Curiosity

(Author's note: This chapter contains blood and briefly mentions suicide.)

William snuck out of the mansion early the next morning.

Luck was on his side, it seemed, as Alphonse, the person he’d figured would be the biggest obstacle to his little escapade, had been momentarily called away to help with the anti-Witch preparations going on. For once, his reputation as a shut-in worked in his favor, as the Baron probably figured he’d just hole up in his room until all this was over.

The fact that no one would expect him to be out and about, combined with the rather frantic atmosphere that had come over the town at the news of a Witch, made slipping out of Ellerdale far easier than he might have expected. Honestly, he was slightly disappointed—he’d come up with all sorts of schemes the night before for how to sneak out. Maybe he’d give them a try later, after the crisis was over.

All his planning aside, though, it had been curiosity that had gotten him out of bed that morning, in the end. Maybe it was a bad excuse for doing something so dangerous—but he wanted to know. Wanted to know if everything he’d heard was true. All he knew about Witches came from stories, tales, legends—it would be like confronting something straight out of a storybook, seeing it with his own two eyes. Add that to the fact that he was more invested in something than he had been in a while, and the thought of sitting around doing nothing had been nigh unbearable.

That said, as he was walking through the streets of Ellerdale, hood of his cloak pulled low and sword sheathed at his waist, he found a new reason to carry on with his plan. Full of taverns and inns, it had always been a fairly lively town—but now it felt subdued, quiet. It occurred to him just then that, were the Witch not soon dealt with, their commerce would undoubtedly suffer greatly. After all, who would want to travel to a town haunted by the nearby presence of a Witch?

He also realized that his father must know this. He’d probably aim to verify the existence of the Witch as soon as possible—and then what? If there really was one out in the woods, he’d send people after it. The Baron could request reinforcements from the Capital, but that could take moons. Could they really afford to wait that long? Probably not. Meaning it would be Geralt and the town guard, most likely, who would end up facing the Witch.

That was what dispelled the last of William’s uncertainty. Yes, it was an undeniably dangerous undertaking—reckless, even—but it would be dangerous no matter who it was that did it. Might as well be him—or, rather, he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it for someone else to do. At least this way, he knew who to blame if something went wrong.

He drew more than a few looks on his way out of town, but thankfully no one tried to stop him—or worse, seemed to recognize him. There was no clear border of where Ellerdale began or ended, so even after passing the last of the farmer’s fields he continued down the road for some time. He went even further after it occurred to him that the town guard would already have people watching the forest. In the end, he travelled almost as far south as he did eastward, and it was already late morning by the time he was walking among trees.

From there, it was all guesswork. He’d thought about going to visit the woman who’d spotted the Witch and getting the firsthand account, but had quickly discarded the idea as too risky. Besides, from what he’d heard, she wasn’t in much of any state to clearly recall what she’d seen—or more importantly, where exactly she’d seen it. Which left actually finding the Witch up to him and his luck. He was fine with that, though; one couldn’t expect these things to be too easy, after all. Plus, sneaking out of Ellerdale had gone smoother than he’d expected, so he had plenty of time to search—

Not that he needed it, as he almost immediately stumbled upon a quaint little cottage nestled among the trees. Or… no, that couldn’t be right, could it? It hardly looked like the sort of place a Witch would live. It was probably just the home of some retired priest, or perhaps a sage. Not that he’d ever heard of anyone of that sort living so close to Ellerdale, but it was hardly his business to know these things.

He stared at the cottage. Maybe he could ask whoever lived here if they’d seen—

The shutters on one of the windows creaked open, and out popped a head—a head sprouting two beastly ears. It looked up at the sky, not noticing William at all, then disappeared back into the house.

Yeah, that was definitely a Witch.

William sighed. This adventure of his was turning into a bit of a letdown. “By the Flame,” he muttered, “if it goes down with barely a fight, I swear…” He pulled out his blade as quietly as he could manage, squinting at it as it caught the glare of the sun. It hadn’t seen actual use for some time, but he’d always done his best to maintain it…

Wait, hadn’t the report been of a winged woman? He was sure it had been. Everyone knew the way to identify a Witch was their animalistic features—claws, ears, wings, tails, and the like—so the thing he’d just seen had definitely been a Witch, judging from those wolf-like ears. The way he’d always understood it, though, was that they each only possessed the features of one animal. Did that mean there were two Witches in the forest?

Well… he’d found a Witch, anyhow. Maybe after he defeated it, he could ask it some questions. Or, wait… they weren’t both in there, were they?

William hesitated. It was laughable to think, after coming all this way, he was only now wavering—so he chuckled at himself. Because he was.

He looked down at his sword. Maybe it would be better if he went back and told everyone—

Nope. Nope nope nope. He would not hide behind someone else for this. Someone had to do something. Just because he had the option to back down didn’t mean he should take it.

Before he could have second thoughts, he steeled himself, marched up to the cottage door, lifted his foot, and kicked with all his might.

