If there was a time when someone would have the opportunity to observe a natural cadence take place without any
sign of organised control or deliberate internal-management, the huge Wolf-Dog walking along the pebbled shore
towards Ma Vittie's home and the woman -herself, standing beside a battered cart whilst holding a harness, was
one of these moments.
From Peggy Powler's vantage point on the ridge, she had watched as the shaggy creature had stopped sniffing and
occasionally sneezing around the area of the little Witch's advent onto the island and without a signal of any kind,
began to trot easily along the fine line where the Great Sea's soft waves met the water-smoothed stones. It seemed
the pepper had performed its task at masking Peggy's presence due to the dog's lack of barking and now the lupine
-like mongrel seemed to understand it would be needed as a beast of burden.
At the same time, larger stones washed by the tidal anomaly that passed between the mainland and the grassy lump
being annexed so long-ago, now broke the surface of the receding water as Alkali Bight produced its daily exhibit of
an uneven boulevard between the two shores. Peggy saw the changing of the water level and realising her time of
cramped waiting was almost over, began to get her aching limbs to move once more.
No shrill whistle from the bovine hermit full of misandry, no mewling to the feral animal with use of an affectionate
name and no trick with food, the Wolf-Dog just wandered towards the upside-down boat-home much as it had last
week. The only difference that the bantam onlooker wouldn't be aware of was that dog's snout didn't drip with mucus
on its last trip to Frostmeadow.
"What have you been up to...?" Martha snapped in a slightly ribald tone as the tongue-lolling canine approached the cart.
"...I hope you haven't been fighting with that sea-monster" she added accusingly as the snot-snorting animal sidled into
its position to accept the slim wooden traces. The Wolf-Dog didn't reply -maybe because of an inborn loyalty to humans,
maybe because it was a male under the influence of a masculine-hating woman or more probable was that the only canid
known to have mastered human language was said to have died some time ago.
But instead, the furry brute remained silent as the well-worn leather straps were secured around his shoulders. After a
careful mistrusting examination to ensure her fleshy body wouldn't be tipped out during the trek across the causeway
Ma Vittie clambered into the creaking cart at the same moment, the Last Witch of Underhill prepared another type of
journey.
..................................................
The climb down had been fairly uneventful in regard of Peggy not tumbling ass-over-tit, but reaching the track that the
Wolf-Dog often used when patrolling the island, the watchful sorceress noticed a dark lump sticking out of the water
some way off from the beach. After Ma Vittie had steered her carriage off along the shingle track at the nearer end of
the isle, Peggy had shuffled down on her belly part of the way until she was sure the upside-down hull that doubled
as a roof, hid her from getting to her feet.
Arriving at the shingled base, Peggy glanced once more towards the floating shape she'd spotted, but whatever the
object was, had sank. "Keep yer eye on the ball, lassie" she whispered to herself and resetting her hat, went back to
scrutinising her current predicament. Being an occasional benevolent soul, the bare-footed necromancer could push
herself to call the structure a shack, but the walls of wooden fragments, the door made of a oblong slab of driftwood
and even the cracked piece of glass embedded in the planks... told Peggy that Ma Vittie's lifestyle was designed by
a inner need not to seek external assistance.
Pushing the draughty-excuse for a door open, the apprehensive invader peered into the gloom of the home and
wrinkled her nose from what she had inadvertently released. The aroma was of tired age, of bitter transudation
and blathered a lot more than any eves-dropping gossip from a General Store in Frostmeadow. Slowly stepping
inside, the bright sun apologised for not following and Peggy's eyes squinted to make out the sparse shapes that
endured Ma Vittie's nightly hatred of her past.
The woman's bed was a large flattened sack with all kinds of pliable stuffed material hanging out of holes the Witch
would suggest were done by mice. A grubby hand-sewn quilt lay mangled upon this wannabe-mattress and a bundle
of rags doubled as a pillow. Relieved that she could move her eyes elsewhere, Peggy's gaze passed over a stained
and gouged wooden door-less cupboard and aimed at a dresser with one of its drawers missing. The Elf-high chunk
of furniture leaned desperately on its three legs next to large black metal stove and offered the idea that at some
time in its past, it had donated part of itself to the furnace beside it.
