There's someone in the alley, leaning against the wall and looking focused. Wearing clubbing clothes and a big fancy witch hat, with some sort of hair dye and skin situation.

Neat, but she's halfway stopped noticing the clubbers are people, as you do when you're tired. 

She starts hauling trash into the dumpster. It's loud.

The stranger spins around sharply, snarling, and then opens her mouth in a little 'o' of realization.

She walks up to Lenora.

"Can I help you, ma'am?" She asks, frowning. Something's - off, wrong, here. That instinct shakes off some of the fatigue, makes you pay attention. "The alley's employees only honestly, do you need anything?"

"Oh, no, I'm good. Just taking a breather. You, however, seem exhausted. Poor thing. I have a wonderful opportunity for you."

She restrains a sigh. Fuck, she's going to get yelled at for taking too long outside. "Ma'am. I don't think that's necessary, I do have work to do..."

On closer inspection, one of her hands is bleeding slightly. And her eyes are - golden? Never mind that, they're so soulful and deep.

"Oh, no, trust me - it'll be worth it." Her eyes shimmer. "Just listen and think about my offer."

She should just ignore this person, it'll be some scam. She's too tired for this. But it's just a moment, it's just a quick break. "Fine, but please make it quick. And are you alright, there?"

"Nah, it's nothing." She gestures with the bleeding hand slightly. "I happen to be a witch. It's awesome, I'm immortal and magical and I can fly and fling fireballs and do wild, fun rituals and I'm pretty fucking rich. You, lucky girl, have the chance to be a witch too. You've got the spark, it just hasn't woken up - and probably never will, unless someone does it for you."

"So, what, you want me to go to some meetings and make a donation? Spare me the cult shit."

"Nah, this will be quick one way or another. I have places to be soon. The thing is, most of the time when one witch awakens another, they're bound by covenant magic to teach them all about magic, get them used to things. It takes forever, it's peoples' full time jobs, and it's a worthy job, but not everybody has that kind of time. I don't have time for that, but I don't want to just leave you in the dust either, not when I can help, you know? All you have to do is agree - just say out loud - that you want to be awakened and you don't want me to teach you everything about witchdom. Fast and easy."

"Magic isn't real, hon." She frowns. This person doesn't seem... Legit. She's not acting drunk, but maybe acting high - or in pain, or just incredibly anxious about something, there's a quiet unsettling strain to her.

She conjures a lick of sickly green flame at her fingertips, pushes it forward to hover, glinting, between them, directly between their eyes.

"Magic is real. Do you really want this kind of life forever? Bus tables for stupid tourists who don't tip and get hit on by fat guys? All you need to do is let me tap you on the forehead, and you'll be able to call up fire too, and other stuff besides. Go way beyond this pathetic life." Shimmer. "Think about it, think about a life of magic and power, don't you want that?"

Something ain't right here. 

But if magic is real. If she can be magic, something out of a doggamned fantasy story, she could burn her apron and never wash someone else's dishes again. An immortal witch. This is the part of the story where the hapless protagonist goes - yes, I want magic powers, and the mysterious benefactor awakens them... If she turns that down, she'll always wonder if it was a sleep-deprived hallucination or something.

She crosses her arms defensively.

"Fine, you can try to 'awaken' me. And you don't need to make me your apprentice or whatever."

"Cool. Cool cool." She glances at a bronze hand-mirror, squeezes a drop of blood from her bleeding thumb onto it. "Tch. Okay, so, quick rundown. Arcadia's a free college but not actually the best place to learn, so's Hawthorn if you test in and they're a lot better, the Watchers are a bunch of goody two-shoes cops, the Hespatian Covens are nice co-ops that will welcome most new witches - great people, very traditional - and the Faewild is open to anyone, even criminals. There's Lunabella but you'd be a slave there, aaand Alphazon is like magic Amazon on steroids but they'll hire witches. Avoid Abyssals anything with too many eyes or tentacles, you'll know it when you feel it, they are bad fucking news. You cannot reveal magic to another who is not a witch, or a good friend of yours - on pain of pain and sometimes curses, enforced by Covenant." She peers in the mirror again and nods. "'Kay, I can take that level of backlash... Aww shit, he's getting close. Well, this'll muddy the trail."

