Title: carry on, carry on
Prompt: elephant
Summary: Every witch they face presents their own set of challenges.
I took the title from Bohemian Rhapsody, because it is an unironically epic song and I was listening to it when the need emerged and, unsurprisingly, I am sparing the least effort possible to make a fitting fill for that particular need.
It's very hard to say precanon when canon starts with childhood set up, but ... pre-four fifths of the movie.
No two witches are alike. They are all evil, all enjoy the flesh of children, and in the end they all burn, whether before or after (sometimes both, in cases with sufficient degrees of pyromania) but very little else links one witch to another.
Some witches like traps and dense forests. Some witches like swamps and noxious fumes. Some witches like being protected by giant beasts. Gretel has the advantage there. Most of the creatures that witches use don't particularity want to be in the position. Especially when that position means encountering the hostility of not only all they encounter but also the witches themselves.
When they aren't created by dark magic. Most aren't. The resulting means they take too much effort to maintain and control. And witches care more about feeding themselves and their magic than caring for other creatures.
With some lockpicks, a little misdirection, and the careful destruction of important looking mystical objects ... they make do. Hansel has the edge with horses, but Gretel has convinced an entire pack of wolves to relocate, once upon a time. It's easy enough (if not entirely safe) once you know how, and Gretel has made it her business to know everything she can imagine.
A stocky grey beast the size of a house melting out of the shadows before them is a different matter.
"Hansel," she says quietly. Their approach has been silent thus far. An unexpected encounter is no reason to stray from that tactic. "We need another way round."