This is a 1,000-word challenge piece written based on an image prompt.
It was hard to say whether the path had really appeared overnight or if Oddborg had overlooked it before, but there it was. It was paved with what looked like wood at first glance, but proved to be artfully made fondant.
Nadya hovered one foot over the sugar planks and turned to smile impishly.
“Even as a joke, it’s unwise,” Oddborg said. “Step back here with me, please.”
She put her foot down- on earth, not on the candy trail- but didn’t move back from it. “I think we should greet our new neighbor, sister mine. A witch is not mocked, you know.”
Oddborg looked over the path, sighing through her nose. It was prettily made- artistic and unassuming. She wondered why it fell to her to encounter so many of the oddities of these woods when she would far rather live in blissful ignorance. But then, if she didn’t discover these things, Nadya would find them first. “You are right, in fact. We must greet her, but not without a housewarming gift, else we will do her another kind of disrespect. Come home for now. We’ll bake her a basket of fresh bread.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Perhaps some eggs, from the chickens? Witches frighten livestock into not producing, I have heard, and that is why they steal, so a gift would be appreciated…”
“Ah, but if she knows we have them, she may steal them later when she wants more.”
“Perhaps- but hush! We must not talk about these things so close to her path. Even the path has a bit of her in it.”
When they were safely away, Oddborg asked: “Do you remember what you were told of witches?”
“They are not quite human, and always want to be, so they’ll play tricks to try to get to be more like us. Some of their tricks are rather funny and do no harm- wearing our clothes, copying mannerisms and such, but they may do nasty things too like breaking into our houses and trying to live there- even eating us because they think they can turn human if they consume enough of our flesh.”
Good. Nadya hadn’t forgotten Father’s warnings entirely. “That is all true. But, witches prefer giants above all else. Dwarves like us are not of as much interest to them. And they can be bargained with. Some of them can be convinced to be helpful. But they are always dangerous, always. You must watch yourself, and never give them promises that can be turned against you. We will do our best to make an understanding with this one. The land belongs to no one, so there is no need to turn her out of it unless she cannot live in peace with us.”
“Witches all look different, I’ve heard, too, and they don’t all build candy houses.”
“No, they don’t. The house is a trap, usually. This one may be a man-eater if she builds such traps, so we will have to be particularly careful. Don’t touch the candy. Not so much as a brush of your foot, with your boots on.” Nadya wasn’t wearing her nice steel-toed boots at the moment. She had spent too much of her young life in this place, with the elvish village the closest civilization, and she’d picked up their habits of going barefoot.
“Should I ask in the village?” Nadya asked. “If the elves have had a witch here before, I mean. It could be one that’s left and come back.”
“Witches are not often… driven away.”
“Ah. They’d be killed?”
“Yes.”
They returned the next day at three in the afternoon, when the sunlight was the most cheerful and the curious hypnotism of witches at its weakest pull. They followed beside the path, never touching it, and it led them to a charming spun-sugar house. Waiting outside, looking pitifully eager, was a small green toadish creature, warted and bristled, and obsessively sweeping a patch of dirt.
“Greetings, Grandmother,” said Oddborg, with a respectful nod of her head. “We have come with a housewarming gift.”
The witch cackled and clasped her small, knobbly clawed hands. “What pretty girls you are! Come inside, my lovelies!”
Oddborg was rather homely as dwarf-women went; her great-grandmother had been an orc and with so much beardless blood in her line, she was unable to grow any more facial hair than a wispy mustache, which she kept shaved because it was really not attractive. She was secure in her other good points, but aware that any remarks on her beauty were pure flattery.
“We will not enter,” said Oddborg quickly. “It is a lovely house, and we won’t make it sticky with our hands and our warmth.”
“No? But you must have something in return for your gift!”
“We must have something in return, yes, and we shall have it. But we will not enter. We have a promise to ask of you.”
“In exchange for the basket,” Nadya interrupted, “we’d ever so much appreciate if you kept an eye out for frost giants. I’m sure someone like you doesn’t have anything to worry about from them. And, if you don’t eat anyone or bother people or anything like that we might have another surprise for you. My sister knows a lot of people at the University who research transformations.”
The witch’s eyes gleamed. “A pretty girl and smart, too. I’ll take the basket now, dearie, and the rest later.”
“Why did you tell her that?” Oddborg asked. They were nearly home, well out of earshot of the witch.
“Hmm? It’s good to make her promise to leave us alone, isn’t it?”
“But you can’t keep the promise. A witch can never become human. You’ve offered her what she most wants, and she can never really have it.”
“What does that matter?”
Oddborg blinked. The matter seemed, to her, too obvious to explain. “It seems… cruel.”
“She’s only a witch,” said Nadya. “You can be dreadfully naive sometimes.”
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