A/N: last part before it takes me weeks again to update..because I am currently drowning in acad works
Alfred remembers that night as vivid as if it was yesterday.
It was one of those regular nights where his head were filled with thoughts too many for his mind to completely succumb to sleep. It does worse than good for his tired body and mind to force himself to sleep, alone and only in the company of his dark, empty room. He prefers to take longs walks under the moonlight's guidance if they get too bad, and this was one of those occurrences.
Ever since that time he was almost killed from an unexpected witch attack, his paranoia that a witch could literally just be right behind him ready to strike and hungry for his blood never failed to make its presence known in the back of his mind. He made sure to leave his current home fully armed, currently have no plans whatsoever to pursue any witch at the moment. He thought to himself that he's doing this as a precaution. A good hunter never leaves unarmed or guarded at all times.
Alfred, knowing himself as well, knows his unpredictability that surprises even himself at times. He knows there's a chance he'll stumble into something that will lead to him doing things a person or even a hunter would not do at a time such as this. Every tick from the clock brings the witching hour closer and closer, after all.
Nevertheless, Alfred is wholly confident in his own skill and talents. He knows that no matter how perilous a situation he may bring himself into, he believes he'll find a way to get himself out of it somehow, even if it was barely by the skin of his teeth. Minds work better when under a heavy pressure after all, or so he believed, as it has always worked for him. This is expected, as his cause is pure and good always wins.
And so after rechecking his weapons, he sets out.
When he told himself that he hasn't got a plan at all when he set out for his casual late night stroll in the woods, he wasn't lying.
But then the deeper he went, into the darker and unfamiliar parts of the woods, he felt something. Something like electricity in the air, not stale but quite the opposite, which Alfred immediately found odd when he is walking along the darker parts of the woods where even animals can feel the unsettling atmosphere and voluntarily avoid it at all costs with its lack of life and numerous amount of dead plants and vegetations.
Ever the curious boy that he is, he proceeds deeper to find the answer.
Wandering aimlessly in these parts is very dangerous because if you were not to die from a witch encounter, the loose soils and thick, dead limbs of trees, twisted and turned into scary silhouettes could do the job well. Especially for someone like Alfred who did not bring any source of illumination.
He managed to get through anyway, but with walking with extra caution it took him longer than usual to get through.
Somewhere faraway from where he is, in a nearby town, the clock strikes three and the bells chime.
A foot was cautiously tapping at the ground, testing if the soil is not loose that his weight will cause the wet soil to swallow him, Alfred jumps back in surprise, almost yelps as he falls hard on his bottom when another careful tap to the ground brings about a strong wave of magic, causing the ground to become heavily fertile and grow blades of very green grass.
He forgets to groan in pain when his bottom hits a very sturdy and fat coil of root jutting out of the soil behind him as he see everything dead around him change into lively colours of brown and green. Some red and yellow and whites and so on as his eyes follow the greenish yellow (or was it yellowish green?) essence of magic dance along with the previously-dead…things around him and make flowers sprout and bloom out of the ground along with the grass.
Suddenly he doesn't feel like he's in the scariest parts of the woods anymore but instead a garden. Overwhelmed, he was at a loss of how to react, to think over that this magic must've come from something-someone-nearby.
(A witch)
Then, he hears it.
Footsteps.
He hears them, soft and careful as they step on the grass and Alfred panics for a moment until he sees a tree sturdy enough and climbs atop it.
Not too long, the area below Alfred becomes visible due to small specks of light, like tiny glowing orbs hovering and flying. Some hovers still at certain areas while some fly over and intentionally make flowers and foliage move, as if playing with them. At first he thought they might be fireflies, but later on scratches the idea off when he tells himself that no firefly can cast light that bright. So bright it works just as fine as a torch. No, this is magic. A witch is at work.
Alfred finds himself leaning down from his hiding place, still careful not to lean his weight too much lest the branches break and reveal himself too early to whoever is responsible but enough so he can properly see and hear.
Soon enough, a figure appears.
He can't see much from his perch when the person in question was cloaked. Should he reveal himself early in the game and get this over with? He weighs out his options as his hands reach for the weapons on his person. Then he decides that maybe he'll watch for a while, maybe make a proper strategy for once and actually wait it out until at least the witching hour was over.
