Witches Be Crazy

It had been a long and twisted journey. Dungar had seen many sights that he could have never even fathomed. From dodging enormous snakes to escaping fire breathing cats to going on a voyage with a band of gay pirates, he had found himself enriched with all the wondrous sights and experiences that had lay beyond his comfortable home his entire life. But, even with his freshly opened mind, he could not even begin to envision the kind of woman that Jimminy would covet.

He had also never really considered his faithful sidekick in that light either. Thinking back to when they first met Herrow, Dungar didn’t really notice any changes in the man’s behavior. Even in the presence of a beautiful woman he continued with his shamelessly nonsensical ways without so much as an attempt to impress. This lady that he had waiting wherever they were going must be quite a catch.

“Just remember we’re on a schedule, Jimmy.” Dungar reminded him as they strode through the rainbow meadow. “We can’t stay long.”

“Of course, mate! I just wanted to say me hellos. Blimey it’s been so long since I’ve seen me beloved. I hope she’s well.”

Dungar couldn’t resist. He was too curious. “What did you mean by she got away?”

Jimminy sighed and stayed quiet for a few moments before responding. “A guy like me couldn’t hang on to a woman like that, mate. How could a bloke like meself possibly contend with the hordes of fellows who wanted her? She would remind me all the time too just how lucky I was to have her too. Every day she’d come home to me over all the other mates she had pawing at her. Silly me had to blow it all. I hope she can forgive me.”

“Ah like I said, mate, it’s me own fault. Couldn’t expect a lady like her to stay with a man who wasn’t good ’nuff for her. But we’ll see about that once I go see about her!”

Dungar regretted asking. With all of Jimminy’s wacky antics and his eccentric approach to the world, he had expected a rather unorthodox story rather than an answer that was so … human.

The wind continued to whistle its soothing melody through the rock formations as the two men wandered their way through the rocky fields. But it was more than a gentle nature sound. Each rock seemed to tune the breeze to different notes, turning each gust into true music.

“Do you hear that, Jimmy?” He asked his friend. He didn’t actually care about the answer, he just wanted to change the subject.

“Yeah, this here grassy and flowery business that you’re tromping with your big ol’ tootsies!”

“… The field that we are currently walking in is called the Star Field, mate. And blimey you have big feet for a short fella!”

“Yup! Y’see, it is said that the goddess Suola has taken this here land as her personal garden. She used her goddess-y magic to keep the baddies out and tended it into this pretty meadow. And at night all the flowers glow a reflection of the constellations so she can see what her home looks like.”

But there was not. Completely ignoring Dungar’s protest, Jimminy began to belt out in his tone deaf voice his familiar tune that was not even close to the rhythm of the windsong.

Way hey and away we explore

Gonna see the woman I adore

Then we’ll find the queen and give her what for!

A way hey and away we explore!

A small walled community could be seen in the distance now, maybe a ten minute walk away. It was a scenic looking community with cobblestone streets that matched the walls and overlooked the colorful meadows. From its idyllic appearance, and the faint smell of freshly baked bread that wafted from it, the town gave off a very peaceful feel.

“Behold, mista Dungar, the town of South Redspring Starmoor. Or SRS for short.”

Thunder crashed somewhere in the distance as he said that, even though the sky was cloudless.

The two men’s feet left the soft mushy meadow ground for the hard stone paving as they entered the town. There appeared to be one main road that carved right down the middle with occasional side alleys jutting out of it. The neat cobblestone paving wasn’t the only stark difference between this place and Woodwall. Unlike Dungar’s home town where all buildings were the same shade of palm tree wood, each building in the town was expertly painted beautifully contrasting colors with great attention to detail. In fact, attention to aesthetic was evident all over. From the hand painted signs of the shops to the neatly swept sidewalks, this was a very pretty place.

“Excuse me, m’dear!” Jimminy called out to a portly yet pleasant enough looking middle aged woman who had just stepped out of the bakery. She hadn’t noticed them during her exit, so Jimminy reached over and tapped her shoulder before she could walk away. “’Tis a bit of a longshot, but do you perhaps know a—”

His inquiry was cut off when the woman turned around and, upon seeing the two men, screeched an ear shattering scream loud enough to drop Dungar into the fetal position.

