Royal Ch. 01 - The Dungeon Witch

'We want you to make us look beautiful, sexy and perfect.'

Regina's voice did not tremble as she spoke her wish to the witch. Tertia, her sister, stood next to her, holding a torchlight so that they could see into the cell in front of them.

The witch crept up from the dirty cave floor and stepped into the flickering torchlight. With dirt stained fingers she grabbed the bars of the cell and pulled herself up with a wicked laugh. Tertia flinched, but Regina had always been the stronger one looked the witch straight in the eyes.

'How could I possibly make you perfect?' The witches eyes flickered in the torchlight like smouldering embers. 'Perfection is a lie. It doesn't exist.'

Regina swallowed. Those eyes were just reflecting the light. The witch shouldn't be able to use magic anymore, not without explicit royal permission. They'd made sure of that.

'Then make us look more beautiful than any woman that ever walked the earth. Can you do that?'

The witch snarled but said nothing. The scars of her truth crest were nearly invisible under the layers of filth on her pale skin, but it was still there. The witch wouldn't lie to them.

'Can you do that?' Regina repeated.

'Of course I can.' The witch snarled. 'But,' she held up one slender finger. 'Are you willing to pay the price?'

'What do you want?'

'Well, for you both to become pretty...'

'For us to become the most beautiful women that ever walked the earth.' Regina corrected her.

The witch squinted her glowing eyes. 'For you both to become the most beautiful woman that ever walked the earth, two others will have to be cursed with will equal ugliness. And on top of that...' She paused to glance back and forth between Regina and Tertia. 'they have to be two women closest to each of you.'

Regina looked back at her sister. Tertia was probably also thinking of their new servants. They were nothing more than war trophy gifts that their father had given them. Both had been daughters to war lords from some conquered lands on the border territories. They'd been given an obedience and a loyalty crest on their chests to mark them as their personal slaves, but although Regina tried not to treat them any different than the other palace slaves, Tertia had developed a softness for the two maidens.

'They don't deserve this.' Tertia said.

'I don't like it either.' Regina admitted. 'But we need to do this.'

Doubt flickered in her sister's eyes. She had such a weak personality. Even to get rid of her terrible ugliness, to gain ultimate beauty, she didn't like hurting the innocent.

'Can't we just, you know, look normal?' She said.

'You honestly think our dear husbands will be satisfied when we simply look 'normal'?' Regina couldn't believe she was even having this argument. Had her sister forgotten about their husbands' reluctant touches, their flinching when they entered into the same room, their horrified looks on the day of the bethrotal? Their cringing whenever protocols required them to touch.

Tertia bit her lip and lowered her eyes.

'I didn't think so.' Regina said.

She turned back to the witch and nodded.

'You have a deal.'

'Then I will need the other two women here.'

Regina looked down at Tertia. She wouldn't meet her eyes, but bowed obediently and turned back to the dungeon stairs to get the slave girls.

When she was gone, Regina stared at the witch, not showing any emotion to the creature. The witch had spent the last 2 years in this cell, and it was starting to show. Even in the weak torchlight, she could see how hollow her face had become, how it was surrounded by thin strands of greasy hair. If anyone would see her walk the streets, they would never believe this piece of filth had once been the most powerful sorcerers in the kingdom.

Despite her condition, Regina couldn't help but feel sharp jealousy at the sight of her symmetrical face, her straight legs and smooth skin. She wasn't naturally born ugly like Tertia or herself. But then, probably nobody in the world was as ugly as the two of them.

It felt like ages before her sister returned with the two slavegirls.

With them, the familiar jealousy was almost painful. They'd been gifted with a sickening exotic beauty. Each had skin as fair as milk and smooth like silk. Her own slave had hair like a sunset in summer, fiery red lips and eyes like polished amber. She was as tall as a man and fierce with muscles of a northern warrior.

Her sister's slave was less tall, but not by much. She had softer features, in borth her face and body. She had long blonde hair and looked up with sky-blue eyes. Even her eyelashes were blonde.

They obediently took place besides them in silence. Her father had trained them well.

Hesitantly, Regina laid her hand upon the witches and chanted the incantation that granted her permission to use magic, but only to fulfill my wish.

When she was done her sister stepped forward so she could do the same.

The witch would be able to use her magic now, only to grant us our witches. Anything else and the curse crest on her heart would kill her.

Tertia took Regina's arm, and with their slaves besides them, they waited for the magic to start.

