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The Witch’s tail swished back and forth angrily, as it often did when she was agitated. Which was… most of the time, actually. She folded her arms defensively over her chest, the chain binding her to the wall clanking against the ground as she moved. She was well aware that she could easily slip out of the cuff encircling her wrist, but she was biding her time. All she needed to was wait for that wretched monster to return, all confident and haughty and believing that it’d managed to best her.
She found her body curling in on itself instinctively, limbs pulling inward as if to shield her torso from another attack. She gnawed at her lip, sharp fangs tearing into soft flesh. Witch couldn’t help but feel ashamed, not only of her anxiety but also of the fact that she had been bested in the first place. Her eyes narrowed, sharp pupils darting around the room.
It was no matter. Witch would not allow herself to be tricked again. This time, she was prepared. She knew what really lay behind that friendly, feathery facade. She knew the hurt that extended from those beckoning talons, the malice hidden behind those scheming eyes, the–
The temperature in the room had taken a sudden dip, a new, previously unknown draft having made itself known. The startling chill dragged the Witch out of her vindictive spiral, and she gritted her teeth to keep from shivering. Her tail ceased its indignant flicking to wrap around her body as she drew her legs in closer. Despite her efforts, she only seemed to feel colder. A shaky exhale revealed a puff of white vapor leaving her lips, and her brow furrowed in wary confusion. Sure, her little hovel wasn’t great at regulating the temperature, but this sudden plummet was definitely out of the ordinary. She rubbed her hands up and down her forearms, the meager heat generated by the friction doing little to combat the cold. Her paranoid gaze flitted around the room, faster now. If someone was here, she would have sensed them, she tried to tell herself. It did little to ease her paranoia, the tension still drawing her muscles taut. She considered saying something, a cynical quip to draw whoever it was out of hiding, but she canned that idea. She didn’t want to risk talking into empty air–she still had some remaining pride that she was determined to cling to.
Witch steeled herself against the oppressive chill, determined to not let her discomfort show… just in case there was someone else here, of course. Her claws had come out on pure instinct, a fact she only noticed when she became aware of the way they were digging into her skin. She forced herself to relax by just a fraction. Her claws stayed out. If someone was hoping to get the jump on her, she would be ready. Her nose twitched, once again trying to identify any foreign scents, but all she could smell was the damp rot of the twisted wood surrounding her. How long had it been since she’d smelled fresh air? It had been so long that even the memory of being beyond these four walls was distorted and fuzzy. Trying to recall those lost memories left her head pounding, so she typically avoided that particularly painful train of thought.
The metaphorical thought-train was abruptly derailed by the appearance of a face peeking out of the floor. Witch let out a startled cry–much to her internal embarrassment–as she sprung to her feet. Her lips curled upwards into something resembling a snarl, fangs bared defensively. Her panicked gaze was poorly disguised as a glare, eyes burning into those of her assailant. Actually… were they her assailant? They didn’t seem to be doing much assailing. In fact, they weren’t doing much of anything. The face protruding from the floor stared at her curiously. It didn’t seem at all deterred by the feline’s display of aggression. Their eyes were wide and curious, despite the fact that they appeared to be sunken inward.
“Who are you, trying to sneak up on me?” Witch said in her best masquerade of nonchalance. “Did you think I wouldn't notice?” Her eyes remained trained on the intruder as they emerged from the floor, slowly rising until their whole form was visible.
The Spectre, entirely unperturbed, smiled. The skin around her mouth, dry and cracked, pulled taut as her lips curled upwards.
“Well,” she said, voice surprisingly cheerful in contrast to her appearance. “You’re a new face.” She cocked her head to the side curiously. Witch froze. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t… this.
Spectre took no issue with Witch’s lack of response, perfectly content to fill the silence on her own.
“I was expecting someone else,” she continued, “but you’ll do just fine.” The eyes of the Witch narrowed in suspicion. That was a threat if she’d ever heard one. Before the feline could even begin to formulate a fittingly defensive retort, Spectre floated closer. The Witch’s righteous heart pounded violently against her ribcage. She was cornered, figuratively and literally, against a threat she had not expected.
The ghost paused. Her head tilted to the side curiously, not unlike a dog. It would have been endearing if not for everything else about her.
“I’m not planning to hurt you,” Spectre said, an amused look playing on her lips. “Probably,” she amended. Witch, unsurprisingly, was not comforted in the slightest. All possible witticisms seemed to die on her tongue.
“What do you mean by that..?” Witch ventured, voice sounding much smaller than she would have liked. She’d had everything planned out for when that feathered freak finally decided to show his ugly face once more, Now, with this see-through stranger hovering in front of her, she didn’t have the slightest clue what to do.
“Let’s see…” Spectre begins, tapping a translucent finger to a face of equal incorporeality. “You’re not my killer.” Witch’s eyebrows raised in surprise. She wasn’t sure why that caught her so off-guard… this was a ghost with a blade-shaped scar in the middle of her chest. But it felt so… familiar.
“You were killed, too?” Witch asked with a curious tilt of the head, tone somewhere between suspicious and inquisitive. Her own body ached with the memories of wounds that had long since vanished. The Spectre smirked, as if the Witch’s question amused her.
“You could say that,” the ghost mused, swaying back and forth in midair. Each subtle movement made Witch antsy. “Although, here I am, so he must not have done a very good job of it.”
Witch smiled in spite of herself. It wasn’t often that she met someone who understood her situation so intimately. Although, in all fairness, it wasn’t often that she met someone at all.
“You and I must not be that different,” the Witch said, a bit of confidence returning. Perhaps an alliance could be formed here, just until the two of them could escape. She just needed to play her cards right.
She continued, standing straighter now: “I get the impression that you’re just as trapped here as I am.”
