sigil them something else
• something other than war
• so they will not be
• like so many before them.

//

• like
• her.