Witch of Fear [Mild horror, Isekai High Fantasy]

“Hey, Pyre! Wait up!”

Through the crisp morning air, Autumn’s calls rang. Staggering, she chased after the departing alchemist. 

Hearing the calls for her name, Pyre tiredly turned to look at the dark-haired witch chasing after her. She, like Autumn, was dusty and sore from the hellish training they’d just endured. Her mismatched eyes of fire — one her natural orange, the other a gifted green — alighted upon black irises as Autumn came to a stop beside her, breathing roughly. 

Autumn took a moment to regain her breath, looking over her friend’s shattered visage as she did so. She could help feel guilty at the sight seeing the spiderwork of green scars lining the ashen skin. 

Feeling Autumn’s eyes upon her, Pyre twitched in annoyance. “What?” she barked. 

Autumn started at the noise and guiltily looked away. “Sorry. I was just…uh, how—how are you doing? You know, with the…” She trailed off, gesturing vaguely to the side of her face. 

Pyre’s scowl deepened. Glancing away, she stewed for a moment before turning back to stare defiantly into Autumn’s dark eyes. “It’s fine,” she said curtly. “I’m fine. All fixed up now. Within and without. You don’t need to worry about me dragging the party down anymore.”

“What?” Autumn asked, surprised. “That wasn’t—I didn’t—Nobody thinks you’re dragging the party down! Not now. Not before.”

“Don’t lie! I’ve seen how everyone looks at me!” Pyre snapped, storming off towards camp.

Autumn hurried after her, her long legs easily catching up with the fuming girl. “Hey! Hey! Seriously, nobody thinks you’re dead-weight or anything like that!”

Pyre stopped, glaring fire at Autumn, steam wafting off her as she fumed. “Oh, so now I’m dead-weight, am I?!”

“That’s not what I—” Autumn sighed, pinching her nose in exasperation. It was only because she could see how anxious Pyre was actually that stopped her from snapping. Reigning in her own frustrations, Autumn glared into Pyre’s flaming eyes. “Look, can we not do this? Fight, that is? I just wanted to make sure you were alright. If you don’t want me to care about you, you can fuck right off.”

Pyre snorted, but she looked somewhat mollified. 

“Now, if you’ve stopped trying to bite my head off, I’ve got some poisons to give you.”

“Fine,” Pyre groused, embarrassed from being lectured by a girl only a few seasons older than her. Holding out her hand, she spoke grudgingly. “Hand them over, and I’ll get to work refining them.”

Autumn blushed slightly. “Uh, I don’t have them on me right now.” Seeing Pyre’s annoyed look returning, she hurriedly spoke. “But, I can go get them fairly quickly! They’re just in the belt, back in my tent. Well, after I bathe first — I stink. And uh, no offense, but you could use one too.”

At Autumn’s reminder, Pyre sniffed her sodden shirt, recoiling from the smell. “Ugh,” she gagged. “Can’t you just do that cleaning magic of yours?” 

“I could~” Autumn drawled, twirling her wand about her fingers. “I am feeling much better today. Magically, if not physically.” She winced as her sore body complained. Glancing furtively around for any sight of the Nethlia the Cruel, Autumn added. “But Nethlia has ordered me to take it easy with the magic for the next few days. I don’t even want to think about the punishment she’ll cook up if that training is what she thinks is the baseline we need.” 

Both girls shuddered at the thought. 

“Right. That’s fair,” Pyre said, disappointed. 

Autumn shook her head wryly “No matter. Let’s just bathe and meet back up at your tent, yeah?”

---

 

The pair bathed quickly, neither wishing to linger long in the icy river.

At this stage of their journey together, there was little shyness shared between the girls. Seeing one another covered in blood and guts desensitized one to simple things like nudity. It was no more awkward to Autumn than showering in a locker room back in highschool.

Still, she kept her eyes to herself as they bathed.

