Chapter 99: The New Witch Queen
"Are you interested in joining us?" Bridget directly asked the group, which consisted of a half-demon knight and the adorable and sexy elf.
The new witch Queen more or less interrupted them as they were eating. Yes, they were offered a nice supper. They were eating at a round table in one of the many rooms of the main and bigger house of the witch village. April nearly choked on her food as she heard what Bridget had to say to them. They were served a nice meal. They were offered plates upon plates of red turkey. A rare kind of poultry that could only be found and hunted on the side of the red mountains, on the other side of the region during the beginning of the harvest season. Here, in the Halloween kingdom, it was always Autumn. However, they were four different seasons within that one season. The first sub-season of the year was the harvest one, during which the weather was slowly getting colder and colder over time… Some would say it was the best (and last) time to hunt poultry, such as the red turkey. Which meant that everything that was served to April and Junk was absolutely fresh. They were also given lots and lots of vegetables. Dwarven potatoes. Potatoes cultivated and sold by dwarves. Incredibly creamy. Halfling gravy. Prepared by halfling from a different region altogether. They were also served some decent ale. April didn't drink. She never did. Well, except for some water, but that was about it. Meanwhile, the young man found himself drinking mugs upon mugs of it without any stop to it. Each, single, time he shoved food into his mouth, he immediately pour some more ale into his mouth to rinse it all out in a pinch. And he was always eating and shoving food down his throat, which meant that he always was drinking, seconds after taking another bite. He was drinking so much so that he always held his glassed mug in the palm of his left hand.
The witch, members of this coven, knew better and opted to provide him with this giant mug that some could often and easily find in a busy tavern. However, the witches here, including Bridget, typically didn't drink from such a heavy and cumbersome type of glass. They used something a bit different and slightly more sophisticated. Tall wine glasses. Around this table, the half-demon was the only one who drank from a beer mug. The other two around this table, April and Bridget, were both drinking from one of these tall and clear wine glasses. April had water, as she constantly repeated to the witches that she wanted and nothing else. And Bridget had wine. Red wine. However, even though, April was drinking a lot of water to rinse down the food she was eating, she did not choke on her water when she was interrupted by the witch Queen. Instead, she choked on some bread she had recently covered in butter. She coughed a bit as she choked, but without the help or involvement of anyone else at the table, she was successfully able to clear her throat by clearing it as much as she could. The piece of bread was unstuck from her throat and she swallowed it. She was good. She was feeling a lot better already. Junk stood up as he feared she was in trouble.
"Are you alright, April?" he asked her, worried about her.
"Nah… I'm fine… I'm fine… Don't worry about me... Just a piece of bread…" she waved at him as she rushed herself to drink more water. She was fine. Yet, Junk was still worried about her.
"Are you certain you are alright now? Dang it. Is that something I said that made you choke on your bread? Bridget asked. Meanwhile, Junk finally sat back down on his comfortable chair.
"Are you seriously asking us to join you?" April asked her.
"Yeah! You have to repeat that for us!" he turned his head to Bridget and demanded her. He heard her well enough the first time around, but he needed to hear that one again.
"You have nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do. For the last time, September gave up on you. She gave up on everybody it seemed, unfortunately… But that doesn't mean we can't make everything better now. There is still time to make things right. The witches of the Autumn tribe… Us. We are not your enemies," she told them. She spoke with a deeply calming and relaxed tone in her voice. Even more so than ever before. She was occasionally eating, taking a bite out of her place, but quite honestly, she was more drinking than eating.
"Well, actually, she is giving us food. Enemies typically doesn't provide food to their adversaries, so that could make some shred of sense…" the brave young man turned his head back to April, looked at her right into her eyes, as he made this big, personal, revelation.
"You and food. That's the only thing you think about. Lord Monsoon could give you a snack and all of a sudden, you would no longer believe that he is your enemy, even though he is. Not only that, I assume you were fed back in prison, where you grew up. Did the folks at the prison were your friends because they were feeding you?" April gave multiple examples to Junk in regard to his theory.
"That's not true!" he stopped her right there. "The people at the cauldron prison, the guards and the warden, were our enemies because they were barely feeding us. The bare minimum. I had to fight with the other prisoners in order to get as much food as I wanted and needed for my half-demon alimentation. I had to do battles in order to have enough food to properly grow up!" he explained.
"Something that is never going to happen here, if I may add," Bridget reassured Junk regarding this important detail.
"Um… Whatever…" April tried to ignore what Junk had just said. "So, what's the plan, witch Queen? You want us to locate someone we can't locate right now or period. And you want us to fight against Sep as well? We are never going to do that for you."
"No. I don't want you to do any of that. I don't want you to fight her. I want you, two, to help me bring her back to the village," Bridget corrected April.
"You want her back here for what reason, specifically?" Junk questioned her.
"Good question, Junk. Good question," April complimented him. "And why should we trust you?" April asked Bridget another question before she had enough time to reply to the first one.
"Because I am her sister and I only want what's best for her," the new witch "Queen answered.