Salem's Tale
Oct. 26th, 2022 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apachefirecatTitle: Salem's Tale
Fandom: Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Salem, Zelda, Harvey/Sabrina
Rating: PG/K+
Summary: Salem babysits on Halloween night.
Word Count: 2,473
Written For: Spook Me: 2022: Evil Cat --
-- and Fandom #28 for the author at 100 Fandom Hell
Warnings: Future Fic
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
"Uncla Salem, what's going on?"
Salem's long, jet black tail swished, and he kneaded the pillow beneath him. It was still rather strange having Zelda call him uncle after all these years of knowing, and once having previously dated, her, but what else could they have done when she had a spell she had tried to regain her years and wisdom had wiped her completely of the latter? As far as the little Witch knew, she was a child who had been adopted by Harvey and Sabrina before they'd been able to have a daughter of her own, and Sabrina, both worried that Zelda's mind might get confused and also wanting to honor her rascally aunt who was Gods knew where with that hotdog vendor with whom she'd ran away so many years prior, had called her firstborn after their missing family member. They had done everything they could to keep Zelda from asking too many questions, and it seemed to have worked, even to the point that Zelly, as her now tended to call her, no longer remembered magic.
He had been adamantly against the mere idea of banning magic from their household, even though he could not use any himself, but after many hours-long discussions behind closed doors with Sabrina, he had finally caved and assisted her in locking the one portal within their home. Neither world was what it had been in either of their juvenile years, and it did indeed seem to be key to keeping the new Spellman-Kinkle sisters safe from harm. They should have just tossed the Spellman surname entirely, he couldn't help thinking, but Sabrina had also been fervent in her desire to honor her family heritage -- just not to the point that it endangered her child. Behind closed doors, she could actually remember that Zelda had been the wise aunt who had taken her in when neither parent had wanted her and Hilda had been unable to provide proper care even for herself. She not only remembered but acknowledged it on a regular basis whereas there were times like earlier tonight, when he'd been regaling the child with stories they believed to be fiction but were actually tales from his nine lives (akin to the title under which Salem often considered publishing them), when he nearly forgot that Zelly had once been an adult very wise and savvy not just in Science and years but in the ways of magic, as well, and in protecting her family.
As he kneaded the pillow beneath him now, not yet having answered the child, he found himself wondering if Zelda, had she known what was to come, would have agreed with their decisions or would have been upset and perhaps even felt betrayed that they had kept the knowledge of not just the Occult but of her true self from her. What else were they to do, though, he thought, for the wars were starting again? It was dangerous for a Supernatural being to even set paw outside their abode. It was dangerous to partake in magic, dangerous to even believe outwardly in such from beyond the closet door. It was dangerous to believe in anything of which the popular media and Presidencies did not approve, and their little family tried as hard as they could to keep their true beliefs quiet. Sabrina had even stopped using magic to make ease of the household chores, although she would still, on occasion, zap them in food. It was quieter, easier, and safer, after all, than going to the supermarket when you didn't know which foul human was going to open a range of fire from their pistols, something that was happening more and more often...
His tail swished again, and his kneading grew sharper. That thought process had been the very reason for their argument today before the girls' parents had gone off to work. Harvey had made the suggestion that, before Zelly enters high school, they put her into home school instead. Sabrina had admitted it might be safer but had nonetheless been very vocal against the idea. They had tried home schooling her at various times throughout her teenage years, trying to keep her magic quiet so that she did not bring the governments' attention to her, and it had never worked well. Even schooling in the Magic Realm had not satisfied her need for friendship, and she was not about to keep either of the children from being able to pursue friendships. Friendships were important, Salem supposed, his tail setting into a steady rhythm of irritated swishes, but friendships never lasted, no matter where or how they were made.
"Uncla Salem?" Zelly questioned again. He blinked as he realized the child was suddenly on top of him. Perhaps they needed to stop calling him that, or he needed to stop talking to them in plain, mortal English, if they were truly going to keep the children safe, but he could not bear the thought of never again speaking aloud to the kids. "What's going on out there?" The child plopped her elbows down on the window seat on either side of him and leaned over him, peering into the darkness.
He almost hissed. She did not need to see what was currently scurrying through their trash cans, desperately seeking for any piece of magic the foul creature might be able to find! Instead, with another swish of his tail, he announced, "Zelly, you're supposed to be in bed!"
"But, Uncla Salem, I can't sleep! It's Halloween, and Adam and Tommy say that monsters come out on Halloween night!"