Speaking of — Autumn marveled at the smoothness of her body. Having her body hair removed was one of the best decisions she’d ever made. She shuddered to think how wild her legs would’ve become this far from proper maintenance without it.

Likely as wild as her raven locks had become.

While she understood commerce and the value of products designed for repeat customers, Autumn still grumbled about the hair-straightening potion wearing off as she struggled to wrestle her hair into some semblance of order. When they got back home, she was definitely commissioning Pyre to make a permanent version for her, no matter the cost. It’d be worth it.

Once they were finally clean and looking marginally more civilized, the pair retreated to Pyre’s tent. 

It stood alone. Separated from the others to its own corner of the encampment. Likely as a safety precaution, Autumn mused, judging by the plumes of noxious smoke wafting up from a mess of alchemical flasks, alembics, retorts, and other such glassware that held bubbling, boiling, and bursting solutions.

Glancing around, Autumn recognized the disjointed mess of glassware cluttering Pyre’s tent as those they’d liberated from the tower, albeit in pieces now rather than the single towering monstrosity it’d been back then. The party must’ve retrieved it from her belt as she’d slept. The knowledge it was there bypassing the obscuration enchantment it held. By the same vein, they’d been unable to find the poisons only Autumn had knowledge of.

Quite the handy enchantment.

As she carefully picked her way through the haphazard arrangement of alchemical equipment following in Pyre’s wake, Autumn spied her black cauldron resting within the alchemist’s lab. Inside, a strange glowing concoction bubbled and spat.

“Be careful of that,” Pyre warned Autumn as she stared at the spitting mixture. “The fumes’ll take your eyebrows off if you get too close.” 

Quickly, Autumn backed away. 

Reaching into her smaller belt-pouch, she withdrew the small box containing the drow poisons. She held it out to Pyre. “Here you go. One order of poisons delivered as requested. Ten vials in total. I’ll just need your signature, mam,” Autumn said jokingly. 

Pyre ignored her. Taking the box from Autumn’s hands, she flipped open the lid to look at the ten vials of clear liquid inside. 

“I don’t know what they do,” Autumn added with a shrug. “But I found them in a drow armory, so…”

“So they’re likely made from spider venom,” Pyre finished Autumn’s unspoken question. “Possibly with a feybane aspect too.”

“Feybane? Does that do what I think it does?”

Pyre hummed as she looked around her cluttered tent for a place to stash the box. Not finding such, she gave up and just sat it atop her already overburdened bed. 

Autumn wondered how the other girl slept with it in such a state. 

Poorly, if she had to guess. 

“If you’re thinking it’s a poison tailor-made to harm a specific race or species, then yes,” Pyre snarked. She turned to Autumn curiously. “You wouldn’t happen to have any samples from the hag you encountered? Blood or hair would work.”

“Can’t say I do,” Autumn shook her head. “I was mostly focused on escaping intact.”

“Pity. About the lack of samples, not about you having to escape. It’d’ve been much easier killing one if we had hagbane poisons. I’ll do my best to make something close, but without any parts of a hag to add…” Pyre shrugged. “The best I could do is refine the feybane to be stronger. We’ll have to see if it’ll affect a hag. Likely not, so don’t get your hopes up.”

“Is there any way I can help?” Autumn asked, glancing around the messy collection of reagents. “I have some highschool chem and home economics knowledge. Not much — they weren’t my favorite classes, but I could prep the ingredients.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on~” Autumn tried not to whine. “I need to do something if I can’t use magic. If not, I’ll go stir crazy! ….err, well, crazier. Nethlia’s already left to hunt and I don’t know where the others went. Please~”

“Fine!” Pyre snapped, one eye twitching. Grabbing a wooden chopping-board and copper knife from her scattered supplies, she thrust them towards Autumn before gesturing over to a precariously stacked pile of jars and containers. “Fine, you can grab some reagents and help me prepare them. But! Don’t waste any! We’ve none to spare.”

