Waning and Weatherwaxed

by Clayton Overstreet 2

Lily is trying to come back and Genua's new swamp witch so does not want the competition.

Everyone says they want a fairy tale wedding, btu when I show up and curse their first born, suddenly I'm a jerk?

-Internet Meme

Note: Rather than put asterisks (*) and footnotes I will use parentheses for side notes.

Waning and Weatherwaxed

By, Clayton Overstreet

She was done running. At least in a random direction. It had been… a while. She remembered Death telling her to figure out which was "the real one" and she did not think he would lie, but after unknown years she had stopped just guessing. It was probably one of those life lessons her sister was so good at.

Still she had found other ways. She just had to listen. People called. It was in many ways like being a THING from the Dungeon Dimensions. Actually she was not certain that was not where she was. Like most magic workers she had avoided them. It was not exactly as if such THINGS were bad, but they tended to be shaped in reality by people's thoughts. Honestly many THINGS had come through that were harmless or good, but it was like how prisons contained white collar criminals as well as mass murderers, but everyone knew who got the attention.

Elves and demons were similar, possibly from similar origins. Only they tended to be a little more solid in the real world and in their own they brought forth what "real" beings thought they wanted, be it dreams or torment or both. Basically the universe was complicated. As were people.

For example it had, since her defeat, become quite popular for people to stand by mirrors and call out her name. Well they did not use Lilith Weatherwax. "Bloody Lily" seemed to have been the one making the rounds. Stories said if you called her name eight times in a mirror she would appear and maybe try to take over your body.

Stories like that are not always wrong.

She was still trapped. It was only little pieces of her that could escape. Even then only for a few moments while they stood in front of a mirror,. But she was getting stronger and she was able to work on her plan. A little magic here and there. A story told to friends.

Stories. Always her best power. And the best part was, stories needed three parts. A beginning a middle and an end. Her sister had always been good at changing the story and finding new endings. Fortunately Lily's last story had never ended. She, the so called villain, of the piece had not died and her body was never found. Ella, that ungrateful wretch, had never gotten married. Esme herself had been dragged away unconscious before heading back home. And her story, at least, had come to an end. She even had a successor to take her place which was one guaranteed way for Death's scythe to find its mark. The world only had so many holes for certain kinds of people and once someone was gone and then someone else took their place, they were well and truly dead. Give or take the occasional visit to impart some last bit of wisdom or tweak some unfinished business.

Esme was over.

Lily still had something to do. And it might be a road back to the land of the living. She had left a story unfinished. No tragedy. No happily ever after. And as anyone who had heard of magical spinning wheels knew, such stories could wait patiently to end, possibly for centuries. For everyone who slew a dragon they had to ride past dozens of scorched and eaten bodies. For every prince who rescued the princess from the castle, there were more failures. Most vampire hunters had to fight through an army of previous incumbents who had their blood sucked and were enslaved to the master vampire's will.
So long as Lily's story had an open end she had a chance to ride the threads of fate back. She just needed an idea. The pieces were in place. Her queen had been lost, but her pawn had made it to the other side and there was room to move the pieces around. An open space.

888

Every witch knows you are not supposed to get between two mirrors.

They know this because every witch tries it, at least once. And sometimes you have no choice. There was power there, but also price.

Margo Luna Wane, a dark skinned young woman of about eighteen, a little fat and well endowed bosom despite not being nearly old enough normally to have a "bosom", sat on the boat of Genua's previous Swamp Witch. Mrs. Gagol or some such. The mistress of the former baron, Saturday. Supposedly a mistress of all sorts of swamp magic, though sadly rumors abounded that she had been beaten by a pair of sisters, one good and one evil, from up in the mountains. They said the battle drained her and yet she still got everything she wanted. The whole thing left the old witch without any bile or dreams to keep going. So one day the swamp claimed her and people just saw her empty boat drifting.

Up until Margo took it. That was the thing about being a swamp witch. There was no apprentice system, unless you counted maybe learning to be a cook. Girls didn't go do chores for other witches and help out in their communities. They did not go to the Unseen Academy in the big city.

Swamp witches could be male or female. They could be just about anyone. Because you did not really choose to be a swamp witch. The swamp chose. It had a witch. Or rather a hole where a witch belonged. And sometimes there was a witch and sometimes… though never for long… there was a place a witch should be. And when you were called you stepped into that hole and suddenly you were the swamp witch. No stones beneath your feet, not in the swamp. No books. Maybe a boat or a shack full of stuff that either belonged to the old witch or, and this was a creepy reality, just turned up on its own and some hungry crocodiles waiting to make sure you either picked it up right quick or a new opening for a new better witch could open up like a SNAP!

Margo liked being the witch. She had been a serving girl, assistant to the cook at a large house. Poorly treated. In her opinion. Or at least not treated well enough. Sure if she was just given the chance she'd be a better cook than the old piece of baggage she worked for. They had fought. The cook said something about ungrateful girls who should see what it's like to try not having steady work. Margo had said something about how she could get work anywhere.

After two hungry days she had been ready to admit that maybe the cook had a point and seriously considered apologizing.

Until she found the boat. Or it found her. Some said it floated around. Possibly duck feet under the water if you dared swim down there to find out among catfish bigger than sharks that ate gators for breakfast and leeches that could suck you dry in half a minute. (Pretty slow compared to some of the mosquito swarms above the water.) Others that it had been knocked loose by a storm. Just drifting by when she was watching the moon on a dock, just out of reach of the various alligators down below. She had been so startled she had missed the alligator that had come up on the dock behind her until it was almost too late. Someone had yelled a warning and she jumped. Half a dozen people saw her in her panic jump down and then run across the backs of the gators until she was on the boat and then, well there was nothing to steer with and a lot of agitated reptiles following her.

There had been some food. The sort that doesn't go bad for years. Mostly because it made dwarf bread look like gourmet cooking. The sort of thing that got a ship where it was going because gods damn it if we don't hit port soon we'll have to actually eat that stuff. Thankfully a few cooking tricks and the necessity of starving on a boat surrounded by teeth and she made do. She was swamp folk. You could make gumbo out of anything, her granny had said and there were a few lean years when the tax men disappeared that the old lady may have put that to the test, though the family had not actually ever asked. Margo still had that ring she found in her serving.

Unfortunately a voodoo queen's house boat, well a voodoo princess, demands a price of any gifts and well, somehow she just knew she was the new witch. What was more everyone else seemed to know it too. Six people seeing something happening in the swamp was the same as everyone seeing it. By the time she found an abandoned boat (one with a large bite out of the side) that happened to have a pole she could use to get back to shore she was the witch. The boat moved where she willed it and the pole was more a staff than a means of transportation. A dead man's swamp pole pulled from the bayou? Powerful hoodoo there. And it came natural. Like every witch the swamp had ever had left their magic and their knowledge behind in the murky depths for anyone who dared reach for it.

It was that or back to the kitchen. To apologize.

Life on the boat it was.

People came and asked her things and somehow she said the right things. She would cook things up in an old pot she found and people would come back with gifts thanking her for her potions. It was good.

There was a price though. She got a note from her old boss.

Dear Ungrateful Brat,

Seems you got that new job after all. Congratulations. Well just so you know, I knew the old swamp harridan back when she was still around and she told me something once. The swamp gives and the swamp takes. It does not ask. If you are going to be the swamp witch you have to be the swamp witch. For good or bad. You either give the swamp its witch or it will take you and find another.

Best of luck.

Margo was sue she knew more than the old cook, but sometimes the old lady came up with something, one or two tidbits, Margo had not known and this felt like a true thing. She was not allowed to blow off somebody who needed her by taking the boat into the swamp for a week long vacation. If she did she was pretty sure the boat would come back, but she would not.

Also she kept getting this weird tingling that told her she needed to do a few big things. The old witch had lost and won. She had run out of something to do with the swamp's power. A goal. A swamp witch needed a decent obsession. Revenge. A big spell nobody else had tried. Summoning an army of demons and releasing them on the populace. Scaring off people who build something on top of pirate treasure.

The swamp was a powerful thing and it would become the witch, hollowing her out like a zombie until her body was just a puppet and her spirit was just another one in the swamp, glowing like fox fire. That was the ultimate end for them all. Sort of a goal in itself. If someone wanted to survive as long as possible the focus of obsession, the kind of crazy that kept someone with broken legs crawling through the desert to get back at the guy who broke them. Through that kind of focus combined with the power of the swamp a witch could live for centuries. And they did things other wizards and witches balked at. Raising the dead as servants. Transforming people. Cannibalism. Creating gods. In some of the darkest parts of the swamp they said THINGS from OUTSIDE dwelled. Crawling into the swamp when they could not be anywhere else. One needed a special kind of crazy to do things that would drive you insane to try otherwise.

Without it, well in a swamp even the strongest trees and rocks eventually turned to muck. Rotted and fed the next generation. The swamp was the muck. The peat bogs where time stood still and things a thousand years old could be pulled from inside. The bottoms of long rivers. Quicksand. Stagnant pools. Gases from rotting scum that could suffocate or explode. Bones and rock and trees all melted into brown gunk all the way down. Death. Ultimately bringing life up above before claiming it again. Everything living in a swamp was just passing through. Anything that stayed in one place would be dragged down and join the muck. You could live above a swamp; you could survive being in it for a time, but not under it.

Margo was in a bit of a grace period, but she needed to find the strength to keep walking or the swamp would claim her too. Like any fool walking through it who stopped and found their feet sucked into place, often having to abandon a shoe to escape. SHHHHLOOOOOP! If the swamp had a bottom you were generally long dead before you sank that far. You did not get trolls or golems in the swamp, at least not up top. That was one reason zombies were so popular among swamp witches: they could float. If the muck ever dried out completely you would be left with dust, fine and silvery, quite similar to what was described by some people who had close brushes with the land of Death, beyond the door. Stories said Tiffany Aching could say for sure.

Tonight Margo was sitting on her boat contemplating the swamp around her. She never did find the witch's shack. Some said it grew chicken legs and walked off. They said sometimes if you went out hunting you might see it ducking between the trees. Some of the rueful-garou, swamp werewolves driven out by their "pure blood" relatives because they could not change fully between human, wolf, and man-wolf shapes as well (there had been an influx of fresh blood to the clan thanks to Lily having transformed a local wolf into something partly human. The beast had hung around for a while and managed to breed with the local wolf and canine communities and the garou were only too happy to bring them in), claimed they sometimes found eggs, large even by dragon size.

What she really wanted to do was be the best. Only Lilith Weatherwax the evil fairy godmother and Esmeralda "Granny" Weatherwax were both dead. Other witches might have loopholes but the swamp was black and white. The entire point of the place was that it never changed. You won or you lost and the old witch had lost to both of those foreign hags. Sure she got what she wanted and her daughter was not queen or Baroness or whatever you wanted to call it, but that was not winning, it was charity. All her plans to get it had failed.

It was a black eye the swamp would never live down.

She looked out over the nearly glass smooth water and felt a sudden tingle. Looking down she saw that her boat was in the perfect circle of the moon above. The moon… the moon… why was that important? And even as she asked the question she knew. From deep under the muck the answer came like gas filled bubbles.

The moon was a mirror. It reflected the light of the sun. The water was also a mirror. Smooth. Unrippled at the moment. The swamp itself was like a huge living shamble with vines instead of string. Circling the water like a spider's web. A perfect image of the sky above. Look down and it felt like you were falling between the stars with nowhere to go in any direction. She saw herself, wearing a brown dress a slightly lighter shade than her own skin, showing enough of her breasts that mothers would warn children against copying her, though not too loudly. On her head instead of a pointy had she had grown out her hair into a waterfall of dreadlocks braided with bits of bone and animal skulls and feathers. Not dissimilar from the vines of the swamp where you could sometimes still find even a human skeleton, if you dug deep enough. She had once which explained that small finger bone behind her left ear. Looking down she felt like she could fall into the sky and never come down if she dared step off the boat.

Only as she looked she saw something. Margo leaned over the edge of the flat bottomed boat and stared. It was not in the sky. It was in the reflection between the moon and the water. Where two mirrors overlapped. There in the void… a figure in white. A woman covered in scars with hollow eyes and sunken cheeks and gripping a magic wand.

"Was that—?"

There was barely a shimmer in the water. She backed up just as a large crocodile rose out of the water like a totem pole and its jaws closed on the air where her head had been. The swamp never forgets what it is, even if you do.

Anyone else would have questions what she saw. Mistaken a rippling reflected star for a dress, a face, or mistaken something floating in the water. A witch knew what she was and what she sensed. Maybe the Weatherwax sisters were not completely gone after all and the swamp held on to one final chance.

A single thread of an unfinished story.

Stories That had been the true power of those two witches. Lily fed them. Granny changed them. But the thing was that an established story always had the same beginning and the same end. It was just the paths between those two points that varied. The journey. If people never finished the trip, technically it was still gong on.

"I need to finish the story or she'll be here forever." In the swamp death was never the end. People disappeared into the bayou. The stories always claimed they could crawl out again. Ghosts. Zombies. Or just living out there in the swamp. It's where bandits and pirates went to hide and safeguard their treasure. As someone who had wandered into the swamp herself, not to mention finding a few unlikely things, Margo was not about to deny any of the tales. It was not good for business regardless of how true the stories were and the main reason a swamp attracted a swamp witch was to keep people, humans in particular, out of the swamp. Few other creatures drained marshland. To the swamp places like Ankh-Morpork were just as terrifying as zombies were to humans and for pretty much the same reasons.