He knows nothing of this witch after all. Who knows what kind of surprises it has under its sleeves?
So he remains silent and watches.
Below, Alfred watches the figure crouch low. It seems to be examining something on the ground. What appears to be a woven basket appears from inside its cloak and was brought down carefully next to itself.
Alfred sees a lot of movements but he cannot see what it is doing those for. He's itching to know, damn it and he can't see—
Crack
Crap.
He leaned too hard and one of the branches gave and fell. Alfred, too preoccupied with his little spying, saw this too late and failed to stop the small thing from falling.
Hissing, he watches as it hits the witch's hooded head.
Much as he hated it, the witch stood in alarm immediately.
Carefully, he leans back in his hiding place, making sure to make no noise and to remain hidden, hoping not to get found as his hands find themselves hover over a weapon.
"Who's there?" Came the booming voice from below.
Alfred did not expect the deep voice to come from the witch he had been watching and so he took a small peek below, through the layer of leaves that helped him hide.
The witch's hood had fallen when it stood up suddenly upon feeling the twig fall on its head.
Were it not for the small glowing orbs accompanying the witch, he wouldn't have gotten a better look at it-at him.
The witch is a he, that much was obvious when he spoke. It was deep and rich and his words, despite so few had been spoken so fluidly he would've swooned were Alfred to know any better.
Alfred watches that blond head turn-looking for him, he knows-around clockwise, then stops and turns his face up to where Alfred is hiding. Bright, green eyes, the same colour of the green around them, if not glowing and reminding Alfred of soft moss resting by the rocks in the bottom of a river, meets with his. Or so he thought.
For a moment he swore he felt his heart stop, he thought the witch has found him, but fortunately, his perch from the tree was too high and the space between the leaves from where Alfred is peeking is too small from where the witch stood to actually make out his eyes peeking from above.
His relief was short-lived when the witch, eyes still locked to his (or so he thinks), speaks again. "I know you're in there. I can feel your presence."
Alfred gulps, his pistol now out of its holster and his finger already resting on the safe, just waiting for the right moment to start his offence if this goes not according to what he had planned moments prior.
"Show yourself, come on." The witch says, his voice now has surprisingly dropped its hostile tone and is now speaking lowly, as if calling for a missing pet.
His finger was already pressing on his trigger, aware that it will make a sound that will alert the witch that whoever his intruder is, it definitely is a hunter when a glowing orb, similar to those Alfred is seeing that accompanies the witch appears from his shoulder.
He paused, his hand on his pistol gripping the weapon hard, hand off the trigger, feeling quite not right.
Then the feeling is gone when the glowing orb makes itself known to the witch and a smile blooms from that frowning face it takes Alfred off guard once again.
"There you are." He hears him say, fondness evident in his voice as his smile softens.
He lowers his gun and slowly slips it back to his holster as he watches the witch cup his hands and let the orb hover over them, as if letting the witch hold it.
"Silly thing, look what you've done. Were it any bigger I could've got one hell of a bump." He coos to the thing.
"Why don't you make yourself useful and help me get the flowers I need, hm?"
Then the orb flies away, far from the witch, from where Alfred was and the witch does nothing but pull his hood up and grab his basket. Then he's gone, off to follow where the orb has gone, the rest of the orbs following the witch, and Alfred finds himself in the dark and alone again.
He notices that he's back in the dark and damp part of the woods.
E/N:We all know what witching time is right?
Back when I was twelve I did crazy research on demons and one of my sources says is that the witching hour occurs around 3:00 am because that was the time of jesus' death and so the demons rejoiced or something. Tho some also say that demons are active during 12, 6, 9, and 3 (and if you try to connect these numbers on the clock it forms a cross...which is actually the sign of the devil in some religion because it symbolizes the thing where jesus, the son of god was killed in...yea
I just thought that the "witching hour" is a fitting thingy for witches where they'll get stronger or smething. Kind of like water benders during full moons. That kind of stuff. Haha
(I had to close my windows while I typed these E/N down bc its like 1 in the morning now and I don't wanna see a scary face peering at me from the window. I don't want to see an elemental looking at me from the window. Like have you seen what they look like? no offense but they're really scary /shudders)