Morana

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I knew he hadn't told me everything. There was too much pain written across his face for it to be just about being viewed as weaker. I guessed the dirty work was more prominent than his casual phrasing made it seem. But since he didn't go into it, I decided to not try to dig deeper. There were also things that felt more important. Like the pain he exuded and my need to make it go away.

It was weird really. Seeing him sad made me feel as if someone was stabbing me. All I wanted was to make the sadness go away. But I had never comforted anyone before. Hell, no one had ever really comforted me ever. So, I did the only thing I could think of and hugged him.

I hugged him from the side, so I leaned my head on his shoulder. I could feel some of the tension in him disappear. How his muscles slowly relaxed, he even leaned his head slightly so his cheek rested on the top of my head.

When I thought enough tension was gone, I decided to ask a question I did want an answer to, but that, I was sure, would make him laugh as well.

"But Merlin is super famous and powerful. And he was a dude, right?"

Just like I had expected, he laughed. It made me smile, feeling glad to be able to drive sadness away from him. I kept leaning my head on his shoulder as he laughed. Felt how his body shook slightly as he did and knew it made my smile wider.

"Well, even though for witches, women are the rulers, you should know your human history well enough to know it's the opposite for them," he said, and I sat up straight again.

"So? What does that have to do with Merlin?" I frowned.

"Merlin was a woman," he explained. "And really, the stories about king Arthur are what humans made a story of two sister witches fighting into. You know about Morgana also?"

I nodded.

"Merlin and Morgana were sisters. Their mother was in charge, the Priestess as we call it, of the coven they belonged to. When the mother died, Merlin and Morgana started fighting over who would take over their mother's position. Arthur was indeed a king, and Merlin took help from him and his knights to win over Morgana. Humans have just changed the story to make Arthur the main character."

"Okay. I can understand that part. But why make Merlin into a man?" I frowned.

"Because the human world was, well is, a man's world. They couldn't have a person with such a prominent place in the story be a woman."

"Then why not make Morgana into a man too?"

"Because she lost," Alejo said, as if it was the most obvious thing ever. "And she's been made into being the antagonist. It is just stories though. There's little proof of what actually happened, so both the human and witch account of it could be wrong."

I grew silent as I thought it all over. Not so much the actual story and that Merlin had been a woman. No, more that clear difference between witches and humans. It made me wonder if in part what Alejo experienced within the coven was similar to the oppression women experienced among humans. It all at least made me certain of something, oppression and prejudices and stupid power structures were definitely universal.

"About fixing with my age and stuff so I can keep living here. How would that work?" I asked him to change the topic, because truthfully, it made me angry to think about what he might have been through.

"There are witch-banks, though they do more than just keep money. They can help with basically making it so everyone around you, or well, all humans around you, will always perceive you to be of a certain age, and anything else needed to make living among humans possible," he explained.

"First library and now banks. Does witches have their own government as well?" I asked and laughed at my own joke, but to my surprise, Alejo nodded.

"Not really a government. But yeah, there are witches with more power. Not just more power in the sense of like political power, but magical too. And they create laws the rest of us have to follow and that steps in if needed in case of disputes."

"What kind of laws?" I asked and felt a mix of curiosity and apprehension. I couldn't stop myself from worrying about if I had ever unintentionally broken any of those laws. Or what laws I could be subjected to.

"Like don't let humans find out about our existence. That's about the only one in truth."

I nodded and relaxed. It was especially that he had said that they had more power that had made me worry. It sounded as if just because one was powerful, strong, they had the right to lord over others. That type of thinking didn't sit well with me. But if the only law set was to keep magic hidden, then they weren't taking advantage of other witches at least. And as long as they didn't do that, who cared how they had gotten into power?

"You said the leader of a coven is called priestess? What would the ones making the laws then be called?" I continued my questioning.

"High Priestess," he answered. "They are five of them and it's inherited from mother to daughter. They are all also priestesses of one coven each, and it's said that they are the five daughters of the first witch to ever exist."

"And do you believe that to be true?"

He scoffed and shook his head. "That all sounds more like some sort of fairytale made up to make them seem more impressive and to give them a legit reason to be the ones in charge."

I nodded. That had been my thought precisely.