Salem closed his green eyes for a moment as he calmed his raising nerves. "And who," he questioned, "purcisely are these Adam and Tommy?" He had long ago gotten into the habit of speaking like the girls thought a cat spoke, intermixing normal, English language with purring and mewing sounds. He'd found it irritating at first, but they had thought it so adorable he'd ended up doing it on a regular basis.
"Two boys at my school," she said. "They're always getting into trouble, and Adam was making fun of Tommy for being afraid of the monsters that come out tonight."
"I see. And these boys..." He opened his eyes again and glowered down at the creature in their garbage. Zelly did not seem to see the alley cat, so there had been no harm done -- at least not yet. "Are they of your age?"
"Yes."
"And you say they are always in trouble?"
"Yes. They put a frog in Miss Johnson's desk yesterday, and today, when she stepped out of the room for some kind of meeting the teachers were having, they put a cushion her desk that made it sound like she farted when she sat back down." Zelly giggled.
Salem blinked hard. If the elder Zelda Spellman could hear herself now... Which, of course, she could not, which was exactly why protecting Zelly and Hilly was so very important and had mostly fallen to him. Their parents were gone far too often to really know what was happening with their children, limited though he was, kept them pretty well protected. Except that those troublesome boys did have one thing correct: More monsters did indeed tend to come out on Halloween night as it was easier for them to blend in with the mortals. Even now, no one walking along either side of the street was even looking very much at the giant, black cat rustling through their garbage.
Why, one mortal had even had the audacity to say that they had found a way to put on a new show featuring their cat, Salem himself! Salem lifted his black head haughtily at the memory and sniffed in disdain at that memory. The mortal in question had been very well intoxicated, but that was beside the point! As though he would ever lower himself to shifting through trash! For that matter, it had been quite some years since they last had such a magical display of powers that they had had to convince their neighbors that they had been putting on a show for some reason or another. No, they rather kept things calm these days, and had ever since Hilly's birth.
At least the baby was still asleep, he thought, glancing at Zelly's reflection in the window, but he wouldn't be able to call her that for much longer. That was such a dismal thought that his tail stopped swishing. The children were both getting older. Zelly was going to be asking more and more questions, and as for Hilly... Well, she was starting Kindergarten next year. She would be following in her big sister Zelly's footsteps, and it would not be much longer before she, too, was asking the very same questions.
"Hey, what's that in our garbage?"
Salem's fur puffed out in alarm as he whirled around, doing what little he could to block her vision. "It's just a family of raccoons being noisy and messy down there, nothing to pay for a young Wit-- a young lady like yourself to be paying any attention to! Now do you want those big, bad monsters to come, Zelly?"
She frowned. "But I thought you said there weren't any monsters."
"Oh, there are monsters in this world, young lady, just not monsters that come out only on Halloween and not any monsters that your Uncle Salem is going to let reach you! But you must away now into bed!"
She giggled. "You're talking funny again!"
He sighed. "Go to bed, Zelly!" His tail swished a single time. "Please?" He fixed her with the same pleading eyes that had so often won his way with her mother when she had been younger. "Don't you have a test in the morning?"
"I can pass it," she said definitively. "Daddy's been helping me study really well. I know I know my spelling list!"
Salem sighed again. "You do make strait A's, which is more than I can say for either of your parents."
"Really? They weren't on the Honor Roll?"
"No, but I wouldn't call them on that. Those yummy cookies your momma's always making you for studying might not happen if you upset them!"
She nodded. "That's very true."
"Likewise," he added with another swish of his long tail, "if I tell them you were up being a bad girl all night tonight when you have a test tomorrow -- "
"Fine, fine, I'm going!" She started back toward her bed but paused to look forlornly back at Salem. "But one more story, Uncla Salem?"
He sighed and tucked his head a little. "Fine," he muttered, but he had to shift through his memories of the night's tales to recall exactly which ones he's already told them. He had told them about Roland and how Harvey had fought so heroically to win Sabrina back. The one thing he could give the kids' father was that he had never once stopped fighting to be beside her -- well, except for that very short time when they'd been in college and she had been dating those other two idiots who had almost claimed her away from him, but he'd realized his mistake in time and had absolutely not been going to let anyone else take away the one who had been made for him. Salem smiled at that memory. Everyone in the church had thought Sabrina was being crazy, everyone but himself and her dedicated aunts.
