Chapter Text
He must been sobbing for at least four hours. The grass might have been properly watered with his tears as a substitute for rain if not for the salt in them.
She, of course, had left soon after the wolf's body had slumped softly to the forest floor in unconsciousness. What happened now was of no consequence to her; she had done her half of the deal, and now it was time to set out to use the influx of magic from that deal to fix what these two cretins had done to her forest.
It was somewhat on the grueling side, even for her. The blaze had thankfully not leveled the whole thing, but it had touched a not-insignificant portion of it, including literally all of her most frequented areas. It was with much grumbling that she set about fixing it. How could two young idiots cause so much damage?
She coaxed the grass to grow again, freshening the soil first before bringing forth the undergrowth, then bringing the trees back to life. Area by area, she repaired the forest, satisfied as the woodland monsters tentatively began to return to their haunts. The Witch liked them no more than any other person who lived in the forest, but their absence meant the local ecosystem was out of sync. Rather bad for someone who lived there.
Lived here. Right. She would have to reconstruct her home, too. And without everything inside-
She grit her teeth. Well. That project had to start sooner or later.
She hadn't expected company when she returned to the site of her home, though. That was a surprise. Of course, she expected the wolf to still be out cold--she would have to toss her somewhere later--but the huddled form of the human was nearly a full-blown shock.
His wails and sobs had weakened to soft weeping, but his arms remained around the unconscious wolf's neck, his tears sliding down his pale, wan, tearstained face onto the grass below.
"Could you stop that?" she asked idly as she turned her back on him to survey the ruins of her cabin. "I just brought that grass back to life, thank you."
He made a choking noise and then dead silence.
She fixed some of the rocks meant to be outside the cabin as she spoke. "You know, I'd run if I were you. She's not going to remember you when she eventually wakes up and you're a tasty snack to her. There's no point in staying."
Silence for a moment and then, hm. He actually spoke. A hoarse, numb whisper; she halted in her construction to listen to it, surprised he spoke at all. "And go back to what? She is the only love I have ever known."
"That sounds very much like not my problem, but it's equally not my problem if you wait around until she eats you." She materialized a wooden sign for the front of her house. "... Unless it happens on my front lawn, I suppose. I'm sure your guts and bones would be of decent quality to use in my potions, but I don't care to extract them from the ground or from her maw, and I hardly have time to bother with that sort of thing when I have an entire cottage to reconstruct. So if you could leave, I would appreciate it."
Another choking noise.
She paused for a moment before shrugging and was just about to disintegrate one of the blackened beams of rubble when she heard it.
"You."
The fire in that voice, like the hissing of an impending inferno, could not possibly have come from the small, weak thing bent over the wolf's body, but when she turned to see what new annoyance had manifested in her forest, she found herself staring into the burning eyes of the prince whose sight she had just restored, smoldering beneath his bangs.
It was such a shock she forgot how to breathe for a moment. The wind ruffled their hair and clothing, time standing still.
"What." She didn't know what this was the start of but it was best to shut it down as quickly as possible.
Even her iciest voice didn't extinguish those eyes. He sat back from his hunched position and would have looked quite ridiculous as he stood, with his dirty, battered feet, filthy, ragged nightclothes, short stature and soft face... if not for those eyes.
"You took our happiness. Why?" His fists clenched. Adorable.
"Well, the inferno, for starters." Idiot. "But it wasn't like she deserved to keep all of those things anyway."
His teeth bared. "You're wrong."
Her head jerked back. "Excuse me?"
"Yes, she lied to me. It hurt. But she was right; I wouldn't have accepted her aid if I'd known her true identity; I would've been too scared. I stand here today with healed eyes because she lied. It was wrong, but there wasn't a right choice to make. The forest fire was entirely my fault because I was the one who refused her help even when it made sense to, putting my feelings above the safety of the whole woods, and so I dropped the lantern when I fell! But despite fire being her greatest fear she came for me! Me, who had yelled at her! And yet you call her selfish!"
The witch beheld the small human and his trembling fists, his burning eyes, and a laugh erupted from her throat. There was a rush of wingflaps from above. "Oh you are rich, human! You think any of that was selflessness? She did it because she wanted to keep you! Her happiness mattered to her more than anything else!"
"Then why did she not keep me blind."
A pit lodged itself in her gut, freezing her from the inside out. She looked at him.
"She could have. She could have kept her memories and her human form, and turned down the deal, and walked away with me. I wanted her to, even. I begged her to! You were there! But she refused to even try to take it back. Righting her wrong, even if it was accidental, was what mattered most to her- because- because I mattered most to her."
The Witch snorted, shaking the ice from her heart and smacking the black beam to disintegrate it into dust. "Fairytale nonsense. Go home and cry to your mother about it."
"Did you ever tell the truth."