“JIMMY! WHATEVER YOU’RE SAYING, STOP SAYING IT!” Dungar yelled through plugged ears.

“I DON’T KNOW WOT I’M SAYING!!” He screamed back, hands now over his ears.

“AMBASSSADORS OF THE PATRIARCHY ARE HERE TO RAPE AND OPPRESS US!!!” The woman yelled at the top of her lungs.

At that moment, Dungar and Jimminy realized something about the people moving about the street. There was not a single man among them. Immediately similar shrieking and cries for guards echoed through the streets. Within moments a detachment of women armed with swords and chain mail tore around a corner and confronted the duo. Immediately the bewildered men raised their hands high over their heads.

“Er …” Jimminy stuttered to the intimidating looking ladies. “I don’t suppose any of you know a—”

This time he was silenced by a metal clad fist cracking him in the face. The guards did not say a word to either one of them. Instead they silently ushered them at sword point towards a brick building at the far end of one of the alleys.

As the party stepped inside, the building was revealed to be none other than a makeshift prison. There was a small cell tucked in the corner that contained nothing but a canvas bedroll and a shallow hole in the ground. The rest of the building was empty save for the decrepit table and stool where a guard likely sat. Due to the lack of maintenance present, it was likely a safe assumption this room didn’t often have inhabitants.

As Dungar and Jimminy were ushered into the cell, one of the guards turned to the others to give instructions.

“Check the perimeter for any others, and notify Lady Dubya to come immediately. Tell her that we have … guests.”

Wasting no time, the entire detachment hurried out the door to carry out their assigned duties, leaving Dungar and Jimminy alone in jail. Again.

“They said Lady Dubya, mate! That’s her last name! Don’t worry, mista Dungar, once she comes down here I’ll get this all straightened out!”

Despite Jimminy’s assurances, none of this sat well with Dungar. He couldn’t even figure out why they had been locked up in the first place. The other times he was taken against his will were by corrupt individuals, but this time it was as if he had broken some sort of law. He had been in the town less than thirty seconds, so the question became what could they possibly think he had done?

Way hey and away we’re jailed

Our crucial quest briefly derailed

Here we’ll sit ’til we are bailed

A way hey and away we’re jailed.

EVERYBODY!

Happy that time wasn’t being wasted; Dungar obligingly got to his feet with his cellmate and strode out the door at the behest of the guards. Outside there were at least ten more of the armor clad women waiting for them. The formed a semi-circle around the two prisoners before forcing them to their knees.

“Hands on your heads, dicks!” One of them called out. “If you make a move I will not hesitate to cut you down! Stay still, quiet, and wait for the Lady to come.”

With no alternate options, the men complied with the orders given and obediently waited. In a town as small as this, surely it couldn’t take more than a few minutes to arrive no matter where one started from.

Time began to stretch and the minutes began to multiply as they knelt there. Occasional coughs could be heard from the guard detachment, but not a sound was made by anyone including Jimminy. The man likely did not want to do anything that could jeopardize his reunion. Impatience within the group began to mount as well, as occasional confused murmurs and sighs indicated Dungar was not the only one experiencing it.

After almost an hour and a half had passed, although it was difficult to be sure in their position, something caught their attention. The ground began to shake. Terrified flocks of birds burst from the trees and dark brooding clouds rolled menacingly over the skies as an amorphous mountain of flesh slowly trundled towards them. It’s perfectly spherical body heaved up and down in tandem with its labored breaths, and every few feet it had to pause for a short rest supported by the unfortunate souls tasked with escorting it. Whoever it was, they were truly enormous. And having lived his life with emdeema addicts, Dungar knew truly enormous. Or at least he thought he did before today. Packing on some pounds was one thing, but this person was inhuman.

After several more painstaking minutes of repeating that process, the beast had finally reached her destination and Dungar could get a better look at this overlord. Her eyes could not be seen from under the fatty folds dangling over them. All that could be seen of her face under her greasy brown hime cut and excessive overhanging adipose tissue was a gaping mouth noisily sloshing up and down as she crudely ingested the massive turkey leg in her hand.

