Is it not so cruel how I love you even with your dagger piercing my throat?
[pre-shadow&bone - ruin&rising]
[nikolai lantsov x oc]
[cover by @m-elantonin]
THE WICKED WITCH OF THE NORTH was a ruthless being, with spite in her veins and blood of fooled children stained in her teeth. As tales unfold, she'd lure honest men with carefully devised songs, she'd carve up the hearts of innocent girls, and in the end, she'd ate them all in earnest vain. That was how the stories enraveled, how whispers spoken in secret would trail along the coast of the North; where men ruled the lands and witches gets burned on spikes.
Beware The Wicked Witch of the North!, villagers would whisper to their children, fear-filled eyes darting around the woods because everyone knew, the Witch would trick little children into her wooden home. They'd carry salt in their pockets and place red stained rocks beneath their doors because everyone knew, the Witch could not trick those who had protected themselves.
But underneath the layers of superstitious myth, peaked out the unnerving truth. The Wicked Witch of the North was wicked indeed, for she did cruel things masked in the promise of kindness. Go see The Wicked Witch of the North, an old man would whisper, after she'd helped his daughter survive a lethal disease. He was now homeless, the payment for the cost of his daughter's life. The Wicked Witch of the North can help you, another would tell in secret, because she'd helped his Grisha son escape a life in which he lived none at all. In the years to come, everything that was his son had vanished. And so did the witch.
In the small town of Gjela, the Wicked Witch had once resided. For less than two weeks, she'd taken little gold to help a lot in need. But in the end, they'd torn down her door with blades in hand, hatred in their eyes. When she'd escaped, she gifted the town a long trail of bloodied, dismantled bodies. The Witch does not harm those who had protected themselves, but just as, she'd harm those who fails to protect her. The truth was, the Witch was just a girl, and the men she'd hunted were Drüskelle, while the girls who's hearts she'd taken were Grisha children who had gifted her their blood in exchange for lives lived in freedom. The Wicked Witch of the North was Mila Jidkova, and she was wicked indeed, but only to those who deserved it.
Yarost' D'yavola, those left behind had named the slaughter. The devil's fury, because she had unleashed it on those who failed to correctly kill her. Now, her name was a legend among stories of saints. Ona D'yavol, the she-devil, and with the name came stories of how, in her vicious wake, followed death in its unforgiving ways. The ugly witch, the ruthless serpent, her name had gone from secret of the coast of Fjerda to bedtime stories parents would sing to scare naive children. She had been made a villain, so why would Mila Jidkova ever fight the truth they've bestowed her?
