A Tale of a Witch........

[eja]

South of Hyperborea, in the borderlands of northern Brythunia and Zamora, two men walked together through the wilderness. One was a large, muscular Cimmerian; the other a rangy Hyrkanian. Behind them was a stone cottage, empty now, and close to that was dense woodland. From out of that woodland in the early light of dawn, and unnoticed by the two men, came a faint mist which curled and shifted languidly as it drew nearer to the hovel. The men were almost out of sight now as the mist took form, and solidified into the shape of a woman......a particularly beautiful and seductive woman, at that, her lithe body clad only in a fur cloak, bear-talons adorning her neck on a string. She was not young, yet not old either, her features mature, her long hair a magnificent black. Her mouth curved in a smile and she gave a slight chuckle. The Cimmerian's course was firmly set now........

[eja]

Any suggestions as to how I should proceed, folks? This is, of course, about the witch from the '82 Conan movie; is it worth continuing?

[themirrorthief]

u gotta write a few more words....that is a pretty skimpy preview

[eja]

Ganieda sat down in her meagre home and rekindled her fire, via her own hands and what was physically available, not by the darkness of magic. All through the night she had drifted insubstantially in the black of the nearby woods, a faintly glowing wraith twirling among the tree trunks. She had laughed too, laughed at the reaction of the barbarian, and at the satisfaction that joining with him had provided, however brief it had been.

Ganieda ate and drank, and despite herself, began to feel something: Loneliness. Of course, she always had the presences of Those Who Dwelled Beyond for company, but......the Cimmerian had been good to her, had thanked her for providing him with food, drink and shelter. Her, whom others would shun as a fiend of the night, an abomination that only took the form of a human female. She thought back across her life, to her beginnings.....

A sorcerer of Hyperborea had her father been; one of those tall and gaunt witch-men whom the common folk in their hovels both saluted and scurried fearfully away from. And her mother........A snake. But not just any snake, no....In the cold blood of that venomous reptile had lurked the lineage of those serpents that had almost been men, spawn of that great demon-god whom some called Set, and others Yig; cursed by the young race of men and their little deities to skulk in cold wastes and eventually die or de-evolve to crawl on their bellies, limbless, as lesser snakes did. But the witch-man of Hyperborea had wrought horrible spells, and his rites below the lightning-spearing clouds of night had twisted and moulded the sinister reptile-flesh of that snake into the lithe form of a woman, on whom he had satisfied his carnal desires. And the fruit of that desire? The female now called Ganieda. As she grew to womanhood, men had both lusted after and feared her, with the fear eventually winning out, so she was forced to live alone in the haunted wilderness, haunted by beasts and night demons....and by herself too.

The Cimmerian, his name was Conan. He sought the one who sat under the standard of the twin serpents. The dark-skinned one of the blue and godless eyes that could inspire love or suicide in lesser beings. Thulsa Doom too bore the taint of the Great Serpent of Myriad Names, and also of the wizard-emperors of Acheron, that great realm now chopped up and reduced to bones and ash by the tribes of the deity named Bori, whose descendants reigned to this day. In days past Thulsa Doom had sought Ganieda, had yearned for her, drawn via their kinship with the slivering ones of nameless aeons which had both tutored and terrorised infant man, yet she had hidden from him, avoided his touch. She had advised Conan, and then put the fear of his grim and heartless god Crom into him. Thulsa, too, in his way had taught the Cimmerian much years ago. And the Cimmerian would now return the favour to him in vengeful manner.

And knowing this, she laughed, mad and cackling, and again felt her body shift and flow into blue fire....