Still, this situation also presented some potential for the young witch. Rocking in a chair made from the bow of an actual pirate ship she tapped the pole she was holding. It was old and waved to keep out the water, from bees in the swamp. Tipped with lead at both ends. Not exactly a wizard's staff, but there were other ways to make wood magical than carving up sapient pear wood.

She knew where she needed to go. To the castle. There were plenty of ways for a story to go, but Lily Weatherwax famously liked to work with royalty. Like the old mad witch Black Aliss. Lily had not been very original. That was part of her power. The same reason crocodiles had not changed since the dawn of time. The old stories, unchanged and repeated, were powerful and big and perfectly suited for her purposes. Hardest to change. That was why the unfinished tale was still open ended.

Princesses. Orphans. Arranged marriage at a party. A girl gets magically taken from a life of poverty to being queen of all she surveys. That was a big old tale and one people liked believing in.

The best way to fight it was to work with it. Like the fairy godmother that changed a death curse to a sleeping spell. Small but significant changes. A bear would ignore a flea bite or be unable to do anything about it, but would crush a wolf. Subtlety. But again if she was going to do this she had to take a page from the other two witches and even Mrs. Gogol. The center of the story, the eye of the storm; that was where she had to work from. Not just hide around in the swamp. It was dangerous and curtail her power, but it was the only way.

Absently she tapped the boat with her staff. "Take me to the docks." The boat suddenly changed direction in the water and sped up. She smiled. Let other witches have their broomsticks or magic carpets. What good were they in the swamp? Ha!

888

Ella Saturday sat on her throne as Duchess/Baroness of Genua (nobody was exactly sure of her title do they gave her both and had been pushing for Queen, which she flatly refused. It smacked a bit too much of princesses to her and after years of Lily's rants on such things she was definitely not accepting such titles in her family) and fumed. The kingdom was cursed, she was sure of it. And so were the other nobles.

"We're diluting the gene pool," Lord Abigail said huffily. "Every time we throw a ball someone shows up in some spectacular outfit, catches everyone's attention, and our sons and daughters fall for them immediately and finds that they're some wretched peasant." He huffed. "No offenses to you, your grace, but technically you are the daughter of royalty and well blood will out. We've got so many blasted peasants in the monarchy they're eating away at the coffers helping the poor. Pretty soon we'll have to double taxes just to cover that and we won't have the money to pay for roads or a standing army."

"And they're not all terribly nice," Lady Josephine said. "My stepdaughter went a bit head happy if you know what I mean. I understood when she beheaded her abusive stepfather and stepbrothers, but she was not well treated by most of her home town. I had to step in and order the executioner to take a much needed vacation when she got into double digits."

"Mine wasn't even that abused," Count Humphrey said. "The girl thinks it's abusive if you ask her to pick a leaf from her own hair. So naturally her stepmother, a rather soft spoken woman, making her clear her own room was to her a terrible monster and we've had to assign at least three maids and a butler just to follow her about lest she have to open a bloody door."

"Your mother was the same way," his wife said.

"Well yes, but I was ten when she died. I didn't have to put up with it. Also it was awfully convenient the way that all her servants claimed she just fell down the stairs like that…"

Baron Skinflint sniffed. "By Jove, you can hardly complain. The beautiful lady who married my son turned out to be a rather confused young man. Now he no doubt looked gorgeous in that dress and I've never been one to balk at the odd relationship between men… I could tell you stories of my schoolboy days and I had a pair of uncles married… but Geoffrey and Simon are both adamant that neither of them has ever felt that way about another man before, they just make eye contact and felt… magic. I had a wizard take a peep and he says it's definitely a powerful love spell, but it's practically impossible to break."

"If this keeps up all the tourists will go to Quirm rather than risk blowing through town and ending up married to some random noble with a shoe fetish."

"Don't badmouth my daughter," the duchess snapped.

Ella nodded. Magic was hard to detect sometimes and people rarely complained when they thought they were happily in love. But the coincidences were piling up. "It's that blasted 'happily ever after' law of stories. It's what Lilith wanted when she enchanted me. Even with a fairy godmother's want unless you're a sourcerer or a god spells tend to wear out pretty quickly. Or they require recharging. But if you get the happily ever after you can make a kingdom have perfect weather and luck for generations. Even curses. It's where vampires and werewolves came from originally. A witch can turn someone into a frog, but they're a frog. If they're very good they can let them switch back and forth, even transfer it, but usually they revert to the original or get stuck in the other if they do not change often enough. It takes a lot more to turn someone into a frog and still leave them able to talk and think and it usually makes them practically immortal until the spell ends." Frogs got eaten all the time. It rarely made it into the storybook but a lot of frog-princes had unfortunate and traumatizing trips through a heron's intestinal tract. "Stories have a lot of power behind them. Did your wizard say what we could do about it?"

"He's not an expert on story magic. Frankly nobody in the kingdom is. Lady Weatherwax did not like… competition." To say the least. Only recently had the local population of wizards and witches begun to replenish and most of them worked and lived near the docks incase they had to leave in a hurry. There had been a brief spat of incidents involving witches and some demonic thing called the Cunning Man that had completely bypassed Genua a few years earlier because they had so few in residence.

A jester stepped forward and cleared his throat. The castle had ten of them for all the various festivals and parades that Genua had year round. A tradition as well as a great way to attract tourists. They had gotten rich mostly because drunken pirates threw gold around like pennies. Cohen the barbarian purportedly once dropped the contents of some rather well laden ships on the very spot where the resulting royalty had built the castle Ella now called home. "Actually ma'am, I was waiting to inform you, I was contacted by the new swamp witch."

"There's a new swamp witch? Why wasn't I told?"

"Well your grace, she's rather young and people were waiting to see if she managed to hold on to the job. Also well, if she did nobody wanted to go blabbing things she might not like."

As someone who had gotten her throne as a teenager and was now still shy of thirty when most of the other nobles were considerably older Ella could hardly argue with that logic. "What did her letter say?"

"Wasn't a letter," he said, bells jingling on his silver and purple checked costume. "T'was a dead crow, all feathers and bones. Flew in me window and spoke before falling to bits." Around the room people perked up. That was some find swamp witchery. "She says the godmother's coming back and if you want her help to stop it she'll be in town this Friday to discuss matters with Lady Ella."

Ella hesitated. She was not terribly happy with magic users in general. The kind that liked arranging matters for other people especially. Oh sure granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlic, later a queen herself through Granny's machinations, had rescued her, but Ella was well aware she had been a pawn on both sides and her becoming the ruler of Genua had been a side product of a fight between the two sisters and the last swamp witch, who everybody knew was actually her mother whose plan had also been to put Ella in the throne.

Still whatever you had to say Ella hated, absolutely hated Lily Weatherwax and ignoring the problem and hoping it would solve itself. Ella would have been basically a princess and gotten on the throne anyway. But Lily had fed her to a story so she spent her youth as a slave and prisoner fully aware of what was happening. It was scarring to say the least. Why just the month before as news that orcs, as well as goblins, had been declared people by international statute, one of her governors had made comments about how "well sure we enslaved, abused, and basically treated them like garbage, but in the long run it did them good. Goblins are fantastic musicians and run the clocks and orcs well I hear tell they're clever buggers and great at sports. Did 'em good all that adversity. No need to mention all the bad old days in the school books, we can just write that bit out and not bother the kiddies with the historical details." Ella had the man's head cut off and his supporters sold into indentured servitude. She was by and large a good ruler and less a tyrant than most, but implying that enforced slavery of the innocent was in any way beneficial to those poor souls was a bit of a sore spot. It also indicated a level of stupidity that everyone was definitely better off without.

She had been afraid of this, but if it happened "naturally: she had not seen what she could do. Stories repeated themselves all the time. If it happened it happened. Crocodiles ate people. However the idea of Lily coming back and doing it was more like keeping the big lizards in a pit and throwing them any poor soul that crossed her path rather than the natural result of wandering around the bayou of your own free will. In addition while a lot of the nobility's complaints about this rash of peasants running off with their balls, parties, masquerades, and the like were largely just whining, they did have a few valid points. Peasants could of course rise, but a chessboard with nothing but kings and queens made for a very poor game. If this kept up they might as well switch to democracy. Honestly ordinary people thinking they could run a country? It might seem like a grand idea until you met the average person. Ella knew plenty of ordinary people and liked them, but suddenly handing them unlimited control of other people's lives was a horrible idea. The occasional suggestion or influx of new blood was okay.

Nobility, or at least the wealthy, were a minority for a reason. They could be trained up, prove themselves by holding on to their money and property for a few generations, and for the most part were outnumbered. Most were bright enough to know it, which was why slavery was out and wages (poor as some might be) took its place. Too many mistakes human rights violations and one bloody night with an ax or other farm tools or a guillotine, and you had yourself a new more reasonable set by morning. A government run by everybody was like a hydra, cut off one head and two more just like it grew back. Everyone thought they could rule the world, but all one had to do was take a quick look around any crowded room an try picturing any of those other people in charge and suddenly the cascading flaws in democracy became clear.

It also did not work great the other way. Ella had a fairy easy time integrating into royal life. Magic. Witches. Overthrowing Lily. Plus the previous regime had made sure people just did what they were told or died. Enforced smiling for example. However the average person thrown into royal life had a hard time of it. A whole different society and rules they never grew up with and usually they were not in charge. An older generation with specific expectations, not to mention the ability to behead any wives who did not go along with their orders had made a lot of these poor souls trapped in the story rather miserable too. In the stories a once in a while thing meant they got away with it because of the magic and all, but this was getting almost common place.

"Send out my carriage to bring her here at her earlier convenience."

"Your ladyship, you should order her to attend you. You are the ruler of this land after all."

"Lord Abigail, if you want to go up to a swamp witch we've never met and demand she attend me to her face, please, feel free," Ella said, raising an eyebrow. "I believe it worked out well for the last person who tried it. I hear the pie the second to last witch made of him was delicious."

"Uh, sorry your majesty, I would not dream of criticizing how you handle something like this." Yes, the occasional execution really did keep everyone in line.

About an hour later they heard the horn to the carriage herald blowing and the nobles gathered around the window. Ella had been uncertain about the herald at first, but it really did help letting everyone on the street know when someone important was approaching. The tradition had started centuries ago when an emperor had been tricked into running around naked. The trend had caught on and the herald had been employed so mouthy kids who had anything to say about their naked emperor and any other nude nobility could be quickly removed from the area by their parents.

Then mosquito season started and clothes quickly came back in style but the herald tradition managed to hang on.

They saw the approaching carriage. It was easy to make out because as it passed things got darker as if a cloud passed in front of the sun and people's plants in their windows began to grow noticeably. In the distance they could already see them choking up walls and streets. There was a reason Genua was a fecund land. Also why swamp witches usually stayed in the swamp. They had little choice and if they left the swamp would follow them up to a point. There was a smell too. Swamp ass. Not pretty even if nobody dared actually mention it.

Thankfully a few years ruled by a witch followed by a teenage ruler had well trained the court not to judge someone for their age and a few foibles. Not out loud anyway. By the time Margo got to the throne room the herald had announced "Margo the Swamp Witch of Genua" and everyone had well practiced smiles.

"Welcome Margo, it is a pleasure to meet the new swamp witch."

Pretending she believed her Margo curtsied. "Your majesty. I come with terrible news and visions of doom."

Ella sighed. "Of course you do."

"Lily Weatherwax is coming back. Her final story had no ending."

'But how," Duchess Reinbeck asked. 'She was dead."

"Death is merely another beginning," Margo said, hoping it sounded wise and ominous.

Ella said, "It's true. The last baron…" She could rarely describe her biological parents as such. "…was dead before the story began, but he still played a part. The last thing I need is for people to be handling all of this a hundred years down the road."

"People?" The witch said. "Not your descendants?"

"Well, uh, yes. Admittedly the nobility of Genua is all… relative so to speak. A bit of inbreeding here and there." Around her various people shuffled their feet and tried to hide oversized ears, crossed eyes, extra fingers, or bunny teeth. Ella was the best looking of the lot. "As for me I'm afraid… well let's just say I won't be having any blood heirs."

Oh. There were a few phrases for that. Amazonian. Vacationing in the south of Quirm (you were supposed to wiggle your eyebrows when you said it and people often brought up the famous Quirm College for Young Ladies and several other all girl schools, the physical education teachers in particular). Sniffing tulips. Stroking the vermin. Eating fuchsia oysters. Floating the pink boat. Dwarves said "Heading up the shaft" or "opening the mine blockage" and trolls talked about "sparking the flint" or "setting off the volcano".

It was not generally considered too large of a deal on the Disc. Dwarves it was well known were often unable to tell their gender on sight and even when they finally got unclothed might be unwilling to admit they were actually female. Some might not even know the difference, the topic being that taboo. These days it was different, for many including the current Queen of the dwarves. Trolls were similar, though for them it was not so much a question as they rarely cared. Most of them would look for male-female couplings, but when a bigger troll decided they wanted a smaller troll they usually just went for it and if the other troll could not stop them, well that was that. Nobody was exactly sure how the feegles handled it, since apparently one male out of a hundred or so loved a female and the others were left to themselves, but who would dare risk speculating out loud?