At this point Dungar realized why they were taken outside to meet her. There was no way she could have fit through the doorway into the prison. What she wore could only be described as a royal sized table cloth draped carefully over her globular girth and affixed in place by a worn looking belt that was hanging on for dear life. The bright white color of her chosen attire did not flatter her in the slightest.

“Bibi, my darling!” Jimminy exclaimed, hopping to his feet. The guards reacted like lightning to subdue him.

Bibi drew in a long breath, swallowed the massive amount of food in her mouth, then sneered in a hoarse, nasally voice. “What do you want?!”

The smell hit Dungar before the words had time to register. A putrescent mix of curdled milk and rancid chicken wafted from her mouth and sent him into a fit of dry heaves. Jimminy, however, seemed completed unfazed.

“It’s Jimmy, actually!” The ecstatic Jimminy corrected, happy to be making headway. “I was in the neighborhood and I just wanted to see you!”

“Er, nothing. I didn’t have anything to bring. Oh blimey, Bibi, I’m so sorry! How could I be so thoughtless.”

“I’m a lady, Jummy!” Bibi shamelessly admonished him as she removed an entire pie from a flap in her dress and began eating chunks of it with her hands. “You ain’t gonna win over a real woman like me if yuh don’t even get her no gift!”

“Of- of course not!” Jimminy stammered, looking around nervously. “If you give me just a few moments I can go pick your loveliness a lovely bouquet of flowers from the Star Field!”

“FLOWERS!” The incredulous blob screamed. “Oh, because I’m girl you think you can just tide me over with flowers! How dare you make assumptions about me based on my gender!”

Dungar couldn’t take anymore. He did not care how much misplaced affection Jimminy had for this woman, her mere presence made his skin crawl.

“That’s different!” Bibi snapped right back. Slowly, both for the pause in conversation and due to her being unable to move any faster, the hefty woman waddled towards him and sized him up with a pronounced lower lip. “By being a man you are a potential rapist and murderer and I need to protect my girls!”

The blacksmith was struck dumb by the accusation, for he was amazed that such ridiculous claims had been made with such fervor.

“You … You can’t be serious … There are people that actually think that?”

“You bet your ugly beard I do!” The town Lady snarled. “We’re strong independent women who don’t need no men strutting around thinking they can snu-snu as they please!”

The combination of eating the pie and giving the speech had caused her to start sweating and breathing heavily, so she paused for a moment to catch her breath and scarf down the remainder of the pie. As she finished, she threw down the pie tin and screamed.

Instantly Jimminy jumped to his feet and tore in the direction of the flower fields. Dungar immediately took off after him, unwilling to remain in the hands of the psychotic women any longer. He caught up to his frail friend just as they made it to the town entrance.

“I have no idea wot I was thinking, mate!” Jimminy insisted. “Why would I tell her to call me Jimmy? I hate being called Jimmy. But I can’t ask her to stop now!”

Dungar opened and closed his mouth several times before he thought better of trying to reason with him. Jimminy on a normal day was nonsensical enough, this love-struck persona of his made him doubly hard to deal with.

Whistling to himself as he labored for his love, Jimminy dove enthusiastically into the flower fields and began putting together as varied and colorful a bouquet as he could manage. Meanwhile, Dungar paced idly through the field trying to decide on a course of action. He wanted nothing more than to simply take off and make for Jenair, it was so close now, but his partner insisted on staying put until further notice.

He furled his brow as he glanced back to Jimminy. Dungar was no genius in the ways of love, but even he could see what was happening here. His distaste towards his friend’s taste in women didn’t stem from aesthetics, much as his personal preferences certainly differed, but rather the clear abusive implications from their short introduction. If his skinny friend puts himself forth as a willing manservant, then she will undoubtedly take him in to squander his affection as she pleases until she gets bored of him. Unfortunately, they didn’t have that kind of time.

