Baba Raga

Snakewood

Prompt from action:

In a hidden rainforest, you and your team must use your skills to survive.  Will you overcome the dangers, or fall victim to the lurking predators?

* * *

"Ne, avó, watch your step here."  Fabian reached toward her with his open hand, holding back mossy branches with the flat of his machete.

"Oh, aren't you a gentleman?"  Raga smiled toothily at him, taking his hand and letting him help her over the mess of exposed roots.  "Thank you, darling.  No need to be afraid of calling me Raga, though."

"...If you please."  A pause.  "You're really Baba Raga?"

"Yes?"

"With...with skulls like candles, and—"

"Oh, no, no, no—that's Baba Yaga.  I'm Baba Raga!  They only call me that because it's funny, because my name is Raga.  I think it was supposed to be mean, but what do I care?" she asked with a cackling laugh.

"Oh.  No magic and chicken legs?"

Raga grinned, lifting her skirts above her knees—knobbly, hairy, and altogether human.  "No chicken legs!"

"No magic?"

"Tch, magic's dangerous."

"...Right.  Ah...you're sure you want to go all the way to the cliffs?"

"Does snakewood grow any closer?"

The young man frowned gently.  "No, it does not."

"Then I'm quite sure."

"You can't use something else?"

"Oh, if I was going to use something else, I would just take whatever the merchants had!  But that would never be the same."

"Maybe we should take a break here."

"Why?  Are you tired?"

"No, I—!"  Fabian sighed, letting his head fall into his hand in exasperation.  "Why is this so important?"

"Why did you want to come?" Raga countered.

"You'll die out here on your own!"

"Oh, I think not.  I am glad you came along, though.  It's good one of us knows the way."

"Maluco," Fabian muttered to himself.  "You're insane!"

Raga laughed, the sound whistling through the gaps in her teeth.  "You will be too, you live as long as I have!  Come on; it's this way, hm?"

"Sim, it's that—"  With a gasp, Fabian threw his arm in front of her, halting her progress.  "Quiet," he murmured.  "You see through there?"  He pointed through the foliage, and Raga squinted, and something moved—low to the ground, a tiny thing, all fluff and spots and a pitiful mew.  "We cannot be here when the mother returns," Fabian said, guiding Raga farther back and aside.  "We need...oh, meu deus."

A low, rumbling growl rolled over them.  Fabian began muttering in his own tongue—prayers or curses, Raga didn't know.  The kitten mewed again, and with a roar, the mother pounced.  Fabian whirled—too slow!  His scream ripped through the air even as Raga was sent stumbling.

Raga turned to see the cat standing over Fabian; his arm was a mess as he held it to his chest, still whimpering.  The cat growled again.

"We're not here for your child," Raga said in her own mother tongue.

The cat sprang forward, and Raga leapt aside, pulling her shawl from her shoulders such that the cat sprang into it, and it gave a confused roar as it tried to shake the thing from its head as Raga hurried to Fabian's side.

"Come on, now," Raga muttered, hauling him up by his good arm.  "Can't be around here too much longer."  Fabian only moaned.

The cat was pulling the shawl to shreds as it fought it.  Raga cursed under her breath.  "You must walk," she said to Fabian.  The cat glared at them.  It bared its fangs—the kitten mewed.

In an instant, the mother scooped it up by its neck and vanished between the trees.

Raga let out a great breath, and slowly lowered Fabian back to the ground.

"Is it...gone?" Fabian asked weakly.

"Yes.  It ruined my best shawl, too."

"Oh, that's...not good..."

The next Fabian knew, Raga was crouched over a small fire, boiling something in a copper mug.

"Oh-ho!  You did hang on through all that!  Here, drink up."  She wrapped the mug in a handkerchief to keep it from burning him, and held it up to his lips.

Fabian choked on the foul taste, spewing a mouthful across the dirt.  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then froze.  He looked at his arm.  It was tightly bound in another handkerchief, and...didn't hurt at all.  "Are you sure you're not a witch?"

Raga let out a whistling cackle.  "Oh, I never said that!"

"But you—"

Raga tapped the side of her nose with a wink.  "An old woman's got to have her secrets, hm?  Now, drink the rest of that before it goes cold, and stop watering the plants with it."

Fabian nodded a bit, and did his best to choke down the foul mixture, though his gorge rebelled.

"Now, we'd better find those cliffs, hm?  How are you feeling?"

"Uh...better...  But we should turn around now?"

"Of course not!  How else am I supposed to get snakewood?"

"...please.  Avó.  Raga.  Tell me.  Why is that so important that you would risk your life going through dangerous jungle to find it?  You've seen now what it can do!"

"Ach, it can catch the young, not the wise.  I'll keep a better eye out for you now!  But I need it for this!"  She pulled something from her pocket: a pale stick.

"A wand?  You are a witch!"

"No!"  Raga laughed.  "No, it's a spindle.  Have you never seen one?  But the whorl finally broke, and any other wouldn't be the same.  So, I need snakewood!"

"...So you came all the way here, looking for a guide, going into the jungle—alone, if you had to!  All for...that?"

"Of course!  None of the merchants had any..."

"Maluco..." Fabian muttered to himself, and gradually slipped away to sleep once more.