Jon
You’re a question.
Helen
“What lurks behind a door?”
Jon
To some. But that would be The Stranger or The Dark. No, you are the question of “What lurks behind a smile?”
—Statement ########-27: Checking Out_
When I first dabbled with witchcraft, I was sitting outside asking "Mr. Wind" to send a breeze my way to allevaite the Florida weather. "Mr. Wind" gladly lended a hand, and I could sense something nearby, even if I couldn't tell what it was.
Through most of my childhood, I was followed around by a white butterfly with pale, grey-beige sploches, (which I believe was a pontia protodice, albeit an abnormally pale one. This butterfly would land next to as I read a book, flutter alongside the car and sometimes hitch a ride to my school. Wait in the window as I attended class...it was everywhere, and it was a comfort.
I would read all sorts of books, but those that caught my fancy were those about psychics and revival of magic, like Princess Ben, a tomboy sorceress. In fact, it was after reading Princess Ben that I finally decided to dabble in my first few spells.
My childhood magick was just as simple as you would expect from a child. Stack up some stones, place acorns upon it as an offering. Crack some of them open, and the use the yellow interior to draw my ritual circle. I would always subconsciously pick out materials associated with wisdom and knowledge.
Despite my more whimsical attempts of magick, there was a certain level of accomplishment from doing such things, building my lean-to out of fallen branches, and making offerings to the animal spirits. I felt a certain level of independence, joyously plucking the strings of the metaphysical with my butterfly companion. It was a distraction from my childhood, the small moments I got to be a child.
But, at some point the butterfly dissapeared, and the magick simply seemed to stop. I stopped casting my spells, stopped foraging for herbs, stopped looking for signs. Had I grew up? Perhaps. But I also stopped looking for that small spark, the spark of joy.
It was around the time my first cat died.
I wouldn't realize it for a while, but the butterfly that had followed me was a fairy. One named Gale. Around that time, he joined us as our first Soulbond, helping us keep a level head as things went on. Protecting us with that little bit of magic we would always ask him—"Mr. Wind"—for. He's a terribly interesting Fey, despising offerings and worship, cold and in different to the older, but having a soft spot for the little ones that see him standing nearby us, or frankly, when he's fronting. I've seen him let a toddler play chase with his tail, keeping them safe until their parents realize the little one had wandered off.
I don't know what type of Fey he is, but he is a certain degree of divine, one who preferred friendships. And as we grew up, scrapped our way through middle school, that what we knew him as. A friend. A small voice in the back of our head that we viewed as "imaginary."
I am a traumagenic system, and didn't realize I was a system up and till a few years ago, but what had always confused me, upon my syscoverery, was Gale. He felt different. A few people mentioned Soulbonds, and it suddenly made sense.
So what then? What drove us back to witchcraft? What set us on this path?
It was a few years before my syscoverery that I started identifying as alterhuman, finally placing the feelings we had. And it was only a year after that I began to realize that my sense of identity was so shattered that we needed to build up a collective identity. Me. The Archivist.
The Archivist—myself—is not an alter. Let's make this clear. I am not the Headspace, I am not the auto pilot, our anything you conjure. I suppose you can call me a singletsona, but that would be a false statement. I use it/its because of our collective dehumanization. We've become dehumanized so much that there is a comfort in it. I am neumasc because we collectively lean towards neutral and male. I am the Archivist because of our Archtrope, and as for being a Pagan? Our collective beliefs.
As the collective, we are the Archivist. We are me. As the system, we are Delta. We are indefinite variables. It is simply how we sort ourselves, even if it may be confusing to others.
It took us quite some time to settle on Paganism. At first, we were caught I the circle of Wicca. We even joined a Coven. However, after our experience with that toxic group, we broke our paths, and became known as Warlock. Later on, we would break the Wiccan Rede entirely and step on our own path, unwittingly staying parallel with the Crooked Path.
It would be a few years later that we would first discover the Dreadful Ones.
Our journey to our current point was long, but it's still just the beginning. Even though we finally found our stability in our identity, I still have much to learn. And I look forward to learn it.