‘There we are!” Jimminy called out as he straightened up with a fist full of flowers. “Wot do you think, mista Dungar? A classy corsage if I ever did see one!”

“Looks like a handful of flowers, Jimmy.” Dungar dismissed disinterestedly, head still deep in thought.

Begrudgingly, Dungar followed his friend back into town. Naturally, the town Lady and her ensemble hadn’t moved far in their absence.

“Jimmy!” The woman called out excitedly, struggling to spin her enormous frame in his direction. “There you are! You know I didn’t mean anything I said earlier. Teehee, you know I get moody when my blood sugar is low!”

“Of course, darling!” The poor whipped fellow conceded. “Here’s your flowers, my dear. As you can see, I made sure to fill it with your favorite colors! See, there’s purple and blue and—”

“Yeah yeah that’s wonderful.” Bibi acknowledged dismissively. “Say, you should come see where I’m living now! Maybe I’ll even give you the exclusive tour. Teehee. Nothing but the best for little old me.”

Dungar snorted at the proposition. This woman was about as little as Jimminy was mentally sound.

“I would love that, dear!” Jimminy exclaimed, wrapping his bony arm around her bulging, inflated limb.

“And YOU!” She snapped at Dungar before the left. “You can wander free. But my girls got their eyes on you! We know all your tricks!”

She turned back to Jimminy the duo toddled slowly down the road towards the biggest house on the block, leaving the carefully picked bouquet sloppily strewn all over the street. A few of the guards offered the blacksmith sheepishly sympathetic looks, but all went their separate ways as soon as the town head departed.

Dungar weighed his options. He briefly entertained the idea of putting the large lady out of her misery, but that would just create more problems than it would solve. Not to mention being entitled and bigoted wasn’t quite grounds for committing murder. This left him with plan B, finding a place to get a drink.

The town of South Red whatever was far from big. However there was little aid in terms of navigation. Most of the residents probably knew the town backwards and forwards, and, due to their less than stellar policy regarding visitors, it was safe to assume that the town did not pride itself on being foreigner friendly. Still, a town populated exclusively by women was an interesting notion to Dungar. So while he waited out the current fiasco unfolding, he may as well have a look around.

The landscaping in town was immaculate. There were flower beds everywhere, each one densely filled with a plethora of pink flowers and no weeds in sight. Many of the buildings also had pink paneling, as well as pink lettering in their signs. There was pink all over. In addition to the pink saturation, all buildings seemed to be equipped with small mirrors that were always at head level for some reason.

The most prevalent aspect of the town did not become apparent until after Dungar began to inspect the buildings themselves. There were bathrooms absolutely everywhere. There did not seem to be a single spot within the city limits where one was not within ten paces of a lavatory. Not only was every shop equipped with one, but there was also at least one stand-alone bathroom building on every block. They were the fanciest lavatories he had ever seen as well. Having no notion of the concept of plumbing, the elaborate and intelligent system that the women had designed to eliminate waste was so intricate that he just assumed magic was involved.

When he finally endeavored to explore the shops, he had the jarring realization as to just how far out of his comfort zone he was. He was no stranger to intoxication, but the aromas that assaulted the senses each time he dared enter one of the forsaken buildings was like nothing he had ever experienced. Once he finally managed to peel open his watery eyes, he found it was filled to the brim by what could only be described as girly things. Bath salts, purses, perfumes, nail polish, make-up, jewelry, and bizarre torturous devices apparently intended to be worn on one’s feet; there were so many different kinds.

There were also scented candles, scented soaps, scented tissues, scented towels, scented inks, even scented paper, which the women seemed to have invented a neat liquid form of. Virtually any everyday object that one could think of they managed to reproduce and sell with a funky bouquet. Ironically, the only thing that didn’t seem to come scented in this town was their other chief export, clothing. Having never even heard of the concept of fashion, he entered and subsequently left a number of effeminate yet potentially bar sounding names like “Vicky’s Mystery,” “Cocoa’s,” and “Lilylimes.” When he saw a building labelled “haute couture” he thought perhaps he at least found somewhere that’d serve coffee, but left disappointed yet again upon realizing it was just another girl word for clothes. However, willing to give credit where credit was due, he had to admit that the paper bags they provided to transport purchases were a pretty neat invention.