He looked back at one of those dedicated aunts now, realizing that it had been, in part, the way Zelda had been so dedicated to caring for him and Sabrina and the way they had always rushed off to his or Sabrina's rescue every time one, or both, of them had been in danger that had spurred him into taking such good care of these precious children. He'd never really liked kids before, but now... Now he would give his life's blood to protect these two.
"Uncla Salem?" Zelly persisted in the high-pitched voice that had once hurt his ears but which he had since come to adore so very much.
"Fine, fine, I'm coming," he muttered. "Just a moment."
He sat very stiff and straight as he looked back down at the trash can. The creature, standing tall on its hind legs, had found a shard of glass. Moonbeams glinted off of that shard as the creature looked up at him and yowled. Salem did not yowl in return; he would not frighten the children any more than he would allow them to be frightened. Instead he pulled himself to his full sitting height and glowered back down at the Werecat. His eyes glowed sharply in the night, warning him in an unspoken language that was older than the first records kept by mortal man.
Then he lifted his right paw and scratched symbols on the windowpane. Sabrina would fuss, but she would also understand in the morning when he told her what had occurred this night. He was sealing a protection spell over the house and everyone in it, but most especially those two little Angels laying behind him. He spat on the symbol, sealing it with his own bodily fluids, and watched as the Werecat ran off in fright. Yes, there were Witches living here still, but they were not Witches who would allow anyone, or thing, to mess with them or theirs.
He turned his back on the night, leapt gracefully to the floor, padded over, and then leapt on top of Zelly's bed. He glanced over at the cradle where Hilly still slept soundly. He circled around her, kneading a few spots and making her giggle as he softly kneaded one of her shins. Finally finding a good spot in her lap, he laid down and curled into a ball. With the tip of his tail laying softly across the tip of his nose, he kept his vision locked on their window as he began softly, "There was once an old man who had stopped believing in very much goodness in this world, until he met a symbol of all that was good."
Perhaps that or something akin to it was how he would start his autobiography one of these nights. He'd once thought that symbol of goodness had been Sabrina, but now he knew it had been her aunt, and not the silly one who had ran off with the hotdog vendor either. Salem started his tale, choosing words and names carefully so as to not give away too much or cause Zelly to think too much. She dozed off very soon thereafter, but he continued, keeping them lulled to sleep with his gentle, smooth tone and watching over them long into the night and the turning of the years.
The End
Fandom: Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Salem, Zelda, Harvey/Sabrina
Rating: PG/K+
Summary: Salem babysits on Halloween night.
Word Count: 2,473
Written For: Spook Me: 2022: Evil Cat --
-- and Fandom #28 for the author at 100 Fandom Hell
Warnings: Future Fic
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
"Uncla Salem, what's going on?"
Salem's long, jet black tail swished, and he kneaded the pillow beneath him. It was still rather strange having Zelda call him uncle after all these years of knowing, and once having previously dated, her, but what else could they have done when she had a spell she had tried to regain her years and wisdom had wiped her completely of the latter? As far as the little Witch knew, she was a child who had been adopted by Harvey and Sabrina before they'd been able to have a daughter of her own, and Sabrina, both worried that Zelda's mind might get confused and also wanting to honor her rascally aunt who was Gods knew where with that hotdog vendor with whom she'd ran away so many years prior, had called her firstborn after their missing family member. They had done everything they could to keep Zelda from asking too many questions, and it seemed to have worked, even to the point that Zelly, as her now tended to call her, no longer remembered magic.
He had been adamantly against the mere idea of banning magic from their household, even though he could not use any himself, but after many hours-long discussions behind closed doors with Sabrina, he had finally caved and assisted her in locking the one portal within their home. Neither world was what it had been in either of their juvenile years, and it did indeed seem to be key to keeping the new Spellman-Kinkle sisters safe from harm. They should have just tossed the Spellman surname entirely, he couldn't help thinking, but Sabrina had also been fervent in her desire to honor her family heritage -- just not to the point that it endangered her child. Behind closed doors, she could actually remember that Zelda had been the wise aunt who had taken her in when neither parent had wanted her and Hilda had been unable to provide proper care even for herself. She not only remembered but acknowledged it on a regular basis whereas there were times like earlier tonight, when he'd been regaling the child with stories they believed to be fiction but were actually tales from his nine lives (akin to the title under which Salem often considered publishing them), when he nearly forgot that Zelly had once been an adult very wise and savvy not just in Science and years but in the ways of magic, as well, and in protecting her family.