Mostly if someone had a problem with a relationships it was because they went interspecies rather than gender and even that was more of a personal preference. Humans were well known for at least attempting to sleep with anything, but trolls and dwarves for example had a long standing rivalry. Also only one of them was actually organic while the other's bodily fluids were mostly magma, but since there was a taboo against the two species getting together you generally had to believe it had happened a time or two as well. The gods alone knew about trolls and gargoyles or trolls and anatomically correct golems. As for the other biological species if you could all talk it was considered a toss up (and there were rumors of certain streets where that was not necessarily a requirement and they much preferred their partners not being able to speak and tell what happened). Dwarves and humans for example were well known to uh, get along in that regard. And of course some gods and demons would date anything mortal. As for the dead… vampires were considered pretty sexy and Margo tried not to think what her mother did wither father for all those years in the swamp even if by all reports he had b een remarkably well preserved and buff for a zombie.

For everyone else, it was a complicated issue, but mostly people had far, far better reasons to hate each other than who they were sleeping with. Even Nuggan, before that whiner of a god had vanished entirely, had never gotten around to complaining about that particular subject. As for the gods' priests they were more concerned about virginity, which they usually defined as not counting when it was two same-sex or transgender people if only because virgins were hard enough to find without worrying if two kids had fiddled around in the showers. Plus the gods tended to just smite followers who did anything they did not like, so it was assumed that if you had not been fried by lightning they were fine with the divine.

That had actually been a rather big zone of contention among the royals of Genua the last few years. Not for itself, but because of the whole heir thing. Quite a few had wanted to marry their sons off to Ella and had been pushing it heavily. With thirty approaching she was going from stubborn to old maid rather quickly. Rumor had taken care of the rest and now everyone was less focused on who would marry the baroness and who would succeed her. Some cousin, nephew, niece, or other by-blow. Ella was fairy certain she was still alive because Genuan family trees were incredibly complicated. Not just from inbreeding, but sleeping with relatives, multiple spouses, mistresses, and masquerade balls where people in masks… well for example Ella knew of triplets who were the daughters of a local noble lady who had been born with cat ears, a tail, and claws. With Lily around animal-people were not hard to come by, Ella herself having lived with a pair of snake-woman as her "sisters", but it had been a bit of a scandal since there was no way the lady's actual husband could be the father. Several others had rather small children who bore a striking resemblance to the dwarf adventurer Casanunda, whose beardless face was well known among the nobility and the peasantry, though the latter was from wanted posters and rewards offered by angry husbands, ostensibly for his low way robberies.

"We recently engaged a well known vampire from Ankh-Morpork called Dragon King of Arms to sort out the details. He came highly recommended, albeit after being basically forced out of his old life by a lot of angry city guards," Lord Abigail said.

"And he's agreed to only turn his findings over to me," Ella added. "Just incase the actual heir or any of their other close relatives we discover gets any funny ideas about hurrying things along. Once that gets started it's like toppling dominos." The other high born types in the room shared a look and a shrug, not denying it. Baron Saturday had very few relatives and one living heir, a baby, with a mistress for a reason. A very blood soaked reason.

People (re: the survivors) had seriously respected that before Lily showed up.

Margo nodded tapping her fingers on the long pole she carried. It was tipped with a human-ish skull; light green and glowing slightly from phosphorescent algae that had soaked into the half rotten bone over the years. Her dreadlocks each tipped with a different small animal skull including one that may have been a feegle, danced around her head like the snakes of a gorgon. "I can respect that. I'm still a bit young and the dating options in the bayou are limited, but I like men and women myself. No judgment on that."

Ella frowned, not terribly happy that the way she said it implied some sort of doomsday judgment on other things, but she let it pass. They had more immediate problems. "Can you stop Lily from reemerging?"

She pursed her lips. "Potentially. I'd need help though and we'll need to finish her story. It never had an ending. It's trying to force others into the slot, but ultimately lesser monarchs won't do the job. It's like trying to plug cats into a hole meant for a tiger. Alley cats or show cat, it doesn't make a difference."

"What are you saying?"

"Your grace, you gotta get married," Margo said. Ella flinched and the young witch held up her hand. "Don't worry, the story doesn't care who to. I did a little research…" She had found a local librarian and bullied her into doing research. "Genua's really open about alternative lifestyles. We're mostly pirate stock. We've had two queens, three kings, harems, and the gods know what else. We've had revolutions where we killed all the royals and replaced them with revolutionaries. Then pirate queens and kings. Then roving bands of travelers. Once we were rules by a crocodile that also had a harem of women… don't ask… and technically there's a noble dragon that was king of Ankh-Morpork living deep in the swamp. I think we can work with you on this, but the story isn't going to end until the proper princess gets married.

"You're the hole in a sink," she explained. "Until something the proper size fills it, until you get happily ever after, the story will just suck everything else in. And if you were to die first, either you'll be trapped for eternity in a twisted limbo or it will just keep happening forever. I'm new at this so it's a toss up which way it could go. But it's either meeting a lot of people at a party, or having some random person slay a monster and marrying them."

"I… understand. I started young too. Really got into the party scene, drugs, sex, and a lot of late nights I really don't remember before I realized I had to also buckle down and rule the kingdom. Assassination attempts really drive home the need for a certain level of responsibility. Thank the gods Genua's a party town and my main public job is lading parades and keeping the other nobles in line." She made her fingers into a steeple and pursed her lips. "You aren't actually helping me out of the goodness of your heart, are you? You want something."

Margo shrugged. "Well to be honest Lily coming back isn't going to be good for anyone. I'm well aware of her near constant attempts to murder the old swamp witch. Also stealing her child, murdering her lover, and enslaving the whole kingdom into forced happiness."

Ella frowned. "I know. And the worst part is if she had left me alone I'd have been the rightful heir anyway. It's not like I was some poor village girl… uh no offense."

The witch shrugged. "You're not wrong. But yes it does seem rather pointless that she picked you. Only I suppose she wanted the rightful heir to double down on the end of the story and lock in her power. It seems to have been enough that it's bringing her back to finish the job. But yes, I'm helping for my own reasons."

Ella looked at the witch over her fingers. Then she glanced around at her loyal guards and all the other nobles. Everyone had their own reasons for doing things and eventually they were going to cause her trouble. More than once she had considered abandoning the whole thing, but truthfully life was so much easier to deal with when you were rich and had guards.

Other rulers had the same issues. The vampire lord of Dontgonearthe Castle was, justifiably, killed on a regular basis. Queen Magrat had to fight vampires and elves. The dwarf king had been betrayed by his more psychotic grags. Lord Vetinari was the latest in a long line of assassinated rulers and had been on the receiving end of complicated plots and murder attempts. The leader witches didn't have from Granny Weatherwax to that new girl Tiffany had all kinds of problems.

Sleeping in a giant bed and being fed gourmet food and no longer having to do chores definitely took the edge off. "Fine, we'll just work together on this. I live in a giant castle. I can pick my own wife and if we don't click I have a hundred bedrooms. We can probably live here and never even see each other." She pursed her lips. "Do I have to just get a wife? Traditionally Genuan nobles have at least a couple of mistresses too." The women usually made a schedule. Some would go out with their "husband" while others would stay home or go to lunch together. If the wife died one would become the new wife. The first wife would be the proper queen type while the others would be younger or better looking or more wild. "I don't want to force someone to marry someone they just met though."

"Works for me," Margo said, not particularly interested in Ella's social life. "It works though. You just step into the Duc's role and you as the pretty princess and we send out invitations to all the eligible ladies in the kingdom and the surrounding lands. You can meet them all; we'll have a parade, and make a festival of it. Then you pick a bride and a couple of runner's up. There are plenty of girls out there who will happily marry a lady of the nobility or be her concubine." When she was a kitchen drudge and assistant cook Margo would have jumped at the chance.

Actually she considered it now, but dismissed the idea. She had a pretty sweet gig already and sharing power with a wife, particularly one as commanding as Ella did not fit in with her plans. Let alone being a kept woman. She also knew ruling a kingdom even as a second banananana was a huge pain in the butt. Swamp witches preferred being unquestionably in charge. A lot of people, romance authors mostly, thought that to be happy someone had to find their soul mate, a true equal to walk with them hand and hand through life. But honestly unquestioned abject servitude from someone whose physical appearance was exactly what she wanted and who did not bore her with their own whiny opinions and desires living only to bring her joy was much more attractive.

That reminded her, "Uh, you can handle the official part of the plan. I have dark and mysterious things to do behind the scenes. Playing with the laws of physics, altering destiny, and calling on twisted forces beyond the ken of mortal man that could drive me mad. So until the party I just need to poke around Lily's old lair and have free run of the kingdom. Is that alright with you?"

"Sure," Ella said with a shrug. "Just try not to kill anyone."

"No promises, but I will try to ensure they deserve it," she said.

"Good enough." She turned to the others. "I suppose we should start planning a party." They all smiled. Genuan royalty was all about parties. Aside from trading the whole kingdom threw parades and events. They lived on money from people who came to enjoy them similar to how the Ankh-Morpork people lived by selling visitors useless garbage and new inventions and also robbing them. "You know marrying someone who is superficially attractive and then getting to know her seems like a really good idea. I can have great lust with a gorgeous woman or four and if we don't get along we'll just live our own lives."

"That's how I do it with my wife," Lord Abigail said. "I believe she raises dogs or grows flowers or something."

"I see my own children at dinner once a week," the duchess said. "Otherwise they have their own lives along with tutors and nannies. Then when they turn eighteen I arrange a party and marry them off. It's traditional."

The baron said, "Actually it makes sense. We're supposed to be rulers. If we're distracted we make mistakes. That's why we have servants to do our laundry, cook our food, and clean up our homes. If you are making decisions that can lead to war dealing with mundane problems and basic needs can be very distracting. If you think about it the Tsortian war was started due to a king who was not sexually satisfied so he went after the most beautiful woman in the land."

"It's why monks live lives of austerity," the count added. "Having everything you want and having and wanting nothing are both ways to clear one's mind so you can focus on the important things." The others all nodded and mumbled agreement.

"So you can have nothing or have everything and it amounts to the same thing," Ella said. "How Zen…" She paused and looked around. "Where did the swamp witch go?"

888

Margo stood on Lilith's old rooms. She had already checked out the Duc's old quarters. It was empty and drained, a small frog pond once, a pool stained with dried out pond scum. The Duc's and Lilith's areas of the castle were mostly closed off. Not locked, just avoided by staff and residents. Technically aside from the staff Ella was the only actual resident of the castle and she took a sort of perverse pleasure in not having Lilith's areas cleaned. Just left as it was.

Lilith's room for example. A large bed and all the trimmings now covered in dust. Mostly just furnishings until she found a large room where the floor was scattered with shards of mirrored glass. Empty mirror frames standing in a circle. More glass seemed to be scattered around than could fit in those frames. Like the reflections had exploded out of the mirrors first and then the actual mirrors had gone. Part of the floor had a woman's shape in the sparkling refuse and a few scattered pieces were stained with reddish-brown dried blood.

Was this where they had pulled Granny Weatherwax from? Lilith's body had never been found, but Granny, shredded by flying glass, had been found by her friends. Dragged out and given medical care so they could fly home, job done.

Bending down Margo looked at the shiny pieces. A lot of people probably would have seen their reflection A hundred million copies of themselves tiny and perfect. Because that was what they would expect to see. Instead she saw the truth, A million-million Liliths. Running through infinite halls of mirrors, desperately searching for something. Something they had forgotten but were compelled to search for. Except a few, a growing few, they were watching her from their tiny windows. Eyes narrowed dangerously. Weak. Vulnerable. At least they would be if they were outside the cage.

The thing about being trapped was that quite often you were also safe. A butterfly in its cocoon growing, waiting to escape as something big. Margo frowned and slapped the lead tipped end of her staff down on one of the pieces, watching the eye in it shatter into a hundred smaller ones, untouched.

"You don't get to win," she said. "Losers are losers. That's how witchcraft works." She needed to believe that. Because while her jaw was clenched under her dress her knees felt like jelly. This was the witch, the one who had conquered a kingdom. Brought stories to life, turned animals into monsters, and came close to practically being a goddess. She had not actually lost yet and despite her words, they both knew it.

Lilith responded. There was no sound, but the spill words were practically audible. "I'm not dead yet little girl and I'm coming back. You can't stop me. Your predecessor could not stop me. She plotted and failed and she had more power and experience than you'll ever live to develop. She had focus and a reason to fight. I stole her daughter, I killed her love, and she still could not face me. Your swamp is nothing. Just a pile of goop. It might empower you, it might use you, but it doesn't care. You're just a tool. You don't even care, not enough o beat me. You'll die and it will replace you. At least until I drain it and watch it die. Won't it be wonderful? Open fields. Bright flowers. Rolling hills. No more mucky ugly smelly swamp! Just rainbows and beauty." She grinned. "Don't worry though. The swamp will remain long enough for me to toss your body in. Long enough to strip the flesh from your bones before leaving your bleached skull behind to watch my victory."

Margo gasped and felt her heart freeze like ice. She had always imagined Lilith as some old lady who got lucky. Some peacenik type fairy godmother type who just went to far. She had never seen a real monster before. Soul crushing. Deadly. So far beyond hate she was like a mother disciplining her child. Only instead do the spanking Margo could see the world burning. Set to flame on the backs of four panicked elephants stamping on a frightened turtle shell.