The witches eyes flashed with lightning, actually lighting up the dungeons this time. She pointed at our chests and then everything went black.

***

When Regina opened her eyes, up, the room was dark. But Tertia picked up the torch and immediately the magic fire lighted up again.

Regina inspected her hands, her body, but immediately she saw that nothing had changed. Her skin was still bumpy, her feet still as crooked as ever, her breasts still unbalanced and saggy. She did not even want to think about her face.

'Why didn't it work?' She said

She stood up and looked at the others. Tertia crawled up as well, but the two slave girls still stood at the same positions. Tertia was still as ugly as ever, and the slave girls were as pretty. Nothing had changed.

'What did you do?' Regina turned to the witch.

'You have been cursed.' The witch said, her eyes glimmering with joy.

'You...!'

'Not me, someone else. Someone far more powerful than me, many generations ago.'

'Explain yourself.' She snapped.

The witch curled her lips in a wicked smile. 'Your family has been cursed with ugliness, and as you know, there is nothing I can do to break another witch's magic.'

'No.' Tertia whispered. Please, no.' She trembled on her crooked legs.

'But,' the old woman pushed her face against the bars. 'I am able to remove you from it.'

I did not trust the eager look in her eyes. 'You just said you couldn't break another witches magic. So how?'

The witch still smiled that wicked grin. 'To set you free from your family's curse, you will have to abandon all ties with your heritage. Memories of who you are, where you grew up, your parents, your identity, your name. Everything has to go.'

'We won't remember who we are?'

'Oh you'll still be the same person. Just without your heritage.'

'We'll still be nobility?'

'You'll still be married to the prince and crown-prince.'

'But our father...'

'He won't remember you either.'

Tertia looked at her with wide eyes. 'We can't do this.'

Regina looked back at her, remembering the past two lonely months, glances of disgust and empty bedsheets while her husband visited the slave quarters.

Their noble birth and their father's accomplishments had gotten them these marriages, but what good was it now that they had these powerful positions. What good your heritage when your husband refused to touch or look at you?

'If this is the only way.' She stepped forward to the witch again.

'Regina, please, we have to think about this.'

She looked back and shook my head. Not when beauty was this close within reach. She took her sister's hand pulled it with hers on the witch's outstretched hand.

'Break us from this curse.' she said.

Tertia pulled back weakly, but it was too late. By touching the witch she had given her permission.

The room flashed with lightning again, and this time, when it hit them, the world did not go dark, and they did not pass out on the cold hard floor.

'What just happened?'

The young lady next to her asked timidly. She'd fallen on her knees, and tears were streaming down her face. And she was beautiful. Her hair was blonde and glowed up with a rich gold in the faint torchlight. She had spotless skin, and eyes colored with the deepest blue. The girl had married the crown-prince's brother on the same day that she had married the crown-prince. But what was her name again?

What was her own name again?

'You!' She looked at the old witch who was in the dungeons with them, the crests on her skin were all still in place. Slowly the reaslisation of what they'd done came back to her. Her old body, it all came back to her like the memories from a distant dream.

She let her hands wander across her dress. She felt so... straight now. Athletic, but still soft to the touch. Slender, but with powerful with athletic muscles spreading out under her skin.

She took a strand of hair, and it was soft like satin. The vlassy brown had been replaced by a deep bloody red. If only there was a mirror here.

'I asked you to make us pretty, didn't I?' She looked at the young woman next to her, the wife of her brother-in-law. And her beautiful blue eyes looked as confused as she herself felt.

'I think we used to be...' I searched for the right word. 'Ugly?'

'Like them?' She pointed at the two slaves on the floor and wrinkled her nose.

As the two slaves scrambled up from the floor, anyone would gag at the sight of them. The image of their monstrous faces would forever be burned into her memory. She immediately turned back to the witch.

'You stole our memories!'

'Barely! All I took were your names, your family ties. You offered them up yourselves in exchange for beauty, remember? Beauty that I took from those poor girls over there.'

'They're just slaves.'

There were more important things to worry about now.

'What were our names? Who are we?' The blonde asked.

'Who knows?' The witch grinned. 'You're nobody now.'

'We married the crown prince and his brother, surely we must have been of noble blood.' She demanded an answer.

The blue eyed lady next to her nodded in agreement. But the witch simply grinned and let herself fall back on the floor, away from the torchlight.

She would not help us any further. They had used up their only wish already, their once in a lifetime wish, spent on beauty.

She was sure it'd been the best choice she'd ever made in her life.