Autumn, simply happy to be doing something, didn’t mind the attitude she’d received from the twitchy Alchemist. She calmly took the proffered chopping-board and knife from Pyre and moved over to a relatively clean space to work. 

---

 

Between the pair, they methodically cut, diced, chopped, and crushed the various alchemical reagents and ingredients to Pyre’s high standards as the morning wore on. 

Calling them ‘high’ standards was underselling it. The firestarter alchemist had very very specific ways she wanted every ingredient prepared and made absolutely sure Autumn was made painfully aware each time she messed up. To make matters worse, these methods often differed vastly between ingredients for no discernible reason. 

What the fuck was the difference between finely chopped and finely chopped anyway?!

They were the same word, for crying out loud!

Perhaps it was a discord of their respective crafts, but Autumn utterly despised the process. Of the few witchbrews she’d read, the recipes often just said — a bit of this, and a pinch of that. 

Thankfully, by the time noon rolled around, both the number of alchemical reagents left to process and Pyre’s anxiety levels had decreased. No longer was she twitching and snapping at every noise. The pall that’d hung upon her had abated somewhat. 

Autumn was just glad she’d not punched the obnoxious teenage alchemist. 

When the final batch of potions were set to brewing, Pyre finally took a moment to relax. Yet, looking her over, there was clearly something weighing upon her. She couldn’t seem to sit still — her foot kept bouncing as she tapped a discordant rhythm into her thigh. Often she’d glance over at Autumn, eyes flickering nervously between Autumn’s face and her belt. 

Taking a modicum of revenge for how Pyre’d bitched about her mangling of the rust-roots, Autumn was content to wait for her to bring up whatever was bothering her. 

Finally, after a long moment of dithering from the flame-headed girl, Pyre spoke haltingly. “Um, Autumn?”

“Yes? That is my name, isn’t it?” Autumn drawled, smirking. 

Pyre huffed. “I wanted to ask you something. A favor? No, a request.”

“Go on.”

“Well, I was thinking I could look over those mythic potions again — the Pure Haste and Divine Essence ones. You see, I was thinking we could all have a couple if I diluted them down enough. They’d still be powerful,” Pyre reassured her hurriedly, “just lesser versions. It’d be far more beneficial if we had multiple lesser haste or divine healing potions rather than a singular, powerful one we’d likely never use.”

Autumn reluctantly nodded, remembering all the games her parents had played where they’d ended up with an inventory full of items and potions saved ‘just in case.’

“I’m confident I can do it! I just need a chance to show you!” 

At the end of her spiel, Pyre was slightly out of breath and there was a magic gleam in her fiery eyes. For a moment, Autumn thought she saw a flash in Pyre’s fey-touched eye, but it was over in an instant. 

“Hmm, have you asked Nethlia?” Autumn asked. “I’m not against giving them to you, but you need to run these things by her first.”

“Yes?” Pyre blinked. “I mean — yes, I did. She told me I could and said I could ask you for them. So, can I have them?”

Autumn squinted suspiciously at Pyre. Something seemed off about the twitchy alchemist, and Autumn thought she knew what. 

“Pyre, when was the last time you slept?” 

“Sleep?” Pyre blinked confused at the non-sequitur. 

“Yes, that time when we close our eyes for six to eight hours a day, depending on race, of course. You know, sleep,” Autumn snarked. “When was the last time you took a break?”

Pyre scowled at Autumn’s sass. Crossing her arms over her chest, she spoke curtly. “I don’t need to take a break. Can’t. There’s too much work to do! That’s what stamina potions are for. Why? Did you want some? I’m sure I’ve got some spare around here somewhere.”

“Damn it, Pyre! You need to take a break. Sleep or something. We all need to be at our peak if we want to survive!”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Pyre snarled, her flaming hair roaring high, the gleam in her green eye back. “You’re not my dad! You don’t get to order me about!”

