The Fat Witch 2, Part 1

Dene cautiously peered through the veritable mesh of branches and leaves surrounding her face, being especially careful not to prick herself on any offending piece of bark that happened to jut out in the wrong direction. This bush had luckily been just large enough to conceal herself behind, and it happened to have grown in the perfect vantage point for this particular hunt, as well.

She squinted her eyes as she stared down her line of sight at the chosen target. A young buck, his antlers barely a pair of nubs growing out of the top of his skull, was gnawing at a patch of grass some fifty yards away. She felt like she was lucky that she had managed to bring herself in this closely before the animal could become aware of her presence and flee. Dene carefully reached behind her back, fingering at the thin but dependable bow she'd constructed from bone and sinew. She had several arrows, their tips being made from small stones ground to perfection, sitting inside of the quiver strapped to her waist. All she had to do was land one shot, right in the neck, and then the deer would be hers. She'd be able to prove to her family, the entire village even, that she could do something after all. Dene ran her tongue across her lips, wetting them. She needed to be quiet and move herself into a better position, and then she could prepare to aim.

It may not have seemed like the greatest of contributions to locate and hunt a single deer, much less a baby one, but recent circumstances concerning the village and its people had begun to surface, making them grow fearful for their possibly dwindling food supplies. It was the most curious thing, considering how well-off they truly were in terms of an environment for hunting. The surrounding forests, which could stretch on for miles and miles, reaching from one end of the island to the other, were typically filled to the brim with all manner of animals. They ranged from the small like squirrels and birds to the large and even potentially dangerous like deer, wild cats and bears. In the trees, within the bushes, inside the caves, under the earth, there was life to be found everywhere in this forest.

Although the Mountain Witch, Anma, had been said to introduce the concept of agriculture to Dene's people centuries ago, the hunting and consuming of game meat was still considered a primary form of sustenance, not to mention that animal sacrifices were often a common gift to give the Witch that so graciously watched over them.

Yet as of late, strange and frightening changes had begun to occur, seemingly out of nowhere, and like a rain of dread, it soaked the skins of the villagers and seeped down through their pores, into their bones and gradually poisoned their souls. The animals of the forests were starting to disappear at a frantic pace. It wasn't because of them over-hunting, because they had learned to moderate, only hunting specific kinds of animals during certain seasons, so that other species could take time to build up their populations again. That was yet another valuable teaching from the wonderful Anma. Even with this lesson in mind, however, the village had taken notice that the animals were becoming less frequent to find than before. It wasn't like they were being killed off by some unknown new predator or a prevailing illness. If anything, it could be compared to them simply vanishing from existence, and that, it was obvious, made absolutely no sense at all.

The buck that Dene had since set her eyes on was actually the first wild animal she'd come across since she'd sneaked herself into the woods over an hour ago. As a child, she could remember the constant barrage of bird calls and chipmunk chirps that poured into her ears whenever her father and brother took her out into the woods here. Yet right now, she could hear nothing at all but the sound of her own steady breathing. She removed one of the arrows from her quiver. She had to be especially careful. A buck could easily hear her footfalls even when the forest was the most dense with its cacophony of noise, but now that everything was silent, she was especially vulnerable, so to speak.

Getting down on her hands and knees, keeping the arrow clenched between her teeth, she very carefully crawled herself along the ground, moving out from behind the bush. The buck continued to eat. It was complacent and calm, not a single worry evident in its demeanor. Maybe it really was aware that its predators were disappearing, so it no longer had to keep its wits about itself so constantly. However, at the same time, it must have somehow failed to acknowledge the absence of its own kind as well. Of course, Dene had no idea what a simple buck would be thinking, but she doubted it was anything as complicated as she had surmised just now.

Getting onto one knee, Dene removed the arrow from her mouth and moved her bow into position. She aimed directly for the buck's neck. She waited until the buck lifted its head, so she could get better aim at its jugular. She waited. She tried not to even blink as she braced herself for that exact moment. The buck raised its head several seconds later. Dene released the arrow.

It was a clean hit. The arrow pierced the buck's neck, coming out of the other side. The buck released a painful squeal as it buckled from the hit. It soon began to gargle on its own blood. Dene beamed; she had been practicing for so long, this was exactly how she wanted it all to pay off.

