The fairy followed the path Damon had come in on and figured out that he had been running away from the witch. She floated in through the witch's open window where Chris and John were still being held hostage. Mortal lowlifes were always ending up there somehow. Chris and John were getting a stern earful from the old woman when the fairy came in and greeted the witch.
Chris and John, still frozen by magic, could only move their eyes back and forth between the strange old lady and the mysterious fairy tale creature, giving each other stunned looks between glances. The witch and the fairy laughed and hugged and started gossiping about some warlock that had recently ended his relationship with another witch. It didn't take long to piece together that the witch and the fairy were not only neighbors but had been friends for years, maybe even centuries considering how magical they were. Then they started talking about Damon.
The witch called Damon "that coward who ran off toward your woods, leaving these two idiots to face my wrath without him." The fairy said, "Yeah, he was as cowardly as he looked when I started turning him into a new tree for my forest. He's much nicer to look at now."
A cold shiver went through each of the two thieves frozen in their midst. Had their partner really been turned into a plant of some sort? If so, what would happen to them?
"So they were all trying to steal from you, were they?" asked the fairy, looking at the two stiff males in front of her.
"Yeah, mortals are always bothering me wherever I live, I just don't get it. One millenium, they're marching in with pitch forks to dunk me in water, the next, they're breaking in to spray paint on the walls and run off with whatever trinkets they can find in here. They're like little birds, running off with shiny objects to hoard, not even caring whether they're magical or not!"
"Such pests!" laughed the fairy. The witch cackled with her and said, "Yeah, it's ridiculous. I was just now trying to figure out how to get rid of them. I've got a few hexes cast on them already which they haven't noticed. I doubt they've missed the paralysis spell, though. I didn't want them running off during my lecture, of course!"
"Ooh, hexes? What kind of hexes!"
"Oh, nothing too major yet. Mainly just a warmup to give me total control over their bodies and minds in case I decide they're better off as something else."
The fairy laughed again and quipped: "They're mortals! Is they're anything they could be worse off as? Rocks?"
The witch laughed, too. "At least rocks would possibly leave me own!" she cackled, almost even losing her pointed hat.
"It's all right, I've got an idea," said the fairy, who soon started whispering into the witch's ear. Chris and John tried desperately to squirm and see if they could possibly attempt to get away, having no desire to find out what their captors were potentially plotting.