James

Biography: Born to a clan of woods witches tasked with protecting a magical stone, James was always the most powerful witch in his clan and never really realized it. Growing up with the innate ability to talk to plants, he learned a lot about magic from his mother, his islander father, his older brother, his grandmother, aunts and uncles, and the forest itself. When he was twelve years old his aunt Delilah had a baby on his birthday, a powerful linkage that would make both James and the baby stronger. Then his parents revealed themselves to be necromancers after the stone and the power that came with it, and killed the baby in an attempt to bind the stone to her, and the stone ended up bound to James, who refused to go with them. After this and the deaths of many of his family, James became something of a hermit, living alone in what used to be his family’s cottage and talking mostly to his garden, who had always been his best friends anyway.

Notes:


 * When he met Ron, James did not consider himself a virgin, but lied and said he did because he thought Ron would make fun of him for having had sex with all his plants
 * Aside from the plants, Spike has been James’s best friend and biggest ally since he was a toddler
 * James knows a great deal that he doesn’t tell anyone not because he’s secretive, but because he doesn’t think it matters
 * James’s world has always been full of music; he only experienced quiet once and it was when he thought Ron had died
 * With time to prepare, James normally has the mental energy to talk to people for a few hours at a time. Ron is the exception to this
 * James inherited his love of spicy food from his father
 * James is skilled at healing, plant-based magic, shields and wards, hexes, seasonal blessings and divination. He has limited abilities in any magic that requires making physical objects, and cannot predict the weather or do any magic that involves the sky
 * James is nervous around animals because he doesn’t know what they’re thinking like he does with plants
 * When his parents left, James found many books of theirs on necromancy. He has read them all thoroughly
 * James’s house now is not his parents’ house, but their old herb cottage. He burned their house down after they left

Quotes:


 * “Don’t be mean to the plant or I’ll let it eat you.”
 * “Language.”
 * “Good boy.”
 * “They don’t do anything, they’re just rocks. There isn’t some magical prophecy about uniting all five of them to save the world or anything like that.”
 * “You can learn a lot of witchcraft by listening to plants.”
 * “I could…feel the world falling apart underneath me. I thought…I thought that if you died, the world had better fall apart.”
 * “I’ll always love you, rules or no.”
 * “It’s not about smart and dumb, just what words you use to explain it.”
 * “I don’t understand the sword thing, myself.”
 * “I’m never going to be completely okay. They killed part of me that night, I think.”
 * “I’m just…asking you to stay with me forever. To work together with me forever. Or…or for as long as you want.”
 * “There’s no such thing as just a church.”
 * “If you’re going to masturbate, do it on your own time.”

Trivia:


 * James really wanted to ride a centaur as a small boy. He was allowed to ride one of Ezra’s warriors for a few minutes when he was seven after some negotiations done by his brother
 * James knows enough of the island language of Dekna to read spellbooks in it, but can barely speak it
 * He doesn’t like to pee on plants because he thinks it’s weird to pee on something that talks to him
 * When he was four James fell in the river and was washed away. A tree saved him and told him how to get home
 * Starting when he was nine, James carefully inspected himself for body hair once a day because he wanted to have some like Johnathon
 * James fell asleep within twenty minutes of attending his first Grand Coven meeting
 * Shortly after his parents left, James tried to run away from the forest. Charlie grabbed him and wouldn’t let him
 * When he was eleven James learned how to masturbate when he accidentally watched Johnathon do it
 * When he was six, James spent three hours trying to get a deer to eat out of his hand. It didn’t
 * James and his sister used to spend hours cloud watching. She was better at seeing shapes than he was

Modern AU: Modern James lives with his grandmother after his parents’ mafia ties came to light and he fled his upper-class family home covered in blood. Highly agoraphobic for several years, he had only just started to leave his house now and then when Ron got trapped in his garden and his life. He’s homeschooled, quietly Neo-Pagan and very introverted, though much better at social activities now than he was two years ago. Recently Spike has tapped him to work at the store he runs, which James agreed to because Spike is one of the few people he trusts to leave the house with, and now James is stuck in a job as a local witch selling magic to stupid people he’d rather not talk to. Even he, however, will admit that he’s getting better at talking to people and even though his house is still his favourite place, being in other places isn’t so bad, as long as Ron is with him.