Hara and the Witch

Chapter 23: When Questers Face a Killer

Author's note: about time I actually posted the last couple chapters, huh?

'My, you have grown.' Trif drifted over the ground, her soft flowing clothes gathering in the air around her, dark, shimmering materials that seemed to just... exist, as much a part of this woman as her voice. Her hair, the same as Hara's, piled atop her head, her face so like Charvay's... Hara couldn't look away for a long time, transfixed by the person she had longed for her entire life, staring and staring while she drew ever closer.

A certain energy emanated from Trif's fingers, grey and misty, like a cloud but... not quite right.

'Yes,' Hara eventually agreed, hearing a composure to her voice that she didn't feel, her whole body thrumming with emotion. 'I suppose I would have.'

'Now,' Trif laughed, a comforting rumble that Hara didn't recognise, try as she might. 'Don't be like that. Bitterness doesn't age well.' She smiled and floated lazily around Hara, feet obscured by the diaphanous material of her clothes but certainly not touching the ground. Plim flittered nervously over and for a moment as Trif closed in around them it seemed as if the forest got momentarily darker - and then much, much brighter. 'I've been waiting for you, dear.'

Hara blinked, but she wasn't quite able to speak. She thought her mother was glad for her silence, for she her lip twitched and her eyes glittered. Hara didn't recognise those eyes, unlike her own or Charvay's or anything her memories had held, a pair of eyes she did not feel could ever be trusted.

'My princes failed, of course,' Trif continued, sparing half a look for Mere, who remained unmoving on the ground. 'Hardly a surprise. The girl... the girl I had more faith in. Silly thing felt so much, but you are pretty, like she said.' She snickered and eyed Plim, who had finally landed on Hara's shoulder and sat there angrily, shifting from hue to hue without moving, not even to blink.

'Why did you want me?' Hara asked, angling herself so Plim was out of Trif's sight.

'You...?' Trif asked carefully, then laughed abruptly; Hara flinched, but much as she wanted to run she did not. 'Oh, Hara, my darling...' She stretched out a hand, but Hara stepped back, not allowing herself to be touched. She knocked into the mass of Mere's legs and could go no further. 'I didn't want you.' Trif smiled and there wasn't an ounce of remorse in those dark eyes, only amusement. 'What a strange girl you are.'

'What a strange woman.'

'Hmm?'

'I am no girl. I am certainly not yours.'

'Oh, Hara, but you are - why else did you leave? A quester, nobles, revenge and fighting?' She shook her head, still smiling. 'It amused me, when I realised who you were - your name... I couldn't quite believe it. When I saw my sword in the forest... that was when I started to care.'

'Hara, we have to go,' Plim whispered, but Hara was frozen. She looked at Trif and she could barely even breathe.

'I watched you, saw you being dragged off through the trees like a novice - captured by a troll of all things, I was so ashamed. And then I saw my sword, a blade that you never had the right to touch. So I had to put an end to the troll and... make sure you came back.'

'That was you...' The smell of dirt in her face, the sensation of being locked in that room... the blood. Hara burned, so hot she wasn't surprised Plim lifted off her shoulder. Even the leaves swirled into the air with her anger.

'Obviously,' Trif said, flicking a leaf out of her face. Your lackey-' Plim fluffed up in anger and flew back to Hara's shoulder '- and the witch stole my sword before I could retrieve it. I needed you alive to return it. Really, darling, I'm surprised you could be so dim.'