Lilith was right, she realized. Margo was too young. She was unfocused. She was weak. Nothing she did could stop her. Lily Weatherwax was going to conquer her. She was going to conquer Death. And nothing a little wannabe swamp witch could do would stop her.

Margo went into the other room and stripped a pillowcase off of Lilith's bed. It seemed a bit petty but she went in and used the cushion itself to sweep a pile of the glass into the case. She abandoned the pillow and tied the case shut, She knew she was not really trapping the old hag. That would be like holding a creature outside a window by wrapping up the window. It did make her feel better though as she finally turned and left the old fairy godmother's rooms. She paused at the door and looked back at all the remaining shards. There was Lily, parts of her running endlessly through the labyrinth of reflections while others glared after her and a few, far more frightening, smiled knowingly. An adult watching an ineffectual child.

Shuddering Margo turned with her stick and her sack of broken glass. She never wanted to see that room again. The dark and deadly swamp with its fox fires and hungry residents was far more comforting than this nearly empty stone room. Margot was proud that she walked out head held high, even though the footsteps she heard echoing off the walls did not sound exactly like echoes of her own.

888

Genua had a new morgue. Igorina was working as an assistant, the youngest of four Igor Clan members who had come to this far shore. Sure they could have just changed their faces, but after what they did, the experiments that would have even made Mad Doctor Dreadful go "Hey don't you think you might be going too far?" it was not worth the risk to stick around the Sto Planes or the mountains. People were still looking. It was possible they always would be. Despite the brilliance of what they attempted some things could never be forgiven, even by the Clan.

Unlike the male Igors an Igorina usually looked quite pretty and the few scars, easily erased, tended to be more fetching rather than make them look as if caterpillars were crawling all over them. This one was blond and tall and wearing pink because she really, really liked freaking out the rest of her family. She had a single scar from behind her ear down her cheek, and to her large breasts. Her eyes, one blue and one black, looked tired. They had done a lot of work on rich people paying their way to Genua via ship and were lying low working on dead people, for the moment.

A pity the local atmosphere of quagmire tended to make bodies decompose extraordinarily fast, making the usual bits an Igor used in the great Work basically useless after only a few hours. The living people were not much better. These swamp dwellers had no idea the diseases that swam in their blood. It freaked out even Igors some of the things they lived with. Nearly as bad as what you could catch drinking from the River Ankh.

Something grabbed her by the shoulder, spun her around and pushed her up against the wall. She looked down into a relatively attractive human face. She recognized it despite not having seen her before. Not only did Igors have a sense for the supernatural, but the city had been abuzz with news of the swamp witch finally coming to visit.

"You… what do you want?"

Margo smirked and looked her up and down. "I want you to obey my every command."

Igorinas were generally forbidden from doing the assistant work for mad scientists and evil wizards and monsters. Still genetics were genetics, gender aside and honestly she had always dreamed of this. Igors were well known for their intellect, but years of tinkering made them…. not less imaginative, but perhaps just too sane. Maybe they truly did often die at some point so any flaws in the brain were superfluous to the spirit's ability to think. Maybe it was just a few volts to the brain Maybe it was because if something went wrong they could actually get in there and fix it. Or that insanity was generally just more attracted to those they served. No doubt Igors had their own quirks, like being willing to work for people who viewed blood as an art supply, but they were generally convivial people who did not have the standard insanity issues. They certainly did not judge those who did.

The thing was while they could build almost anything a lot of them had trouble coming up with original "crazy" ideas. Their brains had a lot of sparks, but that one seemed somehow missing. They could build a two headed mutant flamingo or redesign a siege weapon into a self perpetuating tank, but they had trouble coming up with such an idea in the first place. It was not unusual. Most people did not think of such things. Igors could make impossible creations and they could adapt them for less destructive purposes, but for the most part they had trouble coming up with the original idea.

You needed madness for that. The same madness she saw glittering in this young witch's eyes.

Dropping to one knee before a girl a good six inches shorter than her and at least three years younger she said, "Yeth, Mithtreth."

Margo smiled wickedly and nodded. "Good. Now, there's a little something I need for a party they'll be throwing in a few months." She described it. Igorina's eyes shone with possibilities and she smiled, showing off somebody's teeth. "Think you can build that?"

"Can you get me the parts?"

Margo nodded. "Oh yes. If you don't mind them being a little dried out."

"Then I can build it. Getting it up and around however… well if you can arrange a thunderstorm I might manage something, but such things are notoriously hard to control once they are up and about."

"I've heard, but don't worry; I have a way around it." She explained her plan in more detail.

"That's monstrous," Igorina said in awe. "I didn't think witches did things like that."

"They don't," Margo said with a nasty grin. "At least most of them aren't willing to. But you only don't do something if you can do it. If you cannot fly you're not 'not flying'. You're just standing there. Everyone knows witches can do such things. Most just won't."

"But you will?"

"To destroy my enemy and get what I want? Most definitely."

Igorina felt her hearts leap in her chest. This was it. That feeling. To be witness and to aid in something beyond what most people would ever see or do. To create things from outside sanity. Beyond the mundane. She suddenly understood why so many of her uncles and cousins spent centuries kowtowing to families of mad scientists or bowing to the whims of vampires and werewolves. Why it was an honor to be allowed to lick the boots of such masters.

"I will serve you forever."

Margo smiled and reached out to caress Igorina's face. "Yes, you will." She moved the pole she was holding so it lay across her shoulders. It looked like a casual move.

However it stopped pointing at the face of a man who had been sneaking up behind her, knife drawn. The skull on the tip of the pole pointing right in his face and seemingly grinning at him upside down. He pulled to a stop just before the eyes flashed blue.

Margo had heard of headology. Anywhere Granny Weatherwax had been generally did. However it was a foreign concept and she did not hold with it. Making people back off because they believed you could turn them into a frog. Making people think they were frogs. Where was the fun in that?

The skull's eyes glowed blue and the man exploded into a dozen large snakes. She was no fairy godmother. So they did not think like humans or talk. But they did look confused as they fell to the ground and then as Margo looked over her shoulder they quickly slithered off in the opposite direction.
Ah, now that was cathartic. As was Igorina dropping to both knees and hands and bowing before her. Oh people cowered in fear and respect, but this was different. The other girl kept looking up at her with wide eyed glee.

"Can I get a caller that identifies me as your pet?"

Margo smirked. "You'll have to earn that. Build me what I asked for and do it well and maybe. Fail me and I won't even keep your skull, I'll just kick your motherless carcass into the swamp. I mean I might as well since I don't think even other Igors would want parts from a failure."

Igorina looked to be in ecstasy. "I will never fail you my mistress." She frowned. Something was definitely off. "I may need to alter myself a bit though while we're at it. I just don't sound right without a real lisp."

Margo had been poor her whole life but like many children she had looked through toy store windows. She remembered one day very well. A rich girl in a fancy dress had been trying out a doll that came with so many accessories. Different parts. Different outfits. More toys that went with it.

Now she had one of her own. A better one. She felt like a little girl again.

Anyone with any sense who saw that look and had ever seen a child's discarded doll would have run screaming in the opposite direction. Visions of torn limbs, shaved hair, and empty eye sockets dancing in their head. Igorina, true to her heritage, saw the look, recognized it for what it was, and simpered happily. She had been bred and quite literally made for this.

Knowing discipline was important with a new pet as well as play Margo turned around on her heel presenting her back to the kneeling servant. "Come Igorina. We have much work to do."

"Yes mistress," she said, rising up and scurrying after without even fully rising to her feet. No hesitation or asking to go back for any personal possessions. Not a single look back. The other Igors would understand. In fact, they would probably be jealous.

888

(Three Months Later)

As a former cook Margo had some idea how long it took to set up a really splendid party, even if she had not personally thrown one. There were all sorts of logistics. You had to invite people when they had the chance to attend or would make the time, which was why so many coincided with holidays. Aside from getting the guests there you needed food, entertainment, a place where everyone could fit comfortably, and servants to attend to any other needs and direct them to the powder rooms and make sure the right people met up.

Dragon King of Arms was running it from a corner of the room and had been for days… well several nights anyway. The old vampire was grinning wide and on a vampire that was quite a sight. Everyone knew the old corpse was a sneak driven out of his old job by Sam Vimes and his gang officially referred to as the City Watch, but honestly since coming to Genua and sorting through the maze of genealogy he was extremely happy even if a lot of the royalty was, like in Ankh-Morpork, a little watered down with thugs and pirates who just happened to have a lot of other people's money.

After watching centuries of work burn he had mellowed and at the moment was just enjoying being asked by the purest family line (the one in charge) to organize a ball to choose her wife to be. That was not all though. More than five hundred invitations had been sent out to everywhere from the Sto Planes to the Agatean Empire and Four Ecks. They were expecting somewhere between three an four thousand guests.

Dragon was all about breeding, so one might think he would not be terribly interested in a party like this, but there were other ways to look at it. A marriage or even a relationship between families did not always result in offspring even between men and women. However a relationship meant people got together. Family bonds. Introductions. It was a bit manipulative, but Dragon had (mostly) given up eating people before the Black Ribbon movement among the other vampires, and like all of them he had substituted something else. In his case it was breeding humans like cattle.

Sadly back in his old job he had caught a little too much attention to and from Captain Carrot, the city's rumored king who really, really did not want to be officially acknowledged. But that was another story.

In cases like this it was not all about the main goal. Barely at all really. So a high ranking noble was looking for a bride and a few concubines or mistresses. The only reason that was happening was really to help Genua escape some old witch's curse.

Dragon was really much more interested in the other guests. The invitations were open ended, sent to the leaders of cities, religions, organizations, and countries and continents. There was no way to be a hundred percent certain who among them would be interested in this particular match, even if they liked women. No doubt there would be some. But guessing and specifically naming someone would be a faux pas, particularly if they were wrong or worse, right but the girl in question was keeping it to herself.

Not only that but while some kings had harems numbering in the thousands, at most the baroness Ella Saturday might end up picking a total of six or so women from the guests to stick around. That left hundreds, maybe thousands, of other girls disappointed or just there for the party/show. All women who had shown up looking to meet other women who were looking to meet women. Or at least willing to make the effort if it meant strengthening their family's connections. Among the nobility whether they wanted to be with a woman or were just wiling to try or fake it, it really amounted to the same thing on every level besides the personal.

The old vampire frowned as he moved with inhuman speed to another room on a lower floor, appearing out of the shadows. They were setting up the Queen's Float. They were doing up a banner. It was supposed to say "Her Majesty's Parade of Ladies!' Currently it read: HUR MAGESTEE'S PARYEDE OF LADDYES. Dragon was used to people's problems with spelling and normally in Genua it was considered hilarious by the drunken revelers, rich and poor, who attended their festivals. This however was a high class event with numerous royals, ambassadors, and people with money and connections.

Unfortunately the banner was sewn that way and the opening parade was in an hour and would last most of the afternoon and into the night. After that everyone invited to the castle, whether they were staying there or in another place in the city, would get to spend five nights meeting Ella and the other local nobles, as she saw fit.

It would be a bit cruel. Those who actually got an interview would be chosen on Ella's physical preferences. Some of those would be turned away too, once they talked and she determined which ones she could stand to speak to. It was like a miner panning for gold. Finally on the last day a bride would be chosen and any would-be mistresses would be given tokens and invited to stick around. At a later date the new bride might even pick her own concubines.

Concubine was not a displeasing position. Some ended up having better relationships and sex with the one, knowing the actual marriage was mostly a political maneuver or the wife was chosen for her position, looks, and other considerations to make her look a proper lady. So often the concubine might even have more power from the relationship than the official wife and may in the event of divorce or other ends to the marriage (execution or poison from the concubines or spouse) and could in the fullness of time be a wife herself. Politically it was sometimes an even better position. If they turned it down it was either from pride or personal choice. A few might even just not like Ella or Genua enough to actually want to be with her.

Frankly while the numbers said Ella would come out of this well off, a lot of girls were going to be spurned, ignored, or disappointed. There would be "scenes". Shouting. Crying. Lies and backstabbing. Possibly a few duels. In addition of course many of the girls would pair off with each other.

And a banner like that would make Dragon's new ruler look like she came from a city of ignorant hicks. Oh maybe she did, by and large, but so did everyone really.

"Hold it right there," he said imperiously. "Move the sticks for the banner together and get me some gold thread." A few moments later the banner had been reworked to show the gold thread sewn in a complicated pattern that kept the alterations from being noticed in a sparkling latticework around the letters.

THE LADY'S PRYDE!

It looked good considering what he had to work with and the time allotted. The float itself had a golden throne on it for Ella to sit on. A fake of course, under goldish decorations worth about as much as the average gold coin. Servants in costume, mostly her jesters, would be on around her throwing gifts to the onlookers. Most of the local lords from neighboring cities and their own would also have floats and their potential candidates would be up there too in costume. Kythia, places along the Vieux River, Brindisi, the Orohai Peninsula, Muntab, and others.

Locals always had the edge in these things. Ella had been with a few women already, no virgin she. Local tradition would not really respect a naïve virgin in any case. So it was always possible that someone she knew had already touched her heart, whether she acknowledged it or not or at least caught her eye. In addition one or two of the arrivals who had gotten there early would have their own chance at a display in the parade too.

