A/N: Think Van Helsing meets Hansel and Gretel meets Vin Diesel's 'The Witch Hunter' and you kinda get the idea.

Witch Hunters.

Thunk! The dripping sack hit the countertop with a decisive sound that attracted the instant attention, and disgust, of the merchant stood behind it. He had been busying himself with a record of business and had seemed disinclined to give the two ladies in his shop the time of day, but their sordid delivery had secured his attention with immediate effect. It stank to high heaven and seeped a runny black liquid over the countertop, little bits of what could be confidently identified as loam and leafage flecked throughout.

He raised his eyes at it over his reading glasses and moved the book out of the reach of the growing puddle. He was an old man, wizen, with grey hair that was pulled back into a thin trailing plait at the back of his head, the shorter threads of which had escaped and now curled around his ears, both of which came with their own supply of wispy grey hairs. He wore glasses, had a flannel hat on and was dressed in a striped shirt and faded waistcoat, all of which had seen better days. He turned his gaze to the two ladies who stood in his shop, gave them a blank (though mildly disapproving) look, and turned to the back of his shop. "Selphie, your customers are here."

"Thank you, Godfred," One of the ladies smiled. She was slim, with very blue eyes and blonde, almost golden hair gathered up on top of her head in a bun. It had once been a neat and tidy bun but wasn't anymore. She was dressed entirely in thick black leather and had a chain whip hung from the belt on her hips. She was currently splattered in a mixture of mud, slime, and the same black liquid that wept from the sack. It was she who had dumped the unhappy sack of indeterminate contents so unceremoniously onto the counter and so she stood wiping her hands on a kerchief that the other lady had handed her. The other lady was slightly shorter, had long dark hair left loose down her back and dark brown eyes. While the blonde looked 'a trifle unkempt', she looked to be in pristine condition in a pearly blue shirt, corset and riding trousers.

Selphie, Godfred's clerk, bounded up to the counter to take stock of her customers and their haul. "What did you get?" She asked needlessly, already opening the sack to find out.

"Trolls." The blonde answered as a troll's head was hefted from the sack and plopped onto the countertop for inspection, its ears flapping with the movement.

"No witches then…" Selphie elaborated, spinning the head around and peering into its face. "That's a shame."

"Hardly," The blonde replied, "I'd rather fight a troll than a witch and at least with this lot cleared out that's the end of it. Witches would be coming back to find out what happened to their friends."

"A sack of trolls heads isn't going to pay for all the stuff we wasted killing them though." The other lady grumbled.

"I guess not," The blonde had to agree, it was a bit of a let down to go out hunting for a witch only to find out their quarry was a group of trolls instead. "But even so, it's hardly a bad thing - we have solved the mystery and freed the town."

A shrug.

"Hey," Selphie started soothingly, moving the heads down behind the countertop and out of the way, "Rin, it's ok. It's not a witch but this is ok, you know. As Godfred always says, 'the best troll is a dead troll!'-" Godfred peered around the corner of the entrance to the back of the shop at the mention of his name and scowled. He never said anything of the sort. "So don't feel too down. I'm sure you'll get a witch soon!"

Rinoa, the dark haired lady, shrugged again and folded her arms. "I'm just getting a bit fed up with all this meagre prey."

The blonde considered her companion, normally Rinoa was the cheerful one of the two and always had enough energy and motivation to keep the both of them going. To see her so… out of sorts… was concerning. "It might just be a quiet time around here." She said, though she didn't really belief it and had never heard of such a thing herself. As a rule, witches were reasonably active all year round, but most especially so around the solstices. Though there weren't any notable wiccer events coming up any time soon, that didn't mean that the witches would all just… go away. But it had been a good long while since they had last caught a witch, a month or so.

"Yeah," Selphie said, leaning on the counter and giving Rinoa a sympathetic look, "Maybe Quistis is right, maybe you've killed all the ones from around here."

Rinoa fixed Selphie with a look and huffed in annoyance, then turned and left the shop with a flip of her hair. Quistis, the blonde, and Selphie, the clerk, exchanged a look of their own at her departure. Quistis sighed and shrugged, "I don't know what's up with her so don't ask. She's been down all week. What can you give me for them?"

"Well there are 4 heads, so I can give you 40gil. Maybe she's 'on'?"

"That's not going to see us through the week… She's not 'on', she drinks that contraceptive tea to make sure she's not. Any chance you could up that to 80gil?"

"I'm afraid not, sorry Quisty, this is a business you know and the old man will skin me alive if I start handing out favours."

