Old Mother Westwind

Old Mother Westwind
Character Information
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Residence	Reality B-89 54-Z
Occupation	Witch
Behind the Scenes
First seen in	PROSE: The Apocryphal Journeys of Jenny Everywhere
Copyright	Aristide Twain

In Reality B-89 54-Z, Old Mother Westwind was a witch of Sucria who was once engaged in a feud with Grandmother Ginger.

Description

Physical appearance

Westwind was an old woman with snow-white hair and intense hazel eyes. She wore a purple witch's hat. (PROSE: The Apocryphal Journeys of Jenny Everywhere)

Personality

Westwind was highly loyal to her brother, and prone to exacting vengeance for perceived slights, as was common for witches. She did not see herself as evil but was fatalistic about witches being perceived by the public as villainous, being momentarily confused when Jenny Everywhere did not share this bias. (PROSE: The Apocryphal Journeys of Jenny Everywhere)

Powers & abilities

Westwind had a number of magical abilities, including summoning a white mist around her. Her associations with the west wind also went beyond her name: at times there was “something deep and ancient” in her eyes that “howled like the wind coming in from the west through the Licorice Strait”. (PROSE: The Apocryphal Journeys of Jenny Everywhere)

Biography

Early life

Westwind had a brother.

She introduced herself to Jenny by claiming that she “[was] known in the Candy Forest as Old Mother Westwind”, suggesting that she was not native to this area and that Westwind was not her birth name. (PROSE: The Apocryphal Journeys of Jenny Everywhere)

Feud with Grandmother Ginger

At some point, Grandmother Ginger, a witch who lived on the edge of the Candy Forest, asked Westwind for help locating a child of hers who'd disappeared — her niece Jenny. When Westwind failed, Ginger spitefully cursed her brother's shoes, making him dance to exhaustion and wear out his favourite pair of shoes in the process. Escalating the feud, Westwind ended up chasing Ginger out of her shack and driving her into hiding deeper in the Candy Forest. She then took over Westwind's house. (PROSE: The Apocryphal Journeys of Jenny Everywhere)

With Jenny Everywhere

A few days into her occupation of Grandmother Ginger's shack, Westwind received a visit from interdimensional traveller Jenny Everywhere, who was looking for Ginger for her own reasons. Westwind agreed to join her in an expedition into the Candy Forest. They journeyed for three days. Westwind eventually decided to go hunting for some food other than sweets, splitting off from Jenny, who waited for her in the clearing. She was attacked by a creature whom she recognised as the Old Man of the Marshmallow, inexplicably free once more. He managed to embed a fang in her chest. However, Ginger entered the fight in the form of a giant spider, defending Westwind from the Old Man.

Westwind crafts the Wisp. (PROSE: The Apocryphal Journeys of Jenny Everywhere)

With Jenny's help, Ginger defeated the Old Man's most monstrous form. It was found that nothing remained of the Old Man but a crushed marshmallow and a magical key he'd been carrying in his pocket. Ginger picked it up, stating that she'd been looking for it for a long time, and plunged it in Jenny's forehead, claiming it would “open the gates of [her] mind”. The key, actually an ancient artefact known as the Key of Enecloog, transported the two of them to a realm representing Jenny's mind. Time passed faster within the realm, with their brief confrontation within it giving time for the night to fall in the clearing. Westwind, waiting patiently for their return, set up a campfire and began to read a book to pass the time.

Remembering that, according to legend, the souls of the dead literally flew up into Outer Space upon death, Jenny and Ginger soon realised that they needed to go there if they wanted to retrieve Ginger's niece's soul to resurrect her. Westwind quickly used her powers to create a giant flying broomstick to take them there, which she dubbed the Wisp. However, just as they were about to leave, Ginger cried out that she had forgotten something at home, where she ended up staying after all. This was fortunate, as Westwind's broom soon went down while flying over the Fall See, crashing into a reef. Jenny believed Westwind to have perished in the crash. (PROSE: The Apocryphal Journeys of Jenny Everywhere)