A consistent gentle wind rustled the leaves and branches in the depths of Severshire. It was evening. Sunlight drained from the sky like wine from a shared bottle. Songbirds and bees traded places with owls and crickets. Dusk was at the unbarred threshold.

Yet a home of a hidden hut was brimming with activity. Purple-tinted smoke bloomed from its’ modest chimney. Sporadic knocks, footsteps, and murmurs were barely masked by the breeze alone.

Ruvelle Caputina was up to her usual unusuals.

“Not here…not there, either,” she mumbled. Ruvelle was opening and closing cabinets and drawers. She rarely lied, spare one lie she always told herself: she would organize her workspace one day. “Ugh, not here, not th-oh! I do need this!”

She barely paused to wrestle a looped length of wire around her head. It rested around her neck like a worn-out collar as she continued tearing through her stores of supplies and ingredients.

“Where is my jar of newts!? I can’t complete my heightened awareness potion without a living head!” Ruvelle slammed the last cabinet shut. She huffed and put her hands on her hips. She turned herself to face the cauldron in the fireplace.

Ruvelle’s pale skin flickered between hues of orange and purple from the fire under her cauldron and the glow of the potion inside it. Her sleek black long-sleeved velvet dress contoured and covered her hourglass figure from neck to toe, save for a deep neckline that almost exposed her navel and could not contain her ample (and magically amplified) cleavage. Her dull red hair shone in the mix of irrational light, yet her green eyes radiated with their intense focus.

“I definitely had-“ she began as she turned around, but the sentence died when she saw her table. Her shoulders slumped as her body relaxed. Ruvelle laughed.

A jar with three playful newts was sitting on her table next to her tome of potions. One was missing its tail. Another was missing its head. Yet all of them were scampering around the inside of the jar.

She shook her head and looked out the single window. Dusk had entered with a whisper as it always had. She would need more light to continue her work.

“Which one of you little scamps is going to give me your head? I *prooomise* I made the potion right this tiiiime!” Ruvelle opened just one drawer and pulled out matches. She set them down on the table and began toying with the wire around her neck. After finding one of the ends, she pulled. A short line of it entered her vision. The rest of it coiled tight on her throat. She continued fumbling with the line anyways. She squinted, trying and failing to see the strand right in front of her face.

“Oh, darkness,” she cursed. “Literally. Hold on, newts. You know I don’t want to decapitate you with a knife, I want you to have a chance at growing your head back.” She stared at the headless newt as she said this. It had been a week since her last attempt at this potion failed. The unlucky newt who had given its head had no growth indicating it was coming back…but he seemed as lively as ever. “But I can’t see my magewire at all, let alone tie it around you and light it.”

Ruvelle grabbed a few candles and set them up on the table in a rough circle. She pulled out a match and struck it across the matchbox. It flared up with a hiss, then simmered. She lit most of the candles, but the match went out before the last was lit. She threw the match into the fire.

“Close enough. Okay, let’s try this again.” She found the end of the line and pulled it taunt again. The light from the candles was helping, but not quite enough. Ruvelle moved a few steps around the table to the closest candle. She bent over the table with the length of wire drawn out near the light. “Great, I can see it. Now to cut it.”

Ruvelle looked away from the flame and the wire to her tabletop again. She had managed to remember to leave her scissors there. She swallowed against the pressure the spool of magewire was putting on her throat. She reached forward for the scissors and took her eyes off the line her other hand held out. Her hand drifted slightly sideways, causing the candlelight to lick the wire.

Ruvelle heard the unique static scratch of the magewire igniting. She had time to gasp while letting go of the strand, but nothing else. Whereas a tiny loop around a newt tail would have sizzled and popped, the entire stash of Ruvelle’s magewire roared to life around her neck and boomed like a gunshot. Her neck evaporated. Her head launched off of her body.

Because she had been bent over the table, Ruvelle’s head flew horizontally across her hut. It sailed perfectly into the gap between the top of the cauldron and the arch of her fireplace, landing in her potion. Her head sank in and dissolved in seconds, shifting the potion from purple to neon green. Mercifully, the excessive amount of wire neutralized everything her doomed head felt.

The beheaded Ruvelle was propped up by her table. Her fingers twitched open and closed. Her chest heaved up and down in heavy breaths. Her legs shook, unable to decide if she should stand or kneel. The bared patch of flesh between her shoulders smoked and glowed with the magic from the magewire.