Quistis raised an eyebrow. "Godfred!" She called and the old man poked his head around the corner again, "Might we borrow you? I'm afraid I have a slight issue with your payout." Godfred shuffled over grouchily and Quistis smiled at him. "Your shop is offering 10gil per Trolls head, which I would be happy with if I didn't have to charge you for town service."

"How do you mean?" Godfred drawled in a bored voice. He had been a merchant for a very long time and sorely disliked when customers who had come to trade would beat about the bush instead of simply naming their price and their reasoning.

"This is a bounty prize, not a common hunt. I believe I should get the bounty price advertised which was 200gil."

"The bounty was for a witch, not some trolls."

"No, the bounty was for the beast or beasts which were attacking travellers on the road. It didn't state specifically that it was a witch and it didn't specify that any prizes brought forward which were not witches would be subject to a reduced bounty. As these items were not stipulated and as killing these trolls counts as a service towards the town, these heads are still subject to the terms of the initial bounty, so they should come in at the same price, or, failing that, should have a town service charge applied."

"I'm not paying 200gil for some troll heads." He stated bluntly.

"Then what's your best price."

"50gil."

"That doesn't account for the town service."

"Name your price then." He growled.

"20gil per head, 25% for town service, that's 100gil and not a penny less."

"You asked for 80gil earlier!" Selphie cried in dismay.

"I was waiving the service." Quistis replied then turned her attention to Godfred, who was gumming bad-temperedly. "Do we have a deal, or should I turn the heads in to the mayor?"

"Oh, deal!" Godfred eventually snapped, gesturing sharply for Selphie to hand over some coins, "Take your money and get out of my shop!"

Quistis thanked him as Selphie handed over a bag of 100gil. He stomped off to the back of the shop again to be grumpy in private and could just about be heard muttering to himself as he rounded the corner - "Damn brats, if they rob me any more I'll go blind!"

When Quistis got out of the shop Rinoa was waiting, arms folded under her cloak, eyes narrowed in irritation and glowering out into the dark of the night. People with torches wandered past, throwing light over the straw lined streets as they passed, then disappeared around down the road and left the street in darkness again. If it weren't for the candlelight coming from the grubby shop windows the road would be pitch black. In the darkness Quistis and Rinoa's horses whickered to each other softly and Rinoa scowled a little more.

"You alright?" Quistis asked, voice low.

"I just want to find another witch." Rinoa grumbled. "It's been too long."

"I know." Quistis muttered. "They can't have all gone, that would be insane." When her hunting partner said nothing Quistis bit her lip. She was ill-used to an unhappy Rinoa and was never very sure how to comfort anyone. The combination of these two dreaded scenarios was… difficult. She held up the bag of gil and jingled it hopefully. "Managed to get 100gil out of the old goat, so we can find somewhere to sleep and restock for tomorrow if you like?"

Rinoa nodded. Some food and a bed sounded alright. They collected their horses and walked down the dark streets until they found the liveliest, most well lit building in the town, the tavern, and walked around to the stables to put their mounts to bed. Their horses suitably stabled they trundled round to the front door of the establishment, packs over their shoulders, to see what the situation was like inside. The smell of hops and woodsmoke rushed out through the door when it was opened, then fell over them like a cloak as they went inside.

As it happened there were only two beds available and dinner had just been served (rabbit stew) so the pair paid their money and went to sit at a table and wait for food to arrive. All around them the townspeople chatted and laughed, quaffed on ginormous flagons of beer and paid the pair next to no mind. Of course their attire (and smell) earnt some glances, but it wasn't anything unusual. They usually smelt fairly bad after a hunt and Rinoa was pretty enough to capture anyone's imagination, so the odd glance was not unexpected. The tavern keeper brought them their stew and they ate in silence, partly due to tiredness and partly Rinoa's mood, and when they had finished and taken their bowls back to the bar they were show to their room.

Finally away from any prying eyes or ears, Quistis decided that now was the time to corner Rinoa about her recent gloomy behaviour.

"I don't knoooooow!" Rinoa whined, throwing herself back on her bed and her arms out flat either side. "If I knew then maybe I could fix it! I just… I feel like something really bad is coming… but I don't know what!"

On her own bed, sat cross legged and sponging down her leathers, Quistis probed, "Bad as in, bad weather, or as in, end of the world?"