And with that, she forcefully pokes Lenora's forehead with one sharpened fingernail, doing - something -

"Bye now, best of luck!"

And she pulls out a full-sized broomstick from nowhere, and sits sidesaddle on it, and zooms away down the alley.

Lenora nearly doubles over in shock and surprise. It doesn't hurt, but-

-The road is awful. Horrible. This concrete alleyway is an unnatural thing, sticking in her psyche like a scab over the nice dirt beneath it-

-There's something inside her, a spark, a light. It's lonely, and cold. She should be near other people, but she's alone in an alley-

-Everything is now bigger, her shirt and apron loose over her frame. Her ears itch and she scrunches up her nose in sudden disgust at the sharp and varied scents of rotting trash-

-What. What. What? What?!?

There's a cop rushing into the alley now. He looks - normal, for a short instant, a stern white guy with a uniform and badge and gun.

The illusion shatters when she Looks reflexively. He's a grizzled-looking cop. But he's also a burning skeleton. She can see both things at once, sort of, with a polite mental note as to which one is real - the firey skeleton.

"Hey, you! O-R-C, hands in the air!"

What is even happening. There's a fire monster attacking her???

She screams and picks up a handful of gravel in a dilapidated planter and - throws - it?

The gravel flies with bone breaking force, right into the monster's head.

"Pfffagh!"

Okay! Hostile witch, unknown abilities including earthmoving! He acts on impulse, since hesitation kills. Time to secure the situation. He levels his gun and shoots.

She flinches and shuts her eyes and feels a sharp pain in her arm. She flails and lashes out in panic, reaching out to the dirt beneath the concrete and pulling but concrete is tough and she can't break it. Oh God oh God a cop shot her! Or a fire monster! Or- Or-

She's so sleepy. Oh no. She's....

Asleep.

She's having the weirdest dream. It was like - her boss tricked her into doing something, some stupidass thing, and then she got chased by monsters in the woods, and the woods were on fire and she was choking on the smoke and she tried to dig a hole but it wasn't working and-

-Where the fuck is she.

She is apparently... In a jail cell. Lying on the bed fully clothed. A nice jail cell? It's more like a hotel room, and not the cheapest crappiest motel room either. There's a bathroom. No windows, though, and the door has a big, visible lock.

Right. The fire cop.

That she threw a rock at.

She shifts to roll over or something, and then feels something slide along her leg and jumps and scrambles up in fright, thinking there's a snake in the bed with her, curled up.

"HYAIIIEEE!"

There's a woman sitting in the armchair by the cell entrance. "Woah, woah, hold on, you're safe, babe, nothing's hurtin' you here."

That gets Lenora to pause and blink and remember. She looks down. There's... A giant mouse tail... Sticking out of the top of her jeans and winding around her leg.

She buries her face in her hands blushing. "Ah- Aaaaaah. Uuuuuu. That was all real?"

"'Fraid so, more or less. This chick we were chasing awakened you improperly and ran off. We call her mischief, real bad influence, she can kinda mind-control you if you're not prepared - it's called suggestion. Lucky for you, O-R-C actually does its job and we're gonna orientate you, free of charge, unlike that bitch. If ya want, I mean."

She squeezes her eyes shut and tries not to scream in frustration. Sits down on the bed.

.....

"What the fuck am I. I transformed. I disappeared from my shift! And what... Is the O-R-C. Because your fire cop guy shot first and didn't ask questions."

