IV

Sunmi rolled her eyes.

“It’s not poisoned, you know.”

For someone she had found fainted in the marshes, the woman proved to be quite feisty. And strong, on top of that. Sunmi had almost collapsed from maintaining the freezing spell.

“It looks poisoned.”

Also, quite paranoid. Sunmi rolled her eyes a second time. No one had insulted her cooking skills before. There was a beginning for anything.

The woman moved her spoon in the soup, forward and back, sulking at how bad it looked.

“Then starve, if that’s what you wish.” Sunmi’s smile was sly and her eyes twinkled all-knowingly. “I will not prevent your early demise due to being a finicky eater.”

“From saviour to murdered,” the woman spoke with a lilt, abandoning the spoon in the bowl. “How destiny plays with one’s role in life.”

“You have not told me your name.” Sunmi commented, leaning back against her chair. She had given the woman back her strange outfit and the staff - regrettably so - and had received in exchange nothing.

The woman had fallen into thoughts, eyes pinned on the dark liquid. Sunmi admired her raven hair and the way light captured its sheen. She was someone from a better place, Sunmi believed, where one could tame the threads on their heads. Her skin too, void of flaws, a place where one had time to bathe properly and apply salve on wounds.

Her hands, on the other hand, were not as soft and pristine as Sunmi had imagined. She often watched the villagers nearby at their work, often noticed the blisters on their fingers, their calloused palms and the many cuts from grass and other manual work. Sunmi wondered if they all had hands like that.

Even her mother hadn’t been forgiven from the hardship of daily life.

But