"As in… I have no idea." Rinoa replied. "It's like… Dread. Why aren't we getting reports of any witches anymore? Why aren't people running screaming through the streets looking for our services like they used to?" She propped herself up on her elbows to look at her partner. "What has happened in the last 2 months that means that this place has suddenly turned into some kind of haven or paradise? This is meant to be the Wiccer Valley! There should be witches around every corner! Bearing down from all sides! Popping out of houses, carrying pregnant women on their shoulders kicking and screaming and disappearing into the night!"

Quistis pressed her lips together a shrugged. She had been wondering the same thing, but was trying not to let it bother her. Yes they were witch hunters, but trolls and ogres were a pretty good substitute. At least they weren't particularly intelligent foes even if they were a bit of a handful to kill. They had even taken on a werewolf recently in the absence of a witch and that…. Well… Werewolves were even more dangerous than witches as it turned out and Quistis could only say she was glad she wasn't a werewolf hunter by trade because she planned never to confront another werewolf for as long as she lived. They had teeth… and claws… and they were quick. Very very very quick. So quick that it gave her nightmares for nights afterwards - nightmares about things with long teeth looming at her from the dark.

"The whole thing just fills me with dread." Rinoa continued. "Like… Where have they gone? Because they have gone - they're clearly not here anymore."

"I don't know, Rin," Quistis sighed and looked up from her scrubbing. "I don't know and I don't really want to know. If they have gone somewhere then I don't want to know where that is and I don't really want to know what they're up to either. I think, tomorrow, we should pick up some more supplies and then maybe make tracks, find some better hunting grounds and see what else we can pick up."

Rinoa frowned, still clearly bothered by the absence of witches, but, having no alternatives to offer, silently agreed and pulled her blankets out from underneath herself. She settled in for sleep and Quistis, once she had finished cleaning her leathers, blew out the single candle and did the same.

000

Dawn broke and shone golden tendrils through the misty treetops to warm the cold earth below. The soft glow which normally stretched long over the hillsides, dips and slopes of the Wiccer Valley and relieved the little rivers and highland meadows and farmer's fields of nights frigid grasp and delivered them into crisp, sunny day, also illuminated a rather more sorry sight this particular morning. High on the hillside in a little copse of fruit trees and berry bushes, a mushroom circle lay destroyed. Mushroom heads lay hither and thither, some half eaten, others simply ripped up and discarded. The fairies who would otherwise have called this home lay all around, sound grievously wounded, others already dead. Not far away a wooden spriggan lay dead and the hunter who had killed it stood cleaning his sword.

He sighed in disappointment as he looked back at the mushroom circle and the fairies who were flying around in a panic. He had come to get some fairy dust and had been confronted instead with the sight of a frenzied spriggan eating the mushroom circle, tearing the mushrooms from the ground and stuffing them into its mouth, hardly managing to chew them at all before they fell out and the next mushroom was stuff in its place. The fairies, understandably horrified by this, had been trying their best to stop the spriggan by shooting it with tiny arrows and throwing stone in its eyes. In anger and pain the spriggan had been thrashing its limbs at the fairies who buzzed around its head, catching clouds of them and swatting them from the air. Fairy bodies little the grass around the circle and the wounded cried in pain. Once he had shaken himself from his momentary shock at the sight which had greeted him, the hunter had set about the task of rescuing the fairies. It had soon became clear that whatever had taken a hold of the spriggan was not about to let it go, so he had been left with no choice but to slay it. And now here he stood, sap and ichor coating his sword, the spriggan laying still at his feet, the poor beleaguered fairies crying softly in the remains of their mushroom circle as they gathered up their wounded and dead.

It was a shame that the mushroom circle had been destroyed, and it was very sad indeed for the poor fairies, they would likely leave this copse and not come back now that it had proven itself to be so terribly unsafe. But more than that it was an extremely foreboding thing to have happened. Spriggans were effectively natural guardians and would protect, or at least cast a blind eye to, any of the beings or creatures who also dwelt in their domains. Wood spriggans in particular were rather peaceable creatures and were extremely tolerant of fairies and other small sentient lives. To see one eating a mushroom circle was… Well the creature had clearly gone mad, but even an angry spriggan wouldn't normally take umbrage with a mushroom circle. Something dreadful must have happened to it to make it abandon all reason and destroy the fairies homes. Without fairies to tend to the flowers they wouldn't grow, there would be no berries on the bushes, no food for rodents or birds in the winter, and just like that the woods and forests became a waste where no things could grow or live.

It was foreboding to say the least and a very bad omen to speak truthfully. And there would be no fairy dust here from now on, which meant that the hunter would have to descent the mountain to the valley below if he hoped to find any more.