However, the buck did not drop dead the next moment, as Dene might have understandably expected. Instead, it began to walk. Dene watched on, her mouth hanging slightly ajar, as the buck, with the arrow embedded straight through its throat, turned around and began walking. Blood spilled down its neck and onto the ground, seeping into the soil. The buck's head dipped forward several times, yet it still continued to walk with some kind of otherworldly determination. The buck shouldn't be walking, much less alive, at this point. It was like some sort of invisible chain was pulling it along, forcing it to keep walking, even when it clearly had no energy left to do so. The buck went for several more feet before, finally, it collapsed onto its side, the arrow's puncture wound having taken its toll.

Dene waited for about two minutes. She wanted to see if the buck would try to get back up again. It did not. As bewildering as it had been, to see the deer try to walk off a mortal wound like that, Dene figured she could ponder more about it when she'd returned home. She returned her bow to the strap that held it on her back, reaching instead for a skinning knife. She was going to need to remove the arrow, as well as make a few 'adjustments' to the corpse so that it would be easier for someone of her size to carry. As Dene cautiously made his way toward the buck, she could already begin to formulate the images of both her overjoyed parents and her astounded brother inside of her mind. She knew that they never held her to high standards for her to impress them, but for the sake of her own pride, she wanted to prove to them that she was capable, regardless of her 'disabilities'. She was doing this for the village, but also for herself too.

Dene knelt down in front of the dead buck. A pool of red had begun to form around its head. She wondered how it had managed to keep walking for a brief period after being hit with the arrow. She'd seen many a deer be shot down with arrows fired by her brother and other hunters. None of them had ever had the sort of stamina or drive to try and run away with such a deadly wound. This buck was young too. It shouldn't have that strength within it.

Suddenly, Dene felt a hand push itself into her back, a strong and powerful force that knocked her straight down onto the ground. Her mouth and nostrils were quickly stuffed with grass, dirt and some of the buck's blood. Barely able to turn her head around, Dene looked behind her, out of the very corner of her eye, to see what was going on.

Two human figures, completely clad within robes of white and yellow, loomed over her. One of them was kneeling down; they had their hand pressed into Dene's back to keep her still. Even their faces were hidden, concealed behind white hoods with slits to allow their eyes to see through. The one holding her down matched eyes with Dene for a second, and he responded by increasing the pressure of his hold on her. Dene remained as perfectly still as she could possibly muster, frightened beyond all words about doing anything that could be considered 'acting out' in any way. The other figure in white approached the buck. They removed the arrow with a fast, violent tug. A few droplets of the stray blood splashed onto Dene's face.

"What? So that's what stopped it? Who dared shoot an arrow into its throat?" A voice, a woman's, rose up suddenly, like what had just been pure silence a moment ago was no nothing short of a deafening thunderstorm.

The one holding Dene down flipped her over onto her back, so now she was staring directly up at her captors. A well-manicured hand placed itself upon the restraining figure's neck. The nails were long and black, like the talons of a massive raven. A woman peered down at Dene. The young girl's eyes widened at the sight of her. The woman in charge had skin white like porcelain; the veins beneath her flesh were practically visible to the naked eye. Her eyes were completely black, reminding Dene of the night sky, but without any stars. Her lips, full and thick, were colored black as well. The strange-looking woman made a gesture, and the figure in white lifted Dene up onto her feet. She stood there, trying not to tremble, as the figure, whom Dene realized by his broad chest was likely a man, continued to hold onto her, this time gripping both of her arms. The other figure was still in the process of skinning the dead buck.

Now that she was at a full stand, Dene was able to get a full view of the mysterious woman's figure. She was actually rather fat, her thin facial features having belied the true enormity of everything below her neckline. She had breasts larger than grapefruit, but they hung with some obvious sag, something that could not be concealed with the flowing black dress she wore to cover herself. Lacking any sort of muscle tone whatsoever, the pale woman's stomach jutted out far in a set of rolls stacked atop each other. There were at least three of them in all; the dress itself had a large portion of its fabric trapped between the gaps of the rolls, causing them to become rather emphasized on her person. However, the largest part of all was the woman's incredible hips. Dene had seen many birthing hips before during her short life, but she could only imagine the sort of elephantine child that would require thighs of such a size to carry it. Her legs were almost completely swallowed within the fat of her own thighs. They had many of their own rolls too, each leg so wide, they brought to mind memories of the massive redwood trees Dene had seen many times before. Her inner-thighs were closely packed together, like they'd fused to become a single, giant leg. While Dene could not see the woman's backside from here, she held no doubt that it was likely her largest asset yet.

