Freida Slater sat calmly in her home, staring through the stained, warped window of her conservatory. The wolves surrounding her home weren't as well hidden as they thought, and the two rogues walking down her driveway weren't subtle about their entrance either.

Their heavy foot falls crunched the gravel beneath their feet, her bees loudly buzzing to alert her of the newcomers. The wind was still, her wind chimes by her door silent as someone knocked.

"Come in," Freida sang, swaying slightly in her wooden chair. Her fingers drummed the arm rests, staring intently at the ten pale bands which once held her mother's rings.

The tang of wolf wafted to her nose as the rogues entered her home. Her plants stilled, shrinking as they wondered through her corridors until they found the conservatory. Freida stared out the window, her murky mirror, and watched them still.

"You are Freida." The gruff, low voice of the male said, the female casting an eye around the room - warily counting the dozens of potted plants with long stalks and a lone, thick leaf like nature was growing its own battleaxe.

"You are Yuric, leader of the leaderless." Freida hummed, fixing her green eyes on the rogues. "You are Lucia Winters, a former teacher at my daughter's school."

Lucia scowled. "That's right." Every part of her body wanted to leave the witch's den, there were too many smells and she didn't like the gleam in Freida's eyes. "We seek your advice."

Freida raised a brow. "I'm sure when you remove your clothes you'd be able to work it out from there-"

"Not with that." Yuric spat, Lucia awkwardly shuffling her feet. "We seek a way to bring down the Supernova."

Frieda's gleam disappeared. The musk of nature sharpened around them. "You seek to break the unbreakable, to tame the wild and obtain the unobtainable." The wolves flinched when her nails scraped against the wood, the odd splinter snapping across the room. "You seek the impossible."

"She's only a girl," Lucia argued as Yuric's jaw clenched tightly. His heavy jacket shifted over his shoulders and it fixated Freida's gaze. "There must be a way to power her down at least."

"Or reverse her damage." Freida spoke the words on their minds, staring at Yuric's left shoulder hidden under his jacket. "Or the damage of another?"

Yuric shoved his jacket aside to reveal his slung arm, now half the size of his right. Atrophy had started to eat away at his muscle and the scar in his shoulder was twisted like the ugliest vine. "The witch who travels with the Supernova, Jacinta, did this to my arm." Frieda didn't miss the waver in his voice at her daughter's name, the tightness of his throat and the venom on his tongue. "Can it be undone?"

"No." Frieda smiled, the gleam returning. "Only she can undo her own gift. She is the Witch Who Can Heal."

Yuric's fists clenched and he shrugged off Lucia's comforting hand on his good shoulder. He was weak; how was he meant to fight the little river when he was half the man he used to be only weeks ago?

Yuric's cold glare normally chilled those who stared too long at his scarred, maimed body and emotionless eyes, but Freida, the psychic supernova of two reigns past, kept smiling. He bristled seeing her crooked teeth and mocking grin.

"If we cannot catch her," Yuric spat through clenched teeth. "We can lure her then kill her."

"We know she on Mount Tyrill." Lucia added, scowling when the witch turned her head to stare out the murky window again. "Our scouts found her blood at the base of the mountain, along with Yuric's claw - we were tracking it. We had our suspicions before but now we know for sure she's in the village."

"It's a dead end, she's cornered." Yuric smiled, eyes dimming for a moment. "But she's dangerous. A lot of our rogues are still recovering, we're not at full strength yet. We need a lure."

"You're a psychic witch." Lucia crossed her arms. "You may not be supernova anymore, but you're still of use. So, who is the best lure? Who is the best bait?"

Freida smiled at her own reflection, knowing her eyes were bright not with power, but madness. She could feel the cloak over her mind slowly creeping further and further, a weight on her shoulders. "You seek to contain what cannot be contained."

"We're not trying to contain her-"

"You seek to contain what cannot be contained."

"Enough!" Yuric launched to his feet, reaching for the witch. When his hand locked over her upper arm, Freida's eyes flashed.

The leaves of the plants around her snapped open to reveal dark, purple flesh. The Venus Fly Traps hissed, growing larger in size, and each and every one was facing the rogue. Everyone stilled, Lucia crouching slightly to brace herself for any sudden movements.

Freida Slater may not be the supernova, she was still powerful - more powerful than them.

Yuric narrowed his eyes at her smile, yet again turned up at him, and Lucia carefully unwound his fingers from the witch's arm. "Yuric, my love." She said gently, guiding the reluctant rogue back to the door of the conservatory. The Venus Fly Traps kept hissing, twisting to follow them as they backed away.

"You seek to contain a power you cannot contain." Frieda explained, thinking aloud. "The little river is not little anymore. She grows more and more each day; Lily Morgan is a glacier melting to form the largest ocean we've known. She is the ice that rains from the sky in its fiercest storm. She is a sea of power we cannot touch, cannot drain, and cannot contain."

Freida's plants snapped shut as her wicked smile fell. "Lure her if you will, there are only seven options. If you pick the one she is closest to you will drown in her wrath."

Lucia snapped her fingers. "She has an aunt who's a nurse, and a few friends in Trawalla still. She only took the witch with her."

"The witch is on Tyrill." Yuric growled, eyes flashing feral gold. "We go for the witch."

"If you seek the witch on the mountain," Freida spoke quietly, "you will burn by his flames."

Yuric's eyes simmered with rage. "What stronger lure is there than her closest friend?"

Frieda turned back to the window, a lone finger painting on the fogging glass. She drew seven lines. "Many are stronger than friendship alone. Bound in love, trust, blood, betrayal, duty, debt, and bond. Pick one and only one - and not the one who loved her the most."