With only one building left on his current block, he figured he’d might as well check it out. As he gingerly poked his head through the door, hand on nose and eyes narrowed, he found the building to be stocked not with feminine wares, but shelves and shelves of books. He lowered his hand and straightened up to look around. Books had never been a favorite pastime of his, but even he could find something inherently magical about so many stories available in such close quarters. He wished he could show Nobeard.

“Please don’t start screaming.” Dungar muttered with a sigh as he searched for the voice.

The voice came from a young lady sitting at a table who looked to be in her mid-twenties. She had long flowing brown hair held in place by a thin gold headband that gave her a rather angelic appearance. Her bright eyes were such a light blue that they almost looked white like her pale skin that contrasted felicitously with her bright red smiling lips. She appeared to be friendly enough, but appearances have been known to deceive.

“Well, you’re not wrong.” Dungar acknowledged, still looking around. “What is this place?”

“It’s a place where books are kept!” She informed him enthusiastically, getting up from the table. She was a lot taller than he had expected, taller than him in fact. Her slender build and long legs served to enhance it further. As she made it over to him, she studied him with palpable curiosity.

“No no. I’ve just never seen one before. I’ve read about them in books, I just pictured them to be much … er … uglier.”

Dungar raised an uncomfortable eyebrow then turned his attention back to the shelves.

“No no.” She said with a laugh. “These aren’t mine. They’re, well, everyone’s.”

Her initial curiosity began to fade into mild trepidation. Sensing this, Dungar opted to change the subject before he alienated yet another resident.

“Well most of us haven’t ever really met men before. And we’ve heard, er, bad things.”

Dungar furled his brow and clenched his fists. He felt he had a fairly good idea as to who these bad things were heard from. The girl grimaced and sneakily backed away in reaction to the blacksmith’s change in demeanor.

“Uhh, I remember reading somewhere that when encountering an aggressive animal one should bare their teeth, maintain eye contact, and back away slowly?”

“Look.” He said in as calm and friendly a voice as he could manage, which still wasn’t particularly calm or friendly. “I don’t know what you think you know, but don’t believe everything you hear. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but there’s this thing people do called lying—”

“I know what lying is!” She interrupted. She continued to smile at him in spite of his condescension. “But I don’t know what I think I know though. Whoa, that kinda rhymed! I’ve spotted quite a bit of conflicting information between what I’ve been told and what I’ve read.” She began rummaging through the massive pile of books on her table, muttering to herself about testosterone and beards.

“Ah, here it is! Says here that you’re typically taller, more muscular, have larger hands and feet, and have deeper voices than women.” She looked him up and down studiously. “Well, seems like you are most of that.”

Dungar had no response; he just stared at her with a mostly expressionless face.

“So I’ve been told.” He agreed, returning to his pacing. “And I’m more interested in what you’ve been told. Clearly the popular opinion on men around here didn’t come out of that book in your hand.”

The room went quiet for a moment. Dungar stopped his pacing and looked back towards the table. The girl’s eyes were still transfixed on him, but she didn’t seem to want to answer the question.

“Okay look I get it, men are bad. Or something.” He grunted, running a hand through his beard.”

“Well you can’t be all bad!” She offered quickly. “I mean hey! You’ve been in here almost ten minutes and you haven’t raped me!”

The blacksmith let out another exasperated sigh as he slumped into a chair at a table of his own and put his face in his hand.

“My name’s Rose!” The girl informed him happily in her perky voice. She flipped open another book and began turning pages. “I looked it up a while back. It means pretty flower!”

“A rose is a kind of flower …” Dungar mumbled into his hand, not looking up.

He mumbled something incoherent as acknowledgement, clearly not interested. Rose continued to look at him curiously while twiddling her thumbs and making popping noises with her mouth before piping up yet again.

He perked up at the remark, but before he could respond the door to the library burst open and two guards came in.

“You! Prisoner! The town Lady has demanded your presence. Come with us now.”