This one is totally inspired by Shrek 4. Where witches melt.


She fell in love with the rain when she's four. There had been a drought, and Far Far Away resembled the ruins of ancient desert cities in its desolation: dust and crumbling dried twigs and lack of color. From the overcast sky it came, like heaven cut itself open to shower its blessing on the parched land. She'd sat from atop the husk of an apple tree as it fell lightly on the tilled soil where nothing grew. Eyes wide, mouth open, heart beating fast.

~.~

Life hadn't been easy since the King and Queen deeded the kingdom away to Rumpelstiltskin.

Everywhere, people roamed as beggars, past joys and comfort hung like a residue about them, like fancy clothes now hanging ragged and loose. They'd taken to following Rumpelstiltskin's minions, desperate in their hunger and inability to fend for themselves; they even trailed the witches, regardless of their abhorrent cackles and carriages and caged ogres, imploring for the dregs of the hunt, screaming and scattering when the ogres reached.

~.~

When she was ten, the witches took her away. They had seen her, they said, freezing a rabbit in its tracks with nary a trap nor weapon nor word. They told her, in voices like the falling of a gauntlet, she could be the greatest of witches.

~.~

Witchcraft was a many-layered and labyrinthine world where flagstones can plan of subterfuge and rare bitter herbs can be gleaned from the entrails of animals, where the blood of stars can be collected and songs and names must be held close to the heart. Power and flight were for the taking, at a price: water.

~.~

As a child, she'd been sullen and isolated and terribly gifted. The dolphins of the bay of Far Far Away loved her to great heights. As a witch, she'd exceeded their expectations; so adept at spellcasting that, when the ogre hunts intensified after the cursed princess escaped her tower and Rumpelstiltskin extended his reach far and wide, he left her well enough alone. Even then, while she was the most competent brewer in the land, trumpeting even Godmother, nothing she could brew – not liquid bravery, nor liquid joy, nor liquid life itself – could quench the burning in her throat.

~.~

Then the kingdom is torn asunder and their universe implodes on itself like a spell ripping at the seams, each wayward thread wreaking havoc on every surface it touched, dismantling space and crumbling time and changing human hearts. It had taken them weeks to stopper it.

Suddenly afraid, the witches stopped perpetuating their power, ceased all dangerous magic.

She was suddenly free.

~.~

It had come to this: the rough wood against her dry palms, the whistling salt wind, the roar of waves as they crash against black outcrops of rocks. The cobalt sea stretched out before her in an intense, endless horizon.

Here's an underestimated truth about water: it had never been a price she was willing to pay.

She takes the the leap.

The sound of rushing saltwater.
Bubbles.
The wet laughter of children playing in the surf.
An explosion of light.
Nothing.

(She never quite hit the bottom.)