LJ Idol Week 22: Sweep The Leg
Sep. 25th, 2014 06:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flipflop_divaWritten as a sequel of sorts to Week 16: A Terrible Beauty Has Been Born, but it's not necessary to have read the first part to understand this.
She made her home in a small village on the outskirts of a land far away from her former kingdom. Three days after their escape, she and her mother spent a night in a deserted cottage nowhere close to any other shelter, but when morning came, they chose to stay. And stay they did, as years passed by.
If she ventured out, it was only in cloaks so big no part of her flesh could be seen. She walked fast, kept to the shadows, and made no eye contact.
The mocking cries from the people she once knew haunted her each night in her sleep, and she knew if she ever spoke to anyone here with more than a passing word, they would begin anew.
A witch cannot escape her destiny, her mother would tell her, but this witch had no desire to be labeled. She had tried once to do what was right, but she no longer deemed to care.
Her old village had gone up in flames, just as she knew it would, at the hands of a child with magic too powerful to contain, but the tales that were spread spoke only of the witch who had cursed the town and had sent all the innocent people to their deaths.
It was not a battle she could win, nor one she wished to wage.
So she hid, locked away where no one could find her, staring out the window as the summer months turned into winter and the winter months turned back into summer. Leaves fell off the trees and sprouted again, and each time they did, the witch’s bitterness seemed to follow suit.
She grew older, her mother grew moreso, and then one day her mother did not move again, and the witch was finally, truly, alone, biding her time and waiting.
Until a cold fall day, twenty years past her arrival in the village, when the witch made her way into town, keeping to the side streets and stealing bread off plates when no one was looking and coins from pockets from those who could not see her.
There was a different energy in the air, a buzz of excitement the witch had only seen once before, and it froze her in her tracks.
It could not be.
But yet it was.
On a stage at the other end of the courtyard, a girl so beautiful it could be no one else. Older than the child spreading evil in her visions, but the same golden curls, the same porcelain skin. The same cruel eyes.
The witch made to turn, but it was too late, for there existed a connection between them, although they had never before met.
The golden-hair girl turned to her left, made eye contact with the witch, and the witch knew it was over.
“Please,” the witch cried. “I have nothing.”
But the golden-haired girl didn’t relent and a smile that contained no pleasure spread across her face.
“You want answers to your misfortunes?” she cried out to the people. “The witch is to blame!”
The witch tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. Too many people, too many hands, grabbing her, dragging her, pulling her out of the shadows and into the center of the crowd.
They strung her up and asked no questions.
“Do it,” the golden-haired girl commanded.
“I know what you did,” the witch said. “I know who you are.”
“And that is why you must die,” the girl said, and she signaled to the man with the axe.
But the witch had been waiting for this moment for many moons, and this was not how it would end.
Her time alone had not been for nothing, and her powers had grown tenfold. She closed her eyes and recalled her vision — and then she forced it into the minds of everyone around her, let them see the golden-haired girl who stood before them for who she really was, a girl who had destroyed a population merely out of boredom.
The townspeople gasped. Cries rang out. The witch smiled as they turned away from her and toward the golden-haired girl.
The witch heard the girl scream, but she did not turn to see what happened next. The girl was more powerful than all of the townspeople, and soon they would be dead.
But the witch would not be.
Because someday, the witch knew, she would be the one to strike the final blow in this war they waged, between a witch and a golden-haired girl, but now was not the time.
Now was the time to slip back into the shadows and disappear, and she did.
She made her home in a small village on the outskirts of a land far away from her former kingdom. Three days after their escape, she and her mother spent a night in a deserted cottage nowhere close to any other shelter, but when morning came, they chose to stay. And stay they did, as years passed by.
If she ventured out, it was only in cloaks so big no part of her flesh could be seen. She walked fast, kept to the shadows, and made no eye contact.
The mocking cries from the people she once knew haunted her each night in her sleep, and she knew if she ever spoke to anyone here with more than a passing word, they would begin anew.
A witch cannot escape her destiny, her mother would tell her, but this witch had no desire to be labeled. She had tried once to do what was right, but she no longer deemed to care.
Her old village had gone up in flames, just as she knew it would, at the hands of a child with magic too powerful to contain, but the tales that were spread spoke only of the witch who had cursed the town and had sent all the innocent people to their deaths.
It was not a battle she could win, nor one she wished to wage.
So she hid, locked away where no one could find her, staring out the window as the summer months turned into winter and the winter months turned back into summer. Leaves fell off the trees and sprouted again, and each time they did, the witch’s bitterness seemed to follow suit.
She grew older, her mother grew moreso, and then one day her mother did not move again, and the witch was finally, truly, alone, biding her time and waiting.
Until a cold fall day, twenty years past her arrival in the village, when the witch made her way into town, keeping to the side streets and stealing bread off plates when no one was looking and coins from pockets from those who could not see her.
There was a different energy in the air, a buzz of excitement the witch had only seen once before, and it froze her in her tracks.
It could not be.
But yet it was.
On a stage at the other end of the courtyard, a girl so beautiful it could be no one else. Older than the child spreading evil in her visions, but the same golden curls, the same porcelain skin. The same cruel eyes.
The witch made to turn, but it was too late, for there existed a connection between them, although they had never before met.
The golden-hair girl turned to her left, made eye contact with the witch, and the witch knew it was over.
“Please,” the witch cried. “I have nothing.”
But the golden-haired girl didn’t relent and a smile that contained no pleasure spread across her face.
“You want answers to your misfortunes?” she cried out to the people. “The witch is to blame!”
The witch tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. Too many people, too many hands, grabbing her, dragging her, pulling her out of the shadows and into the center of the crowd.
They strung her up and asked no questions.
“Do it,” the golden-haired girl commanded.
“I know what you did,” the witch said. “I know who you are.”
“And that is why you must die,” the girl said, and she signaled to the man with the axe.
But the witch had been waiting for this moment for many moons, and this was not how it would end.
Her time alone had not been for nothing, and her powers had grown tenfold. She closed her eyes and recalled her vision — and then she forced it into the minds of everyone around her, let them see the golden-haired girl who stood before them for who she really was, a girl who had destroyed a population merely out of boredom.
The townspeople gasped. Cries rang out. The witch smiled as they turned away from her and toward the golden-haired girl.
The witch heard the girl scream, but she did not turn to see what happened next. The girl was more powerful than all of the townspeople, and soon they would be dead.
But the witch would not be.
Because someday, the witch knew, she would be the one to strike the final blow in this war they waged, between a witch and a golden-haired girl, but now was not the time.
Now was the time to slip back into the shadows and disappear, and she did.
