Gator and the Witch, Chapter 1 Part 2

“Christ, its black as pitch in here!”

“I never thought a witch would invoke god! Are you religious, maybe?”

“Hey, just because I’m a witch don’t mean I can’t mention him! Ugh, give me a moment, I’ll make a light.”

A mote of light shined through the darkness, hoving above Dorcha and Henry. They had found this cave in the corner of the forest, where the sun’s light could not breach the canopy of leaves. Tori was too afraid to acompany them, so Dorcha calmed her down and left her outside as the human duo went in. They didn’t see anything interesting aside from bones scattered throughout the ground. “Looks like some other guys tried exploring here before,” Henry said, bending over and looking over the skeletal remains. “Hard to say what they died of, though. I bet it was to goblins if they’re this close to the entrance!”

“That’d just be sad,” said Dorcha with a sigh, shaking her head. “No adventurer worth their salt would die to goblins.”

“I bet they were newbies!” Henry chirped happily, putting a little spring in his step as they walked deeper and deeper into the cave. After thinking a bit, though, he frowned and added, “I only wish I could have helped them! Going on adventures on your own, unless you’re really experienced or powerful, is just suicidal!”

Dorcha raised an eyebrow. “And how long have you been adventuring, Henry?”

Henry closed his eyes in thought, holding up his hands as he counted on his fingers. “One, two, three…” He smiled timidly and tapped his head with a fist. “I actually dunno! I’ve done it a long time, though!”

“Can’t even give me an estimate?”

“Uh…I guess… a few millenia or so?”

 Dorcha nearly tripped up on her own feet and stared at him. “Are you kidding me?” she stammered, jaw nearly dropped to the floor. “You barely look 30 years old! How in the hell are you over thousands of years old?!?”

“Magic, I guess?” Henry shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Not really, but now I’m curious! Did you drink something from the Fountain of Youth or something? Did some wizard grant you immortality? Come on! As a witch, I need to-“

Suddenly, the reporter reached out and put his finger on the witch's lips and Ssshed her. The witch was about to protest when he pointed upward, up towards the cave’s ceiling, revealing a curtain of black bats. She waved her hand and dimmed the light as much as she could to avoid disturbing them and took tiny steps, careful to keep noise to a minimum. Unfortunately, she didn’t exactly watch where she was going and tripped, falling on her front side with a loud THUD.

All at once, the bats swooped down and out, screeching and flapping their wings frantically as they tried to get away. Dorcha swore under her breath and kept her head down until all the bats were gone. Then, she slowly got back to her feet and turned to Henry, who was happily biting into a live bat like it was a wriggly cracker. She cringed as the bat tried to wiggle its way to freedom, only to stop soon as its head was bitten off. Henry, oblivious to Dorcha’s obvious disgust, held out the partly bitten bat to her. “Want some?” he asked. “It’s tastier when you eat it fresh!”

Dorcha replied with disgust, “No way! That bat could have had rabies! And who the hell eats bats like that, anyway?”

Henry smiled at her without a trace of embarassment. “I do! Hey, do you need the wings for anything? You know, potions and all?”

“Well…I guess I could use the wings for a potion that can let people fly.” Before she could finish, Henry handed the body to Dorcha. The witch reluctantly took it from him before pulling out a knife from her knapsack and carefully cutting the wings off before tossing the body away and putting the wings and knife in her bag. As the duo continued their journey, Dorcha was left wondering: What in the hell is this guy? He first says he’s been adventuring for millenia, and now he eats bats like nothing. Next, he’s probably going to bleed gold or something!

            Deeper and deeper into the cave they went, with no sign of any other monsters. There were a lot more bones and a few corpses scattered along the way. Some smelled of rot, their armors, varying from humble leather to shiny steel, still attached. They weren't just skin and bones (or just bones, for that matter), but the fresher corpses had dark purple spots around their neck and chest.

 “Guess some people tried to get through here recently,” Dorcha mused out loud, making the mote of light brighter as she examined the corpse of what looked like a knight from a far off kingdom. “Although why a guy like this would come all the way over here is beyond me.”

“Maybe the first knight who provided the head of a basilisk to the king would get a money prize,” Henry said, tilting his head to the side. “I know one king asked me to cut off the head of a titan and bring it as proof, and then I’d get thousands of gold!”

“Did you do it?”

