Hara and the Witch

Chapter 6: Troll Blood Honey

Plim and Hara both examined the jar for a full minute before Hara spoke. 'Is that some kind of potion?'

'No.'

'A spell?'

'No.'

'Troll... blood?'

'It's honey. I sell honey.' Marigold secured the jar in her bag and Hara heard glass knock against glass, assumedly containing more honey. 'How else are we going to buy weapons?'

'We're buying weapons?!' Hara nearly yelled.

'Among other things.' Marigold seemed somewhere between bemused and petrified at Hara's wide eyed enthusiasm.

'But... why honey?' Hara asked a second later, resignedly plodding along after them.

'I keep bees.'

'No, I mean why don't you sell magic... potions or something?' She flushed a dull shade of lilac at Marigold's gaze. 'I'm sorry, you don't have to answer that.'

'I... have you ever met a witch? Either of you?' Plim and Hara shook their heads. 'You've nothing to be ashamed of,' Marigold said, noting their expressions, 'we're rare, or at least we tend to keep ourselves scarce. But the simple truth is that people...' She shrugged. 'They would prefer to buy honey from me.'

'But why?' Hara was baffled. She had grown up being told stories of witches, first in hazy memories from her mother and then by Charvay; where she came from witches were practically a myth, but even so they were honoured. You were kind to witches, in the stories, not because they might curse you or so they would grant you favours, but because they were respected above everything, a symbol of goodness and strength and the world. A witch was said to use her power for good and for justice, to settle ravaged lands and guide nature back to root. When Hara left her village and heard Plim's stories of witches it was the same, but Marigold spoke as if she were hardly trusted.

'It was a hero, I think.' The witch's eyes clouded over and, tentatively, Plim hopped onto her shoulder and let out three small trills of song, a sound of comfort and kindness. Marigold exhaled sharply. 'A few years ago, now. I was at the market, buying some supplies, when they swept into town. Within a week the apothecary had closed, it was that quick. They... fed fear.'

'They shunned you? Because of a mouldy old hero?!' Hara fumed.

'I wasn't shunned,' Marigold said calmly, although her eyes brightened at Hara's anger on her behalf. 'They buy my honey.'

'Because it's the best honey there is!' Hara yelled. Plim tweeted furiously in agreement.

'You've never tried my honey.'

'We don't need to, it's obviously true. That colour, the care you put into the packaging-'

'A jar. It's a jar.'

'-a very nice jar.'

'Leftover from soup I bought last month.'

'...the consistency! It's just the finest honey you could ask for.'

'Didn't you say it looked like troll blood?'

'And your bees! They were so happy!' Hara continued, ignoring this interjection.

'Didn't you get stung twice?'

'What I'm saying IS,' Hara pressed on, feeling they were getting off topic, 'they shouldn't only buy your honey, as good as it clearly is. I'm just...'

'She's saying it's not fair,' Plim said when Hara was lost for words.

'Well, that's very sweet of you, but you don't need to be worried. I'm really not bothered if I'm left alone. The only thing that really annoys me is that it was a hero.' She shook her head in disgust. 'A hero.'

'I understand your not being a fan. They're so full of themselves, have none of the down to earth sweetness of us questers.'

'It's not that. Around here most heroes are princes and princes... are not my favourite people to be around.'

'Don't get her started,' Plim begged, but too late: Hara had started.

'Princes!' she hooted, hands in the air; she nearly knocked Plim, who was hopping back onto her head, out of the air. 'What a bunch of fools!'

'Not your favourite people either?' Marigold surmised. Plim winced, somehow audibly.

'Favourite people!' Hara crowed. 'I've never met a single one who wasn't a slimy fool only out to use his privilege to get all he could grasp in his-'

'You got her started,' Plim muttered while Hara ranted.

'How many've you met? I'd guess you're a connoisseur,' Marigold said when she could get a word in edgeways, which was some time because Hara had a lot to say on the topic.

'One.' Hara shook her head, not seeming to notice the peculiarity of this. 'He was just the worst, most lowdown type - and you're right!' she added, suddenly bursting with fresh energy. 'He WAS a hero!' She shook her head sagely. 'What a scumbag.'

'There's just something about them,' Marigold agreed. Plim sighed to herself, her worst fears realised: Hara had found someone to moan about princes and heroes with. 'Always trying to make you swoon and show off how brave they are.'

'Brave!' Hara snorted. 'Gits. Out there with their swords, always prancing about and twirling them like they're some fancy accessory and not, I don't know, a tool of death!'

'Gits,' Marigold agreed, looking at Hara and smiling. Maybe she had smiled before - she must have in the week they'd spent at her home - but Plim watched the upward turn of her lips and couldn't remember seeing anything quite like it.

'And they're cheap. Oh the stories I could tell!'

'Please. Tell all. Town's a way off and-'

'Why are you encouraging her?!' Plim moaned. 'Why is this the thing you bond over?!'

'I'm still not over the fact you can speak,' Marigold said, giving Plim a sideways look.

Plim blinked, nonplussed. 'I'm not a big talker.'

'She's really not,' Hara attested.

'But in a crisis? When you you could've guided me straight to the spot Hara was snatched?'

'We got there, didn't we?'

'...Eventually.'

'And that,' Hara said, 'is because Plim is a champion guide. Unlike certain princes I've known...'

'Fine! Fine. Tell the story. But Marigold, I warned you.'

Marigold smiled, not heeding this warning at all. As the companions walked into the early morning sunshine, dew and spiderwebs glistening like jewels all around them, otherworldly and magical and the perfect setting for an epic story, Hara cleared her throat and began.