As he kneaded the pillow beneath him now, not yet having answered the child, he found himself wondering if Zelda, had she known what was to come, would have agreed with their decisions or would have been upset and perhaps even felt betrayed that they had kept the knowledge of not just the Occult but of her true self from her. What else were they to do, though, he thought, for the wars were starting again? It was dangerous for a Supernatural being to even set paw outside their abode. It was dangerous to partake in magic, dangerous to even believe outwardly in such from beyond the closet door. It was dangerous to believe in anything of which the popular media and Presidencies did not approve, and their little family tried as hard as they could to keep their true beliefs quiet. Sabrina had even stopped using magic to make ease of the household chores, although she would still, on occasion, zap them in food. It was quieter, easier, and safer, after all, than going to the supermarket when you didn't know which foul human was going to open a range of fire from their pistols, something that was happening more and more often...
His tail swished again, and his kneading grew sharper. That thought process had been the very reason for their argument today before the girls' parents had gone off to work. Harvey had made the suggestion that, before Zelly enters high school, they put her into home school instead. Sabrina had admitted it might be safer but had nonetheless been very vocal against the idea. They had tried home schooling her at various times throughout her teenage years, trying to keep her magic quiet so that she did not bring the governments' attention to her, and it had never worked well. Even schooling in the Magic Realm had not satisfied her need for friendship, and she was not about to keep either of the children from being able to pursue friendships. Friendships were important, Salem supposed, his tail setting into a steady rhythm of irritated swishes, but friendships never lasted, no matter where or how they were made.
"Uncla Salem?" Zelly questioned again. He blinked as he realized the child was suddenly on top of him. Perhaps they needed to stop calling him that, or he needed to stop talking to them in plain, mortal English, if they were truly going to keep the children safe, but he could not bear the thought of never again speaking aloud to the kids. "What's going on out there?" The child plopped her elbows down on the window seat on either side of him and leaned over him, peering into the darkness.
He almost hissed. She did not need to see what was currently scurrying through their trash cans, desperately seeking for any piece of magic the foul creature might be able to find! Instead, with another swish of his tail, he announced, "Zelly, you're supposed to be in bed!"
"But, Uncla Salem, I can't sleep! It's Halloween, and Adam and Tommy say that monsters come out on Halloween night!"
Salem closed his green eyes for a moment as he calmed his raising nerves. "And who," he questioned, "purcisely are these Adam and Tommy?" He had long ago gotten into the habit of speaking like the girls thought a cat spoke, intermixing normal, English language with purring and mewing sounds. He'd found it irritating at first, but they had thought it so adorable he'd ended up doing it on a regular basis.
"Two boys at my school," she said. "They're always getting into trouble, and Adam was making fun of Tommy for being afraid of the monsters that come out tonight."
"I see. And these boys..." He opened his eyes again and glowered down at the creature in their garbage. Zelly did not seem to see the alley cat, so there had been no harm done -- at least not yet. "Are they of your age?"
"Yes."
"And you say they are always in trouble?"
"Yes. They put a frog in Miss Johnson's desk yesterday, and today, when she stepped out of the room for some kind of meeting the teachers were having, they put a cushion her desk that made it sound like she farted when she sat back down." Zelly giggled.
Salem blinked hard. If the elder Zelda Spellman could hear herself now... Which, of course, she could not, which was exactly why protecting Zelly and Hilly was so very important and had mostly fallen to him. Their parents were gone far too often to really know what was happening with their children, limited though he was, kept them pretty well protected. Except that those troublesome boys did have one thing correct: More monsters did indeed tend to come out on Halloween night as it was easier for them to blend in with the mortals. Even now, no one walking along either side of the street was even looking very much at the giant, black cat rustling through their garbage.
Why, one mortal had even had the audacity to say that they had found a way to put on a new show featuring their cat, Salem himself! Salem lifted his black head haughtily at the memory and sniffed in disdain at that memory. The mortal in question had been very well intoxicated, but that was beside the point! As though he would ever lower himself to shifting through trash! For that matter, it had been quite some years since they last had such a magical display of powers that they had had to convince their neighbors that they had been putting on a show for some reason or another. No, they rather kept things calm these days, and had ever since Hilly's birth.
At least the baby was still asleep, he thought, glancing at Zelly's reflection in the window, but he wouldn't be able to call her that for much longer. That was such a dismal thought that his tail stopped swishing. The children were both getting older. Zelly was going to be asking more and more questions, and as for Hilly... Well, she was starting Kindergarten next year. She would be following in her big sister Zelly's footsteps, and it would not be much longer before she, too, was asking the very same questions.