"Trevor's in trouble for that, he wasn't supposed to go in, uh, hot. We aren't gonna apologize exactly cause you've got to protect yourself and you did attack him, but yeah, not great. You're a witch now, mimi-oread and I can chat about that in a bit. We're Occult Research and Containment, dedicated to stopping vampires, cults, dark gods, predatory slimes, so on and so forth. And generally keeping the magical gribblies and bad witches from taking over or destroying the mortal world."

"You're cops."

Fuck cops, man. They just make trouble for everyone. The school cop did jack all to help people and only made things worse, and he was kind of creepy. The cops who give her old beater of a car tickets aren't any better.

She sighs.

"...Mischief mentioned a masquerade?"

"The Masquerade is the name for how all witches have to keep magic a secret, and all the rules and regs around it. The Veil is what makes there be a masquerade. It's ancient magic from a witch or coven way more powerful than those alive today, who wrote it into the very fabric of the world or something, and laced it with curses. Thou Shalt Not Reveal Magic To The Mundanes is practically a law of physics more than a rule. Break it and you'll suffer debilitating headaches, or even minor curses. Nothing seriously deadly, but definitely seriously inconvenient. And distracting, which can be deadly. The same deal applies to awakening witches the wrong way - it's pact magic, magically enforced agreements between the major organizations. Anyone who awakens a witch can't keep them as a slave or lie and give biased info about the major factions, without getting hit with backlash. Mischief's probably in a world of hurt right now. Though if you're really strong there's ways to dodge it. You uh, probably can't go home without some kind of solution to that, the Veil helps you out if you're trying, but it looks like you - transformed a lot more than most do when they awaken."

"Hmmmm."

Stories is all she has to compare this stuff to. Stories and memes and instincts. It's... Better than nothing? Maybe?

...The ORC didn't awaken her. They aren't bound by the covenant.

And she only has their word for it that any of this shit is even a thing at all, anyway. They're right that her old life is over, though.

God, she feels so lonely and lost right now.

"Well, thanks for shooting me and bringing me to a cell. Can I leave."

Crap, they're losing her. Oh well, there wasn't much chance of a recruitment after Trev fucking shot her.

"Once we get medical to take a better look at ya, yeah. They already took a glance, but a deeper look. It's procedure. Make sure there's no dark artifacts or lingering curses or anything, we can't let that stuff out into the world."

"And what happened to medical privacy, huh?"

"That's the way it is, babe. Even I can't get out of it. It's as non-invasive as it can be when we absolutely cannot fuck around with Abyssal infiltration, sorry. I can do you a 'masquerade comp' subsidy though, to try and make up for all this nonsense. Five hundred witch kisses, that's the standard witch money, which comes out to about five grand."

"Five grand in exchange for my old life. Horray."

"Well, and magic."

"Why don't you find something you like and change into it, then we can head down to the cafeteria, get some grub in you. I'll wait outside."

And outside she goes.

She cries in private for a while and tries to calm down and think.

She didn't actually do anything wrong, and it sounds like they are going to let her go. But go where? Where even is she now?

There were other factions. The Hespatians, the co-ops. Or Arcadia, maybe. 'Free' is hard to beat, in colleges.

...The clothes here have tail holes. Well, that's convenient at least. Just as she wonders a bit too hard why her old clothes were still fitting, she notices some sort of magic on them. It's - it's magic. She can't really tell any more than that. Resizing magic, apparently. Sure. Whatever.

She changes, and heads outside.

The hallway is wide and well-appointed. "Your room's 206, we can come back after food or just head straight to medical if you wanna get out of here. Up to you."

"Whatever. Food now."

Cafeteria-wards they go.

Everything is so different. She has new senses. A new sense of balance, it's throwing off her pace doubly so- With her being so short, and having a thin lightly-furred tail that waves about, messing with her balance. Her hearing is more sensitive, she's lighter on her feet, her nose is more sensitive.

Even walking feels weird and augh.

She wants to set something on fire. More than usual, anyway.

Hmm. Maybe she can actually do that - without a lighter. She's fucking magic now, right?

...Nnnnnnot while she's literally walking next to a cop, though.