Most of the foreign delegates who arrived too late to design and build a float would still enjoy watching and getting a feel for the stiffer competition. And of course everyone liked pretty ladies on display. Not just ladies either. Men who liked men were flocking in along with their supporters because hey, the ladies were busy and the environment seemed conducive. A few of the official delegates were also men dressed as women, seeing if they could slip past Ella's preferences or convince her that a more traditional Baron or King, even one who dressed as a Queen, might suit her better at least as an official spouse. A not unreasonable expectation and they had been allowed to stay and play their hand, even if some of them reminded Ella of that parrot she had found on her windowsill the year before, flown in from some unknown port. Somebody had painted the word DOG on its side in faded lettering. On the other hand there were a couple men who definitely pulled it off and a few she was unsure about herself, and were definitely pretty enough to make her reconsider it. She had been at the party where the boy in the magic dress had, under the curse, won, his "prince". Lionel AKA Leona, had passed quite well for an attractive young lady and still did. Something about the way he blushed and smiled was somewhat attractive even to her and she did like watching the two kiss out of the corner of her eye.

In other words the parade and party was becoming increasingly popular by the day even among those not involved directly. It was possible this might become one of Genua's annual events. A tourist trap and an excellent way to celebrate their baroness's wedding and anniversary.

Provided of course the real plan worked and they kept Lily Weatherwax from returning to power. The woman had been very… traditional about such things. Ella had tried to suggest a female ruler, had even been willing to take one of her snaky stepsisters over the Duc. Lily, a well known lover of men, had assured Ella that her frog-boy was good with his tongue and she would learn to love it. Yeesh. The woman was almost enough to turn a girl straight. In reality though she just wanted to ensure a healthy number of future generations for her to control and a direct royal line. After all she had killed the Baron and the Baron had thinned the herd down to him, so Ella was her only choice. Raised isolated and "protected" from things she might want to do that might interfere with that until all she wanted to do was go to the Carnival.

And now here she came, smiling up at her float. She was not a Queen of Genua, but she was damn close and being at the front of the parades was, to her, better than sitting on the actual throne in the castle. Surrounded by power players and royalty. She much preferred the cheering partying masses lined up along the road as she passed by as the center of their attention. Well not their exactly. Was it wrong that her eyes danced around the crowds and picked out the pretty adoring girls? Women of all ages smiling up at her, admiring her.

She ran a hand over the mermaid figurehead attached to the front of the float. Taken from an actual shipwreck and worked into the design. The remnants of a pirate ship that had stolen from her and been sunk by the Genuan navy.

"Dragon King of Arms, how are thing going?"

He smiled, happy that she never shortened his name/title. "As well as we can, your grace. It's so good to be among the gentlemen again after my little mishap with the Duke of Ankh-Morpork."

If he was going to be beaten Dragon certainly was not going to downplay his enemy's accomplishments. Personally he still saw Sam Vimes as a washed up drunkard who was not even a has-been because, he never really was. But he had without a doubt been trounced by him, his blasted golem, and the rest. So if Dragon was to have been bested it would be by His Grace the Duke of Ankh, hero of Koom Valley, slayer of the mad werewolf, head of the City Watch Sir Samuel Vimes. That elevated Dragon from a minor annoyance to a peer of kings, nobility, armies, scheming masterminds, governments, and supernatural creatures who had also fallen to him. There was no shame in being beaten by the best.

"I'm putting forth my best efforts to make certain your special day is possibly the biggest festival this country has seen since Fat Tuesday." He looked at her. "This means your ladyship that you will have to do your best as well. Many will see your love of other women as a flaw, a failure on your part. Maybe a threat to manhood. It will be up to you to be admirable enough that they still want to serve you. You and whomever you choose. You realize you won't just be representing yourself, but her as well. So far whosoever she is has already made a valiant effort, to stand openly by your side. That places a value on you as well, depending on how much you make it worth her while. Your concubines and lovers may be secret or open about their position, but your wife has already made a choice to stand before your people by your side, even if you've never met her yet."

Ella smiled and lowered her hand from the mermaid's cheek. "Yes, I know. I'm doing this because it's the only way to save Genua from Lily's curse, but assuming it works or even does not, I'm still tying my life ot someone else. I often wondered growing up how the nobility could find love at these parties. Picking someone across the room you've barely met. Only that's sort of the point. Why they usually go for someone in their own class. Know yourself and you know them. Raised the same. So in a way you know each other more intimately in that first moment." She turned and looked at the old vampire. "It's the same for your lot, isn't it, sir?"

"Oh yes my dear, the famed lords of the night. Born a vampire or turned, we were once human and became something terrible and powerful. So yes we go out and search for, as they say 'ze beautiful women in the see through night dresses'. To offer them immortality as companions through the night. Or a failure when we kill them. I'm afraid nigh immortality does alter your priorities when it comes to until death do you part. Pr stuck with you, if you prefer."

Yes she supposed eternal marriage could put a strain on any relationship. "I thought vampires stayed married for quite long times. Centuries."

"Certainly. I myself have been married for five hundred years. Happily is another matter and it is best if we see each other rarely, often from a great distance. I envy you my lady. You have a chance to be with someone you care about and know it will end before you become truly sick of each other. Fifty years at the most."

Ella had hated Lily. She had hated the Duc. She had, to a lesser extend, hated her snake-guard stepsisters. She had hated everyone who knew her situation and did nothing because Lily was too strong. All before she was out of her teens. She could only imagine what it would be like to make the wrong choice in a wife, or even the right one, and then have to put up with it for even one century. Actually since joining the aristocracy she had been to the opera many times and tales of the love affairs of the gods featured heavily. A never ending line of betrayals, tragedies, lust, love, and mistake after mistake and each half of a couple alternatively tried to woo, use, and hurt the other. Ella had held court and heard domestic disturbance cases enough that she knew what could happen in only a three year marriage.

For the gentry though it seemed to work. Largely because they either found someone they liked or someone they could avoid except at functions that did not embarrass them and otherwise stuck to opposite ends of their lands and castles. It also helped that they had the chance at finding true love that exceeded that of peasants. Travel. The right to take any serf they wanted. The money to keep multiple women.

Most vampires were noble if only because they could get a knighthood or other title with a look into the eyes of a king. "Did you marry for love?"

He laughed; a dark chuckle. "We were all young once and I must say I like to think I cut a dashing figure in a cape. We vampires age based mostly on our personality, being shape shifters. Some who are turned when older can become younger. Others stay young for hundreds of years. How we see ourselves and how we are treated by others. I was young and yes, in love, for quite a while. I remember I gave her my heart. Thankfully I had several to spare…"

Ella did not flinch though she realized he likely was completely serious. She had grown up around animals turned into people. Often a predator's go to move was to bring a potential mate a fresh kill or something they could kill together. Then after they were mated they killed together. Later doing the same with their offspring. They were not near Uberwald but Ella knew enough of the local nobles that she had met vampires and werewolves before. Dwarves and trolls too though they were much, much rarer this close to the swamp, but miners had to trade and trolls had to ride on boats to get to some places, at least those smarter ones who worked with their king. She had met a rather nice troll librarian once.

In her experience real monsters were just humans who could get away with it. Give someone the powers of a vampire or a werewolf… or indeed a magic wand or for that matter, a crown… and you soon saw who they were and it often took a few generations for them to evolve beyond such things. Most people got power by doing nasty things. It was no surprise they used it for that. It was comfort and contentment over a long period of time that eventually bred goodness. A rich royal might steal but a peasant might have to. A rich royal or even a successful criminal, might also donate to charity while a peasant could not if they wanted to. Most times a few generations in it was just easier to support the status quo and they usually ended up doing more good than harm, if only because the other way led to revolution and beheading.

"Have you ever been beheaded?"

"Six times," he replied cheerfully. "I strongly suggest you keep any executioners' axes in the castle well sharpened. Peasants always like the irony of using your own means of execution against you when you revolt. Done right you barely feel a thing."

"Hopefully I'll merely take your word for it," she said. Though there had been a close call earlier this month.

The second son of the Marquis of Mante had arrived in a bit of a huff. He had been mistaken for just another guest but had stormed the throne room, sword in hand and demanded satisfaction. He had of course been shot by the guards, no less than seven times. After all there were protocols to duels even among the upper class. You sent letters, you sent a second to announce your intentions and arrange a proper time and place. You did not burst into somebody else's castle in front of their guards waving a weapon. Ella had not been in the room when it happened.

The Marquis had sent an apology and an explanation. It seemed his son's betrothed was a bit of a social climber and, well, had seen marrying a baroness. Or possibly she just liked women. Her note was not that explicit. More of a "See ya, chump!" in slightly more flowery language. And her man had blamed Ella for turning her. Like a vampire. He had come to slay the monster.

Of course had be succeeded he would have doomed the kingdom to its curse and been executed anyway. His older sister had already married a scrubbing maid from the castle's lower floor. The boy had apparently hoped a more royal connection might move him up to main heir, but being ditched for just the chance to marry another woman had basically doomed him. He was a laughingstock among his peers if he managed to marry an empress.

Ella had already bumped her up the interview list. She wanted to meet this girl, Marianna, the countess of Trollbone. Not necessarily romantically, but certainly it might be nice to invite her to tea.

(Three Days Later)

The parade was a flash show in and of itself. Were this one of your author's books it and the part would have been details. However as a fan fiction story based on the work of late great Terry Pratchett, we'll leave the Genua PRYDE Parade and Ella's massive lady balls to your imagination. Dancing. Beautiful women. Eyes meeting across the large ballroom or outside in the night.

So a quick summary will have to do and I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Feel free to write out any stories of love at this party which come to mind, mixing and matchmaking as you see fit. Picture a large ballroom, one wall a huge mirror making it look twice as big as it really was, stuffed with hundreds of guests in formal wear, gowns, dresses, modern designs, women in men's clothes, and old style formal wear too, foreign and also many of the local looks. Actually maybe a dozen people had shown up because of the kingdom's curse and were wearing magically beautiful clothes And notable footwear of all sorts that sort of appeared along with a compulsion to visit the party at least until midnight.

Representatives of many of your favorite characters were there. Witches from Lancre, ostensibly there to joint he cue for the baroness but also to back up Margo should the swamp witch fail to contain Lily. The cat eared children of the transformed cat Greebo and one of the ladies he met while Granny, Nanny, and Magrat were last in town. Princesses and concubines from place like Chimeria, Klatch, Agantea, Wyrmberg, Krull, Omnia, Al Khali, XXXX, and everywhere else on the disc. The Djelibeybi float was a sight to see, albeit mostly peeking through fingers slapped over their eyes. A relative of their current queen named Pteppic was rather insistent on the tiny formerly pyramid laden country to get away from inbreeding through pretty much any means necessary, though the practice had not actually affected the girls' looks or brains overly much. (Given the clueless amiability of many of the previous kings of their kingdom it's entirely possible the harem was not actually quite as inbred as many people believed.) Twoflower, current emperor of the Counterweight continent sicne the disappearance of Cohen, sent his daughter Lotus Blossom, at her request. His elder daughter being rather busy looking for the Great Wizzard for her own reasons that involved a potato and a stick with a nail in it.

Dwarf women. Female guards. Angua Von Uberwald's cousin Regina. Maladicta a general from neighboring Borogravia and a vampire, though she only attended with her wife, or possibly husband, General Polly Perks as both women cut a fine figure in a nightdress or a military uniform, male or female. There was another vampire who seemed to be the type who liked to dress in sun dresses and pretend to drink wine and a half-vampire vampire hunter in an embarrassingly tight brown leather outfit. A few claimed to have seen a goddess or two mixed in with the crowd. Possibly an elf princess as well, banished from fairyland for being a half breed. A member of the Unseen Academy senior staff who, as it turns out, is female and not a wizened old man but a rather young half dwarf, much to her colleagues shock (look at some of Paul Kirby's drawings and see if you can pick her out of the group) as well as a recently inducted female necromancer in a dark dress of spider-web pattered lace, one of three hired by Dr. Hix in recent years. Female nuns from an abbey on a mountain top near the History Monk's temple (and it must be said the famous balancing monks considered the shaven haired young lady's ample chest a major impediment to their work as she was a relative of a certain young lady who used to date Nobby Nobbs and currently made a large fortune every night tap dancing at the Pink Pussycat club). Susan Sto Helit's daughter Patricia, not yet born fathered by the current incarnation of Time after they one day drink several bottles of re-annual wine. She was looking for a nice spot with the help of the Wizard Eskarina Smith to stay out of her mother's way until it won't cause a universe destroying paradox if they meet (and preferably someone she can finally have a long term relationship with and not experience eventual "bed death"). Representatives of Mrs. Palm's girls as well as the Ankh-Morpork Stripper's guild, compliments of Lord Vetinari and accompanying a female cousin of his who thinks the famed Vetinari family should lock down trade routes to Genua however they can, (she shared many of her second-cousins' traits while resembling a stripper herself and preferring pink to black, but somehow getting the same basic effect.) A Valkyrie who looked like a more filled out Queen Ynci; that is to say Magrat if the armor actually fit and she had silver hair.