(“…¥X@%€!?…*…~…^…?§&X£#?…”)

Her thoughts had become overloaded gibberish. Ruvelle was unable to think without her head. Each attempt at comprehension caused a burst of static noise in place of consciousness. The roughly circular wound from her obliterated neck would glow with each attempt at anything cerebral.

(“…!!&*#@XX€¥!!..”)

Ruvelle raised her twitching hands to her wound. She wobbled in place. She smacked her hands clumsily where her head had once been. Somehow, there was no pain. She was barely aware of what it was she should have found there. She let her hands drag down her torso as she dropped her arms. One hand caught in her plunging neckline and tugged her dress off of one of her tits, causing it to bounce out.

She rotated and took a few random steps. Her arms hung and swung at her sides. Without a head to direct her, Ruvelle shuffled blindly around her hut without purpose. A small stumble caused her arm to sway into the edge of her table with a thud. This was pain she felt.

(“!!!X##@#&XX!!”)

She raised her arms, holding the hurt one with the other and rubbing it. She began walking again, this time with arms raised above her waist. Her hands were in front of her, grasping and twiching at nothing and anything. There was no goal. There was no journey. Ruvelle, beheaded and beyond befuddled, simply moved to move. Only moments passed before her balance failed her and she fell forward, arms pinwheeling. Her knees hit the floor, but her hands didn’t; her upper body had flopped onto her bed.

(“???*^~-‘*???”)

She did not know what she was touching, but it was soft and cool and pleasant. She dragged her arms and hands across the surface. It was large and comfortable. Ruvelle climbed onto it and laid down.

(“…*+^~*…”)

She spread across the bed on her back and relaxed. Her chest rose and fell in soft breaths. The headless witch stretched involuntarily and relaxed again. The comfort of this place was soothing. With no awareness of need to act, she remained still and content. Ruvelle drifted off to sleep a dreamless sleep.

——The Next Morning——

The candles had burned into piles of wax on the table. The fire under the cauldron of potion had burned out. Darkness of night had been chased away by the first tendrils of sunrise. Ruvelle began to wake up, arching her back as she stretched away her sleep sluggishness.

(“…mmmm…hmmm??…”)

She realized she couldn’t open her eyes. Still on her back, she lazily slid her arms upwards. Her hands dragged across her empty pillow. She paused, then swept her hands across the space a few more times. Her hand smacked herself between the shoulders without hitting the head and neck that should have been in the way.

(“…head?…what is…where is my…”)

Ruvelle began to rock herself to roll on her side. She pushed herself up until she was seated at the edge of her bed. She brought her hands back up to find her head and neck were gone. Then it hit her.

(“…magewire…on my neck…ignited…shit…where did…my head go…”)

She slid from the edge of the bed onto her knees and turned herself around. She patted down the entire surface of the bed. She waddled back on her knees, bent over, and fished for her head under her bed. She crawled out backwards empty-handed.

(“…my head…could be anywhere…can it see…”)

Ruvelle could not know what happened to her head last night. She began crawling around her hut close to the wall. Her hands waved and pat at the ground. Her breasts swayed freely under her; she was aware they had fallen out of her dress, but she had other priorities.

(“…come on…it has to be…maybe over here…”)

The decapitated dame crawled to cover every inch of floor space in her home twice over with no luck. She kneeled upright and hit her fists against her thighs in frustration.

(“…where in the…I need my head!…my head…”)

Ruvelle slowly waved around herself to touch any of her furniture and found the door to one of her cabinets. She crawled to it and reached upwards. She grabbed at one of the door handles, clasped it tight, and used it to pull herself upright with some difficulty.

(“…is it…on a counter…maybe the table…”)

Walking was still difficult for her. Balance was near impossible. She swayed and teetered in her continued quest for her missing head. The walls and countertops were her only supports. Despite her effort, the best her blind hands could find was piles of wax, her spell book, and the jar of newts.

(“…fuck…this is bad…if only I…was aware of—wait…aware…ness?”)

Ruvelle stopped dead. She remembered her heightened awareness potion that had led her to this mess. The same potion that needed a living head to be completed.

(“…no…there’s no way…how would…”)

She pondered the possibilities as she shuffled towards her cauldron. Her balance still needed work, but her sense of direction while blind had improved, and she made it to the fireplace easily.

(“…if my head…went…there…then the potion…should work…”)

Ruvelle felt her headless space with care. Skin had grown and covered the wound overnight. She felt around with her fingertips and found her throat was open. She scuttled sideways to her cabinets, trying to find something and knocking items over, oblivious to the sounds it caused. She came out with a ladle and a funnel, then scurried back towards the cauldron a bit too fast. Ruvelle fell. She landed on her side by the fireplace, keeping a hold on her tools.

