Not Your Fairy Godmother

23 - In Which there is a Great Deal of Witchcraft

Matilda opened her right eye first. She saw concrete, too close to her face. Then she became aware of her labored breathing. She looked up to find her hand clutched to her broom. She didn't remember calling it, or rather, remembered it happening with such speed that her conscious mind was unable to compute everything.

Noises, lots of noises. Hoots and shouts and cheers and party horns. From a distance but not too far. People milled about on the street, not seeing the levitating witches.

Matilda's body was wrapped around Gwendolyn's. The other witch had one arm around her and one arm around a sleek, ornately carved, long broomstick that bent towards the back as a seat. It was an expensive one made especially for flying. Matilda's own modest broomstick that was made for actual cleaning paled in comparison.

"Alive?" Gwendolyn asked. Matilda couldn't see her face since they were essentially hugging.

"Yes."

"How sad." Gwendolyn cooed then shuffled from Matilda's grip and kicked her off. Matilda rolled away while the red witch put one foot elegantly on the ground before the other. She snapped her fingers and her broom evaporated. Matilda's was discarded to one side.

Gwendolyn attempted to teleport back up to Sebastian's apartment but Matilda rammed into her before she could.

"Oh no you don't."

"The hell I don't. I am going back up there and stopping this nonsense." Gwendolyn struggled against Matilda's grip on her.

"With what, Gwendolyn? There's no spell that can stop true love and there's no spell to make him fall in love with you."

The witches were unaware of the people staring at them. They could not see Matilda's blue shimmer nor Gwendolyn's red flares. All they saw was two women fighting each other like drunken men talking of nonsense that they couldn't quite hear, even though they were being very loud.

"I'll enchant him to do my bidding."

"You can't just enchant somebody!"

"Yes I can!" Gwendolyn kicked Matilda's foot with her heel, causing the poor godmother a lot of pain. Matilda finally let go of Gwendolyn but she didn't have any time to react. Gwendolyn punched Matilda right in the face, knocking her over.

"The spell will break!" Matilda grabbed Gwendolyn's ankle.

"I'll make sure he never kisses Kat again."

"When has that ever worked?" Matilda kicked Gwendolyn in the knee, toppling her over.

"I'LL MAKE IT WORK!" Gwendolyn screamed as Matilda tried to grab her wrists. The two women; powerful witches, both moderately successful in their careers, highly educated and some somewhat okay-ish standing in society, rolled around on the street pulling each other's hair and screaming "OW!" and "Stop pulling!" like five year olds.

In the scuffle, Gwendolyn's pencil skirt ripped. Both women froze at the sound.

"Was this original or magic?" Matilda asked, concerned.

"Of course it's original." Gwen said. Matilda winced in regret. "Isn't yours?"

"Magic."

"Seamstress?"

"Yeah."

"Damn, that's useful."

"I'll show you how to do it sometime."

"That'd be nice."

A pause.

And then they were at it again. Matilda was the first to act so she gained the upper hand, pushing her knee in Gwendolyn's chest and keeping a tight grip on her wrists.