Sweet At First Glance | Twisted Wonderland X Reader

Creation

The room was hot, making it difficult to focus on what she was doing. The old hag brought up an arm to wipe the sweat off her forehead, her brittle grey hair sticking to her forehead. The oven was up too high, there was a risk she might melt the candy her house was constructed of, but if she wanted this to work, she had to risk it.

Her hands were at work as she shaped the gingerbread on the tray in front of her. Her fingers worked carefully to sculpt the body of the body she wished she had when she was younger. Although it wouldn't be created as a teen, what she was making would be a child, who'd soon grow up to be how the hag had always wanted to be.
Soon, it was done. The gingerbread is in the shape of a small child, one of a baby. Her tray was large enough to fit the cookie with the arms and legs out to the sides.

She sighed, looking at how thin the cookie was. She didn't want her creation to be sickly thin, so she'd need to make more doe to stack upon each other.

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With the sun now setting, the hag placed one last duplicate of the gingerbread child upon the original. Opening the door of her oven, a blast of heat went straight to her face, causing her to quickly shield it with her arms. Moving away from the open oven, she picked up the tray with the gingerbread on it, her frail arms shaking as she put it in the oven, closing the door as she stood up straight.

Turning away from the oven, her cloak swayed behind her as she went down to the basement, starting to grab the ingredients she'd need to perform the spell. Returning to the kitchen, she placed them all down on the counter, grabbing a cauldron as she struggled to move it onto the fireplace.

The hag moved out to the well in her yard, one of the only parts of her house not crafted from candy. Attaching a bucket to a rope, she began to lower it into the well, before bringing it back up. With a bucket now full of water, she hurried back into her house, as fast as her thin legs would allow. Pouring the water into the cauldron, she lit the fireplace alight, letting the water start to boil.

Glancing out the window and seeing that the sun is not fully set yet, she grabs a bowl and some sugar crystals in pink and blue. Using the help of an appliance she had gotten from a wandering tradesman, she spun up the sugar crystals, creating a light and fluffy candy that was a soft pastel blue with streaks of pastel pink all through it.

She moves over to a shelf filled with books, taking the dustiest of them all off the shelf and starting to flick through the pages. Finding the page she needed, she put the book down on a table by the fireplace, keeping the page open.

A ding from the oven causes her to jump as she moves over to it, opening the door with mitts and removing the tray. Putting the tray with the gingerbread baby on it on the counter, she proceeded to turn off the oven, leaving it slightly open so it could cool.

She grabs the ingredients from the counter and brings them to a table by the fireplace, before moving back and grabbing the bowl of spun sugar and placing it next to the jars of strange items. Grabbing the curtains of the window and pulling them aside to let light seep through the sugar glass making the window panes. Moonlight filtered into the room, the strongest of the light landing upon the cauldron, a full moon making the light stronger than usual.

With the water boiling away in the cauldron and the moonlight shining upon it, the hag began to speak, her hoarse voice cracking as she opened the first jar of her ingredients.

"With eyes from a child," The hag reached into the jar, removing two eyes, whose beautiful colour had led her to store them instead of consume them, and dropping them into the cauldron. Placing the now empty jar in a crate next to the fireplace, she grabbed another one of the ingredients, opening this jar. "And the ears of a rabbit," She continued, tilting the jar so two white rabbit ears fell from the jar and into the cauldron, landing with a small splash in the boiling water as it began to tint red. "Grant thy child perfect hearing and sight."

Picking up the bowl of spun sugar, the hag dumped it in the cauldron, continuing on with her spell. "Beautiful hair light as a feather, but thick and soft as fur, for upon thy child's head." Grabbing a cherry from the ingredient pile, she dropped it in as she continued, "Lips as red as a cherry, but soft as silk, to grace thy child's face."

"A voice of a nightingale," she picked up a tiny vial, taking out the cork and dropping a bird's voicebox into the potion. "Too sweet talk with a voice of gold." The hag then picked up a jar containing a tongue and tipped it into the mixture.
"The tongue of a fox," The hag then went to the corner of the room, breaking off part of a branch from a flowering plant, making sure not to cut herself on any of the thorns. "And a branch from a crown of thorns," She dropped it into the cauldron, it sinking below the surface with a sizzling noise. "To give thy child a tongue of silver, yet as sharp as a claw."

Picking up the skull of the only grown lady she had ever cooked, she dropped it into the cauldron with a loud plop. "The skull of a woman for cheekbones high as the sky," The hag then grabbed a small wooden box from the few ingredients remaining, opened it up and took out what was inside. "The heart of a loving child, so thy will thrive," She then dropped the heart into the mixture, watching as it began to beat in the reddish-green liquid.

"A bag of sugar," She continued on, dumping an entire sack full of the powder into the cauldron. Then grabbing small cubes of ice, ones that were tinted yellow, "And ice made from lemons," she added those into the cauldron. "So thy child is sweet as sugar, but cold as ice."

"And finally, the blood of the mother, so thy child can truly feel," The hag added, before grabbing the last remaining item from the table, a knife. Picking it up, she then closed her eyes before feeling a stab of pain in her finger. Reopening her eyes, the knife was back on the table and blood was dripping down from her finger into the cauldron.

Grabbing a wooden spoon with her other arm, she began to mix the concoction together, letting the moonlight soak into it as the potion began to softly glow. Moving into the kitchen, she picked up the baby-shaped gingerbread, cradling it in her frail arms as she moved back to the cauldron.

Holding it above her head, she spoke, "As the body of thy child is lowered into the source of thy's life beneath the moonlight, life will blossom inside and thy will become mine." With that, she placed the gingerbread inside the bubbling cauldron, watching as the liquid began to glow silver as it trickled over the sides.

After a moment, she removed the gingerbread from the cauldron, yet, now it was soft and warm to the touch instead of hard. Taking a step away from the cauldron, the hag cradled the creature in her arms, watching as the small baby, born from gingerbread and her spell, reached up towards her face. The baby's eyes wide and pure as it looked up at her, trying to grab onto her nose, yet its arms were to short to reach it.

The old woman smiled, tears coming to her eyes as she hugged the child close to her chest. Despite the fact she hated children, this would be the one creature that'd receive her love and protection.