RUMPELSTILTSKIN RETELLING.
"I challenge you to find my name, princess. Three tries." Light flickers beneath the recesses of his mask, the wooden fangs and shadowed eyes. "Think you can beat me?"
***
A witch doctor, user of dark magic, terrorizes a...
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The Dukun walks with a burlap sack, dripping red onto the trail behind him. He's not used to how dry everything is out here, even in the farming village of Raja, where the soil's good enough for grains. Where young soldiers train on packs of soft earth.
Raja, a village for Rahasian soldiers or Rahasian farmers to make their way in this world. All the Dukun does is spare the children from a harder life.
Farmers and soldiers.
Soldiers and farmers.
What sort of life is that?
"Better to make gold," he laughs softly to himself, fist curling around the familiar knife. "Gold to give to Rangda. Emas untuk dewi saya. Gold for my goddess."
He drops the sack, the small outline of tiny bones and feet and chattering teeth. The red dripping from it. The familiar curved knife. The incantation.
It was hard work, passing himself off as a harmless young man in search of work. He'd worked the fields, swinging a scythe in Raja. Gotten a ship from Jiwa to Rahasia because his name had gotten too notorious. In Jiwa, he'd been a god.
In Rahasia, he'd have a new beginning. A whole country that didn't know what he could do. What he wanted to do for Rangda. He whispers the names of the dark magic, the curses and hexes he'd performed under her bidding.
Opium, sleepless nights, murderous intent. Knives twisting your stomach, eternal sleep, disease, or seduction.
He draws a circle with his toe, fills the holes with drops of blood. Where the blood fills, little gold coins pop up. His eyes gleam. "For Rangda," he whispers, forgetting himself. When he was just a boy, much like the ones he kills. A child of farmers, sewing seeds into the earth. Fostering life.