Spectre’s eyes widened from their places deep within the sockets. Now, Witch had turned the tables. She’d regained some of her power.
“You can’t leave either?” Spectre asked. Her expression morphed into a ghastly form of pouting. “I was hoping that I could hitch a ride with you.” She folded her arms over her chest. It made her look more like a petulant child than a real threat. Not that appearances meant anything.
“You won’t be getting anything of the sort from me,” the Witch shot back, offended at the mere prospect of possession. The concept of not being in control of her own body terrified her more than she could find rationale for.
Spectre shrugged.
“It doesn’t seem like I’d get much out of it,” she relented. “So we’re stuck in this together. At least until my killer decides to come visit again.”
Witch wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of sharing her basement with someone else.
“Is there not some other basement you could spend your time in?” She voiced her thoughts aloud.
“It’s boring over there, all alone.” Spectre avoided the question but answered it all the same. “It doesn’t seem like you have much else to do.”
She wasn’t wrong, and Witch resented her for it.
“Fine,” Witch said finally. “Sit over there, then. I don’t want you anywhere near me.” She masked her paranoia with disgust for her new ghostly roommate.
Spectre didn’t take any offense. Witch relaxed marginally at the increased distance. One benefit of the poltergeist’s translucent form is that Witch can clearly see that there’s no blade hidden behind her back.
The two princesses sat in tense silence for so long that they both lost track of time. It was easy to do that, in the basement. It was a cruel constant that persisted beyond death–they both knew that. But maybe, with another presence, it was more bearable.
Although the Witch tried her best to relax, her eyes stayed trained on the Spectre, keyed for any sudden movements. The Spectre, in turn, stared back at her curiously. The ghost’s eyes were so wide; it made her squirm under their gaze.
After so much time that time itself lost all meaning, Witch grew restless. Spectre perked up immediately once the feline began pacing.
“Waiting for something?” she asked innocently, breaking the silence for the first time since she’d arrived.
“That awful wretch,” Witch hissed out, lip curling. “If I’m back, then so is he, and I cannot let him roam free after what he did to me.” Her mood soured at the mere thought.
The cogs seemed to visibly turn behind Spectre’s too-wide eyes as they followed Witch’s movements. When she reached her conclusion, she drifted slowly to Witch’s side, careful not to startle her. She didn’t think that the Witch could actually hurt her, but it was better safe than sorry.
“Did someone kill you, too?” she asked, voice gentle despite its distortion. Witch spun to face her, eyes feral and claws poised to attack. She hesitated for a beat, thinking, before she lowered her hand. She took a pointed step away from Spectre, who took the hint.
Witch’s arms wrapped around herself, claws digging into forearms. Spectre frowned but said nothing as the nails pierced her skin.
“He caught me off guard,” Witch spat out bitterly, glaring at the floor. “Paraded around as a sweet, kind, hero before burying his blade into my back.” Even thinking about it made her stomach roll.
The Spectre hummed sympathetically.
“Been there, although I did miss out on the whole ‘backstabbing’ part,” she mused. Bony fingers danced along the raised scar tissue decorating her sternum, forming an X.
Witch paused. Something about that bothered her; it took her a moment to place why.
“Why aren’t you angry?” she asked, voice almost accusatory. The Witch felt as though anger was all she had anymore. She didn’t understand how the Spectre could exist without it. Anger was something that she sunk her claws into and refused to let go of, lest she let in worse emotions.
Spectre considered her question briefly before responding:
“I am.” It was a short, simple answer, stated as a fact. “Just because I’ve decided to be cordial doesn’t negate how angry I am.”
Witch laughed, a high-pitched cackle.
“You make it sound so easy,” she said. If she was being honest, she was a little jealous. She wished she could be something more than bitter.
“There’s something ugly festering within me,” the Witch continued, expression suddenly much more tired than it had looked before. Spectre listened patiently. “It gnaws and gnaws and gnaws away until eventually it’ll be all that’s left. I’ll be nothing but what he took from me.”
The room went still, the only movement coming from the slow rise and fall of Witch’s chest. Spectre was quiet, turning over the words in her head.
“There’s not much of me left, either,” Spectre offered, voice soft. Witch was pulled from her self-hating spiral to look at her. Even though everything about the ghost should have been unsettling, the Witch felt comforted by the smile offered. “In the most literal sense, he took everything from me too.”
Witch stared through her and towards the stairwell. She could have reached it if she wanted to. She could have slipped from the restraints and reached the door. But she couldn’t go further. She knew this to be true, and she wasn’t sure why. It was just one of those universal constants that everyone knew to be unchangeable.
“We’ll never be whole again, will we?” the Witch asked, raising her gaze to stare into the Spectre’s sunken, empathetic eyes.
“Probably not,” Spectre said. The harsh truth was comforting, in some strange way. “But we can still find new meaning in what’s left of us.”
“There might be some merit to your words,” Witch admitted.
Spectre smiled, and it made Witch feel warm despite the natural chill the poltergeist emanated.
“What happens next..?” The Witch asked after a few beats of silence. “I can’t leave this place, and neither can you. Our only shot at freedom is… him.” She put every ounce of vitriol into spitting that last word. The Spectre hummed, amused.
“We do what we’ve always done. We wait.”
Witch expected that answer, and she expected the dread that followed. But in some, small, way, the idea of waiting didn’t seem as torturous anymore.
The world didn’t change for either Princess. It was much of the same, actually–waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting some more. Time stretched on infinitely before them, just as it stretched infinitely behind. They talked, sometimes, about everything and nothing all at once. But more often than not, there was silence. Neither of them minded, though. There was something different about being alone when you were with someone else. So they continued to wait.