Moving on, Peggy saw a splintered shelf that would always have a penchant to roll any of its contents onto the filthy
-planked floor or even behind the previous semi-cannibalised bureau. The whole shadowy room displayed well-matured
hebetude and a hefty dollop of self-induced tedium. If it hadn't been for a conscientious ray of sunlight slipping through
one of the many damaged roof boards and glistening onto something metallic at the back of the cabinet, the concentrating
clairvoyant may have missed her goal.
Using that void caused by the missing drawer, Peggy unceremoniously clambered up on top of the dresser and peered
into the darkness at the rear of the small home. There was two rectangular objects there, the larger had once boasted
a hinged-lid, but now just sat broken and agape with a fair amount of gold numma piled inside it. Keeping her breathing
shallow in order to not disturb the layer of dust everywhere, Peggy mused that this cask of money would've been the
'keep-yer-gob-shut' payment to Martha Vittie from the echelon who dislike hanky-panky amongst their ranks.
The other container was a smaller scuffed box with well-rubbed ambiguous symbols upon its surface and at a glance,
one might wonder how it functioned as a caisson. But there was an aura of its exterior, a hint to those who appreciate
the real power of sorcery and a feeling that something very parlous waited within. On closer inspection, a viewer would
experience something mentally unobtainable from the strange runes scrawled across the dried-out Wytch-willow, but
somewhere in a spectator's dim corridors of the subliminal, a faint voice warned of slumbering menace.
Maybe for a few of us, this would be a moment of conscious celebration of even emotive relief that an arduous quest
had been fulfilled. But for the squatting diminutive half-Fae with a too-big hat and her bare-buttocks on full view, such
an occasion passed her by due to her surprise.
"Whey, Ah'll be buggered... it's tiny" she hushed and gingerly reaching for the box, beheld the similarities between
Finley's empty pepper box and the old ligneous keeper of the Glamour Grimoire.
sign of organised control or deliberate internal-management, the huge Wolf-Dog walking along the pebbled shore
towards Ma Vittie's home and the woman -herself, standing beside a battered cart whilst holding a harness, was
one of these moments.
From Peggy Powler's vantage point on the ridge, she had watched as the shaggy creature had stopped sniffing and
occasionally sneezing around the area of the little Witch's advent onto the island and without a signal of any kind,
began to trot easily along the fine line where the Great Sea's soft waves met the water-smoothed stones. It seemed
the pepper had performed its task at masking Peggy's presence due to the dog's lack of barking and now the lupine
-like mongrel seemed to understand it would be needed as a beast of burden.
At the same time, larger stones washed by the tidal anomaly that passed between the mainland and the grassy lump
being annexed so long-ago, now broke the surface of the receding water as Alkali Bight produced its daily exhibit of
an uneven boulevard between the two shores. Peggy saw the changing of the water level and realising her time of
cramped waiting was almost over, began to get her aching limbs to move once more.
No shrill whistle from the bovine hermit full of misandry, no mewling to the feral animal with use of an affectionate
name and no trick with food, the Wolf-Dog just wandered towards the upside-down boat-home much as it had last
week. The only difference that the bantam onlooker wouldn't be aware of was that dog's snout didn't drip with mucus
on its last trip to Frostmeadow.
"What have you been up to...?" Martha snapped in a slightly ribald tone as the tongue-lolling canine approached the cart.
"...I hope you haven't been fighting with that sea-monster" she added accusingly as the snot-snorting animal sidled into
its position to accept the slim wooden traces. The Wolf-Dog didn't reply -maybe because of an inborn loyalty to humans,
maybe because it was a male under the influence of a masculine-hating woman or more probable was that the only canid
known to have mastered human language was said to have died some time ago.
But instead, the furry brute remained silent as the well-worn leather straps were secured around his shoulders. After a
careful mistrusting examination to ensure her fleshy body wouldn't be tipped out during the trek across the causeway
Ma Vittie clambered into the creaking cart at the same moment, the Last Witch of Underhill prepared another type of
journey.
