As he walks in, the warlock rests his hands against his hips, then smirks. “Well, what do you know!” He whistles. “You ate everything after all!” Finnian takes a step forward. With a happy hum, he kneels to face Hector. “You’re still afraid, though? Weird.”

Hector frowns. He tries to lash out at Finnian, yet, his actions resemble more of a cat pawing at his master, rather than a great knight facing an even greater enemy.

“Why?” Finnian asks him, with a curious, tilt of his head.

“Why what?” the knight snaps.

“Why the fear? I’ve shown you I’m completely harmless”—he chuckles—“mostly.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Your aura is shaking.”

Hector groans. “Do I want to understand what that means?”

“For starters,” Finnian says, “it means that I know when you lie.”

The knight’s head hangs low. He rests his palms flat against his forehead, then covers his eyes. “I…”

“You?” The warlock raises a brow.

Hector sighs again. “It’s… this whole ordeal,” he says. “I don’t understand anything. I don’t understand you, or my people anymore. And, also…”

Finnian leans in. He squints. “Also?”

The warlock’s sudden proximity causes the knight to shuffle away from him. “Cease that, please. If you truly do not mean to be hostile anymore, you must… stop getting in my space. It makes me…” he bites his lip, “fear that you may kiss me once more, and that is… the last thing I want.”

“Ah.” Finnian nods, slowly. “The kiss thing again.” He holds up his hands. He laughs, before declaring nonchalantly: “I don’t get it!”

“Do not mock my fears, warlock.” Hector rises to his feet; he is relieved to find some of his strength has been returned to him. “Or I may very well change my mind about you.”

“I’m not.” Finnian says. His tone is bleak. The glint in his eyes is that of a mad man’s. “By the by,” he giggles. “Would you like seconds?”

Hector frowns. “Huh? What are you on about?”

“The soup.” Finnian points to Hector’s now empty bowl. “It seems you quite enjoyed it, despite the cook being myself—your foe, and a demon of this land!”

“Ha!” Hector spits, “anything is edible when you are famished.”

“You break my heart, dear knight.” Finnian huffs. Then clears his throat. “Dear knight, why are you observing me as if I were a ghost? Have you never seen bed-hair back in that castle of yours? Do the maids make you all pretty even before you start your day?”

“Hilarious.” Hector narrows his eyes at him. “You should have been the village jester.”

“I’d rather not, you see, if it wasn’t already obvious,” he spreads out his arms, then looks around the room, “I like to live alone.”

Hector grins. “Or, perhaps, is it that nobody wants to live with you?”

“Aha!” Finnian exclaims with a single one of his fingers tracing circles in the air. “Who knows!” He takes a step back. He slowly exits the room.

A moment passes before the warlock returns with a bigger bowl of soup that the knight takes without hesitation this time.

“Truly,” Hector mutters, while he scoffs down the rest of his pumpkin soup, “I admit, that I am surprised at the lack of poison in your meals.”

“Ah.” Finnian’s behind hits a nearby stool. He pauses to stare at the knight. “Would you actually prefer it with a side dish of death? Because I’ve got plenty to go around, if you want!”

“Please, refrain from adding that particular element into the dishes you serve me.”

Finnian leans against his palm. He sighs. “You still won’t tell me what you were confused about earlier?”

“Why do you care?”

He snorts. “It’s not every day one catches a human specimen!”

Hector considers replying and debating the fact that specimen is likely not the most politically correct term the warlock could use to describe his people, though, he decides it likely will not be of any use, and soon gives up on the idea. Instead, he admits, “I wondered why your body changed back, when your clothes didn’t.”

“Listen…” Finnian crosses his arms. “I don’t exactly know what you’ve believed magic to be during all this time—certainly it can do many things, but it cannot do what you may call a miracle. I changed myself because I know the properties of my body off by heart. However, when it comes to transforming objects and clothes… it’s much harder, and I’d need to study the items for days, and the Forest only knows I’m too lazy for that. Plus!” He stands and whirls around. “These clothes suit me, don’t you think?” Finnian asks Hector, as he bats his eyelashes, in an overexaggerated manner.

“Oh… So, you aren’t able to bring back the dead and stuff like that?”

“Pfft,” Finnian laughs again. “Well, you could try, but it’s not something I would recommend.”

Hector tilts his head. “Why not?”

“You’d probably end up with an abomination, that you’d then have to kill… again.”

The knight scratches his chin. “I see…” he mutters. “Even you have limits…” Surprising, he thinks, for this was not how the witch was portrayed by the people in his village.

“Of course we do!” Finnian blurts. “I don’t know what madman decided on the fact that we didn’t, then spread that word around, but I can certainly tell you that what you’ve been hearing your whole life is mostly—if not all—fiction! I mean, come on, who the heck bothers to wear a pointy hat and robes every day? It’s just not practical.”

As they continue to bicker, a shadow observes the scene from the entrance of Finnian’s cave with a sly grin plastered to his features. The shadow’s face is covered by a hood. He listens with intent, as Finnian’s laughter bleeds into the forest.

“Why did you capture me then,” Hector asks, “if it wasn’t to do me harm?”

Finnian’s chuckles come to a halt. He pauses. A serious veil covers his features. “There is a prophecy,” he whispers. “Talk of a chosen one, that would one day come here to try and slaughter me. I’d been lying in wait, patient, yet, still yearning for this day that I knew would arrive sooner rather than later. It is why I stayed here—despite the villagers trying to rid themselves of me, it was my duty to put up a fight and wait for this fellow knight.”

Back in the forest, up in a tree, the cloaked figure frowns. What in the heathens is this one saying? he wonders. Has he lost his mind?

Hector looks down to his hands. They soon turn to fists. “So… for all this time, I’ve been the chosen one?” His gaze glosses over to Finnian’s.

Finnian’s cheeks puff up with air. He holds two hands to his mouth and bends over. At first, Hector wonders if he is going to be sick, but then, he sees Finnian’s shoulders shaking, and he realises the man is laughing. “In reality,” the warlock pants between two breaths. “I just thought you had a nice face. And it would be fun seeing such a face cowering in fear. Ah!” He holds up his hand before Hector’s face. “Don’t start yelling at me just yet! You also looked like the type that would have gone back to tell everybody about this place, and if you had done so, I would have had to move—and that would truly be a pain in my behind.”

Hector lets out a nervous laugh. “I can’t say you’re wrong about my tellings… Did you really have to make such a terrible joke, though?”

He snorts. “Hey! It was only terrible for you, not for me!”

He cannot stay alive, the thought is shared between Hector—who still does not trust the warlock—and the masked man outside. He is too dangerous, they think, much too unpredictable.

Finnian smiles. His gaze meets Hector’s as he takes the two bowls—that were once filled with pumpkin soup—away.

As the warlock steps into his kitchen, he does his best to pretend he doesn’t know that both the men who have come to his cave are still out to get him. A second one? he thinks with a snicker; I certainly am popular lately.

The cloaked man listens to the rest of the conversation in his usual silence. The last thing he hears is Finnian slapping his knee, and telling the knight: “No! You’re crazy! I’d never want to do all that fancy warlock stuff. I’m just going to stay here and relax until the end of my days! Yep—that’s the plan, I swear!”

The cloaked figure snickers. “We’ll see about that,” he mutters, before he disappears into the darkness of the woods.