Willow and Wendy trudged through the snow, not saying a word to each other.
From the moment Willow saw the vengeful look on Wendy's face when she found her cooking meatballs for her, Wilson and Wes, she knew they were going to be mortal enemies. She knew she hated her even more than when they were living under the same roof (if that was possible).
Willow was collecting pebbles as they went. She couldn't count, but they looked like a lot when she stopped to check her progress.
"Hurry up!" Wendy snapped, stopping and turning around when she realised Willow wasn't walking anymore. "What are you at?"
"How many pebbles, do you reckon, would you need to kill a rich person?"
"We should split up," said Wendy, as if she hadn't heard anything.
"Why?"
"Well, because we'll find more food looking in two different places, but primarily, I can't stand looking at your face any longer,"
"Ah, you're just grumpy because of money withdrawal," Willow said calmly.
"We're splitting up," Wendy said through gritted teeth.
"Jeez, fine then you snobby cow," Willow said, still keeping her cool expertly, much to the annoyance of her foe.
Wendy took a huge, deep breath in, then slowly let it out. She turned on her heel and began to march away indignantly as Willow uttered a long moo from behind, sounding very much like the real thing. She stopped in her tracks and turned around slowly.
"Do you remember when I told you Abigail needs a blood sacrifice to play?" she said quietly.
Willow had a quick and unpleasant realisation to what Wendy was threatening to do. She wouldn't be as intimidated as she was if Wendy wasn't armed and/or she was. She readied her fists and prayed for the best.
"I'm gonna stab you through the back of your thick skull!" Wendy cried, whipping out the dagger from her pocket, which she spookily enough, always had on hand.
Willow surprised herself by coming up with yet another witty remark, even when presented with possible death.
"You're a lot more poetic when you're not talking to me," she said, sounding oddly amused.
Wendy ran at her, so she tried to push her away, but to no avail. Wendy pinned her against a nearby tree, and pointed the dagger at her throat.
"Any last words, peasant?" she said gleefully.
Willow shook her head. She hated herself for being scared in this situation. She was wondering why she was trembling violently and why her heart was beating fast.
"Well then-"
Wendy was disturbed by a long, loud, distant THUD.
"What was that?" Willow said anxiously.
Wendy lowered her dagger and listened carefully.
THUD
It was a little louder this time, and was followed by more and more thuds each louder than the last. Finally they could see something behind the winter fog. They had to bend their necks to see it properly, and Willow stood on the tips of her toes to get a good view. A colossal creature far in the distance, towered over all the trees, scanning the area around it with it's one, glistening eye. It's torso was covered with thick, ivory fur and it's limbs had a furry black coat. It had antlers the size of tree trunks and a deer-like face.
"I'm outta here!" Wendy said, backing away, her eyes glued on the ugly beast lumbering in their direction.
"Wait, what if it's friendly?"
"There is no way in hell that THAT is friendly!" said Wendy as the monster made an ear-splitting roar.
It noticed the two girls gawking at it and sped up to a quick march towards them.
It didn't look very friendly.
The closer it came, the taller and scarier it seemed to become. Wendy's head jerked from Willow to the monster frantically, making her look like a nervous redbird. They both knew that her dagger wasn't going to kill it. But they also both knew there was something that would.
Wendy threw her backpack to the ground and rummaged through it, until she produced a large, red flower. Abigail's flower. Wendy set it down on the ground and took a few steps back. It began to hover above their heads.
"She needs a blood sacrifice!" Wendy called, just loud enough to be heard over the booming footsteps of the monster, which was now only about eight meters away. They were lucky it walked so slowly. Willow thought hard, twirling her right piggy tail. She seemed to suddenly have some sort of fantastic idea. Wendy could almost see the lightbulb above her head, and although she didn't really think Willow's idea was going to be a genius master plan, she was willing to try anything in their predicament.
Willow shook of her backpack and fell to her knees, peering inside. She took out what looked like a small wooden box with seven or eight hound's teeth lodged in it to keep it together. It had four tiny holes on top that seemed to have been made by a sharp piece of flint. Her face fell as she realised it was going to be very difficult to open it. It was permanently sealed shut.
"I-I didn't really think this through," she said.
"What?!"
"I don't suppose you own a hammer, do you?"
Wendy stared at her with a look of both panic and disbelief. She crouched down to Willow's level and yanked the box out of her hands. She then got up and began furiously hitting the box against a nearby tree, but it stayed intact.
"Let me try!" Willow said, getting up and taking it from Wendy.
She raised it above her head, but stopped. She lowered it and used her free hand to take her lighter out of her shirt pocket, and set fire to it. She didn't drop it. She didn't have to. Although Maxwell had brought them to his hellish island with little to no sympathy for any of them, he did give them some useful skills along the way.
When it had burnt to a pile of ash and hound's teeth in Willow's hand, she poked it until she unearthed a bright orange butterfly wing.
"Wha-why-" Wendy was interrupted by the roar of the monster, which was now standing right over them. It raised it's arms high in the sky, ready to crush every fragile bone in their bodies, but it was distracted by the silvery figure now floating out of the flower.
"Abigail! Help!" Wendy yelled.
Abigail gracefully hovered over to her and whispered something in her ear. They both looked up at Willow.
"She wants you to apologise," Wendy said quietly.
The whole island seemed to go absolutely silent. Willow stared into Abigail's unblinking, white eyes. The monster was still peering at her intently.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry I killed you, and I'm sorry I burned down your pretty house, and I'm sorry you came here... because of me,"
Abigail nodded slowly.
She flew further up into the air, until she was level with the monster. She placed one of her transparent, grey hands on it's forehead. Its humongous mouth was hanging open like a dark, slimy cave and its eye was huge and unblinking. It started to crumble. It crumbled to a large mound of powder with the car-sized eye sitting on top. Abigail landed lightly on the grounding front of it.
"That was impressive," Willow remarked rather calmly.
Abigail curtseyed and resumed her flower form. Wendy picked it up and put it in her backpack casually, while Willow flung her's around her back.
As they walked back to the camp, they didn't really know what to say to each other.
"Why were you keeping a butterfly in a box?" asked Wendy.
"I wanted its wings for healing, but they go stale after you kill it, so I wanted to keep it until I needed it and kill it then,"Willow replied.
"You're weird,"
The End