Inside the cramped tent, a chaotic maelstrom of fear and righteous anger swirled. 

Autumn left it alone for now. She didn’t fancy the idea of being stuck in an environment filled with high explosives and a pyromaniac alchemist fueled only by anger. 

Still, she smirked. “Not my dad? Really?”

Flushing, Pyre turned away. “Whatever,” she scoffed, idly picking through her notes as she ignored Autumn. “I’ll sleep when I have to. Just leave me alone.”

“It’s the nightmares, isn’t it?”

Pyre froze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Beneath the shade of her rat-chewed hat, Autumn hummed sadly. Picking up a familiar fresh pottle of healing balm, she idly rolled it between her palms as she spoke. “Did you know I don’t dream anymore?” Autumn asked, garnering a curious shake of the other girl’s head. “Well, at least not normal dreams, I don’t. It all just goes into my hat. So I can’t say I know what you’re feeling right now. Not anymore. But I have been there before. So, I won’t give you any meaningless platitudes or reassurances as I’d not want to hear them either.” 

Holding up the pottle, Autumn awkwardly asked, “uh, hey, can I have this? I don’t think I’ll be able to move in the morning without it.” 

Pyre blinked, a few stray tears sizzling from the heat of her eyes. “Oh, yeah sure — Nethlia had me make some for everyone. Thinking about it, that should’ve been a sign.” She sighed, covering her eyes. “She’s not going to give us a break tomorrow, is she?”

“Nope,” Autumn popped her ‘p’ as she pocketed the balm. 

Looking over the tired form of Pyre, Autumn carefully spoke. “If you want me to take away your nightmares, I can.”

Pyre shook her head, looking resolutely towards Autumn. “No thank you. I can handle it.”

“There’s no shame in asking for help,” Autumn reassured the younger girl. “Nethlia did. Do you think she’s weak?”

For a moment, Pyre hesitated, bordering on the cusp of accepting Autumn’s outstretched hand. Yet, at the last second she withdrew into herself. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll make something for myself later.” She paused, before continuing with a sigh. “I’ll sleep. I promise. Just…give me space, alright?”

“Sure,” Autumn sighed. Reaching into her pouches, she withdrew the pair of ornate potions and placed them carefully atop Pyre’s workstation. “I’ll give you space. Try not to overwork yourself, yeah? I want us all to make it home in one piece. Just be careful with these.”

Pyre scoffed as she picked one of the potions up. “I’m the expert here. I don’t tell you witchcraft, do I?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Autumn sighed. She already regretted being nice to the surly teen. 

---

 

Like a triumphant hero, Nethlia returned to camp, a massive carcass of a bear slung over her shoulders. Steam boiled off the grinning berserker’s sculpted body in waves as blood ran down her taut muscles from deep claw rents and wounds. No weapons bar her own natural ones did the statuesque demoness carry.

From what she could she, Nethlia had strangled the bear to death like some Greek legend of old.

Heat built up in Autumn’s core at the sight.

A sudden thought sprung up in the witch’s mind. One she couldn’t help but share with Pyre beside her.

“Hey, Pyre~” Autumn said as innocently as she could.

Pyre saw right through the ruse. She glared up at Autumn’s sly grin. Growling, she spoke a warning. “Do not!”

Autumn simply ignored her. Revenge perhaps for earlier? “Say, if Nethlia killed the bear without weapons. Does that mean she did it with her—”

“Seriously, stop! I’ll turn you green or something, you witch!”

"—bare hands?”

Pyre blankly glared at Autumn as the witch chuckled to herself. “You’re the worst. You know that, right?”

Autumn grinned. Slapping Pyre gently on the back, she set off to meet the fountain of pride that was her towering berserker lover. “Come on, Nethlia’ll need help to skin that beast. Maybe we can make her a hood from its hide for her?”

“Hey! Answer me! You know that you’re the absolute worst, right?!”