To Bed with a Witch

Some minutes later, as Dust stood there and Valkyrie moaned on the table, she slumped back and gasped in air hoarsely.

'By the gods,' Valkyrie said, breathless. 'I've not felt that since I was a girl of this age.'

'You... Felt release?' Dust asked dumbly.

'Oh goodness,' Valkyrie sighed. 'More than just release. The most intense pleasure I have ever felt. More than anything in my life.' She moaned again. 'Nngh, that was... Was, so good...'

It took them a while, but eventually, Dust and Valkyrie came down from their climactic shared highs. When they did, they held each other close.

'Stay,' Valkyrie had asked him.

'I cannot,' Dust replied evenly. 'I am homeless and have a payment to return to those that give me shelter.'

'I will give you shelter,' Valkyrie begged. 'Here, with me.'

'It does not give money to the volunteers, or put food out for the others,' Dust had replied plainly.

Stepping back from him, Valkyrie looked at Dust, taking him in. He took in her body, her eyes, her humble home.

'I wish for it, more than anything else I know,' Dust admitted. 'But I am but a simple cutter, and I owe much to those that have helped me survive these years.' The sun was setting outside the hut by this point, and as they spoke, the heat from the fire drew them away from the cold walls.

'Then let us repay them together,' Valkyrie said keenly. 'Let me put this accursed magic, which has made me an outcast and a witch in the eyes of your simple, honest people, to a greater use.'

Dust stared at her for a long moment.

A few days later, dressed in a neat and very unbecoming linen dress, the flaming red hair of a youthful, perky teenage girl flew in the sunlight. Some several paces away, a tall, ox-like man worked. Both were picking the fields together, a task they had requested to be given alone.

Two days earlier, coming down from the high, hillside hut that had been the dreaded witches' home for the best part of a hundred years in the bright morning sunlight, Dust and Valkyrie had, after much begging and pleading, been allowed to see the owner of the large, plain home in which Dust lived. It had taken much of the day, and the frustrated Valkyrie, who had promised not to use her magic to coerce the owner, had nearly stormed out after countless rude points were made about her to Dust, but eventually they came to an agreement to allow the couple, under strict supervision, to assist the home. On one condition -- that they work as hard as everyone else until the fields were ready to bear fruit again, and the home could sustain itself through the spring.

Though he had his doubts, the hard, plain owner couldn't deny that, since the strange, unearthly woman had joined them, an impossible amount of ripe, fresh fruit had blossomed on the trees and in the ground, and a fantastic crop of near-perfect produce had been hauled in. He chose, because of this, to ignore their frequent departures into the hills, no doubt to be away from prying eyes -- his little way of thanking them.

And after a months' hard work in the fields, when much of the home was repaired and a plethora of fresh food was well stocked-up, the owner kept his word, and freed Dust of his debt. Still promising to visit and to help plenty more, Dust had been free to leave and go anywhere he wanted.

That night, Valkyrie bedded him early and long, and their screams could be heard ringing out long into the evening, the flickering light hanging in the hut shaking and swinging as something unimaginable went on within.

Assisted by magic in all the right ways -- Dust had never known he could stay firm between copulation -- the pair enjoyed each other until they passed out in each other's embrace, sleeping deep into the sunrise, naked and in love, and freed from their former shackles; his of servitude as payment, hers of hatred and mistrust. For years, Valkyrie's magic continued to help sustain the crops and forests all around the tiny little village at the bottom of the hill, and Dust remained close friends with the owner, helping him often when an extra pair of hands -- or a little feminine touch -- was needed.

Years later, as the sun set low and hot over a boiling horizon, a bearded tree of a man knelt over a patch in the earth amidst a crop of lovely flowers that had been dug up recently, struggling to hold back the shaking sobs which threatened to overtake him. He struggled to stand, using his wooden shovel for support, his huge back bent with age and the weight of a working life. He looked over the grave of his wife, the Good Witch, his Sorceress Valkyrie who had only just reached her hundred and fifty-first birthday, and cried.

The soft, yearning cry of a baby floated from the warm hut some paces behind him, and as he heard it through his own, he pressed his shovel into the earth some steps away, wiped his eyes, and strode back towards his home. There, in her own little bed of straw, wrapped up tight in her mother's best fabric was a tiny, cute-faced little girl. She cried out for her father, and he held her close. She quietened, and as he held her, emotions in turmoil inside him, he allowed himself a smile.

'Hush, my little Kara, my Raven, Daughter of a Valkyrie,' he whispered to his daughter, her bright, almost glowing eyes gazing up at him. 'All will be well soon. All will be well.' He told her, believing it himself despite the gripping pain of his loss.