"Hey, what's that in our garbage?"
Salem's fur puffed out in alarm as he whirled around, doing what little he could to block her vision. "It's just a family of raccoons being noisy and messy down there, nothing to pay for a young Wit-- a young lady like yourself to be paying any attention to! Now do you want those big, bad monsters to come, Zelly?"
She frowned. "But I thought you said there weren't any monsters."
"Oh, there are monsters in this world, young lady, just not monsters that come out only on Halloween and not any monsters that your Uncle Salem is going to let reach you! But you must away now into bed!"
She giggled. "You're talking funny again!"
He sighed. "Go to bed, Zelly!" His tail swished a single time. "Please?" He fixed her with the same pleading eyes that had so often won his way with her mother when she had been younger. "Don't you have a test in the morning?"
"I can pass it," she said definitively. "Daddy's been helping me study really well. I know I know my spelling list!"
Salem sighed again. "You do make strait A's, which is more than I can say for either of your parents."
"Really? They weren't on the Honor Roll?"
"No, but I wouldn't call them on that. Those yummy cookies your momma's always making you for studying might not happen if you upset them!"
She nodded. "That's very true."
"Likewise," he added with another swish of his long tail, "if I tell them you were up being a bad girl all night tonight when you have a test tomorrow -- "
"Fine, fine, I'm going!" She started back toward her bed but paused to look forlornly back at Salem. "But one more story, Uncla Salem?"
He sighed and tucked his head a little. "Fine," he muttered, but he had to shift through his memories of the night's tales to recall exactly which ones he's already told them. He had told them about Roland and how Harvey had fought so heroically to win Sabrina back. The one thing he could give the kids' father was that he had never once stopped fighting to be beside her -- well, except for that very short time when they'd been in college and she had been dating those other two idiots who had almost claimed her away from him, but he'd realized his mistake in time and had absolutely not been going to let anyone else take away the one who had been made for him. Salem smiled at that memory. Everyone in the church had thought Sabrina was being crazy, everyone but himself and her dedicated aunts.
He looked back at one of those dedicated aunts now, realizing that it had been, in part, the way Zelda had been so dedicated to caring for him and Sabrina and the way they had always rushed off to his or Sabrina's rescue every time one, or both, of them had been in danger that had spurred him into taking such good care of these precious children. He'd never really liked kids before, but now... Now he would give his life's blood to protect these two.
"Uncla Salem?" Zelly persisted in the high-pitched voice that had once hurt his ears but which he had since come to adore so very much.
"Fine, fine, I'm coming," he muttered. "Just a moment."
He sat very stiff and straight as he looked back down at the trash can. The creature, standing tall on its hind legs, had found a shard of glass. Moonbeams glinted off of that shard as the creature looked up at him and yowled. Salem did not yowl in return; he would not frighten the children any more than he would allow them to be frightened. Instead he pulled himself to his full sitting height and glowered back down at the Werecat. His eyes glowed sharply in the night, warning him in an unspoken language that was older than the first records kept by mortal man.
Then he lifted his right paw and scratched symbols on the windowpane. Sabrina would fuss, but she would also understand in the morning when he told her what had occurred this night. He was sealing a protection spell over the house and everyone in it, but most especially those two little Angels laying behind him. He spat on the symbol, sealing it with his own bodily fluids, and watched as the Werecat ran off in fright. Yes, there were Witches living here still, but they were not Witches who would allow anyone, or thing, to mess with them or theirs.
He turned his back on the night, leapt gracefully to the floor, padded over, and then leapt on top of Zelly's bed. He glanced over at the cradle where Hilly still slept soundly. He circled around her, kneading a few spots and making her giggle as he softly kneaded one of her shins. Finally finding a good spot in her lap, he laid down and curled into a ball. With the tip of his tail laying softly across the tip of his nose, he kept his vision locked on their window as he began softly, "There was once an old man who had stopped believing in very much goodness in this world, until he met a symbol of all that was good."
Perhaps that or something akin to it was how he would start his autobiography one of these nights. He'd once thought that symbol of goodness had been Sabrina, but now he knew it had been her aunt, and not the silly one who had ran off with the hotdog vendor either. Salem started his tale, choosing words and names carefully so as to not give away too much or cause Zelly to think too much. She dozed off very soon thereafter, but he continued, keeping them lulled to sleep with his gentle, smooth tone and watching over them long into the night and the turning of the years.
The End
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Date: 2023-09-02 04:11 pm (UTC)