“I did, but then while I was sleeping, some other guy stole it and took credit.”

Dorcha groaned. “You should have cursed him with a million years of bad luck! I know if someone took credit for my discovery, he’d be finding himself with poison ivy where his genitals would be!”

The reporter shot Dorcha a suspicious look, although he was smiling as he did so. “And you said you weren’t like the others!”

“I’m not like the others in that I don’t hex others over petty, stupid things.”

“You should at least try to maybe stop hexing people altogether. I mean, that’s why you witches have such a bad reputation to begin with: The types of people who become them tend to be pretty vengeful, you know?”

Dorcha opened her mouth to retort before thinking for a moment, then closing it. She looked away from her companion, ashamed. He was right: witches were essentially more vengeful magicians, cursing those who even looked at them the wrong way. Was she any better than any other witch? She wasn’t very sure. For all she knew, she might end up using the venom for… less savory things.

She didn’t have much time to think on this, however, as she heard a soft hiss. The mote of light moved in front of her, revealing the sleeping, coiled up basilisk, towering above the two humans. Carefully, Dorcha pulled out an empty jar and approached the beast, whispering an incantation and summoning a ghastly hand to gently part the jaws of the beast open. The hand also pulled the fangs away from the top of the snake’s mouth and pointed downward before the witch held up the jar. “Should be a venom gland up on its head, Henry,” she told her companion. “Go up there and try to give it a push. Probably without waking up the beast.”

Henry nodded before happily climbing up the basilisk and doing just as she said. Apparently he didn’t push hard enough, as venom didn’t really drip out. He tried again. Nope, nothing. A bit irritated, he kept pushing before he jumped up and stomped right on the basilisk’s head.

Oh, venom did spray out into the jar, filling it up about ¼ of it. However, that little headstomp woke up the beast. With a hiss, it uncoiled itself, Henry jumping off of it before he slid off the snake’s back. And with another hiss, it lunged towards the mage, fangs drawn, ready to inject the tiny woman with as much venom as it could. The basilisk found itself trying to grip onto a force field, thrown up just in the nick of time.

Dorcha frowned and glared at Henry. “I said not to wake the snake up! You adventured for millenia and don’t even follow directions?!”

“Hey, it’s more exciting to actually fight it instead of just getting the venom and getting out!” Henry retorted, hurrying over to the witch’s side. Dorcha could see some silvery substance floating around his arms before it stuck to them and formed a pair of gauntlets around his hands. He leapt up and punched the basilisk in the back of the head, distracting it from the squishier party member for a moment. The gauntlets turned into silvery droplets again before forming arm blades, Henry using them to cut through the tough, layered scales.

The basilisk squirmed in pain as cold steel stripped scales from its body, leaving flesh out in the open. It flicked its thick, long tail and swatted Henry away before lunging at him and slamming him to a wall. Dorcha manipulated the light to reveal stalagcites up on the ceiling and smirked as an idea came to mind. She took her staff and pointed it up, muttering an incantation before unleashing an orb of fire upwards to hit the stalactite. It dropped from the ceiling, hitting the giant snake squarely on the head. Henry leaped upwards again, over and above the snake and changing his arm blades to a silvery hammer before bringing it down-

“AAAGH!”

Dorcha turned towards the source. The basilisk had its fangs deep into the reporter’s neck and chest. It didn’t let go until its prey stopped squirming. Henry fell with a thud, groaning loudly and clutching at his neck. Shit… Now it was only a matter of time before he would die, and the basilisk would have him for a snack! The witch wordlessly rushed over to her companion and dragged him out of the way, hastily digging through her pack for something, anything, that could counteract basilisk venom. “Hold on,” she said. “I’m gonna save you! I won’t let you die!”

Henry reached out for her weakly. “It’s too late for me, Dorcha,” he said, his breath shallow as he struggled to speak. “It’s spreading quick… Don’t waste your time…” He put a hand to her cheek and smiled. “Go on… without… me…”

His body went limp as his eyes closed and he breathed his last. Dorcha could only stare in disbelief, even as the basilisk slowly slithered in to claim its prize. She lost a patient. Someone she hardly knew, but a patient. The town’s only reporter. The town would find it suspicious enough she went into a cave alone with him, and came out without him, with a jar full of venom. They’d blame her, chase her out, burn her at the stake. 

