"Do you think you should trust him?"
Regina looked over to the villager and glanced back down to her ingredients, "Yes, why do you keep questioning me?" She continued to pluck the feathers from the duck as the villager rolled her eyes.
"I'm not trying to question you, I'm just trying to stay alive, believe me or not, but the village needs you. Not that wolf, he could easily find someone new to replace you with, you're just a meal to him, Regina."
She tightened her fists and gave the villager a side-eye, "Oh, so the village doesn't think I'm replaceable?" The villager went quiet and Regina folded her arms, "Look, you can't even confirm it truly." She laughed, placing the feathers beside her, "You want to know something? Every day I have nightmares of the village's betrayal of knives and pitchforks being thrown at me! Not to mention calling me out of my name..."
She takes some glasses of seasoning and moves them over to the feather-less duck, "I wish I could say I'm being dramatic but the truth is that I'm not and often over I've seen my failure and how I'm destined to be alone."
She sighed, "But, at last I can't help but repeat the same loop because I love Leo, and I always will."
Clink!
A glass thud could be heard at the front door and the villager started to panic, "What the hell is that? Is that thing-" The Witch opened the door, and the dark sky, star-less pointy earred being was there.
"Leonardo!" She embraced me and he blinked back a bit flustered, "Were you talking about me?" "Maybeee." She winked, "Why don't you come say 'hi' to our visitor." "Our visitor?" The wolf peered his head in, but the village woman quickly ran out, the wolf's instincts making him quickly pounce on her, stopping her from leaving.
"You didn't even say bye", he stated, flicking between auburn and night, a pale color and shiver crawling onto the villager's face as everything in her froze.
"Leo! Hey! Let her breathe!"
The wolf smiled in response, not moving but just laughing, making his smile wider and wider, "You tried to leave, you're going to spread fake messages about me, you think this is funny."
The villager remained unresponsive as the witch came over and tugged on the wolf's fur, "Leo, this isn't funny anymore, let her go! They won't see us as good people if you don't let her go!"
"They will never see us as people, Gigi! They just take and take and take! So, why does it make a difference if I do the same!? After all, I'm just a monster."
The witch went quiet and the wolf started to press his paw into the flesh of the villager, blood starting to draw from impact as the villager winced.
"Don't do this Leo, don't be like this, don't let them do this to you, please, you know you're better than this."
The wolf didn't move and the witch continued to press on, "Leo, you're better than this, you're not the curse, please listen to me."
The wolf began to ease off of the villager and take a deep breath, and as soon as the villager was able, she took off. The wolf, not even bothering to chase as a fit of anger poured into him, "This is going to make things worse, maybe I shouldn't have let her go."
"No, it was better to let her go, it would have made things worse if you didn't, you did the right thing."
"Did I? Because, I feel like I'm losing my humanity, Gigi, look at me. I have more hair on me than I ever did as a human and I considered eating her, just because I wanted to. Not to protect us, but just because I had the urge to, how am I ever going to get better or become human again when I feel further from it each day?"
She took his paw and her hand and put her forehead to it, "Because, I'm here, I will be your center. Now, take a deep breath in." The wolf took a deep inhale, "Now, exhale." As the wolf exhaled, he could feel himself changing, his fur turning to skin and his paws into his hands. He still had sharp teeth, but it was the best he could get in this cursed form.
The witch glanced up at him, "See, look you're already getting there." "Not, really, this just works because you did it."
"That's the power of friendship and belief!" "Friendship? No, that's just the work of magic." The wolf huffed while following the witch back inside, "Oh, don't spoil the fun, you can just say it was with the power of both." Leo shrugged, "Sure, but it was mostly magic."
"Magic you say?" She eyed the duck and the seasoning, closing her eyes, twiddling her fingers, making small, azure spheres float to them both, sending it up into the air. She then proceeded to swirl the seasoning around, covering the duck and crushing her fingers to spark a fire. The fire blew ablaze and baked the duck within an instant, in which she snapped her fingers and lowered it to the table.
She opened her eyes, sampling a piece of duck, and a savory, tender piece of bird hit her taste buds. "This is magic, Leo. The true essence is in the food. Now, of course, you can do it the traditional way, but that would be just not as much fun, would it?"
He smiled, holding his hand out and she broke off a piece, handing it to him, "Taste it, it's extremely delishous."
"I'll be the judge of that." He bit the piece of duck expecting to have the same reaction, but he didn't. He almost wished this was baked for less time with no seasoning to taste the original heart of the bird. To him this was just a slightly better burnt steak.