Agnes Nitt was performing with the band, Singing and laying across a groaning piano. She of course was not attracted to women, but a few of shots Genua's favorite drinks with funny names and her inner Perdita was likely to end up in someone's room at a local inn, leaving Agnes to wake up come dawn and do the walk of shame, red as a big apple, while Perdita slept and avoided the hangover. A very married Tiffany Aching was hidden among the crowd, not wanting to start anything with Margo but waiting incase she needed help. Also her eldest sister had a daughter of marrying age and high self esteem who thought she could make a go at being a co-baroness somewhere away from Aunt Tiffany's shadow, though she also had her eye on one of Nanny Ogg's widowed daughters-in-law as a backup now that the elderly old witch had more or less passed on, though there was some evidence that her ghost might be haunting her old and still rather crowded cottage. Tiffany also recognized some of her fellow witches and a few up and comers too, a couple of whom were no shock and one or two who definitely surprised her. For one thing she was pretty sure Heather Twinleaf had been dating Anagramma on the sly… and she was surprised to see Sarah Windwhistle there at all, considering some of the things she had personally heard the woman say.

Maggie, daughter of Rob Anybody, had snuck along in secret intending to win herself a kingdom. More intent on being a heroine than a kelda. The feegle girl was quite attractive, but ultimately she was a feegle and she did ultimately miss her chance at even being put on the list of potential brides and concubines, because she quickly found the castle's wine cellar. Wine actually being the least of it. Genuans had liquor that even a feegle's tolerance had to reckon with and made Nanny Ogg's scumble look like apple juice. While drunk she ended up having many great adventures, none of which she remembered because moving from cellar to cellar around Genua "borrowing" a nip here and there she ended up blacking out two solid years and somehow marrying the Queen of the Gnomes and apparently ruling the kingdom for six months.

Magrat's husband the king and former fool Verence had a brother who had three daughters. The middle child tended to play queens in plays and wanted to try it for real. After all she was of genuine royal blood and it was the role of a lifetime.

Ginny Backbreaker, a female orc football player and official queen of her people before being ousted by the species new "coach" rather than king, Mr. Nutt, she had thrown her hat in the ring to try for a spot in Genuan royalty. She was tall, muscular, with emerald green skin and surprisingly fetching tusks. Hir (she was very masculine and chose her own gender pronoun and really who was going to argue?) long and red and braided. She wore her uniform and had a lot of women clamoring for her attention and autograph, often on places on their bodies where it would end up permanently tattooed. The sports star was actually drawing a lot of attention away from Ella, which to the baroness's thinking was not entirely a bad thing, though it did upset some of the other nobles. She ran into Vena the third, great-granddaughter of a famous and long retired female heroine and a buff Amazon princess, and a girl who looked to be some child of Cohen the barbarian all of whom seemed interested in joining her team. (Soccer team that is.) Ginny had also brought along a friend and fellow player, and sort of ex-girlfriend, Aquamarine the troll, done up nicely in dresses and makeup by renowned fashion consultant for nonhumans, Glenda Sugarbean. (Ginny and Aqua had experimented a bit and gotten close, but ultimately biology and geology had not mixed and the two had decided to just be friends. Orcs, having been made mostly from humans, felt little real attraction to their own species except maybe due to necessity. Mr. Nutt sand Glenda were a prime example, though unlike humans orcs generally preferred cookery and kindness to looks, having been largely kept and driven away from such things since their original creation. So naturally as they learned about the world and spread under Mr. Nutt's careful tutelage, many of them were becoming interested in places like Quirm and Genua, famed for careful love making and amazing food. Such countries also seems to really like football, a lot of orcs' greatest passion since attacking in a horde and ripping people's heads off, their traditional sporting activity, was largely discouraged these days.) Aquamarine was a nice blue color and got flack from other troll girls because she polished and was currently eying a female gargoyle that had climbed down from the castle roof to enjoy the party.

"I've heard they're very patient and conscientious lovers," she muttered to Ginny as the two stood back comparing women in the room, though naturally they did not really get one another's tastes. "Slow build up, but who doesn't love a girl with a rainspout for a mouth? Talk about jaw strength and their tongues are pretty long…"

They were pointedly avoiding a rather busty clown girl carrying a cream pie with a cherry on top like others were carrying clutches.

Eugenia Sonky, current owner of the Sonky prophylactic empire, had come by with some sort of sheets among other safe lovemaking supplies to test out for the ladies which she was freely passing out as she took orders for more (Interestingly the Sonky family aside from preventing pregnancy and STDs mostly in Ankh-Morpork, are also from a small long lasting family of religious zealots who worship the horseman pestilence as a god) and she was accompanied by one of Harry King's granddaughters, Kara and a granddaughter of renowned cook All Jolson (if she and Agnes happened to bump into one another it was entirely possible the resulting earthquake could destroy the city or at least catch a lot of attention from many, many women) who was seemingly more interested in the snack tables, either to eat or learn the recipes, but who did occasionally shoot a guest, maid, or caterer a smirk in passing. Genuans had quite a lot of food and recognized a genetically good cook when they saw her and believed that the way to a man or woman's stomach was good food (though admittedly there were other routes) and big women must be good cooks and many of them really, really liked large women, not least of all because fat ladies were usually rich, poor people not having the resources to put on the pounds. All of these women qualified and rather liked ranging from plump to downright fluffy.

A tooth fairy was chatting amiably with a rather feminine bogeywoman who was likely the result of a teenager's daydreams from the look of her rather than a young child's fears and nightmares. Nearby War's daughter Clancy was sipping cocktails with a rather crazy looking grayish, almost noir woman who may, at one time, have been an Auditor before going completely mad and joining humanity instead. They were also paying attention to numerous priestesses, shrine maidens, and potential sacrifices (mostly looking to disqualify themselves, but hopefully not with men...which was how they got into their current predicament in the first place) spiritual enough to see them. A new cult from Holy Wood, rather beautiful women, was mixing and absently inquiring about new members when the guards were too far away to stop them, apparently trying to build up enough members to prevent the end of the world or some such.

There was a girl who looked spiffy in a postman's uniform, invited by accident while delivering the invitations, but flirting well and fitting right in.

Many of the women were older or younger than Ella, though most were at least close. It was actually quite flattering how many had shown up and the wide variety of shapes, sizes, and even species lining up. Ella was beautiful with dark skin and nearly white hair and she felt good because she could tell many women had been checking her out before the heralds had announced who she was.

Still despite all the female flesh on display every time Margo showed up the whole room would stop talking to stare when she was announced. She had a very revealing dress that seemed more like two extra thick belts and a pair of boots made form some swamp dwelling reptile. Snakes, alligators, dragons… it was hard to tell but mostly mini skirt, tube top, and thigh high boots. The scales were a green so dark they were nearly black. On her hip she had a large pouch literally bursting with gold coins. She had little use for money, but knew where many lost treasures were in the swamp and since she was trying to work with the people of Genua, she made a point of carrying gems and gold on her and randomly throwing it to people that caught her fancy the way many people threw small gifts from the floats.

It was amazing what that sort of goodwill bought you even if you were a potentially cannibalistic evil witch whose very presence seemed to dim the ambient light

Igorina joined her, but she had swapped her low key look for a torn old style dress also foraged from a crashed boat hidden in the swamp and a set of rusty slave chains, complete with ankle, wrist, and throat manacles connected by thick metal links. They fit like bracelets and could easily be slipped out of, but as Igorina followed her mistress like a proper maid or butler, it was mostly symbolic. She had adjusted her tongue so that it was longer, sticking out of her mouth and writhing like an eel and drooling all over the front of herself constantly. She had considered a hump and maybe a few scars on her face, but Margo thought that was too traditional and wanted her to stay pretty. So instead they had upped her bra size a little, which unbalanced for forward and made her sort of limp and bend forward anyway. As for scars Margo was not actually abusive, but the open backed dress now revealed jagged stripes of scar tissues along Igorina's shoulders as if she had been cruelly flogged nearly down to the bone and got a lot of horrified and sympathetic looks from the onlookers as the girl was otherwise quite attractive.

The overall effect was ultimately much more in line with how people used to view Igors when they were just a clan of Uberwald servants and not people they met on the street every day. The chains were loose enough hat she could slip free, so people were uncertain if it was a look, if she was an actual slave, or was possibly the witch's kinky sexual partner. Making those who saw her very nervous and uncomfortable and unsure if they should/could do something or not. Margot and Igorina both loved it and none of the guesses were entirely wrong. It had long been a question on how close some Igors, like many servants, got to their masters. Though most people looking at the average Igor did not like to speculate or fantasize unless they were really, really into scars.

Likewise while up in the mountains most witches were considered prim and proper types (Granny Weatherwax had definitely caught a unicorn once, squashing a lot of old wife's tales and barroom talk about the local witches at any rate) and wizards were supposed to be celibate (with a few notable exceptions) everyone "knew" they sometimes went out to the wood and did naked things around bonfires together and used magic to seduce innocent young men or came in the night t o young lady's beds to ride them through the sky naked like human broomsticks, among other stories. Also Lilith as a young girl and indeed Nanny Ogg had definitely kept some of those stories going Ella was the nearly illegitimate result of an affair between the last swamp witch and the Baron. So there was plenty of speculation about Margo and the odd woman she was seen with. Igors also were well known to, despite their looks, come from an extremely large family passing down the best bits as they went. Not necessarily born so much as pieced together.

Still she was a servant and did not qualify as a date and no way was Margo going stag, so whatever they might be doing in private out in the swamp for these parties Margo had brought a date. She wore a blue dress with black finger and a beautiful royal blue and black butterfly mask. Long blue hair with a black streak falling nearly to her waist with large breasts and a bottom that needed no bustle. Plenty of muscles but still feminine. Also she was well over eight feet tall, making every human feel like a dwarf and the dwarves in the room seem like gnomes. The trolls in the room were in the unique position of meeting a fleshy person, a woman yet, which could look them in the eyes or even force them to look up slightly. Not that many people were looking at her face. Aside from her more than ample charms she was also wearing diamond earrings and a necklace worth at least as much as a shipping galleon. Finger rings would have been a bit of a problem, at least any meant for human sized fingers.

Though a few odd lumps where their clothes were stretched tight indicated some other things might be pieced on all three of the ladies, causing much speculation.

"My word," one older woman, some countess or other entitled lady Margo did not know, had asked on the first night. "Where did you find such an amazing creature?"

In a loud voice Margo said, "Oh my servant Igorina and I made her ourselves. I was not going to come to the party stag." The swamp had plenty of well preserved bodies, human and otherwise hidden away in peat bogs, basically mummies and despite tradition Igors did not have to leave large scars on their creations. "We call her Funtawari Hoochisaka, the Agatean word for 'Trap' and Eight-Foot-Tall or Foota for short." She winked. "She has a few surprises you might not expect including where we had to add a few boy parts."

It was hard to tell if the witch was serious, but the giantess just smiled mysteriously behind her mask and did not speak to anyone, simply walking next to the witch who somehow projected the feeling to onlookers that she was the larger and more dangerous of the two. Foota's skin was scarless, but it was also a patchwork of different colors and shades in geometric shapes. It was hard to pick and choose when working with bog mummies, all of whom were black or greenish until Igor hydrated them back to flesh times. They worked with what they dragged from the holes and given the area's varied races that left a lot of options. Besides it was rather sexy and they had added a tattoo on a white patch of thigh that read: Maid 4 U! in pictograms from Oggham, a language with a surprisingly wide variety of euphemisms. (A lot of archaeological scholars studying ancient cultures in Lancre came back from their digs red faced and unable to look people in the eyes. To give you some idea try having a witch fly you over the famous local mound known as "the long man" or indeed Nanny's Ogg's garden and its collection of rude lawn gnomes which would make a feegle, let alone an actual gnome, blush with embarrassment.)

Aside from as she said a few boy parts (Igors loved adding two or even three of anything useful) along with all the obvious girl bits, she was a lot different than the average zombie. They had found an old vampire and a werewolf and a few creatures that they did not even recognize. Normally it was impossible to kill vampires and werewolves without doing serious damage, but running water and a few hundred years underground without food or air could apparently get the job done and a few pieces stitched in along with a little black magic (including a dark secret that would frighten people terribly if they knew) they found that the unnatural energies kept the body from rotting. They had also found a dead dryad, leftover from some long dead tree and added her heart to the mix.

Or maybe it was just the swamp magic. Baron Saturday had been (and some people said still was) almost alive if a little gray. Definitely well muscles and not full of holes or dried out. Also when she smiled… well it turned out crocodiles had much better teeth than centuries-old corpses and fit better in an oversized piece together skull then a lot of extra human teeth that looked creepy. Every now and then a long purple forked tongue also flicked out between her lips, smelling the room in between sniffs from her nose, like a hunting werewolf or other predator.

Often when she looked at a woman it was hard to say if she appreciated her beauty or was considering eating her. Somehow that made a lot of them nervous, but also they found it very, very attractive and a few swooned. She really was practically perfect.

Regardless tall, dark (in places), and beautiful was on the swamp witch's arm, so while she might very well have been the most exotic and beautiful woman in the room (Igorina did good work) she was definitely taken and while plenty looked nobody made a move on her. It probably helped that she looked like crush anyone who tried and in bed her lover might very well end up looking like an orange after it had been juiced. Or turned to gravel in the case of a troll. It was not like it had never happened or mad scientists or monsters and wizards, an Igor's usual employer, did not occasionally make love slaves, often snagging girls from dormitories for their experiments.

