Dill & Wolf

Chapter Three: The Fabled Witch

Eternal curse of the Moon Goddess.

Werewolf.

Dill first encountered the word amid a game of “Grand Fable” with her fellow fledglings.

The set comprised exquisite porcelain tiles, glazed backs edged in ivory, each no larger than a palm yet unveiling tableaux of opulent intricacy—pigments of rare gems, flecked with gold and silver leaf.

They belonged to the coven’s most ravishing sorceress, Mida, gift of a former paramour: a pirate of boundless wealth, adept at procuring exotic treasures to court his beloved.

He bestowed upon the witch the continent’s most complete and coveted “Grand Fable,” only for the bauble, like other dust-gathering tokens of faded ardor, to descend into children’s play.

Dill, entranced at first sight, found the rules eerily familiar. Drawing a black tile emblazoned with a lupine humanoid, she felt the jolt of long-lost kinship.

*Werewolf*!

Sweeping aside her potion mishaps, Dill dominated the table, reveling in triumphant glee, bewildering the guileless novices.

If only life mirrored the game’s tidy resolutions.

Savoring her pile of counters, Dill sighed—a pebble shattering lake-calm. The fledglings seized her hands, eyes brimming:

“It shall be so! Dill, thou shalt be the first among us to lay a dire wolf’s head before the Goddess.”

Clutching the wolf tile, Dill met their earnest gazes and sensed a grave omission.

“Grand Fable,” ancient and enduring, faithfully echoed Vitokvano’s ecology. Four principal suits mirrored the continent’s powers: Church, Witches, Villagers, and lastly—Werewolves.

Rules aligned with Dill’s memory: wolves devour mortals; mortals unmask wolves. Witches wield potions to slay or save; Church knights cleave with silver. Exposed witches may be slain, their elixirs claimed.

When the hunt turned real, Dill’s worldview shattered into porcelain shards.

Vivid enamel leaves bloomed on witch-cloaks; silver foil armored knights in sanctity. Each turned tile, each dawning day, wove an ageless fairytale. Here, folk hymned faith, probed mysteries, and trembled before… calamity.

Amid pristine whites lurked tiles fired obsidian, devoid of star or bloom—catastrophe having devoured all. Cat’s-eye gems gleamed; inhuman silhouettes crouched in night, coldly regarding prey.

Werewolves: lupine fiends haunting the land, ferocious, senses preternatural, shifting at will between beast and man, infiltrating society, bearers of plague and ruin.

Grand Fable was no mere diversion; true to its name, it served as ancestral admonition, ever warning: dire wolves never departed—they lurk beside us. Potent witches divined omens and werewolf movements through the tiles.

Amber once recounted their origin: silver wolves, Moon Goddess envoys, cursed for betrayal into neither man nor beast. Dill then dismissed it as bedtime lore.

Witches abhorred all things lupine; even canine shapes were banished from the village.

Ignorant little Dill once rescued a mongrel pup from the woods—filthy, reminiscent of strays from her past life, pitiable. Orphan to orphan, she smuggled it home.

She named it Cinnamon, pairing neatly with Dill, plotting to fabricate divine sanction so Amber would relent and accept it as familiar.

Instead, Amber nearly flogged her senseless—the first glimpse of her mentor’s wrath.

The habitually mirthful woman grew grave, veins throbbing at her temple, glaring at the fearless child. Dragging Dill to the forbidden cellar, she forced the girl, scarcely waist-high, to witness a living metamorphosis.

A man rent his own flesh; bones cracked in grotesque symphony, yielding a howling beast beneath moonlight. Per Amber, this was no true werewolf—merely a victim bitten.

Survivors of werewolf assault, if not slain outright, succumb to the curse. Enslaved, they gain strength far beneath true werewolves, transforming only at full moon. Witches term them *cursed thralls*.

Werewolf, t****l: the former, disguised fiend; the latter, human trapped in beast-form. Common folk cannot distinguish; the Church brands thralls faithless, demon-pacted, and hunts them with wolves.

Only witches pity thralls, sheltering them, brewing salves to break dominion and ease torment.

Amber bade Dill remember the curse’s font, the arch-villain: the werewolf—most horrific monster, lifelong nemesis of witchkind.

Amber was half-right; the chastened Dill lay abed a full month.

Yet the girl, racked with fever, still crept out to free Cinnamon before the others drowned it. Furious yet heartbroken, Amber sentenced her to tend the Goddess’s Garden and its denizens.

The Garden sounded idyllic—exotic blooms, rare creatures. At first glance, a merciful exile to pastoral seclusion. Dill soon grasped the punishment’s crux.

A black cat inquired of dinner hour; Dill kissed the earth in faint, awakening to pink paw-pats—dreamlike bliss.

The cat introduced herself: Phoebe, her human name. Simultaneously, rusted runes bloomed in Dill’s mind:

[Those failing the sacrifice shall forfeit magic, eternally cursed by the Moon Goddess.]

Thus, the unspoken failures dwelt in the “Goddess’s Garden.”

Phoebe, Amber’s peer, summoned “elders” for visceral tutelage.

Phoebe, elegant one-eyed black cat, bore a livid scar; she failed the hunt, spared life but losing eye and divine favor.

White ravens Serena and Ivana, telepathic twins, succumbed to mutual dread rather than shared valor. Red deer Cynthia, once lovelier than Mida, jested the village belle’s throne might yet be hers—had she not become venison.

All failed to slay a dire wolf at eighteen, to offer its head at the pantheon. Stripped of humanity, cursed into beasts—their forms transmuted familiars. The Garden: sole refuge, lifelong gaol.

Twice thunderstruck, Dill emerged gaunt yet devout—small wonder her last hope nested in an egg.

Now—

The long-shut door creaked open. The black-haired girl faced the coven’s stares, unnaturally serene.

Ever the coven’s slightest, she tottered forward, fragile as overseas porcelain. Gazes drifted aft.

A waddling white goose followed merrily, bean-eyes curious, mirroring its mistress’s endearing folly. Adorable, perhaps?

Amber glowered through the c***k, enjoining silence. The witches, conscience intact, stowed pots and parted for Dill.

Two paths lay before her: fail the werewolf, become goose confit with her familiar; or do nothing, transform into goose, grub for worms eternally.

All knew the girl’s fates: die grotesquely or live grotesquely. No need to voice it—Dill’s visage sufficed.

At last, she sighed, scooped the unsteady goose, and vanished.

Soon, the Goddess’s Garden welcomed a rare visitor.

Statues of the Moon Goddess abounded: lapis lazuli figure pouring silver streams for deer; marble arms cradling sky for weary birds.

A black cat alighted on the archer goddess’s shoulder—forewarned by chattering ravens, awaiting at the gate. Yet beholding the foolish goose, pity flickered across her furry mien.

“Truth be told… board and lodging here, merely no bipedal gait—nothing amiss.”

Glancing at the wobbling goose, she added,

“Ah—no, thou retainest two legs.”

Her consolation rivaled Amber’s in ineptitude.