The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Season 2+)

The Nightmare of The Witches House

Hup started the day being forced awake in his cage. A burning on the back of his head, like someone had set his hair on fire. He sat up screaming and heard evil cackling. He batted his head to put out the fire, but it wasn't there. The burning ceased and he turned to the room behind him. The three Stonewood gelfling that had kidnapped him stood outside the cage bars, watching him with wicked and malicious smiles. They were all dressed in the dark green garments they had worn the day they captured him. They held the doll with his hair woven into it and a candle.

"My turn," the youngest said, still crouched on the ground on all fours like a wild animal. She beckoned for the doll and the eldest sister handed it over. She then stroked a small length of hair that was wrapped around the doll's waist.

"Sleeeeeeep," she hissed.

Hup immediately became drowsy and fell back onto the floor, cracking his head against the wood before passing out.

He was woken up again, this time feeling as though his feet were on fire. He yelled in pain as he tried to stand, but hit the swollen bump on his head against the roof of the small cage. He grabbed his head as he fell back onto his rump with a bruising bump.

The sisters laughed louder. The youngest sister jumped around on her four limbs like a bovart. The eldest snatched the doll back and the middle sister extinguished the candle she was holding.

"That is enough, sisters," the middle said. "He is awake now. And we don't want to hurt him too badly. For then he won't be able to work."

"Indeed you're right, Heacana," the eldest said. "Now is the time he is put to work."

Hup sat in his cage defeated. He was in so much pain, and so scared he simply felt...paralyzed. Alone and paralyzed with fear, his fate at the hands of three cruel witches he could actually get a good look at. The youngest was in what she had been in before; No shoes, with a dark green under shirt and a coat over it, and a satchel strap over her shoulder with the bag sewn to her trousers. She had a whole slew of bottles and equipment sewn to her clothes, and more tangled in her white, dreadlocked hair.

The middle child was dressed like a Spriton housewife. She wore a plain, simple red dress with a white apron over it. Her hands bore tight, leather gloves and she wore a tall, brown pointed hat. Her shoes were made of a dark wood, loosely fitting around her ankles and every step she took echoed with a hollow, wooden clomping sound. Her sleeves were short and she had decorative stitchings sewn into her arms like tattoos. The black skin-stitchings were symmetrical to each arm, the same patterns sewn in to each same section of arm. She had a design over her brow too, except this string was made from her own black hair. She had woven it into thread and sewed it in herself.

The eldest looked like nothing Hup had ever seen. She wore strange robes that seemed to shift their shape with each movement they made. The green shine of the dress seemed reflective, and might have been the cause of the ocular illusion. There was purple mixed in as well, along with golden embroidering and see-through sleeves. Physically she looked like a crone, the way she was hunched over with a crooked back and her fingers mangled together. A hooked nose shadowed her upper lip which, despite her smile, she always looked like she was scowling. Her dirty red hair looked like a blaze, but the oddest thing was that she seemed to have perfect vision. He could almost feel her gaze through the faded bloody wrapping around her eyes.

"Who shall have him first?" Heacana asked. "Feerena? Do the rakkida need feeding?"

"Indeed they do," the youngest said. "An excellent idea. Hand me the doll."

The eldest tossed the doll back to Feerena and the youngest crawled up to the cage bars. Hup still rubbing his head and keeping his fear in, backed as far away from the bars as he could.