Not even thoughts of being hunted could compare to the agony of losing someone you were trying to save. The venom didn’t even give her a chance. She failed him. Completely and utterly failed him. Dorcha clutched at her chest, restraining herself from completely losing it. Damn it! Damn everything! She should have never invited him over! He was completely innocent! Completely!

When the basilisk closed in and unhinged its jaw to swallow two humans in one gulp, Dorcha braced herself for death.

In the next moment, though, she could hear the snake screech in pain. She looked up and saw a multitude of needles on the roof of the snake’s mouth before it closed it and backed off. And before her stood Henry, grinning as if nothing ever happened.

“Just kidding!” he said, giggling like a schoolboy that told a terrible pun. “Venom doesn’t work on me like it works on blood-filled creatures! Joke’s on you, big snake!”

Dorcha stared. He was alive? All this time, he was alive? And she could have just checked his pulse? She clenched her fists tightly and stood up. “You… you…” She could hardly get the words out.

Henry turned towards Dorcha with a smirk on his face. “What about me? Was I a great actor?”

Something inside of her snapped as Dorcha yelled, “YOU MOTHERFECKIN’, SLIMY, DIRTY LITTLE GIT! I WAS WORRIED OUT OF MY DAMN MIND AND THAT’S’S HOW YOU REPAY ME?!? WITH A FUCKING JOKE?!? KID, I FUCKING SWEAR!”

Henry gulped hard as Dorcha launched into a tirade, full of explicitives and spit flying everywhere. Oops, maybe that was a bit of a mean joke to play on her. “You should have checked the wounds more carefully, Dorcha,” he pointed out timidly, placing a finger near one of his wounds. Dorcha stopped her rampage for a second to look more closely. Something silver dripped out from the wounds. Not blood.

“Are you bleeding liquid silver here? Christ, that’s one step away from bleedin gold, ya freak,” Dorcha growled through gritted teeth.

“Its quicksilver, actually,” Henry said. “Mercury. Don’t touch, it’s harmful to you, okay?” He quickly checked up on the basilisk, who was getting ready to attack again, then turned back to Dorcha. “Listen, I’m gonna do something here that you won’t believe, but you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone else, okay?”

“Oh, I get it,” the witch said as she rolled her eyes. “Next you’re going to shit out bricks of gold, and then after that, you can turn the big ass snake into a cute little bunny rabbit! Like a bonafide freak from the ether, whoop dee feckin do!”

Dorcha was about to add on more until she noticed that Henry was smiling in response to her sarcasm. “I’ll do you one much better.” Before she could react, he melted into a puddle of quicksilver that moved inbetween her and the basilisk. The puddle grew and grew in size, but the basilisk ignored it as it lunged for the most obvious target: the squishy mage. Just as it was about to slam into her, though, something sank deep into its flesh and tugged it away. The snake struggled and struggled, even turning toward his assailant. A massive pair of gator jaws, apparently rising up from the puddle of quicksilver, was securely fastened on the snake’s midsection.

Dorcha’s jaw dropped as from that puddle of quicksilver, which was once the reporter Henry, rose a massive gator. Big as an old oak and stuck in this odd shape between solid and liquid, it squeezed its jaws around the snake before  shaking  its prey around, releasing its grip just in time to send the basilisk flying into a wall. All the witch could do was stammer as the legendary creature, the magnificant lizard, the one and only Quicksilver Gator, was actually here, helping her.

“Holy feck,” she finally managed to get out after several seconds of stunned silence. “That is better.”

Henry snorted before the basilisk shook off the pain and sprayed acid at him, eager to take down this sudden new threat. He only had to melt back into a liquid state to avoid it, then reform himself and form spikes on his back, launching them off like silvery missiles to strike down his foe. The snake reeled in pain before the gator slammed into it like a battering ram to a door. Quickly, it wrapped around the gator’s jaws and forced them shut, disabling the beast from using its most powerful asset.  Slowly, it began to wrap around not just the jaws, but the rest of the gator’s body.

Dorcha pointed her staff and launched a fiery orb at the snake, but it turned out it wasn’t really necessary: all Henry had to do was melt again and appear behind the snake, opening his jaws and preparing to close them hard enough to snap even a basilisk in half. And he would have, until Dorcha yelled, “We need the venom! We can’t kill it just yet!” Unfortunately, in that free moment of time, the reptilian foe slammed its tail down on Henry’s face, making him reel back in a daze.

