Vignettes :3 by Sunny

From the darkness, eyeshine. Nari's pitch blackened world made the pair of eyes seem as large as her own. How? The little monster didn't even rival her pinky length in height. How was it looming over her, the very shadow of death itself? It slithered around her starting at her bare feet, wrapping her strong frame in a shadowy blanket.

When it finally reached her neck she could feel nothing below. The massive strength of a giantess meant nothing; she was unable to struggle, hardly able to breathe. The shining eyes cocked to one side, and then the other.

A barb lined jaw dropped, and a glittering opalescent glow emerged from there too. Instead of the visceral pink interior of every animal she had ever seen, every oral surface behind the strangely artificial jaws glinted and reflected with unearthly yellow and green metallic light. She finally screamed as the shadow's maw enveloped her face with a lunge. It was so hot and wet, slick flesh sliding all around her face. It shouldn't have been her. This wasn't the proper place of a giant. She tried to squirm, tried to jerk away, but the teeth of the bear trap jaws wrapped under her jaw and behind her head. The slimy textured tongue ran thick trails of drool across her face. The gleaming throat began to pulse, and the shadow pulled itself lower on her head. Each swallow sucking Nari deeper until nothing but a tall void could be seen.

The glow of Hattie's pupils began to fade, returning to the mortal black as the shadow collapsed into itself like a pillar of fetid black fog, and the light of the full moon flooded the swamp hollow. All that was left was the corpse of a muscular, sparsely dressed woman face down in the water. Her golden hair undone from its bindings, floating like ethereal tendrils in a corona around her head. Hattie pulled herself up with her silver bell adorned staff, and stalked to her boat, rags swinging from her body with every stride. Keen ears nearly twitched and swiveled as they picked up every sound of the swamp. Baleful coffee black eyes occasionally darting to something interesting, in a perpetual ocular expression combining fear and hatred. The rest of her dark skinned face rested completely relaxed and serene. Her staff jingled as she climbed in the hollow log canoe and she pushed off from the muddy bank. Pushing towards the drowned woman the size of an entire countryside.

Hattie stopped the momentum of her boat with a poke of her staff through the mess of sodden hair. She inhaled the stench of rot and scalp oil deeply, her eyes fluttering as she softly exhaled. Her eyes then crossed and irises flexed as she scanned over the forest of thick, blonde hairs, her aching mind whirling more in the wrong places than the right ones. Eventually she dragged out a knife whose edge had been resharpened so many times the bevel had nearly regressed to the spine. She grabbed hold of the correct strand, the same throbbing chuntering and buzzing informing her of where precisely to incise the hair. She stared at the freed end in her hand longingly... and took a bite.

Her eyes nearly rolled back into her head as she chewed. Chewed and chewed, never swallowing. When the chunk had finally lost its scaly texture and became a stringy pulp, she spat it in a wooden bowl. Casting scrimshawed pixie bones into the mash, she finally flooded it with Spanish rum.

Hattie whispered devotions to the saints in Ethiopian, Latin, Hebrew, and any other tongue she could pronounce. Even some not known to mortal ears. A beam of moonlight seemingly brighter than the others focused on the bowl, and the bones began to sink. Her chanting grew in volume. As the mixture started to bubble Hattie struck the bottom of the boat with her staff, the bells ringing out like those hung from a steeple. Small blue hands emerged from beneath the surface of the slop. Flesh knitted itself back together around the bones as they emerged from the bolus. The fingers twitched as they broke through the surface of dark alcohol and finally touched the air. Hattie's chanting grew to a screeching cacophony, even the swamp itself seemingly joining her in a chorus of wild whoops, hoots, and animal screams. The tiny figure previously a handful of bones breached the surface in a shot.

The little creature hung on the edge of the bowl, panting. Her entire blue body was covered in raised scrimshaw scars much like her bones had been. Hattie's many ringed finger descended to stroke the blood red hair of the little creature.

"Whattid mama Hattie tell you, child? Back from the other place to the land of the livin. Just as she promised." Her voice was husky, and ethereal. As if it was coming from everywhere at once.

The pixie flexed her back muscles; no wings. She looked up with building tears at the greasy woman smiling down at her, hair hanging down like thick willow branches.

"Shh, shh... no crying now. They'll be back. Baths in the angel water will grow them. See?"

An almost clawed finger rubbed four small nubs protruding from the pixie's back. She calmed down a little at the sensation of having them rubbed, assuring her that they were indeed still present. Her body totally relaxed at the familiar sensation of Hattie gently pinching her up between two fingers, and set the tiny blue woman on her shoulder. Hattie glared at the dead mountain of flesh and bone in front of her.

"A life for a life... and wickedness sent from the world. We're gonna take you home now, Bluebelle." Hattie reached into her chest pocket, and produced a piece of tough bread, which the pixie greedily grabbed with both hands and began devouring.

Hattie chuckled softly; "Careful, my love. You don't want a tummy ache so soon after comin back, no?"