Yuric turned away from the witch and left her home, his feet thundering over the gravel path. As Lucia turned to follow, Freida called her name.

"If he seeks the lure the Supernova holds close," Freida warned, "then the eyes of the hurricane will open, the wings of the phoenix shall spread and those rogues will flee before Lily Morgan lifts her fingers."

Lucia frowned. "Why are you helping us? Your daughter is Lily's best friend."

Freida stared at the rogue, her eyes glassy. "Who said I'm helping you?"

Lucia twisted to face her. "How can we trust anything you've said?"

"How could you not?" Freida waved her bare hand. "I'm an old supernova - I know every remedy and every cure, I know the energy the world shifts upon. I am the voice of nature's reason and I am completely trustworthy."

"You knew all this," Lucia waved her own hand to the closed fly traps around them. "And yet there was someone more powerful than you? Lily is more powerful than the witch who knows the energy of the world?"

"I cannot see the unseen." Freida said quietly, thinking of Jacob the Shade, her successor. "I only know the things I know - I cannot control those tides."

Lucia took Freida humming to herself as her cue to leave, leaving the mad witch alone. The wolf gently closed the door behind her and joined Yuric at the end of the driveway, waving aside the bees that hovered around her body.

Freida mad glint disappeared as soon as the rogues left her home. She'd have to burn her beloved sage to get rid of their stench but it could wait. She gently opened the window of her conservatory, the rogues too busy talking to notice the gentle creaking of the rusted hinges.

"-about that crazy witch." Yuric hissed.

"Look, she told us more than we knew," Lucia reasoned. "We have to listen to her, she knows....she knows a lot more than we ever will."

"Freida claims going after the witch on the mountain will result in our death." Frieda glimpsed him grovel and glare at Lucia, his dark eyes flashing feral gold yet again. "But I don't trust everything she said - I couldn't smell if she lied with all those damn plants around."

"Do you trust what she said about the seven possible lures for the Supernova?" Lucia asked.

Freida cocked her head to the side, realising that Lucia wasn't as loyal to the rogues as Yuric thought - she hadn't told him that Jacinta, the witch who gave Yuric his frozen shoulder, was her daughter. Interesting. What else hadn't she told him?

"Yes." Yuric finally answered. "Only one?"

"And not the ones who she loves the most?" Lucia scowled. "I don't remember word for word."

"I'm not going back in there to ask." Yuric growled. "Do you remember the clues she gave? One bound in love, trust, duty..."

"Blood, betrayal, debt and bond." Lucia mused, walking with Yuric towards the forest and back to their rogues. Their words drifted further and further from her ears, Lucia discussing who Lily was close with while at school, and it was only when Freida couldn't hear them anymore that she finally moved.

Freida leaped from her chair and rushed into the kitchen. Her skirts flared at the movement and the witch absentmindedly flicked the kettle while reaching for her charging phone. Her chipped nails pressed the buttons and swiped the directions needed to get her to her recent messages.

Her breathing increased as she stared at the contact, and her previous messages.

Freida muttered under her breath as she typed, her heart pounding with urgency. Her fingers kept slipping, sweat sprinkled across her forehead, but she had to send the message. Her magic slipped out, like usual without the family rings to guide it, and the plants around her twisted from her angst.

"Destruction is coming." Freida whispered, saying one thing and typing another, her eyes burning a wild, uncontrollable green. "The cleanse has begun."

Freida frowned writing 'tomorrow', not knowing where the date came from but she didn't edit it from the message.

The witch sent it as her bees buzzed with increased ferocity outside but there was no sound over her driveway's gravel.

Freida let out a whine of panic, her fingers flying across the screen and sending a response before the door slammed open.

Freida turned to face the door, opening to no one. She knew who was there, knew what they'd ask, but she was always afraid of where they could be. He was the one person she couldn't see, couldn't sense, couldn't predict.

He didn't reveal himself, knowing it scared her to look out and see no person to call a threat - she feared the world around her instead, it caused her madness. He was to blame. If she'd known how much she'd fear him, she wouldn't have passed on the mantle of supernova so willingly.

"J-Jacob." Freida's voice shook, her fingers gripping the phone tightly. She wouldn't look away from the door to see the response her friend had given. She couldn't - he was there... Wasn't he?

He didn't show himself. His voice came from behind her, right by her ear. "What have you told them, Freida?" Jacob's low tone was filled with malice, and fear. "What have you done?"

Freida's throat bobbled. "I-I..."

"Spit it out."

"Seven." Freida rambled, her madness fastened around her voice. "Seven seas to lure the sea herself, the rogues must pick one or they will drown, and not the one who loves her the most. Love, duty, blood, trust, bond, debt, and betrayal. Only one, they need to pick only one, to lure Lily away from the mountain-"

"Who are the lures?"

"Blood, debt, betrayal, love, duty-"

"Who." Jacob's voice had moved, now in front of Freida's shaking form. She slowly sunk against the kitchen chairs, chipped and marked from when Jacinta would etch her name as a child.

"Her last." Freida rolled herself into a ball, hiding from the hidden one like it would protect her. "Her last, her, her first, the destroyer, the leader, her f-f-friend! Her future, and her past!"

Freida heard nothing for a moment, daring to open her eyes. She flinched when she spotted a pair of clean, black shoes. "Her last?" Jacob's voice whispered in her ear, the thick accent echoing in her head. "No...Not her."

"P-Please don't hurt me." Freida pleaded, curled against the kitchen chair.

She didn't hear Jacob leave her home, her bees buzzed again when his invisible body slammed into them, but she didn't register it. She could only hear his voice. Freida didn't hear him run down the road towards the Trawalla hospital. She didn't move.

She didn't move for hours.