With a BANG, the door burst open.

~ ~ ~

Bella stared at the intruder who’d just barged into her home, hardly sure she could believe her eyes. Or ears, as he started shouting.

“Witch!” he bellowed, waving a sword in her face. “I’ve come to—”

She waved a hand, and he was sent flying. He smashed against her bookshelf, which broke, burying the human in a pile of heavy tomes and wood splinters as he crumpled to the floor.

She waited, but it seemed he’d fallen unconscious. Well. That had just been pathetic.

“Is this really what Azalea was trying to warn me about?” Bella muttered, casting a spell to fix the bookshelf as she walked over.

She prodded the human with her toe, scrunching her nose. He was bleeding quite a bit, mostly because her spell had removed all the splinters he’d gotten from the debris, though the gash on his arm looked pretty nasty, too. She glanced at the blade that the human had dropped after passing out; it was stained red. He must have landed on it.

“Fool,” she told the body offhandedly, then sighed. Well, this was a bit of a mess—literally, as the human was bleeding out all over her floor. Normally she’d just disintegrate him and be done with it, but at the moment she was running a little low on Power.

Pre-constructing spells, as she’d done with the Seer, was a practice used when one's natural Power capacity was less than what the spell required. Rather than casting it outright, one could condense a fraction of their Power, a little at a time, over a long period and piece it together with the required runes and incantations. It took more effort overall, but the end result was a spell that had, essentially, already been paid for.

The problem was, integrating the spell, as she’d only just done not long before, was the most costly part of the process. Especially for something as complex and powerful as the Seer. Which wasn’t even to mention the fact that she’d been in wholly uncharted waters, and had erred far on the side of caution. In other words, she was almost completely drained. At the moment, all she’d be able to do were the most basic of spells. Which meant, unfortunately, that a quick and easy disintegration was out, unless she wanted to wait until tomorrow—which she most definitely didn’t.

She eyed the unconscious human. She didn’t want his corpse stinking up her house, which meant taking him outside. Dragging him out the door with her own two hands was out of the question, but she did have enough Power to levitate him. Probably. It would still leave a dripping trail of blood across her floor, but that was better than a whole bloody body, at least.

She waved a hand, and the human rose carefully into the air, lifted by his torso so that his limbs and head sagged. She shooed him out the door, following behind, though not too closely.

Outside she stretched, reaching down to touch her toes, then bending back so that her ears brushed her tail. It had been quite a while since she’d been out of the cottage, she supposed. She laid down on the grass, arms and legs spread out, staring up at the sky. For a while now, working on the Seer had been her life… and now it was finished. Just like that. Azalea could judge her all she wanted for her lifestyle choices, but on the other hand, Bella just couldn’t fathom how her sister could function without something to obsess over.

Witches could live for millennia, so long as they had enough Power to sustain themselves… in fact, she didn’t think she’d ever heard of one of their kind dying from old age. Mostly it was suicide, almost always unintentional. ‘Experimenting with a new spell goes wrong’ sort of thing—exactly the reason why a lot of grimoire authors included those disclaimers. Every once in a while, though… she’d catch wind of one that wasn’t necessarily an accident. Azalea being Azalea, she’d always scoff at cases like that, but Bella… well, sometimes she thought she understood, if only a little.

Should that scare her more than it did? She wasn’t sure.

Sighing, she rolled over onto her stomach, propping her chin on the ground, and glanced at the body still floating a little distance off. Had he ever felt this way? Maybe that was why he’d done something as incredibly stupid as picking a fight with her.

Blood was still dripping off him. Had he died yet? She idly flicked her finger, making the body spin slowly. She’d find a spot a little ways away to dump him, leave him for the wolves to find. Or so she’d planned, but now that she was laying down, she didn’t really feel like getting up…

It was as she lay there, thinking, that it occurred to her that she could use the human to test the Seer. She’d been considering waiting until her sister came back, but… well, she doubted Azalea would be back for at least another week, and that sounded like too long to wait. She’d undoubtedly be tempted to start a new project in the meantime, and if she did, she might forget about the Seer entirely. If she went long enough without using it, the spell would eventually degrade—wasting all her hard work.

She pushed herself up, frowning at how much effort that took. “You still alive?” she called out to the human, who didn’t respond. Standing, she approached the floating body, and placed one of her large ears against his chest. A faint heartbeat could be heard. “Huh. Resilient, aren’t we?”

She considered for a moment, then healed the gash on his arm with a muttered word. Using the Seer wouldn’t take very long, but she still didn’t want to find out what would happen if he died right when she activated it. She looked him up and down for any other particularly grievous wounds, and thus got a good look at him for the first time.

Muscular build—not that it had done him much good. A face that might have been handsome were it not now covered in scratches. Long blond hair, probably usually well-groomed, now matted with blood. His clothes, especially his cloak, looked finely made. Shame they’d been reduced to tatters. Overall, it was clear he cared very much about his appearance. She supposed he and Azalea would have gotten along just swell. They could’ve looked down their noses at Bella together. Although, just then he was definitely more of a mess than she was.