Dorcha dug through her bags for something useful as the two behemothian reptiles duked it out. Frog eyes were useless, unless she wanted to make the basilisk die of embarassment. Sunflower petals? Well, it would be good for making the Quicksilver Gator the prettiest. Beholder tentacles? Ugh, she didn’t know what she was gonna do with those. She dug and dug through her bag until she found the perfect thing: Slime goo.  She opened up the jar lid and scooped out at bit before waiting for the Basilisk to come by. She tossed some into its eyes before grinning and saying one word, and one word only.

“Burn.”

The goo was set aflame, burning brightly and searing the basilisk’s eyes to a crisp. “Slime goo, perfectly flamable,” Dorcha said to nobody in particular, puffing up her chest in pride. “Never leave home without it!”

With its eyes effectively burned out, all it could rely on was scent. And it was hard to smell out a gator when you’re on fire. It hissed in pain, leaving the gator to shapeshift back into a human. He climbed up the walls and leapt  high into the air, shapeshifting back into a giant reptile…

When Dorcha realized what Henry was doing, all she could say was, “You sneaky little fuck!”

CRASH! The whole ground shook with the force behind that arial body slam. Quicksilver splattered everywhere, extinguishing the flames but leaving one flattened snake. Henry continued to pin the snake until Dorcha could open up its mouth and unfold the fangs using her “ghostly hands” spell. Then it was all a matter of pressing his head hard onto the basilisk’s, forcing the venom from the glands to secrete rapidly from the fangs and right into the witch’s jar.

Finally, they got one jar full of basilisk venom!

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Once the duo returned to Dorcha’s hut, the moon was shining down brightly upon the sleepy village. Dorcha summoned mystical color-changing lights within her hut again before putting her newly acquired jar of venom on the shelf. “Thanks for your help, Henry,” she said, turning to the reporter and smiling at him. “Couldn’t have done it without ya, although you could have cut down the theatrics.” She glared at him. “A lot.”

Henry smiled meekly at her. He was back to his human form, with his wild black hair, square glasses, and his green hat. “Didn’t mean to worry you so much, miss. Poor thing, I bet my acting broke your heart in two!”

“Shut up, you ass.”

The reporter sniggered before he continued on. “Anyway, that was quite the adventure! Not too far away from home, either! Oooh, I should really start doing this more often… Will you need new things anytime soon? Or are you gonna hunt down things for fun? Will you?” His eyes were shining with excitement, his face once again dangerously close to her own.

“No doubt about it! Now move your face before I decide to move it myself. Forcefully.” Henry backed away, whistling and humming to himself. Dorcha crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow as she asked him, “Anyway, are you really a Quicksilver Gator? I mean, the Quicksilver Gator? The one in legends?”

            Henry frowned at her, stopping his little personal celebration as he looked her in the eye and said, “Yes. I am that gator. The stuff of legends. I did say I adventured for millenium. I was pretty serious there, too.”

            “Then what’s a guy like you doing in a sleepy little town like this?”

            Silence. Henry put a finger to his chin, but did not speak for several minutes. Dorcha was almost convinced he wasn’t going to say anything at all until he said, quite solemnly, “I got tired of the constant chaos, so I gave it up.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Now I’m craving it again. How about that? I can’t thank you enough for this opportunity, Dorcha, so I hope we can adventure again soon. Without the silly theatrics from me, of course!”

            The witch smiled. It wasn’t often that a legend thanked you for a good time, then asked for seconds. “Long as you keep that dirty rat trick you did earlier out of it, why not?” She sighed dramatically, pretending that she was about to faint. “I was so worried, I felt like my heart was going to burst!”

            She expected Henry to shrug it off. She also expected him to mock her for her bad acting. She did not expect him to start melting out of embarassment and take her seriously! “I didn’t mean to hurt you!” he wailed, eyes tearing up as he held his hands together. “I’m so sorry, please forgive me!”

            Dorcha stared. She let out a small giggle. A giggle made way for laughter, tons and tons of laughter. “Oh god, your face!” she said between bouts, “Aaah, you should see it! Man, I tricked you good, oh boy!”

            Henry was silent for a while before joining in on the laughter and sitting by her side. And through the night, the two new friends joked, ate, and told stories under the moonlit skies, speaking as one freak to another.

            Dorcha could only blame the strings of fate for the twists and turns that were to follow.