Of course most of those attempts usually backfired and went on wild blood rampages, but so fat Foota seemed remarkably well behaved for an abomination of dark magic and mad science. Igors of course used the same sort of techniques on themselves, but they started out as more or less people and very subservient ones at that under the control of masters much stronger than them. So even if they were so inclined to go wild they were usually busy or chained down somewhere.

(In Ankh-Morpork Moist Von Lipwig often speculated that if Vetinari's assistant Drumknott did not keep busy seemingly night and day the small rather bookish man might quickly become known as one of the city's most prolific mass murderers and Moist would not be at all surprised if he had been assembled on an Igor's slab. Unknown to him Vetinari often wondered the same thing. particularly while watching Drumknott when otherwise not occupied organize his pencils with a disturbingly gleeful look.)

So the guests were split between whether to look at Margo and her date as beautiful women or as potential weapons of mass destruction slowly ticking like a clock in their midst, especially since a large portion of them were unaware of the curse already laid on the land.

In other words they were already getting invitations to plenty of other parties.

Still Margo at least had not forgotten why she was at the party and it had little to do with the acres of eligible women dancing and flirting around them. In any other situation or even if there were guys… though the atmosphere would probably be different… Margot would have dived right in. Flirted and maybe more. Even without the rumors of erotic rites and love potions witches were mostly very "alpha" females to the point that many did not bother changing their last names when they got married.

(Though there were exceptions, at least when they were young and uncertain, who usually were very popular with other witches who liked to boss them around or use them as buffers to curtail arguments two or more witches would otherwise engage in almost constantly. Nanny Ogg had chosen first Magrat Garlic and then Agnes Nitt for that role while Tiffany's fellow witch Anagramma had been the type, like her teacher Mrs. Earwig, who pretty much just assumed everyone but her fell into that category until such time as someone else, usually another more powerful witch who had finally lost her temper, disabused them of that notion. Her friend Petulia Gristle is nearly as naturally servile as an Igor to a vampire, but even she eventually developed a backbone when picked on too frequently or in the defense of others. Over time though these "submissive" witches usually evolved beyond that, often after they became mothers or got more comfortable with themselves or survived various other adventures usually after killing something or someone. Magrat had more than earned respect by viciously killing elves until she was elbow deep with their blood and Agnes had finally left home and become a bit of an opera diva. She also somewhat resents Tiffany Aching after years of having been Granny's protégé, at least in her own mind though maybe that was just better than ""punching bag/lackey", and yet somehow coming in second or even third after Queen Magrat or fourth if you included the female wizard Esk. She had heard Granny's method of teaching was to tell people that something could be done and then let them figure out how to do it. Magrat was one thing; she had not really progressed much beyond Agnes except in healing and herb lore and Agnes had equaled her in blood letting with all those vampires. Esk was a wizard with a staff and long gone. Agnes however had been briefly possessed by Granny and had spent much time with her and Nanny, to a very annoying degree, yet still had never really figured out half of what the old lady knew while Tiffany visited her occasionally and somehow picked up seemingly every trick Granny had right away and a few others too with remarkably little visible effort and no actual instructions. Rumors said her gifts included time travel, astral projection, passing into death's domain and back as well as fairyland, and in some cases near omnipotence called "opening her eyes again". Potentially even godhood, which while she seemed normal enough when you met her, Agnes is not sure was something you actually got cured of once it happened, particularly with every young witch and a few old ones and a clan of feegles basically worshipping her with seemingly unflinching faith that would shame even Om and his most ardent followers. The theory of her godhood was supported by the fact that half the witches in the mountains saw her beat the ancient spirit known as the Cunning Man while holding a flint stone in her hand that melted into magma between her fingers. Though with the length of time a witch could live naturally Agnes would probably be a hundred years dead before it became apparent if the girl was still an immortal witch-goddess despite her sensible attitude. Meanwhile despite some natural talents like with her voice, some witch instincts, and managing to keep her imaginary sister around into adulthood as a separate personality Agnes has very little skill with more traditional forms of witchcraft, headology, and even broomstick riding though the last one could sadly be more of a weight problem than anything else, so it is easy to see why Tiffany's talents occasionally piss her off. Admittedly part of this may be residual grumpiness from Granny and the rest is just a lifetime of being made to feel inferior by many people such as her former roommate/friend/rival Christine from her first attempt at becoming an opera singer and even Perdita, her own sentient mental disorder rather then really being personal).

She and Foota after being introduced each day made their way to the far side of the room and danced next to the mirror wall. To say that they did not know slow dancing was an understatement. It was not that they lacked rhythm but they bounced and jumped and after a few moments each time it was obviously some sort of tribal thing that left them in a growing circle of people just trying to stay out of their way. Many of the upper class guests were scandalized while others just enjoyed watching the show and the rest just ignored it.

Only a few of the witches and necromancers and supernatural guests present realized what she and the larger lady were doing and even they were slightly off. Probably because many of them would not have dared try it themselves. It was dangerous and it was unquestionably evil. But she had the baroness's permission and support and she was not turning it on them, so they just watched and waited incase it all went wrong. Or, possibly if it went right.

After three days of this while everyone else was busy with their romantic entanglements Margo suddenly stopped in the middle of the ritual and began to chant a familiar name. "Lilith Weatherwax! Lilith Weatherwax! Lilith Weatherwax! Lilith Weatherwax! Lilith Weatherwax! Lilith Weatherwax! Lilith Weatherwax! Lilith Weatherwax! We summon you!"

Ella, who had been keeping an eye on things,, broke off from where she was dancing with a belly dancer from Klatch (actually Enid Stokes from Two-Shirts and entertainer on a river boat gambling establishment and who had a deep tan and remarkable figure once she got out of the potato sack-like clothes her single father used to make her wear and into a Boffo 'Dancing Girl #3 Veiled Harem Dress, great for Stag Parties' and faked a fairly decent accent she learned from a local Klatchian restaurant where they were also faking the accent because they were from Skund and anyone in Two-shirts who found squid and too much pepper in a dish thought it must be genuine Klatchian grub) and hissed. "You're summoning her?"

Margo raised an eyebrow, which made the Vetinari girl in the audience jump a bit at the resemblance Havelock. "She's in an alternate dimension where I can't otherwise reach her and she's coming through either way. From what I've divined she's been practicing gathering her separated bits in the mirror and focusing them so she could steal somebody else's body, since she seems unable to locate her own. How else was I supposed to get my hands on her?"

"That's impossible…. The power alone…" Someone else said.

"She still has her wand," Margo snapped, silencing them.

"Oh."

Now the mirror wall was shaking. It was big and had been made by Lily herself, though mostly decorative and because she liked mirrors. It was diamond and self cleaning, very powerful magic that most witches would never even try to do. Ella had simply left it, unaware of its true origins, since she lived in a hovel in the city before moving in after Lily's disappearance. Silently as spider web cracks began to spread over the foot thick mirror she made a note to finally just have somebody remove everything Lily had anything to do with from the palace as soon as possible rather than just knocking it away.

As the mirror shattered in place the reflections began to move differently from their owners. Slower. As if slightly delayed. Then in each cracked separate area it changed. There was Lily. Then another and another. Icy blue smart but mad eyes looking out of the glass. The dozens of women backed up, but kept watching instead of running, unable to look away.

Foota stepped forward, her body suddenly wreathed in octarine light to those who could see it and laced with nasty black lightning everyone could see. Her decorative butterfly mask flapping its wings against her face. It was beautiful but it was also based on shamanistic designs Margo had gotten from the local library. The swamp was not a great place to store books so Mrs. Gogol and a few of her predecessors who often came into possession books on powerful dark magic that "fell off the back of a boat" while being smuggled in secret were donated to the "Tax Law" section of the Genuan public library with help of a few of the city's more disreputable nobles. The call numbers carved into a small corner of the boat Margo called home. Mostly thy were the type of dark tomes the Unseen Academy burned or locked up and kept Dr. Hix and his students and especially Ponder Stibbons and his students away from at all costs. It was a toss up if the Postmortem Communication (Necromancy) Department or the curious and experimentally minded young wizard would be more dangerous with them.

Most people were thrown off the scent by the whole tax law thing while others just got a bad feeling of pure evil and madness from them and avoided that section of the library. Margo of course had spent plenty of time reading them. Or letting them read her as the case may be.

Lily meanwhile was doing most of the work. Margo had built Foota for the purpose. Beautiful, intimidating, and sexy. Tall enough to make everyone else seem like children in comparison and stepped in dark forces. Without her there Lily might have gone for whoever Ella picked as her bride or maybe Ella herself, whoever would have given her the most power. She had been watching from the other side of the mirror for weeks. Well technically for years. It was her whole thing. And just incase the diamonds Margo had dressed Foota in, the earrings and necklace, were actually made from shards of Lily's own mirrors gathered from the room where she disappeared and connected to her.

Then the cracks in the mirror began to disappear. Flowing together the dozens of tiny Lily images coming together like water drops. Until finally she stood in an unblemished mirror, the room behind her devoid of other people and eyes locked on Foota, unable to look away from her chosen body. She reached out and pressed her hand to the mirror.

"Join with me and we will be all powerful."

Foota did not try to resist as Margo stepped smartly back, hands on her staff. Anyone with half a brain would have realized what was going on. Lily would take over. The owner of the body becoming a prisoner in their own skin and bones, watching and screaming from inside as she did terrible things from behind their face. Foota however was quite literally brain dead, her beauty and health and even the magic power a light show, like the reflection in a mirror. A hollow shell expertly stitched together by Igorina and Margo's magic. Oh and operated by a third conspirator.

As the pretty abomination of science and magic placed her hand over Lily's something stepped out of her body. As if she was a doorway. It was a demon. A succubus actually. Tall with red skin and adorable little horns sticking out of her long purple hair. She wore a tight black dress; open at the back to show everything from hips to shoulders, including two bat-like wings and her long pointed tail. Dainty hooves clicked on the floor and her face was goddess like, if there was a goddess of lust and her large breasts heaved invitingly. The sexy bogeywoman from earlier was wide eyed with envy.

She stepped out of Foota whose face went suddenly from playful to blank. Standing next to Margo, her mistress, and watched at Lily realized she could not back out. A vacuum had formed in the soulless monstrosity and she could not pull away. Slowly her image disappeared from the mirror as she struggled to pull back silently screaming from behind the glass and struggling like a fox whose paw was caught in a trap. Slowly the people around Foota began to reappear in the reflection as Foota's eyes took on Lily's cold blue hue. Her hand finally fell from the mirror leaving a red bleeding handprint, but no blood on her actual palm.

Foota slumped briefly. Margo snapped, "Stand up straight." Suddenly she snapped to attention, towering again.

"Is… is Lily in there?" Ella asked. Many of the locals who still remembered the fairy godmother's rein of forced cheerfulness backed away.

Margo stepped forward and plucked the wand loosely gripped in the unmoving monster's other hand. It gleamed silver in the light of a thousand candles lighting up the room. Every magic user in the room watched it like a dog whose owner was waving a ball in front of them. The swamp witch ignored Lily herself, trapped in the giant body and clutched it to her chest.

"Yes, finally it's mine!" The wand. A thing of power some said was created in the mage wars or even older. Others claimed was from a much more magical world than even the disc. Forged by gods or fairies or demons or sourcerers. Some of the most powerful magic still on the disc and able to warm reality on a whim.

Ella snapped, "Then kill her, quick! Finish it!"

Snapping out of her joy at gaining the wand Margo looked at her and said, "Why?"

"What? Wasn't that the plan?" She asked.

"No, the plan was for me to get the wand. Not easy with Lily dragging it to another dimension. As for Lily, well she's a fount of magical information including how to use the wand. So I built a body for her to live in. One that is utterly subservient to me. Like a zombie, but better," she said with a grin and behind her Igorina smiled so wide around her writhing oversized tongue that it was possible the top of her head would pop off. She motioned to the demoness. "I tested it on GHhshtkPL here after engaging her services." The demoness curtsied prettily. "Seems Mrs. Gogol had a few jars of souls lying around. Like jellies and preserves. We made a perfect body which will trap her for centuries, possibly forever and which has no will of its own and must obey me with love potions in the veins so she won't actually fight, while her subconscious knows exactly what is happening. The only way Lily gets out is if I die and then only because my spirit will take the body for myself and send her on to the afterlife at last."

GHhshtkPL winked at "Lily". "I'll be waiting to escort her to her final destination along with a few other people eager to see her again."

"Something I intend to put off as long as possible until my actual body is long past usefulness. Meanwhile I have the perfect slave and Igorina as a perfect servant as well as a demoness minion and a magic wand. I think I'm good for the moment, don't you?" She saw Ella's gasp. "Oh don't look at me like that. You knew I was up to something and you agreed. Lily is out of your hair and will now be serving me as my slave. Once you marry the Happily Ever After will kick in and Genua will be safe from my plans or any dark magic for generations."

"What plans?"

She smiled, looking around the room at the assembled royalty and other interesting figures whose faces she was memorizing for later. "Let's just say the swamp is going to be much more dangerous and wonderful from now on. Nothing you need worry about, your grace. So long as you do not enter it unaware." She bowed, as witches do. "I have fulfilled every aspect of our deal."