Having confirmed that he probably wouldn’t die within the next few seconds, she spun him so that his face faced hers. With two fingers, she forced one of his eyelids open, and peered into the bright blue eye that was trying its best to roll over to the back of his head. Activating the spell called for eye contact with the one it was being activated on… hopefully it’d still work if the one in question was unconscious. She briefly wondered if it’d be best to wake him first, but quickly discarded that as a bad idea. Trying to look him in the eye while he was either attempting to kill her or running for his life sounded like a huge pain. She’d try it this way first.

“Well, here goes nothing,” she mumbled. There were no words to say, or actions to perform—those had all already been integrated. So she just willed the spell to activate, and it did.

And she saw his entire future.

Bella blinked, surprised she still had the strength to stand.

Around her, the forest was the same as ever. The trees swayed lazily in a gentle breeze, and a pair of sparrows fluttered by overhead, chirping. The cottage door was still open from when she’d come outside. By all accounts, nothing at all had changed—and after all, why would it have? Only a second had passed.

Yes, only a second—however, within that second, Bella had been very much surprised thrice over.

The first surprise had been when she’d discovered that the human—William, as she now knew his name to be—was not, in fact, destined to die that day. She’d watched herself dump his unconscious body some random place off in the woods—and then watched as he’d awoken several hours later and made his limping, staggering way back to Ellerdale.

The second surprise was the fact that William would go on to live another sixty years. And she’d seen it all. Every day, every hour, every minute. As if she’d lived through it herself. All the way until the day that, in his old age, he died of some disease that he was too weak to fight off.

The third surprise had come when all that was over, when she returned to the present to discover that only a second had passed. A second stretched out into a lifetime—or, rather, a lifetime condensed into a second.

Bella raised a hand to her forehead, staring down at William.

“What the hell,” she said.

He didn’t answer.

~ ~ ~

William stared up at the evening sky, his arms and legs splayed out on the grass.

He’d woken up a couple of minutes before. When he’d tried to sit up, his head had spun like a cart wheel, and he’d fallen back down. So he’d given up on that for the moment.

The weirdest part was, he didn’t seem to be injured. Well, his body ached like he’d just run a hundred miles, and the dizziness was unpleasant—but other than that, he was in perfectly good health, as far as he could figure. Which was definitely odd, seeing as the last thing he remembered he’d been thrown against a wall none too gently.

“Maybe I died,” he mused aloud.

“No, you didn’t,” a voice said. “You’re fine. Quit whining.”

William tipped his head back. Sitting a short distance off, watching him with yellow eyes, was a young woman, wearing a simple white shirt and dark brown trousers, her light brown hair tied back with a piece of string. She regarded him with a scrutiny that made him rather self-conscious about his current state.

There was something about her that he found vaguely familiar… but he couldn’t quite figure it out.

“Er… Hi,” he said, now confused in several directions at once. Which, needless to say, did nothing to help the spinning in his head. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Nope, thinking was too much work right then. He lowered his head, looking back up at the sky. “Nice weather we’re having,” he remarked.

He heard the young woman snort. “What, not even a ‘thank you?’ ”

“A ‘thank you?’ ”

“For dragging you out of the woods and patching you up after finding you a bloody mess?”

“Oh. Did you?” At least that explained a little about his current situation. “Thanks.”

She sighed, then grumbled something that started with, “Can’t believe…”

William tried at sitting up again, and managed it, though he had to cradle his head in his hands for a few moments. Once the dizziness had passed—mostly—he got a better look at his surroundings. He was indeed outside of the forest, though not by much. Opposite the trees, the rooftops of Ellerdale were visible a short ways away; the sky behind them was already fading to the dark blue-gray of twilight.

Finally, he checked the ground around him. “Hey, um… Have you seen my sword?” he asked the young woman.

She frowned at him, tilting her head, then muttered a small “Oh.” She appeared to consider a moment longer, then said, “Nope. I haven’t.”

He eyed her, but didn’t press. It was just a sword, after all—even if it was the one he’d had for years. “I see,” he said. He glanced up at the sky again. It really was getting late. Hopefully he could still sneak back into his room without anyone noticing. He pushed himself to his feet. “Well, anyway, I really better—”

He stumbled, his head spinning again, and face planted on the ground. Evidently it had been too early to try standing. The young woman chuckled as he rolled over onto his back, spitting out a mouthful of grass.

There was a pause.

“I’m William, by the way,” he eventually said. “William Hann.”

“Yep,” she said, which was an odd answer to an introduction. He waited, but she said nothing else.

“And you?” he finally asked.

“Me what?”

“Your name. I gave you mine, now you give me yours. Unless you don’t want to, I guess. That’s usually how these things go, though.”

“Oh, is it?” There were a few seconds of silence. “Bella.”

“Nice to meet you, Bella.”

“Yep.”