(“Ow! Fuck…well…either it works…and that means…my head was…”)

She couldn’t finish the thought. She brought herself to upright kneeling again. She felt for the cauldron with the outside of her closed fists (holding the ladle and funnel).

(“If it doesn’t work…then my head…is somewhere…hopefully…”)

Ruvelle lifted the funnel to her throat and inserted it. It felt odd to have it there, but not uncomfortable; it had always gone into empty potion bottles before. She dipped the large ladle into the cauldron and lifted out a full scoop of her potion. She took a deep breath, held the funnel steady, and poured the potion in. The whole dose shot straight down her esophagus and into her stomach. She waited a few moments, motioned to the cauldron; hesitated. Another deep breath.

Ruvelle never felt this way emotionally before. She didn’t want her potion to fail again, but she wanted her head back. She wanted her potion to be a success, but if it worked, then her head had become an ingredient and was gone. The image of her newt, still headless after a week, flashed through her thoughts. She dipped the ladle into the cauldron again and gave herself another serving down the hatch. She pulled the funnel out of her throat.

(“…my stomach…it’s churning…hopefully…I need it to work…but my head…”)

She sat there, ruminating in her dilemma. It was hard for her to know how much time was passing. It seemed like nothing was changing. She clenched her fists around her tools and eventually tossed them across the floor. Ruvelle heard them scape and clang against each other and the floor.

(“…wait. I heard that. I HEARD THAT! MY POTION! IT WORKED!”)

She knocked on the cauldron and heard its’ dull metallic ring. She bounced with excitement. Her breasts bounced in circles and Ruvelle felt a pleasure from them so intense it was nearly painful. She finally grabbed her dress to cover them and brushed her nipples with the cloth. They were sensitive before, but the involuntary shudder she experienced from brushing them was new.

(“Holy Hounds of Heldeghast, my potion of heightened awareness *really* heightened *everything*! It really worked! It really…it…it…”)

She had stood up by this point. She noticed she knew where larger objects were around her, though it was definitely not sight; no colors, just vague awareness of size and proximity. She heard the morning songbirds outside. But her joy was bittersweet.

(“…it worked…be…because my head…my head was the living head that made it work.”)

Ruvelle stood stark still. Only her chest moved as she breathed slow and deep. She could hear the faint flow of air in and out of her throat. As she came to terms with this fact, she realized her object awareness was not limited to where she was facing. She turned to where she knew the ladle and funnel were. She walked to them, surprised she was still wobbling.

(“No awareness of balance, huh? Well, you win some…”)

She bent her legs to couch down and pick up the ladle and funnel. She felt her healed wound and slid the funnel in her throat again.

(“…you lose some. Like your head. I guess.”)

Ruvelle walked slower to get back to the cauldron. She noticed it was easier to stay balanced that way. She bent at the waist to get another ladle of the potion and poured it in herself, then let the ladle hang in the liquid from the cauldron’s edge. With the funnel rocking in circles where her head once was, Ruvelle stumbled around her hut for empty bottles.

As she searched, she payed attention to what she could sense. Sounds were as clear as they had always been. Her sight, on the other hand, was absent; there was no color or form or “looking” or light. It was all pitch black for vision.

Her sense of touch was where the largest positive difference was. A footstep, a hand on a surface, a shift of her dress; all of these and more seemed to reverberate the shapes of the space around her. Opening a cabinet with a creaking hinge would shower her with information of the size of the cabinet, the shelves inside, the items on them, the wall, and further still. Anything these rebounds gave her became secondhand information that didn’t fade as she moved to new places.

(“I’d much rather have my eyes…but this isn’t so bad, is it? I don’t need to organize anymore. I know where it all is.”)

Ruvelle had opened all of her drawers and cabinets, distracted by the awareness touch she had. She could pinpoint the location of everything - provided she knew what shape it was. After standing in wonder for some time, she stumbled over to the empty bottles she had (only slightly different from the full ones, but enough to be sure).

The Headless Witch of Severshire (a name that many more denizens of the realms would come to know than Ruvelle Caputina) began bottling the finest awareness potion ever created. She attempted to sing while she worked but stopped abruptly; her speaking days were behind her. But her days of becoming a myth, a legend, were laying ahead; all because her head was laid to waste.