..................................................
The climb down had been fairly uneventful in regard of Peggy not tumbling ass-over-tit, but reaching the track that the
Wolf-Dog often used when patrolling the island, the watchful sorceress noticed a dark lump sticking out of the water
some way off from the beach. After Ma Vittie had steered her carriage off along the shingle track at the nearer end of
the isle, Peggy had shuffled down on her belly part of the way until she was sure the upside-down hull that doubled
as a roof, hid her from getting to her feet.
Arriving at the shingled base, Peggy glanced once more towards the floating shape she'd spotted, but whatever the
object was, had sank. "Keep yer eye on the ball, lassie" she whispered to herself and resetting her hat, went back to
scrutinising her current predicament. Being an occasional benevolent soul, the bare-footed necromancer could push
herself to call the structure a shack, but the walls of wooden fragments, the door made of a oblong slab of driftwood
and even the cracked piece of glass embedded in the planks... told Peggy that Ma Vittie's lifestyle was designed by
a inner need not to seek external assistance.
Pushing the draughty-excuse for a door open, the apprehensive invader peered into the gloom of the home and
wrinkled her nose from what she had inadvertently released. The aroma was of tired age, of bitter transudation
and blathered a lot more than any eves-dropping gossip from a General Store in Frostmeadow. Slowly stepping
inside, the bright sun apologised for not following and Peggy's eyes squinted to make out the sparse shapes that
endured Ma Vittie's nightly hatred of her past.
The woman's bed was a large flattened sack with all kinds of pliable stuffed material hanging out of holes the Witch
would suggest were done by mice. A grubby hand-sewn quilt lay mangled upon this wannabe-mattress and a bundle
of rags doubled as a pillow. Relieved that she could move her eyes elsewhere, Peggy's gaze passed over a stained
and gouged wooden door-less cupboard and aimed at a dresser with one of its drawers missing. The Elf-high chunk
of furniture leaned desperately on its three legs next to large black metal stove and offered the idea that at some
time in its past, it had donated part of itself to the furnace beside it.
Moving on, Peggy saw a splintered shelf that would always have a penchant to roll any of its contents onto the filthy
-planked floor or even behind the previous semi-cannibalised bureau. The whole shadowy room displayed well-matured
hebetude and a hefty dollop of self-induced tedium. If it hadn't been for a conscientious ray of sunlight slipping through
one of the many damaged roof boards and glistening onto something metallic at the back of the cabinet, the concentrating
clairvoyant may have missed her goal.
Using that void caused by the missing drawer, Peggy unceremoniously clambered up on top of the dresser and peered
into the darkness at the rear of the small home. There was two rectangular objects there, the larger had once boasted
a hinged-lid, but now just sat broken and agape with a fair amount of gold numma piled inside it. Keeping her breathing
shallow in order to not disturb the layer of dust everywhere, Peggy mused that this cask of money would've been the
'keep-yer-gob-shut' payment to Martha Vittie from the echelon who dislike hanky-panky amongst their ranks.
The other container was a smaller scuffed box with well-rubbed ambiguous symbols upon its surface and at a glance,
one might wonder how it functioned as a caisson. But there was an aura of its exterior, a hint to those who appreciate
the real power of sorcery and a feeling that something very parlous waited within. On closer inspection, a viewer would
experience something mentally unobtainable from the strange runes scrawled across the dried-out Wytch-willow, but
somewhere in a spectator's dim corridors of the subliminal, a faint voice warned of slumbering menace.
Maybe for a few of us, this would be a moment of conscious celebration of even emotive relief that an arduous quest
had been fulfilled. But for the squatting diminutive half-Fae with a too-big hat and her bare-buttocks on full view, such
an occasion passed her by due to her surprise.
"Whey, Ah'll be buggered... it's tiny" she hushed and gingerly reaching for the box, beheld the similarities between
Finley's empty pepper box and the old ligneous keeper of the Glamour Grimoire.
Read The TV Guide, yer' don't need a TV.