It was a few days before I saw John once again. He was still possessing the cat from before and lazing about in the oak tree we had sat under. It was about as foggy a day and once I had gotten his attention he dropped down beside me and pawed at my knapsack, apparently smelling the whiskey. "Care for some more stories?"
"Eh a little, however I'm more interested in something a bit more recent... let's say...200 years..Early American colonial. What were you doing during that point in time?"
"Hmmm...the colonies. Let's see... Iff'n I remember right, I rode across on one of the ships that came across in... 1537...I believe it was the Red Lion, and the sister ships were the Roebuck, Dorothy, Elizabeth and Tiger, the last two got lost in a storm...or maybe we did.....some of us got lost I think.."
"Rode across?...Couldn't you have made the trip yourself?"
"In theory, but well I didn't know the way and it's easier to hitch a ride on a moving ship, and sort of act like a protective spirit of sorts. 200 years of poking around and doing things I'd gotten pretty good at it."
"So where did you end up?"
"Some islands off the coast of what's North Carolina now. The colonists were dropped off, I stuck with the ship and we sailed north to Newfoundland to ship things between there and England, and harass the Spanish a bit, and then the french started paying the captain to harass the english, and then the English and the Spanish paid them to harass the french for a year or so, and then the Red lion met it's end off the coast of Virginia running rum for tobacco after a surprise broadside by one of the fastest frigates we'd ever seen." he paused for a time before continuing. "It was a two masted ship, a bit larger than a sloop but smaller than a brigatine with two gundecks, a dark gray wood that I'd never seen before and was flying under some Mediterranean flag. They stopped to collect survivors and sift through the cargo that was left. Picked out certain members of the crew and, questioned them and threw them to the sharks then offered the remaining survivors safe passage to port in Newfoundland. I wandered there for a while before catching a ship back to the colonies in 1700 and poked around down there till the revolution."
"And then what?"
"I fell asleep."
"So.. you're saying you slept through the revolution?"
"Aye."
"How?"
"well in life I was always a bit of a heavy sleeper, and without a body...it sort of builds up till you just need to get a bit of shuteye and recharge. the next thing I remember was waking up to find a wee lass poking me with a stick an' saying that of all the spirits she'd seen I was by far the laziest."
"when was this?"
"1893. To be honest I fell asleep in a hole and I guess they put a building over it or something cause I didn't wake up till it was being torn down to be replaced, and like I said, physical structures be a pain in the ass to move through."
"So where did you wind up next?"
"I travelled west, watched some of the last bits of the idian wars, and the mexican american war. Some of the spirits out west are interesting. Old old old elders from before europe even thought of comeing this way. They were surprised I'd made my way here, an they taught me a bit of tricks, like how to move a bit easier and even to posses stuff. mostly animals though, that's what they do to talk to their kinfolk. Rather than waiting for the special ones they simply borrow a crow, or a coyote and talk to their tribesmen when they do their spirit walking fires. Couple'a bad eggs though, they abuse it and mess with the tribes."
"What else did you experience?"
"Well I'm getting to that, ya'see.. right before the first great war, A witch found me and bound me to the material plane as a servant Took a sacrifice of her blood and a few other things to make a body for me to knock around in, and for the run of both great wars and most of the coldwar I worked as basically a deliveryboy for her shop in Baton Rouge, she bound herself to a single place, warped time around her allowing for her powers to magnify like sunlight through a handglass. Granted she couldn't leave the shop itself otherwise the spells would rebound and rapidly age her."
"wait a witch?"
"Considering your story kid'jinn you're really doubting the existence of witches?"
"A fair point. So what happened to her?"
"All she did was slow time, she still aged, and eventually died. She had no apprentice, and so when she died the magic binding the body I had failed and it turned to dust. That was about... 40 years ago."
"And the last forty years?"
"I slept for ten of them then wandered the world thinking no one could see me anymore. sure some could kinda hear me, and some of the priests could fear me and bar my passage...but I thought I was nothing again till I found a new witch to serve."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I serve a new witch now, she's not nearly as powerful as the one I previously knew so no body for me, but she has power. You'll probably find her on accident."
"I suppose I'll need to think on that, and try and come up with some more questions."
"Eh, I think I've spilled moren' enough for now. Can't let your nogging get so full of mush and tales of me the rest of the world disinterests you."
"Thanks for your time I guess."
Without much more to be said John wandered off, apparently having decided to keep the cat as his body for now, and left me with more questions than answers really. and so I sat and finished off the bottle of whiskey before, on a whim, magicking the glass to sand. In my excitement at this discover I completely ignored that I did have a night class to go to and spent the rest of the day attempting to reconstruct the bottle.
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