Wood Witch and the Bounty Hunter

Ronan thought he must be having fever dreams; he kept reliving random memories from different parts of his life. He saw his siblings when they were newborns, and the time his jaw had been broken in training. And then the first time he broke someone else’s jaw in training. There was his father’s funeral, where they simply made a grave marker and laid some flowers down because there’d been no body fished out of the wreckage of the mine. He saw the time he’d made his mother laugh so hard at a bawdy joke that milk came out of her nose, and the

Lastly he saw the wolf attacking him in the rain and a blurry face leaning over him and telling him to sleep. When he woke up, he felt like he’d been trampled by a herd of horses. His head was fuzzy and his entire torso was pulsing with a faint but steady ache. He had to blink his gritty eyes a few times before the ceiling swam into focus above him. The ceiling. That didn’t make much sense; he’d been traveling through the woods looking for someone. He blinked a few more times. A witch. He’d been looking for the witch that Victor told him about. And then the wolf had attacked him, and he’d fallen and there had been a lot of blood. Now he was most definitely inside and he had no idea how he’d gotten there, and that did not put his mind at ease.

Shit, what if he was dead? That would really fuck things up. But surely you wouldn’t feel this groggy in the afterlife. And he smelled food; did you need to eat once you were dead? It seemed unlikely. Ronan tried to shift and lift his head but it felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. He’d just been asleep but he didn’t feel rested.

A face appeared above him and a band reached out to feel his forehead. At least his arms were working; his hand shot up and caught the wrist attached to the hand before the woman standing there could touch him. She gasped faintly, and they eyed each other for a moment before Ronan released her wrist.

“Where am I?” he asked hoarsely.

“In my house,” she replied. “I found you, and you were hurt so I brought you back.”

“Where’s Briar?”

“Briar?”

“My horse,” he clarified, trying not to sound impatient.

“Oh, she’s outside. She led me to you, actually. She was very anxious and only calmed down a bit once I’d found you. Try not to move around too much. You’re mostly healed by now but you’re going to be very tired for a while. The soup is almost ready, you’re probably hungry too.”

“I’m almost healed by now?” Ronan repeated. He remembered the wolf sinking its fangs into his shoulder. “How long have I been unconscious?”

“A few hours.”

“A few hours. Then how am I nearly healed?”

“Um. Magic,” she said reluctantly. “It’s a healing potion. Those injuries would have taken weeks to heal otherwise, if they didn’t kill you.”

Ronan took a moment to digest this information. He was supposed to be tracking down a witch who was living in the woods, and it seemed a witch living in the woods had found him instead. This also didn’t put his mind at ease, even if she had, allegedly, given him a healing potion. The pain was relatively minimal but he still felt like death warmed over. Despite her instructions not to move he tried to sit up. The room spun in nauseating circles and he slumped back down. He wondered how long this fatigue would last; he didn’t like his muscles feeling like they were made out of jelly.

He finally managed to achieve sitting up without feeling like he’d puke, and he took in his surroundings. It was a small cottage; a bit old and shabby but still homey, especially with the fire going to cook the soup. She filled a bowl and brought it over to him. Ronan regarded her warily, then accepted the bowl.

“It’s hazelnut,” she said. “It should help warm you up. I don’t even know how long you were lying out there in the rain. It’s lucky your horse went for help.”

“She’s a good horse,” Ronan mumbled. The soup did help warm him up; he hadn’t even realized he was cold. It was second nature to him to ignore most forms of physical discomfort, except the bone-deep fatigue he was still feeling. He hoped that would wear off soon.

“Have you always lived here?” Ronan asked. He needed to gauge if this was really the witch he was looking for.

“Oh, a couple years. Just needed a break from city life.”

“You’re not afraid to live alone in the woods?”

“I don’t usually get visitors, or strangers with severe blood loss,” she replied. So she did live alone.

“My name is Flora,” she added.

“Ronan.” He kept his expression neutral and just kept his gaze on his bowl of soup. She was the one with a bounty on her head. It seemed unlikely that there’d be two witches named Flora who’d moved into the woods recently. He didn’t know why she’d give him a healing potion and she didn’t look much like a crazed murderer. But then, Ronan had tracked down a lot of criminals over the years and most of the worst ones didn’t look anything but ordinary. Ronan couldn’t make a move until he’d recovered his strength. It didn’t matter if she was acting friendly, she was a witch and he didn’t know just what she was capable of. A lot, going by her list of crimes.

When he woke the next day, Ronan still felt a little weak and wobbly. He pulled off his tattered and blood stained shirt to inspect the wounds and found that they were by now just faint pink marks, well on their way to disappearing. He had to admit it was impressive, though he still wasn’t sure why she would help him. The shirt was ruined so he sighed and reached for his pack to rummage for a new one. Flora emerged from her room as he was yanking it on and she blushed faintly.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be awake yet,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Queasy.”

“That’s from the head injury. It was pretty bad. I cleaned off most of the blood.”

