A Witchwood Chronicle

[The Mood is Write]

My head hurts...

No matter what world you're in, there's ways some old crazy guy, maybe homeless, who talks about a witch in a forest. Most people ignore him for good reason. He's usually so drunk he doesn't know what day it is, but he swears if he's honest about anything, it's about the forest witch, whose name he won't say.

e says she lives in a small log house, and she has a son, and her home is a farm in a forest, and how he made love to her surrounded by nature. or in her kitchen, or in a cave filled with unnatural mushrooms, but he can't say her name, and he can't say how he got there or back.

He's just a drunk old geezer who doesn't know what he's talking about.​

 

[Ananfal]

Sam didn't think he would ever wake up again.

He remembered a blonde girl... He had been teaching her to ride. She was scared, and didn't like horses. She was on the docile mare, finally, riding crop in one hand and reins in the other. To be honest he wouldn't have let her have the riding crop if she hadn't shrieked about feeling safer with it. He had told her to kick her heels slightly in order to make the horse move forward, but she didn't kick hard enough and the lazy mare didn't move. And then- he didn't know what she was thinking, but the idiotic lass smacked the poor mare in the eye with her riding crop, once again shrieking at the horse to move forward.

The horse let out a scream of her own and dumped the blonde girl on her butt in the ground, and instantly began to thrash around in a mixture of pain and fear. Sam pulled the girl out and told her to run and get help, but she didn't seem to listen to him. Instead she burst into loud cries, provoking the horse even further. He ran in front of her just in time, as the mare lashed out with her hooves, catching him in the head and the small of his back. He didn't feel that much pain, surprisingly, but for some reason, his vision was going black... He couldn't seem to move at all... He was getting dizzy, and was the floor moving...? The blonde girl was gone... Had she gone to get help...? The horse was quiet now... or was he hearing properly...?

Then everything went black.

With a soft groan, Sam peeled open his eyelids and squinted at the bright light. Slowly his eyes adjusted and he began to pick out shapes. Were those... trees? He was in a forest? But the nearest forest was almost a hundred miles to the north of his small town. Where was he?​

 

[The Mood is Write]

A voice, hard to discern, came from nearby, but his mind couldn't grasp it. He felt his shirt yanked up at the back, underneath him, until it cradled his head roughly. Something pulled at him, and as a rock hit his back, the pain sent him into blackness again. For a brief moment, he smelled apples.

The next time he woke, the pain in his head and back had lessened significantly, but his limbs and eyelids felt heavy. He could taste herbs and oily chicken broth in his mouth, and an overtone of mint in sharp contrast turned them sour. His mouth felt dry, and he could feel that he was on a very firm bed, with a heavy blanket rested on top of him. The man was nude, and stiff bandages scratched at him, wound tight around his head the lower part of his torso.

He could hear a voice, but it was unclear initially. The longer he remained awake, the more he could hear.

"... And put out the bedding. It's almost time for bed."

"Ok, Mama." Heavy footsteps bounced around on either side of the man, less than a foot from him, it felt like, as the floor shook.

"Stop stomping! Our guest is asleep!" A whack of something hard on flesh came from somewhere to his left, followed by a child's yelp.

"Ow ow ow! Stoppit, Mama! Ok!"

The conversation died down, and the thumping as well, and through his eyelids, he could see the light suddenly dim. Not long after, soft footsteps approached. The bed he thought was on didn't shift, but he could feel someone's body beside his.

By the time he was awake enough to open his eyes, he could see darkness all about, and the vague shapes of walls. Based on their height, he was on the floor. The only light came from a flickering source beyond his feet.

As his vision strengthened, he could see dark rafters above him hung with preserved foods, both dried and jarred, and he could see a shelf on the wall to his left crowded with various objects, including some wooden toys. The walls were wooden, and the floor on which he slept as well. He was on a mattress only two inches thick and only a meter wide, and a quilt was wrapped tight around him, keeping his arms and legs still beside his body. To his left, he could see a small window, and if he craned his head upward, a larger window took up a whole corner of the room, roof to floor, in panes four by four inches. Across from the corner window, the only other room he could see was a small part of a rustic kitchen, and toward his feet, across from the fireplace, he could see the only door in the entire room.

To his left, someone small slept bound in their quilt, and to his right, a woman slept, her arm draped over Sam. In the darkness, he could see she had a mess of curly hair, and her figure was hard to mistake as anything but a woman's, but the details were difficult.

 

[Ananfal]

Sam had to resist the unmanly urge to shriek like a little girl and push the warm body laying against him away. However, against his best efforts, his heart rate sped up and his breathing became harsh and loud in the quiet cottage he had awoken in. What on Earth was happening here? Did he know this woman? Who was that other voice he had heard when awakening? The place he had found himself in looked to be very simple and entirely without modern technology, which supported the fact that he was far away from any place he had ever known before. But that only gave him more questions, and increased his panic. How did he get here? Why was he here? How was he supposed to get home? He had animals he needed to take care of!

However, his strength was already leaving him, and the warmth of the person laying down next to him was starting to lull him to sleep. He tried to stay awake, his instinctive distrust of the place he had found himself in struggling against the dull sensation creeping over him slowly. His eyes began to droop closed and his body felt like lead... He shook his head to try and stay awake, but that only caused his vision to blur, so he stared at the fire. There were shapes forming inside... or was he imagining them...?

Before he could answer his own question, he was asleep.

 

[The Mood is Write]

Someone shook Sam's shoulder gently. "Wake up if you're hungry. I'm sure you are." The voice was feminine and faintly familiar. Sam could smell chicken soup. The scent cleaned his nose before he even knew it had been stuffy.

Again, someone shook his shoulder. "Time to wake up. You must ache from sleeping so long." Again, she shook him.

When he opened his eyes, the woman from the night before was seated beside him. The other two sets of bedding were gone, and the room was filled with dim morning light from some unseen window in the kitchen. The fire glowed dying in the hearth, and the woman appeared in sepia tones. Tanned skin dotted liberally in freckles, with brown eyes and sun-lightened brown hair fixed into a tight bun as messy strands escaped its strangling hold.

She wore a dark, ruddy red dress with mid-length sleeves. There were lace holes at the front, but no lacing, so the sleeves fell off her shoulders, and the dress itself was held in place by a stained white apron with clumsily-embroidered yellow flowers in a few places. As she moved to start shaking him again, he could see a brief glimpse of pale skin under her sleeve, where her tan stopped. She withdrew her arm. "Oh." She smiled at him. "Good morning." Where she sat between him and the morning light, some of her stray hair was illuminated, making an uneven halo of gold around her head.