Music Recommendation: Milk - Thomas Newman
The carriage in which Marceline travelled in continued to move through the path of the forest, while Timotei took a seat behind the vehicle, gripping the edge with his paws so that he wouldn't be thrown off. A lantern hung on the side, burning bright and swaying in the vehicle. The snow had stopped and made it easier for the black cat to see where they were going.
"Is she meeting her lover in the forest?" Timotei wondered, while the cold wind moved his fur.
Finally, the coachman stopped the vehicle when the carriage stopped in the middle of the forest upon the vampiress's word. He quickly jumped out of his seat and opened the door for Marceline. Timotei craned his neck from behind the vehicle without revealing his presence.
Many seconds passed, but Marceline didn't step out of the carriage, which made Timotei and the coachman question why the lady wasn't stepping out.
Marceline ordered the coachman, "Turn your face to the other side!"
"Yes, milady!" The coachman quickly turned with his back facing the carriage's door.
With the coachman not seeing her, Marceline used her good foot and placed on the snowy ground, and next came her bloated foot that had Timotei staring. The foul smell was coming from there! What did she do for it to stink like that? The black cat questioned himself.
Marceline then ordered her servant, "Wait for me, right here. Don't daydream like last time if I call you this time," she glared at the coachman, who had his head bowed, while his back continued facing her. "I am talking to you. Where do you think you are looking?"
Her coachman quickly turned and bowed his head again. When he briefly raised his head to take a quick look at his young mistress's face, he noticed her tired expression.
Marceline rolled her eyes and started to walk away from the carriage. She had come to another forest, hoping to find another witch, who could solve her condition.
Timotei slipped away from the carriage, following the vampiress for a while on the snowy ground. The black cat kept a good distance, and he was glad that he did because a male witch appeared in front of Marceline the next moment. The person's face was twisted with a deep frown and sneer on his lips.
"What is the purebred vampiress doing on this side of the forest? Lost your way or were you exiled from your family?" The witcher cackled from where he stood.
Timotei's eyebrows raised, and he questioned in his mind, 'I wonder if this is her lover.'
The male witcher words struck a nerve in Marceline's head because she knew if she didn't solve her present condition, society would soon label her as an outcast. In a firm and confident voice, she said, "I am here to receive some solution."
The witcher who had been cackling stopped. His grotesque face turned serious. He said, "The last time I dealt with a pureblooded vampire, he cut three of my fingers." He raised his hand to show the missing fingers from his middle to his little finger. "We don't like your kind. Leave before I cook you up in my pot." If there was one thing the witches feared, it was the pureblooded vampires and the werewolves who held unknown abilities.
Marceline hadn't come to the forest in the middle of the night to hear a refusal. She said,
"I know something that might interest you. I will bring you virgin girls so you can use them as a sacrifice, and it will be easy for you without you having to get caught."
The witcher stared at Marceline and told her, "I don't believe in empty words, vampiress. Give me something more valuable, like your soul, and I will consider it," he cackled in the end and started to walk away from there.
Marceline gritted her teeth and pulled out the gun from her coat she had stolen from her father's study room. When she fired the gun, the bullet hit the snow on the ground next to the man's feet. She threatened,
"I am not here to cause trouble. All I need is answers." Having never used a gun before, her hand shook, and she pulled the front of her skirt, "I have been cursed by a witcher! I need help with you undoing it!"
The witcher stared at her swollen foot, where the swelling had spread up towards her knees. He jeered, "The witch didn't curse you, it bounced back to you."
"Can you fix this?!" Marceline questioned in an impatient voice.
The witcher noticed the haughtiness of this vampiress held within her, and he said, "This isn't something that can go away with a spell. A curse isn't easy to undo once it is put on someone."
"No no no! There has to be some remedy for this! I cannot stay like this and the curse is spreading and is eating up my skin—Ugh!" Marceline gritted her teeth, feeling the pain rising in her foot again.
Timotei, who had climbed one of the nearby trees and was watching the exchange between the vampiress and the witcher, his face scrunched in disgust when Marceline removed her shoe to show her cursed foot.
"Her foot and the witcher's match in appearance," the black cat purred. Remembering how she had taken the fangs and they had swapped it with hers. He wondered if the person she had tried to curse was Eve. "She rots with every passing day," and he doubted that even after her fangs were removed, she had learned anything.
Marceline pleaded to the witcher, "I am willing to do anything. Anything! So please, show me a way to get rid of this."
"The curse was put by another witcher, why don't you go look for that one?" The witcher retorted.
"I would, if she were still alive. She is already dead!" Marceline gritted her teeth.
The witcher said to her, "The only way to stop the curse from spreading is cutting that limb."
