Her meadow. Her prey. It was a dream come true… psych. It was a fantasy made reality in this gypsy art of ‘The Play.’ Grimoire was taken with the acting bit the moment she’d been offered the role of witch, and here she was, finally ready to display herself on stage for an audience. Oo. She felt all tingly with nerves.

As Elara opened the play with her narrative, carrying voice, Grimoire revealed herself to the crowd. Through a crack in the cliff side, Grimoire glided like a arrow. Behind her, she left a trail of glowing paw prints. It was a trick of lightning bug guts she’d smashed with her paws mere moments before entering the stage. How? Well, she’d trapped them all in leaf weighed down with a a few nights prior to the performance. She was ecstatic to show her genius off tonight.

Her paws were light and brief on the ground as she approached the scraggly filth that was polluting her brilliant display of ownership of her meadow. Grimoire’s ears flattened as the mangy white thing weaved closer. Her teeth slide out to threaten the female, and when she stepped another paw forwards, Grimoire rose up like a tidal wave to sink her fangs into the white wolf’s neck.

But wait, this maggot had last words to say! Grimoire fell short in her attack and stood stiffly above the underfed trespasser. Oh dear, a child’s life was at stake? Grimoire’s fur lifted in irritated debate as she looked upon the thin female.

”I hear your pleas, pathetic fleabag; I am not that cruel…”

Grimoire drifted off a moment and she seemed to toil in debate. How to come out with the perfect solution to spare the puppy, and punish the mother mercilessly? Ah yes. She did believe she had the perfect plan,

”You may hunt here, on ONE condition!”

Upon receiving the mother’s impulsive agreement, Grimoire’s irritated grimace relaxed into a triumphant smirk; the magic of her meadow and her prey bore witness to the agreement. Nothing would prevent Grimoire’s next request from being definite.

”You will give me your pup, no matter its color or gender. You will nurse it and bring it to me when it’s weaned. I will care for it, as if I had bore it myself.”

Grimoire swished her tail from ankle to ankle, entire pleased with her wit. The mother must have felt the weight of the demand, and despite how cruel she thought it was, she was bound to it like bone to calcium. Grimoire raised her tail and stood stiffly while the mother wolf cantered off the set. Only then, did Grimoire turn and disappear back into the shadows of her cavern. She set to work immediately adjusting her set-appearance; she had to look as if she’d aged several years the next she would appear on the stage. Elara elaborated the time lapse, and Rapunzel, or Dragonfly, Presented herself as a girlish figure of extraordinary beauty upon a outcropping of the cliffs.

What could she say? Grimoire was an excellent mother; her pup had the best fur prey could bargain for, had never once argued with her, and was now a young adult with no classic puppy mishaps to be heard of - and it only take her minutes to accomplish. The only effort in the task was Grimoire putting gray dust over her muzzle and legs. She cantered through the caves up to the out cropping Rapunzel was perched upon.

In the midst of a brief pause when Elara mentioned that Grimoire was to climb down Rapunzel’s tail, Grimoire added a line for the audience to hear,

” “Oh, Rapunzel! Let down your tail.”

With that, Rapunzel maneuvered to swiped a decorated mass of braided vines, covered in flowers and moss covered in white powdery dust from the stones of Spirane over the edge of the cliff. Grimoire jumped down to the first ledge, where the first half of the wolf-made tail dangled. She snatched the end in her mouth and slide the rest of the way down the difficult, pebbled pathway. She trotted off the stage to a part of the set where the other actors were wait to preform their parts. She turned and proudly watched the next proceedings, whining slightly when Rapunzel smiled sweetly at Prince Thunder.

After they’d had their fun, it was show time again. Grimoire strode up to the base of the cliff and called,

”Rapunzel, dear! Let down your tail.”

Rapunzel dutifully tossed the luxurious extensions down the side of the cliff, and Grimoire caught the end of it mid air. She hopped up the cliff to Rapunzel’s side. Her daughter seemed unusually giddy. Then, the terrible confession came about the prince that was visiting her. Grimoire’s fur bristled in panic. NO! No one was to take away her daughter! And what a perve, coming to take her daughter away when she, Grimoire, the witch and mother, had no knowledge of his existence until this immediate moment?! And she wanted to be his mate?! She snatched her daughter’s scruff and violently pulled her off the cliff, through the cavern, out the crack onto level stage, and into the pit - and out of the audience’s eyes.

”Not just any wretched male will have you, Rapunzel,” Grimoire hissed at the silver furred youngster.

She turned her back, and then heard Rapunzel’s tail thud against the rocks. She turned her head to see her daughter scrambling out the pit. A snarl masked any kind emotion Grimoire may have had and she rushed her daughter. With a few snaps of her teeth, she severed the vines from Rapunzel’s actual tail. Rapunzel kept her true tail tucked, and whimpered as Grimoire pushed her back into the pit. She took the tail in her jaws, and dragged it back through the hidden path to the top of the cliff to symbolize the change of location.

And there, she waited until the next day for the return of the prince. Grimoire’s ears burned at his wretched voice. As he asked, Grimoire snatched up the severed limb and tossed it part way over the edge of the cliff for the prince to gaze upon. She shrieked,

” “Here! Here is her tail.”

At his horrified gaze, she snapped, ” “What? You wanted the rest of her? You asked for her tail, silly boy.”

Then, she swiped the end of it over the cliff and watched it fall. As it coiled in front of him, and his realization of what it meant became complete, Grimoire lifted her head while her voice box cackled with deranged humor.

At the Prince’s accusations, Grimoire’s rolled eyes sharpened as she snapped absolute attention onto him. Her heart twirled in pleasure as she taunted,

”Yes, I dare. Call me what you like, scant maggot.”

To his pitiful demand, the witch replied, ”Safe and away from lecherous males, like you!”

And now, he rose to the challenge, this scant maggot. He powered up the cliff after her, and Grimoire met him with ferocious teeth… lightly. Cause this was a play. Confusing, right? Grimoire exchanged a few act-bounds and rears and twirls with Prince Thunder, and as she was supposed to do, she let him tackle her and her sunk his fangs into her throat. Cleverly, they’d positioned her at the edge of the cliff, and she rolled off it in time so that it looked at if Prince Thunder were pushing her down the incline. She landed heavily on the mid-way out cropping with a huff. She laid, very, disturbingly still as the prince went about finding his to be mate. Well… if this had been a real thing… and say she did loose, she supposed the male would have passed the test. She couldn’t help put quirk her lip upwards in a barely registered smile.

When Elara narrated the change in scene, like a ghost, Grimoire disappeared from stage. With her fellow actors out of sight from the crowd, she shook dust and witchery off her fur. Grim was back, and she was eager to explore far more nefarious deeds than sticking her daughter in a hole to protect the ungrateful wretch.