Chapter Text
Nathaniel Wesninski was born on a boring, normal day, filled with blue skies and birds chirping outside. It was calm, there were no spectacles to be held, there was no magic to be seen, a simple, common, painful birth.
It was the 19th of January, a man got his heir, a woman got her child and Nathaniel got his fate. A terrible fate, prewritten in the stars, with the features of his father, with his mothers deep skin tone, and with a power so mighty, so big but so, so temporary. It's written, it cannot be changed, the fortune tellers said, once asked again and again, and so it was. Death, or something close to it, was the boy’s destiny.
His father, a powerful warlock, was not happy with what he learned, his mother wasn’t either, although, it was clear as the day that the reasoning was completely different. Nathan Wesninski was supposed to produce an heir so powerful and strong to serve and fulfill both his masters , the ones with the deal and those who owned him. Mary Hartford was supposed to have a son, her only child, powerful and lovely, her only possession, her comfort in a place so filled with hate and evil. What they got, instead, was a child with a time limit.
Safe to say that with such fate, the child would not have a nice, warm childhood, and would instead be taunted with death, with torture, with nothing but the fleeting comfort of a mother. Nathaniel grew with the uncertainty of his life at all times. If his upcoming end wasn’t enough to set his dad off, the late coming of his magic certainly was, he was six, and nothing changed, seven, eight, nine, ten, all ages in witches of the born kind should have manifested their magic, and nothing was happening. Rumours were spreading quickly, Nathan was getting crueler and crueler, and Nathaniel was sure his end was reaching him faster and faster.
One day, things changed, Nathan took Nathaniel to a weird place, it was strangely lit, almost as if purposefully made so that the light would be low and cold. In this place, he met two other children, and an older man, exhaling power, filling the buzzing place with a weird energy.
“And you are sure you will find use for him?” His father said, tone serious, face cold, “His powers have yet to develop.”
“Worry not, with the right encouragement, he will bloom,” The man responded, with a cold and terrifying smile “He will be incredibly useful.”
“Encouragement.” Nathan scowls, his eyes flashing with a weird blue hue in the dark room. “You don’t think I've tried it before?”
“I am more than sure you have, however, such things always work better in the presence of a coven,” Nathan only grunted in response, allowing the man to continue, “Let me see the boy.”
“You are not to have him yet, you know that, correct?”
“Still in hope of change, I see,” The man got closer, Nathan didn’t move, “Don’t worry, I know my place, I merely wish to introduce myself to him, after all that was the reason for the meeting, no?”
That was followed by an eerie silence, and by the man's quick approach to reach the kid.
“Hello.” He said, looking into the blue terrified eyes Nathaniel had. “ I am Tetsuji Moriyama, and you, Nathaniel, will be a part of my coven.
“Those over there–” He pointed to the two other boys with his cane–”Will join at the same time as you, they are to be your friends.”
“Friends”, Nathaniel thought, " What are friends?" He didn’t dare speak, though, only look, at the two boys. One was tall with warm olive skin, green eyes, dark, slightly long hair and a two made with paint in his cheek, he seemed kind, and smiled once he saw Nathaniel looking, it was weird, Nathaniel didn’t see evil in the action and couldn’t think of a smile so soft aimed towards him ever, it made him want to smile back, only want, since his face was not made to send such soft things. He averted his eyes to see the other one then, and saw perhaps a more familiar thing, there was no smile in this boy face, only stoicness, he was slightly shorter than the green eyed one, but definitely taller than Nathaniel, his eyes were a deep black, like his hair, and on his cheek, a one, standing proud and powerful all at once.
“You will stay with them while me and your father talk.” Tetsuji said, then turning to his father and signalling to a door seemingly hidden in the shadows.
“Behave.” Was the only thing his father said to him before following the older man to the other room.
As soon as the door closed, the boys got closer to him, trying to get a better look, so curious and at the same time so confused.
“Hi,” Said the guy with the number two, “Is it true that you don’t have powers?”
“Not yet,” Nathaniel said defensively, “I’ll get them soon”
“You better,” Said number one, “We don’t accept powerless into the group”
“Coven,” Corrected number two, making number one scowl deeply, “But it’s true, covens need power, if you don’t have any, you’re useless, and if you’re useless, the coven–”
“Takes care of it, I know” Nathaniel replies “I won’t be useless”
“Until you will,” Number one says, “Uncle says you will lose them, no?”
“That won’t happen until I'm older”
“What if it already happened?”
“It didn’t”
“It better not have, you seem useful,” Number one gets closer as he says it, “You could be number three”
“Number three?”
“Riko is establishing his own coven,” Number two whispers to him, “With only the best at magic in the world, he’s one because once his seal gets broken he’ll be the best in the whole world!”
“His seal?”
“Kevin! Don’t tell him our coven secrets,” Riko complains, whisper-shouting
“But he will be coven soon,” Kevin responds, “And you said he’s fit to be number three!”
“Will be, but he isn’t yet so shut up!” He says, glaring vividly at the other boy “ But it’s true, I will be the best once ‘it’ breaks, and Kevin is two because he’s second best. His mother was Kayleigh Day, you know her?”
“No?”
“She reinvented the magical world with coven magic and sealing magic” Said Kevin, looking proud and, at the same time, sad, “I wanna be like her! I will be like her.”
“Anyway, that’s why you can be three, if your powerful enough, that is”
“It will be a really small coven though, right?” Nathaniel pondered, “How many witches are the best at magic?”
“Not many, not many at all, but that's the point!” Kevin said, in a very low tone “That way we can be the best of all time and rule the world”
“The magical world?”
“No,” responded Riko, shaking his head, “The world.”
There was a weird glee in his eyes as he said it, so sure of it, like he would do anything to get it, and that send a shiver Nathaniel’s spine, Riko reminded him much of the people that often did business with his father, arrogant, like they own everything and everyone, but more importantly, how they fell from their high horses so quick to die slowly, painfully, disgracefully and unfulfilled. Yes, with dreams so high, Nathaniel could even taste the fall that he would have, could hear the fits that he would throw and could almost see the way he would go.
“So are you in?” asked Kevin, after a moment of silence
“Sure,” said Nathaniel, shrugging “if I get in”
“And if you’re powerful” remarked Riko
“And if I'm powerful.”
“Don’t forget it!”
The door opened abruptly after that, a bloodied man, with his hands tied behind his back, walked out, followed by Nathan with an axe that was almost pulsing with magic. He looked at his son, and then at the boys.
“A lesson about what happens with those who are not useful to the coven anymore, kids.”
Oh, yes, Nathaniel doesn’t think he would forget that night, or the aftermath, when his mom found out he went with his father there. How she hugged him, like she never had before, how in the middle of the night she appeared at his room and took him, him and tons of money, how she used the last bit of her magic to distract the people in the house so they could run, how she sealed even more his fate, in the end.
Twenty-two identities, eight years on the run, a little bit of study on magic, a discovery about his powers made almost immediately after the first identity change, and a promise that he would hide himself and his powers, for his own safety.
They couldn’t run forever though, evil caught up to them and so it was no shock when she died, it was terrible, sorrowful, and a day he would remember for ages but it also was weirdly freeing, he settled down on a tiny little town, assumed a new identity, joined a school and read all about the occult, he made sure he wasn’t being followed or seen, and he felt like he had reached a point were he was truly nothing, he wouldn’t stop running, but he would slow down, after all what harm could a small town do?