The Love-Smitten Witch and the Hermit
There was a couple in a small town in Aversia. A man and a woman, who was smitten with the man. She would do anything for him, even die for him. The man, who did love the woman, was not obsessed like she was. He was, however, obsessed with another. He was the local architect for the town. Every house and building he designed to be the perfect one. When he was asked to design a house, he would devote every second to designing and building.
As such, he was always holed up in a room for hours. The woman grew increasingly hateful about the lack of time she got to spend with him. One day, when the man had just finished placing the foundations of a clinic, the woman sabotaged it. The core foundations were made exceptionally weak. The clinic was finished and quickly used, as the town was involved with its kingdom's war. Soldiers and the elderly were brought inside the clinic to be treated. All of the sudden the clinic collapsed, killing 50 soldiers and 30 elderly. The man, being the designer, was blamed with the collapse and was exiled to the nearby forest.
The man would be forced to survive off of the land. The woman followed him, but the man didn't care about her anymore and he sneaked off at night while she slept. The man had built a makeshift shack to survive in. The woman had wandered into the forest to look for her lover but each time she had gotten lost. After two years of searching, she managed to find a shack in the forest. She decided to enter the shack.
Finding a great deal of primitive tools, she found a bright orange flower that looked like it was on fire. She thought that they looked so pretty and wondered if she could take them. Hearing footsteps, she quickly took all of the flowers and sneaked out the back, behind the tree. She hid behind a tree when she saw a ragged man with a great brown beard. She couldn't believe that he had grown so ragged. She decided to go home and give up on the man that wasn't her lover.
On the way back, she saw a beautiful deer. Seeing the deer, the woman held out a flower trying to feed it. The deer gently ate the flower and started to squeal. The woman watched in fear as the deer grew sick and lied down. The woman thought of a devious plan and decided to go home and grind up the flower petals. And so she did, grinding up all of the petals and mixing it with some wolfsbane.
She then sneaked back to the shack and mixed the compound into the man's stew while he went to check out a noise he heard nearby. When the man came back and ate the compound, she saw him start to suffer. And that's where all the stories end the same.
Some people say he died to the wolfsbane like a normal person. Others say he discovered the woman and managed to stuff some of the poison into her mouth. And finally, a few people say he changed into a fox before dying to the fire flower.
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