The Witch in the Forest and the Boy King with his New Clothes

The Consequences

"I need to go." Gilbert muttered worriedly, as he sat up from his bed. As quiet as he can, he climb out of his bed and walk to the window. Thick gust of wind pressured outside gushes in when he pushes the window out, winter have again, came silently in the middle of the night, and the snow is heavy. He made his way to the wardrobe where he took out a thick black cloak.

He wore it and made his way out of the room.

"Your Majesty!" the guards outside immediately greeted.

"Hush." Gilbert berated, before continuing his walk.

"Your Majesty! If there's anything, I can call for the ladies in waiting." One of the guards panicked.

"I said hush, I'm just taking a walk. Do not follow."

"But.. Your Majesty-…"

"Do not! Follow!" Gilbert repeated again, much more sternly than before.

"Y-Yes. Your Majesty." The two guards bowed.

Gilbert continued to walk. He walks out of the castle along the road that leads to the forest, the moon casted down bright, lighting his only way there, but the cold and snow tinted it blue. The trees around have long been voided of leaves, their thin trunks and branches sprouting out from the cold ground black, dead and grotesque. He exhale vanilla lace, each still a sign that he is living.

He don't know the way, but somehow his body, compelled by the deal he made, do. He just walk and walk, the snow, twigs, and dead leaves crunches underneath his feets and he walk till he reach a frozen lake.

Then he heard, a step, just a step from his back a slight distance away from him, it's a light step that barely brushes pass the gravel and twigs on the ground. But he heard it. Tentatively, Gilbert turns around.

He opened his eyes with a gasp. He felt himself collapsing to the ground. That loud sound of tearing flesh fill his ear, the wrenching pain that drowned his lungs burst out in falling red was gone in a single flash. Gilbert picked himself up, taking a few steps back at the scene before him. A lady dressed in emerald-green and white kneeling over his tattered body, her messy, fawn coloured hair drapes over her face, hiding it from his sight. She is tearing, biting into his skin, swallowing his flesh, and drinking his blood in a frenzied urgency. He stood just near enough to see her in action. Looking, observing how she shove down fistful after fistful of bloodied meat torn from his ivory rack into her ruby red lips.

The blood smeared across her cheeks, they dripped down her chin and stain the front of her dress.

After a very long time, Gilbert finally let out a chuckle. "I remember now. I have seen you before. I was lost in this forest when I was very young, and you are here."

Elizabeta stopped. She took her time to finish chewing the flesh in her mouth and swallowed. "I am always here."

"You're the one who brought me out of the forest."

"We had a deal."

Gilbert cocked his head on one side with a slight frown. "What did I give?" he asked.

"Your destiny."

"My destiny…" Gilbert repeated absentmindedly. Then he asked again:- "What was my destiny?"

"The conqueror of all lands, skies, and sea. That immortal one whispered by the filthy old things deep in the ground."

"The old ones whispered your name too." Gilbert retorted.

Elizabeta flip her palms upward. The edges where the blood drips to the arms have started to crust from the cold air, she stared at the pair of hands monotonously, deep gooey red that covered her skin is everything she can see. The Witch looked up into the dim winter skies and take a deep breath through her nose and mouth, the metallic taste of Gilbert's blood taste like the sweetness of sated revenge. Though the old things are the one to intertwine their fate with cruel intentions, she still hated his lineage for the covenant.

"The law states that spirits long to be born again, and one day I will see you again soon. But then you won't be mine any longer."

Elizabeta face scrunch in disgust as she turns to him. "If you know about the laws then you should know that I am not yours any longer. And I will not be anybody's till the next White one is born."

"I know, I learnt everything I need from the seers, and I do not wish for it to be. I will not." Gilbert said. Then slightly louder, he announced: "I ask for a deal. That with my spirit, I demand your name."

"What are you doing..." she muttered, her eyes widening.

"With my spirit, I demand the name of Elizabeta Hedervary from the Great Witch in the Forest, the mother of Seers. You will be free forevermore. On my name, Gilbert Beilschmidt, I pledge my spirit and name to the things that fester in the darkness that will not speak of that name as yours, that name is now mine, and it will never bound you again."

"This is not a deal, Boy King. This is a bargain. My bargain." She warns suspiciously.

"So be it."

"You're just making wishes on a whim." the Witch stood up, and stare at this spirit with stern eyes. "Undo them. Now."

"No."

"NOW!" the Witch shouted agitatedly. As she stood up, her sight never breaking away from Gilbert's.

The side of his lips curl upwards slowly, as he observe that frantic look in her eyes. How her brows are furrowed together, in perhaps, fear? Worries? Concern? And how despite that, her thin lips still bare her teeth angrily at him. "No… Why should I?" Gilbert continued taunting, lightly shaking his head, breaking out into a larger smile.

"You're not a child anymore, you don't play with things you don't understand." She berated, her voice already betraying her unsympathetic front.

The ground below shook and cracked; thick black roots that crawls like tendrils peek out from deep beneath the cracks, far beyond the roots of the oldest trees, it touches the earth, barely forming into any semblance of things that make sense. The tendrils touches around like a blind thing making its way around, they leave thick glop of viscous slime where it trails.

"They are coming…" the Witch took a step back in horror.

The tendrils found itself to Gilbert's feet and coil itself around his ankle greedily, enveloping his feet then the next tendrils followed suit and snake itself around the other one, they stain his snow white skin black.

"No!" the Witch let out, taking a step forward and hesitated. "No, you cannot do this."

"I can."

"You… I… If you do that, if you take away my name, then I'll never be able to feel this world again." the Witch returns.

"This world have been nothing but unkind to you. Do you know something? You're the most…. sublime creature I have ever laid my eyes upon and what are you doing here? You're supposed to be free. So, run. Run carefree into the rising suns and the phasing moons. Run amongst the singing trees in many springs again so that when the summer rain fall, burn, burn away, then come and bury underneath the fallen leaves, to breathe in the dead things in the autumn air. But... save that winter for me, won't you? My Easterly Wind.".

"You'll be taken by them. You will cease to exist." The Witch squeeze the words out between her gritted teeth.

"That would be fine." Gilbert smile. "I will always love you like that winter in December." The stain that slowly spread pulls him deep beneath, down the cracks into the earth. The soot black inscription on her body resurfaced again, gently they are lifted one by one from her skin, and they followed Gilbert down to the earth, and as the gnarly cracks closes up cleanly soon after, they left the Witch free forevermore.