Forever Green

~10~ A Temporary Truce

The witch had saved him.

It went against everything Theiden believed about her kind, and he wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't been watching the entire fight.

At first, after seeing the eerie creature peer into the cottage through the kitchen window, Theiden had hidden in a crouch behind the armchair, hardly daring to move.  He stayed there while the thing then continued its assault against the door, listening to each creak and groan of the protesting wood and battered metal hinges.  It had had been so close to breaking in and killing him.

But then she had arrived.  When Theiden heard the witch's voice outside, curiosity had gotten the better of him. Despite Kettle's protests, he had crept over to the sitting room window next to the front door and peeked out through the gap in the curtains.

The faun—for that was what the witch had called it—had wanted to kill him. The witch had objected, and she had fought to protect him.

Now, as his captor lay unmoving on the ground after the faun's departure, Theiden felt a surge of guilt run through him. It would have been so easy for her to have just given him up to the faun. And although she had eventually won the battle with the horned creature, it had come at a terrible price.

Is she even still alive? Theiden wondered. He got his answer a few long seconds later, when the witch finally stirred. The woman rolled over to her right and gently propped herself up to a sitting position with her one good arm. The wisp nuzzled her side in encouragement, and the witch managed to get to her feet. She stumbled on her first step, and Theiden gave a start.

His sudden movement must have caught the witch's attention, for she suddenly looked up, and their eyes briefly met. Theiden jumped back from the window and let the curtain drop.

He didn't care what happened to the witch, he reminded himself.

The door opened a minute later, and the woman shuffled into the cottage. She stepped out of her boots at the doormat and headed over to the pantry at the far side of the kitchen. She acted as though nothing was wrong, but Theiden didn't miss the way her left arm hung uselessly at her side. Shwei trailed behind her, his light a sickly shade of turquoise.

Kettle, who all this time had been peeping out from beneath her upturned pudding bowl, now jumped up and hurried over to grab a metal pot out of a lower cupboard and hoist it up to the kitchen sink. As the witch sorted through the bundles of dried herbs hanging from the pantry ceiling, the tomte filled the pot with water and set it on the stovetop.

"Is there something I can do?" Theiden finally asked.

The witch ignored him, but the tomte looked up with a glower.

"You've done plenty already," Kettle spat. "Go to bed."

Theiden stayed where he was.  "I want to help."

"Help," the tomte sneered. "That's amusing."

"Look, I'm sorry that I made too much noise and attracted the...thing," Theiden began. "But how was I to know that I had to keep quiet? If you had just told me, none of this would have happened!"

"Would you have listened?" the witch murmured. Theiden jumped, not realizing she had come up right behind him. Her voice had sounded almost right in his ear.

"I..." Theiden hesitated. "Probably not," he finally admitted.

The witch nodded calmly before brushing past him to reach the stovetop. Shwei, still in fox form, managed to spit a small flame into the firebox beneath, and as the water heated, the witch began to break up the dried herbs with her one good hand and sprinkle them in the pot.