There is a group of folktales among the people of Nevermore. Seven of them. The first tells of a boy who refused to work, and in his laziness, he became so stunted and fat that the villagers threw him out. The boy is known as Sloth.
The second tells of another boy, who was always hungry, always eating. He ate and ate and became enormously fat, and so the villagers threw him out. The boy is known as Gluttony.
The third boy was Lust. He fell in love with a girl, but the girl refused to love him back. So the boy sat alone, for years, becoming old and bitter and shrivelled, until one day he could bare it no longer, and so the boy took a knife and raped her. The villagers cast him out.
The fourth, Greed, was an older man, a tax collector. He stole and he schemed, until the weight of so much wealth crushed him. He became bitter and twisted and stole so much from the village that the villagers cast him out.
Yet another boy, living in a poor family, was forced to watch as his friend became wealthy and successful. Eventually, so furious at his friends better life, the boy crept to the house and stabbed his friend while the family slept. The weight of his guilt left him crushed and stunted, and when his crime was discovered, the villagers cast him out, and Envy was born.
Of the seven, Pride was the only one who was not cast out. Instead, he preened and groomed himself and became convinced that he was better than the villagers. And so he left. But the outside world was a cruel place, and he soon found that not everyone loved him as he loved himself. He found himself surrounded by the other castaway boys.
Finally, a seventh boy was shunned by the village. He was not stunted or crushed, he did not bear the weight of guilt or wealth. Instead, he had a power. He was born out of wedlock and under an eclipse of the sun and the villagers became so convinced that he was a demon they dropped him down a well and left him there. But they had not accounted for the boy's anger. He became furious, and spiteful and cruel, down there in the dark, and he grew and he grew and he grew until he could climb out of the well and flee with the other boys.
The group formed an uneasy alliance and fled the fury of the world. They ran and they ran until they reached a great forest of pine and beech and twisting vines. And there they stopped, and started to build. They built houses, and there in the darkness they lived. No more were they boys. No more were they human, even. Each and every one of them, bar Pride, had been changed. They became the dwarves.
But that is not the end of our tale. Because darkness breeds darkness, evil thoughts spawn evil itself. The seven dwarves, so obsessed with their hatred for the villagers, could not die a normal death. Their very souls rotted away, and the darkness within them grew and spread across the forest, until every tree became blackened and half dead, every vine came alive and grabbed at movement, and every living thing either fled, or died and rotted, alone in the Forest of the Dark.
It was into this forest that the young Snow White fled. It was in this forest that the Huntsman, the best assassin Nevermore has ever seen, chased her. It was there, surrounded by vile thoughts and dead trees, that the Witcher found her pawns. Seven dwarves, malicious in nature, and one Princess, rotten to the core. And it was there that the Huntsman died, left to lie for eternity in the most evil place imaginable.
A streak of black, almost invisible against the night's sky, flies across the land. It whips past villages and towns, over bell towers and down through houses, and wherever it goes, hatred followed. Fights break out. Families became angry. And everyone that feels it knows...The Witcher is there.
The black slows as it approaches the Forest of the Dark. It pauses and hovers just out of reach of the longest vines, snatching and grabbing at it. The black puddles and pools on the floor, rising up and dropping away, and then there is the Witcher.
Slowly, elegantly, the Witcher stretches out one leg and steps across the invisible boundary and into the forest. A vine snakes towards her out of the inky branches and snaps at her. The Witcher doesn't even react and the vine melts.
Smiling slightly, the Witcher strides forward into the Forest. The trees, creaking in protest, force themselves out of her path, twisting into a tunnel of branch and vine and thorn. Even the ground beneath her feet hardens and smooths. Not even nature dare offend the Witcher.
As she walks, the Witcher begins to mutter in a language that would make Wrath himself shiver. The words drip with venom and the wind begins to pick up, swirling dust around her feet and creaking the boughs above.
The chanting begins to speed up, becoming louder and more intense. The wind gusts through the trees and where the Witcher steps, sparks and glowing symbols jump up out of the ground, gathering around the woman.
Suddenly, she stops. The glowing symbols, the sparks, the wind, all of them die. The Witcher glances around at her surroundings. She has reached the centre of the forest. Seven small huts are arranged in a semi circle, like vultures surrounding prey.
And in the centre of them lies the huntsman.
Man shaped, but not a man, the evil of the forest has leaked in through his eyes and mouth and nose. Vines have grown up around him, wrapping around his limbs, plunging into his body. His skin, green, is tough as leather. His eyes are closed, and despite his immense age, despite having lain dead for many years, he has not rotted. He has hardened. He has become the forest.
In places, his body has become entirely stone. His hair has become grass and vines, his fingers are wooden. Nothing moves. The Witcher looks up. No sound, nothing.
Once again, the Witcher begins to chant. The glowing symbols, purple and black and blue and green, begin to swirl around her, reaching out in translucent tendrils towards the Huntsman. They surround him, wrapping him in magic, and lift him from his grave. Earth and dust and countless dead things fall from the corpse as it is risen to standing, floating, suspended in magical animation. Slowly he begins to turn, rotating until he hovers upside down, his lumpy half-rock face inches from the Witchers perfect features.
The Witcher blinks and her eyes become a void. She opens her mouth and a thousand needle teeth sprout from her gums. Her skin darkens and wrinkles, her arms shrink and crack, her back curves until a wizened, devilish woman is standing where the beautiful lady was before.
The Witcher screams.
Black, pure black, flows from her mouth and eyes, gushing across the Huntsman, forcing its viscous mess down his throat and through his eyes. He begins to writhe as the tar fills him up, stretching his insides and eating his organs.
The Huntsman's eyes flick open and he bellows, thrashing against his bonds, and the Witcher smiles. Success.
By morning, when the first streaks of orange were stroking the mountain tops, the Witcher is finished. Though the sun never dares penetrate the shadows of the Forest, the Witcher knows it is day, and she knows too that her time is up. The countless bindings and rituals that she has wound around the Huntsman will have to do. Dark magic has no place beneath the sun.
The Witcher leaves the forest, still in her true form, the woman of uncountable age, and stands for a moment in the warmth of the sun. She spits, disgusted by the beauty she sees, and gathers herself slowly. She is tired. Not weak, never weak, but tired. Slowly, she dissolves into a puddle of tar and streaks away to the Queen.
A little later, a hulking shape pushes past the treeline and pauses, wincing at the bright light. Dead eyes do not react well to the sun. Then the Huntsman turns away and bounds away to the south. His prey is weak. He will not fail.
Hansel, Kiara, and anyone else in the way will die.
