Madam Spellman one-shots

Sing, my little bird, sing

Her eyes landed on the never-ending stack of papers, which was just the third of five in total, waiting to be graded. A  sigh left her lips as she reached for the next assignment, despite not having the motivation nor endurance to push through them. She started twisting the pen in her hand, trying to focus on the paper in front of her.

This would make up a huge percentage of her students' grades, so they sure would appreciate a calm and concentrated mind during the grading process. She recognized the name as one of her average students. The girl was neither particularly good, nor particularly bad.

Instead of moving onto the first part, an essay, her eyes fleetingly looked at the clock, realizing only half an hour had passed since she had announced that her full attention needed to be devoted to the task at hands.

She couldn't just stop no... or could she?

No, she was doing this now, she decided and with a firm nod, she looked back at the first sentence of the essay and tried her best at correcting it. Only when she had to re-read the first paragraph for the fifth time, did she put her pen aside and looked at Zelda, who was sitting across from her at her kitchen table.

She was working on her own students' papers, seemingly making much greater progress than the brunette. Grading papers had been one of her least favorite things to do ever since Lilith had been thrust into the life of a high school teacher.

When the decision to keep teaching had been made, she probably should have taken that into account, she thought at the sight of her leftovers in comparison to Zelda's, who taught at the Academy and had way fewer papers to grade. She always admired Zelda's work ethic when it came to Academy-related tasks and wished she were just a bit more like the hot-headed witch, considering her organization skills.

While Zelda's work actually resembled stacks of paper, her assignments had been carefully tossed all over the place after finishing the grading process, not wanting to see them any longer. She huffed in frustration, thinking about all the things she could be doing if she hadn't been set on staying principal.

Zelda's slender wrist seemed to beam in the bright sunlight that shone through the big windows as she reached for yet another set of papers, making Lilith slightly jealous. She must have graded double the amount of Lilith's work in the past two hours and the brunette just wanted the work to be over and done with, having had enough of it for the day.

She watched as Zelda's handwriting filled the page in red, marking her student's mistakes and correcting them precisely, as she would with every paper. Every mistake, as small as it may be, was to be found and commented on. Not even Lilith, who had been ruthless in her past, was as merciless with her grading as Zelda turned out to be.

Heaven, Zelda sometimes even corrected her corrections if she saw them unfit.

Lilith often wished to be working alongside Zelda, as it ultimately meant spending more time with her but she also very much enjoyed working at the mortal high school, Sabrina loved so much.

Her hate towards humans had tuned down, getting to know Sabrina's friends through force more than actual interest. They weren't as bland as she had once thought, though she was still awfully superior to them in every way.

Now, ten months later, she stayed on her own and free will, something nobody thought possible. It took a lot of adjusting for everybody, including the students at Baxter High, confused at the sudden change in their meekest teacher.

No one was forcing her to keep working there and yet she kept going, despite questioning glances of the members of the Church of Lilith. The coven and other magical creatures didn't understand her motivations if told and Lilith assumed she'd have to get used to this kind of obliviousness. Zelda's unconditional acceptance was what truly kept her going, despite all the constant criticism.