Like her face, the woman's arms were lacking the sheer pudge that her abdomen and lower limbs had. So clearly, whatever incredible weight this woman acquired, it all went to her torso or her legs, little else.

"So you're the one who killed it?" the pale woman asked.

Dene did not like looking at her. There was something very wrong about her. Very unsettling. Disturbing.

The woman frowned when Dene did not answer her question. "You know, I never seen you before. You're one of the people from that little village, are you? Those idiots who think that they're actually doing something right with their lives, serving under that traitor Anma? Ugh, I thought you'd all taken the hint and gotten out of here already."

Dene was too stricken with fear to even remember to breathe through her mouth, so her nostrils continued to flare noisily in front of her likely kidnappers.

"So you still think there's a reason for you all to live here? The forest is under my control already. That's done. This is it. Nothing's going to get better."

The woman was getting angry now. She shot her hand out and, with the speed of a whip, she struck Dene upside across the head.

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

Dene opened her mouth, reluctantly. She made a sort of dismissive grunt, because it was all she could really muster.

The woman reached out again. Dene flinched retroactively in preparation for another strike, but instead the woman's skinny fingers latched onto her chin. Dene couldn't hold back her grimace; it was like having a gigantic horse-fly touching her face. The abhorrent woman's razor-sharp nails dug deep into Dene's cheeks. The woman stared deeply, almost passionately so, into Dene's own eyes. Dene herself let out a breathless gasp as she felt something begin to happen. The woman wasn't doing anything, yet Dene could feel her reaching inside of her head. It was like a thousand tiny little worms were beginning to crawl around her skull, going inside of her brain, reaching around and sorting through the information of her memories. They went deeper, and deeper, and deeper, to the point where they were seemingly digging out the core of her brain. Dene was shaking much harder now.

The woman started to smile. It was a twisted, crooked smile, like a sudden earthquake had opened an uneven crack that ran across her visage. It was the smile of someone so mentally psychotic that they didn't even know how to truly smile anymore. The smile of someone who intended to do very bad things to Dene.

"Oh...I see...so you can't talk, and you're deaf in one ear. How sad. That'd explain a lot, though."

The woman ran a nail alongside Dene's cheek, scraping her flesh hard enough to leave a mark.

"Even more so, you're the daughter of the chieftain of that little tribe. Isn't that just wonderful? I go out on a stroll, thinking to find myself another meal on the side, but instead I get myself an incredibly useful bargaining chip. You'd do me a great job in helping me infuriate her. Anma, I mean."

The woman moved her blade-like nail over Dene's eye, hovering it just a half-inch away, fully capable of taking out the girl's sight with a single prick if she so desired.

"She hasn't realized that she needs to begin considering me a powerful enemy, the one who's going to take back what you humans stole."

Dene let out a whimper. She had no idea why this woman was telling her all of this. Maybe she liked to hear herself talk, maybe she felt no fear in admitting her plan because she knew Dene wouldn't be able to properly convey it. Either one seemed likely, but the true insanity of this stranger became more and more apparent. Worse than that, Dene herself was starting to potentially put together her identity. She wasn't only just insane. If that sensation of a mind-probe had anything to go by, she was both insane AND possessed the same sort of powers as the Mountain Witch that her people worshiped.

The woman's macabre grin grew even wider, revealing the top row of her unnaturally white teeth.

"I've already shown Ephemera I mean business, so you, my dear girl, are going to make a fine hostage for the next stage of my plan. Oh, and my name is Vivola by the way. It's a pleasure to meet you, Dene. We're going to have fun."

Vivola turned her head. "Magnolia! Bring the rope! We don't need to tie the deer, just the girl!"

A smaller, feminine figure undercover robes of white slowly marched up behind Vivola, clutching a bundle of robes in her arms. Vivola moved her hand over and grabbed Dene by the side of her head. A few seconds later, Dene found herself unwittingly begin to drift out of consciousness. Her eyelids were growing so heavy, it was a struggle simply to keep them raised anymore. Again, this woman was doing something to her, with powers that did not belong to any normal man. Dene soon passed out in the white-robed man's arms. Vivola then turned her attention onto the other white-robed man, who was holding onto the dead buck.

"Don't leave the deer. We can still make a good stew out of it." She was definitely going to be hungry by the time they returned to their camp.