Ronan was mostly stuck on the couch for the entire day, his strength creeping back in tiny increments. He still remained on alert, waiting to see if she would attack him. Mostly she bustled around tidying up and humming to herself and feeding a little finch that came to visit her. After she’d prepared dinner he was feeling a lot less lightheaded and an offer to help clean up popped out of his mouth before he could stop it. She looked at him in surprise but he was already pushing himself up from the couch. He was pretty tired of sitting there like a blob anyway, and his years of bounty hunter training had never quite managed to override his ingrained helpfulness from growing up helping his mother around the house.

Flora would occasionally chat at him but he tried to give vague answers to anything she asked him. He managed to walk outside to check on Briar, who tossed her head and trotted over to him eagerly. She almost knocked him off his feet when she head butted him.

“Yeah, I’m alive. Thanks to you.” Ronan smiled, stroking her neck. “You’re a good girl, you know that?”

Briar tossed her head as if nodding in agreement and he laughed. He took off her saddle so she could move around without it until it was time to leave. The next day he finally began to feel like himself again, and he decided that night would likely be the best time to do what he came here for. He continued to watch Flora carefully, but the most menacing thing she did all day was chop carrots. She even offered him an apple to give to Briar, who was enjoying her time nosing around the cottage and munching on lots of fresh grass. She snatched the apple from his hand.

“Oh, I see how it is. You didn’t help save my life because you like me. You just needed someone to fetch you apples.” Ronan smiled. But he felt tense as dusk fell and Flora prepared dinner again. He still helped clean up after which felt odd, since he was planning to kill her. Between all the humming and bubbly chatter and feeding him it was hard to see her as a threat. He kept telling himself that was probably exactly how she intended it. She chirped a good night and disappeared into her room. Ronan sat awake, pulling a long knife from his pack. He waited there in the dark until he was sure she must be asleep, then he crept to her room and nudged the door open.

The moon was full and peeking through the clouds, illuminating the room enough for him to see that she was sound asleep. He moved silently across the floor and held the blade over her throat. But he broke a cardinal rule of his training, and hesitated. He’d seen the list of crimes she was accused of, and they were awful. But something in him didn’t believe she’d killed anyone or snatched any children. He reasoned that it could be magic causing his hesitation, but that same inner voice that told him to help clean up after dinner was insisting that something wasn’t right and that he couldn’t possibly kill her after all the help she’d given him. Plus Briar wasn’t acting agitated and animals were sensitive to black magic; she’d even asked Flora to help him.

Ronan didn’t lower the blade to her throat and his hesitation led time for her to stir, sensing his presence there. Her eyes fluttered open and she blinked in confusion before noticing the knife he was holding. Her eyes went wide and she sucked in a frightened breath.

“Dammit.” Ronan pulled the blade away and took a step back, running a hand over his face. He couldn’t kill her.

“What…what are you doing?” Flora asked weakly. She had scrunched up into a ball, clutching her blanket around herself like a shield.

“Quite honestly I don’t really know anymore,” Ronan muttered. He ran a hand over his face again. “Dammit,” he repeated.

“Who are you?” Flora demanded, though she was still watching him with wide eyed alarm.

“I’m a bounty hunter. I was sent here for you.”

“A bounty hunter?” She sounded incredulous. “Why would a bounty hunter be trying to kill me?”

Ronan walked out of the room and returned with the paper detailing the crimes committed in Broadoak. He actually had to unroll it slightly, the list was so long.

“Because of this,” he said, dropping the paper in front of her. She picked it up and began to read it. Her expression went from confused to shocked, and then she looked as if she might cry.

“People say I did all these things?”

Ronan watched her stricken face as she read the bounty poster over and over again.

“I won’t be the only one coming for you,” he said finally. “Others will come. And whoever issued the bounty specified that you're to be brought back dead.”

“But…I don’t understand. I didn’t…I would never do this. Any of this. Who set the bounty?”

“I have no idea. It was issued to the Guildmaster and then he passed it on to us.”

Flora shoved the paper away as if she couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. Then she looked at him warily.

“So why didn’t you kill me, then? You had the chance.”

“I don’t know. I can’t. It’s the only thing I’m trained to do but I can’t.”

Frustration, shame, and confusion roiled through him. None of this was going how he’d expected. He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake.

“I don’t know who set the bounty,” he said again. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I know that I can’t kill you.” He looked down at the floor and then back at her. He felt guilty for scaring her and he desperately hoped she was as innocent as his gut was telling him she was.

“I need your word that you didn’t do these things,” he said. “A lot of people have been hurt and whoever is responsible needs to answer for it.”

“I swear I have never done anything this stupid report says I did. I’ve never hurt anyone. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t know who's accusing me of this but they're lying.” Her eyes were a little damp and he got no sense that she was lying. He released a breath, dropping his head and running a hand through his hair while he tried to sort through his thoughts.

“Fine,” he said after a moment. “You helped me, so I owe you. Like I said, others will come for you. I’ll protect you until I can figure out who the real killer is.”

He felt a little pang at the fact that he wouldn’t have any money to send home for a while if he did this, but he knew with a bounty reward that high, the whole damn Guild would probably be after her.

“Protect me?” she said. “Why would you do that?”

“Because if I don’t, another bounty hunter will definitely kill you.”

“And what does that matter to you?”

“You said you didn’t hurt anyone, and I…believe you,” he mumbled.