"Devils always do," Patricia Sto Helit said from the crowd. The sexy red demon that had been puppeting Lily's new body blew her a kiss.

Ella chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment and then nodded. "Very well. I also keep my word. You have done well and I believe the wand should qualify as more than payment enough. We are even, yes?"

Margo smiled. "Certainly highness. However, I would like to enjoy the party and attend the wedding. After all, it's very important."

Ella knew the young witch was going to be trouble, but so were the other nobles and half the women in the room she was certain. A ruler, even one living happily ever after, was never free of problems. Besides she knew that very little good came from insulting someone with a fairy godmother wand, particularly over a party invitation. Sleeping for a hundred years just might qualify as "happy". "I don't have to bust out he golden plates?"

Margo laughed and waved her wand. "Allow me." All the silverware in the room suddenly sparkled with gold. She cackled, slightly mad but far too focused. "But this is Genua, so let us party!" The guests realized there was little to do, unless they wanted to fight Margo for Lily's release or ownership of the wand she was gripping so hard her knuckles were right.

Not today it seemed. Most did not know what was going on and the magic users were not prepared for such a battle surrounded by innocent people. All things considered it was pretty obvious that Margo would happily kill them all or might have something worse up her sleeve. So they all went back to the party while Margo tucked the wand safely into her cleavage.

"Would you care to dance?" A woman in a tiara asked her with a heavy foreign accent. Margo smiled and the two went to the dance floor.

They might not be acting against her, but for the rest of the night the witches watched Margo carefully as she enjoyed the party which to her was celebrating her victory.

Only a witch gone to the dark would kill. At least that was what the witches always believed. Looking at Lily, who was now dancing with Margo, blank faced but with eyes screaming in horror that made her imprisonment in the mirror seem like paradise, and they shuddered realizing there were far, far worse things a dark witch could do.

"Can you do anything?" Tiffany asked a dark figure next to her.

Death, eating something fancy on a stick, said, I AM AFRAID NOT. LILITH WEATHERWAX CHOSE THIS FATE HERSELF LLONG BEFORE YOU WERE BORN. IT IS NOT FOREVER. VERY LITTLE IS. AND ONE DAY I WILL CLAIM MARGO AS WELL, THOUGH IT MAY BE SOME TIME. I FIND SWAMP WITCHES TO BE AMONG THE BEST AT HOLDING THEIR END AT BAY.

"Then why are you here?"

I ENJOY A GOOD PARTY. BESIDES THERE WILL BE A DUEL IN FIFTEEN MINUTES. ONE OF SEVERAL SCHEDULED HERE THIS WEEK AND WITH SO MANY NOTABLE GUESTS I AM MAKING SOME PERSONAL APPEARANCES.

Tiffany nodded. She was not sure how she felt about this. She had come to enjoy the party too and knew she was in no position to tell Death how to do his job. She had also been prepared to take out Lily herself. It just seemed her current situation was rather extreme and empathy made her realize how terrible such a fate would be if it happened to her. Forced love. Slavery. Trapped in a monstrous body.

Margo appeared behind Tiffany Aching. Hands wrapped around the young woman intimately, making her stiffen like rock as dark fingers played with the rabbit around her neck. 'They say Miss Aching, that you are currently the best witch on the Disc and maybe that's true. They also say only a witch gone to the dark will kill. Well I just thought you should know, I'm aiming to be the worst witch in the same way your lot are good, but not nice. I'm bad, but I'm good at it.

"Look at her Miss Tiffany, not quite queen of the witches who may still carry a little more goddess in her veins than she lets on. I think I've done far, far worse than killed my enemy, don't you? Not that her victims would argue with her fate. Look at those who suffered under her heel for all those years, not one of them is so much as suggesting she get help. And I have so much more planned, now that I have her wand." She spoke words of prophecy. "We're balanced you and I oh greatest of witches. You cannot beat me, not in my swamp which I will never leave. Somebody will one day, far, far in the future, but she will not be you. As Granny passed before Lilith, always playing catch up with her sister's evil." She stepped back to stand beside her Igorina, the smirking demoness, and the large form that was now all that remained of Lily Weatherwax which was smiling only with its mouth. Strong and tall and stoic as only a zombie could be even as her eyes screamed in a way her voice no longer could. Margo held her staff in one hand and wand in the other, crossing them. "Beware Tiffany Aching for I warn you now, if you train someone to defeat me it will cost you your life, your status, and she will become the queen of withes and all will forget your name. And even defeated I will not die and will rule this swamp for a hundred, hundred years before my final defeat."

The world rippled with these words, a new story based on old tales of dark creatures, Tiffany knew the prophecy was real. Felt the world shift as the swamp witch feigned doffing her hat and the trio turned to return to their dark realm of moss and shadows. Seeming to fade into the shadows and just disappear. Tiffany realized that for all her politeness and youth the witch she had just met was truly evil. Something Tiffany had never really experienced before. The elves, they were like naughty children or kittens. Only acting on their nature. The Cunning Man was a little evil, but mostly crazy and just trying to do what he believed was right. Lilith as well.

How could someone knowingly choose to be so bad? And why, deep down, did she envy Margo just a little?

Tiffany however knew it would work. Yes good always triumphed over evil. But often a dragon terrorized a kingdom for centuries, killing thousands of would be slayers, before someone finally took it down. Demons and ghosts haunted places for centuries. Her friend Letitia had a whole parcel of them back at Keepsake castle. Princesses could sleep away centuries. Vampires and werewolf families and yes, evil witches. Oh my.

Tiffany however would not be who she was if she did not make an effort and a good witch knew when to seize her moment. Fate was still rippling. "Very well Margo the swamp witch, I will never lay a finger against you or your machinations. But someone will. You have a fairy godmother's want. Those always come in pairs. One day the other wand will rise. It may be centuries from now, but it will grow in power along with yours until the owner is your equal and they will come for you. Bound to see your end even if it means theirs. Alive as long as you live. As good as you are evil and drawn together until you cancel each other out." It was a pretty mean thing to do, especially to whoever ended up being the savior, but that was how magic worked. It was why in the old story the best the other fairy godmother could do was change a death curse to a sleeping one. It was all about the story.

Around her people applauded. Margo smiled and took a bow. "I can live with that. It's an honor to have my end orchestrated by the great Tiffany Aching." She looked up and winked. "May we both be there to see it."

Tiffany gritted her teeth. She had heard rumors that she might be a goddess. Also that sometimes witches lived a very, very long time. Bitten by vampires. Magic. Cursed. Eternally young or aging to a wizened old form. Tiffany realized she had just been trapped. Just as thoroughly as Lily and Margo herself. Or maybe she already had been. Magic users were well known to get a sense of when they would die. Most ignored it or barely sensed it until the date approached. Tiffany felt nothing like that.

SHOULD HAVE KEPT YOUR MOUTH SHUT, Death said, a little giggly from having drunk some of the booze the feegle girl in the cellar had not yet gotten to.

Fate, in the form of a beautiful middle aged women dark eyed and nearly as tall as Foota, stepped out of the crowd and clinked glasses with the tall skeleton, smirking at the witches like a proud father who just saw his children do a cleaver trick. Naturally he was there. Royal weddings. Stories. Magic. Destiny. This was Fate's jam, as they said. "Care to dance?"

Shifting a bit to a somehow female skeleton Death took his old associate's hand and said, I LOVE TO DANCE. A moment later they faded into the crowd, literally passing through them like ghosts, unseen by most of the guests at all. Meanwhile somewhere else a fight broke out and someone began calling for a duel.

Margo and Tiffany shared a look and then a similar one with other watching women in pointy black hats. It occurred to both young-ish witches that while it was possible to manipulate Fate and stave off Death both entities had been at this a lot longer than they had and were not quite as easy to waylay as even a witch might wish. The gods were often depicted as playing a game with mortals, moving pieces around on a board. Suddenly that idea was not quite as funny as it used to be.

As if to prove it far away in Lancre a few days later the castle cook was slicing up a catfish Tiffany had brought for a gift to the king, in exchange for a pair of Lappet Face Worriers given to the baroness of Genua as a present. One of two such fish, the other going another friend Baroness Letitia at the Baron Roland's castle near her home. Big catfish, large enough to eat small alligators. Magrat's eldest daughter, Esme was helping in the kitchen. She enjoyed cooking and her parents felt it helped her keep in touch with their roots.

A short time later the cook ran screaming from the room to summon the queen. Magrat was despite her position, pulled into the kitchen where she found Esmeralda (Note Spelling) sitting on a stool by a gutted fish and surrounded by a large number of pumpkins that used to be pots and pans. In her hand was a long silvery and jewel encrusted wand that Magrat was more than a little familiar with.

"Oh no." This reeked of destiny. She remembered in her youth Nanny Ogg saying something about mystical necklaces and rings and things dropped in rivers only to turn up some time later having fallen out of a fish's belly. Granny had poo-pooed the idea, only supposedly Tiffany Aching had experienced just such an event herself. Stronger than destiny though her mind went back to an even earlier time, when her mother had taken her to a local fair and bought her a fake magic wand when she was four or five. It had been made of cheap wood, painted pink with a star on top. Just a stick. Magrat however would have been prepared to die rather than let anyone take it from her and looking at her daughter's wide grin she tried to imagine taking a fully functional real magic fairy godmother wand away from a small girl.

It would be easier and less explosive to try and cure a swamp dragon's toothache with a pair of pliers.

There was a reason fairy godmothers were supposed to find carefully chosen successors for their wands and not say, just throw them away somewhere. Now Magrat was reaping the results of that as she watched her daughter expertly flick the wand and turn the fish before her into a dozen delicious smelling pumpkin pies before adjusting the gems on the handle and making one into apple.

Magrat slumped. She had always sort of hoped her daughter would be a witch queen too. Fairy Godmothers however tended to travel rather extensively. "Why couldn't she have just taken up stamp collecting?"

The famed magical city of Genua was under a Happily Ever After destiny for now, At least for the next three generations. It was entirely possible Margo would not live to see an end of it But the swamp was a place of darkness and stories and she would make it a dangerous place that would attract adventurers and send monsters out of the muck and into the world. People would disappear there in years to come, drawn by irresistible compulsions and their own curiosity It would never get bigger on the outside, but with her wand somehow it would get bigger on the inside, similar to the L-space found in libraries, connecting to other swamps and magical forests on the Disc and other worlds. There would be a golden castle that would appear and disappear. Goblins, of the old school that stole and ate children. Demons. Magical foxes acting as tricksters. Zombies. Black and dark witches.

Interestingly other cities, like Ankh-Morpork, were also built on swamps. There were a lot of marshlands all over the world. A fact that was about to become very relevant. All under the control of Ms. Margo. At least for awhile. She might be taken out by another evil creature, her wand stolen or she might survive. One day though the chosen one, with the twin to her wand, would come to stop the evil. Until then it was up to her to see if her name was lost to history for her terrifying crimes or stamped indelibly upon it.

Meanwhile in Genua their baroness got married, broke Lily's final curse, found true love, and some not so true love, and a little of something that was not exactly love but sure was fun. As did many of the women who attended the party and did not necessarily go home with those they arrived with or on the same boats that brought them to Genua in the first place. Love was in the air and, admittedly, enjoying the snack table with Death and Fate and a few other gods attracted by the events happening in Genua that week. And for now at least they all lived Happily Ever After. As for the future, well everything happened somewhere. Whatever you are imagining is probably close enough.

Only one thing was absolutely certain, Azrael thought as he watched events unfold with a knowing smirk from outside existence: the turtle moves.

Never Ending

Author's Note

Just because Terry Pratchett is gone doesn't mean Discworld went with him. The man created possibly the greatest fictional (to our world) worlds in history. Built on old legends and other people's works and possibly inspiration from the multiverse, literally on the shoulders of giants. Like Xanth or Asprin's multi-world universe from the MYTH books. I'd love to see the Disc survive like Shakespeare's works and Journey to the West and other classics, but for now it certainly hasn't ended among the fans.

So I grabbed a few of the old characters, came up with a few new ones, and rethought some things. After all for example witches would not have so many rules against dark magic if some of them id not use it. Not so long ago Xanth had an Evil Empire run by an Evil Emperor. From the start Discworld has gotten more socially advanced from its early days when Ankh-Morpork was a standard medieval fantasy city to a steam-punk world where one might not be surprised to run into Agatha Heterodyne from Phil Foglio's Girl Genius series.

Still the dwarves and trolls have their parades in Ankh, so I went with Genua, their version of France (similar to Quirm, which I think of more as Italian) or maybe New Orleans to get a Pride Parade going. France was well known to accept that sort of thing way before and far more completely than most of our world. Pratchett barely touched on the subject, except a few comments and maybe a couple characters here and there in Monstrous Regiment for example, but with DeSantis making an ass of himself and a ton of anti-LGBT laws being passed here in America I'd like to think Pratchett might have done something like this. He did Jingo as a parody of the 9-eleven/Muslim racism we went through. Among other things.
Pratchett was without question a genius who, like many of his characters, made a mark on the world and left it and the people his stories touched a little better than he found it.

If you are into witches you might like my book "A Coven of Witches" or my nonfiction how to book "Modern Doll Magic." Or maybe "The Complete Lesbian Storybook" and "Sapphic Spies" if you just enjoy girls with girls. They're all on Amazon along with a bunch of others.