The ice returned.
Slowly, she turned back around. The prince's eyes were green, she realized somewhere in her mind. Summer green. Summer forest green.
She hated them.
"What."
"You mocked her earlier, asking if she became more honest when she apologized. Then you taunted her with her mistakes. She would've agreed to the deal without all that nonsense manipulation you did; you did it to be cruel. Or maybe, since you think so little of her, you thought she really wouldn't do it without you pushing her. But did you ever become more honest?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"The girl. Witch..."
He was not going there.
"Did she ever learn who murdered her brother?"
"THAT. IS ENOUGH." The space between her hands gathered dark magic to throw at him, to shut him up, shut him up forever-
"I'm going to take that as a no, because if you had told her the truth, you'd have delighted in throwing that in my face." His look was near placid now, watching her. Truly, the moron must not care if he died. "And on top of that, you were even more selfish still. It was your deeds that got her killed. You let her believe you weren't as terrible as the stories made you out to be, didn't you? Surely you didn't actually rip families apart as payment for the wishes they asked out of desperation and necessity rather than greed. Surely it wasn't you who separated lovers, parents from children, siblings, the elderly from their families."
"THEY ASKED FOR IT!" She threw. Her aim was off, still shaky because she was tired, of course, from all that bullshit earlier. He watched the tree explode several feet away from him, and she cursed.
"Allow me to recap." He began to tick points off on his fingers. "You demanded lives for the price of your help for the wounded, sick, dying, the poor. You killed her brother. You divulged none of this to her so she could make informed choices, and so she stayed, and you grew to love her. Your behavior changed to accommodate for the feelings you felt for her and what she taught you, but still, you never told her the truth. She died for that truth from people rightfully angry at your cruelty, and wrongfully too quick to action where it concerned her. And then- then-"
His face scrunched with disgust.
"Then, instead of allowing her rest, and allowing her to be with her brother, whose soul I assume was released accidentally in the rampage, you kept her. You bottled her in a jar, because you, Witch, were the one who was too selfish to let go.
Not my princess."
She pointed a finger wrapped in dark magic at him. "Give me a reason," she breathed, "why I shouldn't blow your pretty little head from your shoulders."
"Because I'm right. And you know that. And you hate it. And killing me won't prove me wrong; it'll just make me dead."
The steel in his eyes didn't waver. Didn't look away. Didn't blink.
"And then you'll have to live with the echoes of my words for the rest of your probably-immortality."
Her hand trembled. If she'd had the magic to spare, she would have transformed into the beast again, stomped him into the earth, left a red smear all over the grass near his precious little princess-
His princess. His wolf, rather.
Her face split into a truly terrible smile that peeked through the mask a little with its intensity. The laugh that tore from her throat was much louder this time, cracked and high-pitched, manic. She wrapped her arms around herself and shook with the force of it while he stood and watched.
"All- all right," she wheezed, wiping one of her many eyes as it subsided. "All right, little prince- If you are so sure in your righteousness, then how about a little wager?"
"What sort."
She picked up her staff, clearing her throat to steady herself. "I'll alter my conditions," she said sweetly with a wave of her stick. "She is still a wolf beast, but! This can change."
"Go on."
Still his expression remained the same. Her fingers tightened on her staff, the previous mirth from earlier starting to vanish. "It will take you some time to leave the forest," she said flatly. "I estimate about a week, and perhaps a week more to deal with whatever is waiting for you back where you came from, given your earlier comments. Given that, I allow you one month from tonight. I will return her memories to her, locked deep inside her head. You have one month to coax them to the surface. Should she recover her memories and accept your feelings, my price for healing your eyes will be forfeit. She will regain her shapeshifting abilities, she will keep her recovered memories, but she will not get back her singing voice."
"That is fair. It was part of an earlier deal." Show some damned emotion, brat! Wasn't her voice what you loved to begin with!? "What if I fail."
Her grin returned. "I claim your soul. She will be given her memories back, if only to languish about how her sacrifice failed."
She saw the shift in his eyes. A spike of pain- was that fear? Ah, that felt good.
His mouth pressed into a grim line. "I'll do it."
Well, well. "So be it."
She waved her staff over the body of the sleeping wolf, watching the light gather around her, swirling upwards like light met smoke.
"It is done."
The prince nodded and reached down to smooth some of the fur from his beloved's face before straightening and turning to leave.
"Remember. One month."
"One month," he echoed back at her before turning around again.
She watched his form disappear into the darkness of night, letting out a low cackle when he was out of sight, looking back down at the sleeping wolf.
"Silly girl. He might think he wants this right now, but that will fade in time once he is back where he came from. Humans and monsters were never meant to be friends. Whether he attempts to see this through to save his own skin or dismisses it as empty threats, your sacrifice will be for nothing."
She couldn't wait.