So,

did you know?

There's a lost tree stump in the middle of the forest.

 

 

***

 

 

"The forest is angry."

Whispers and murmurs roam the streets of the kingdom, reaching even into the deepest corner of an old inn near the dry well, the smell of aged mead and grilled turkeys barely beating the thick worry in the air.

"What's the kingdom's wizard doin'?" a gruff voice says, the source being the old man monopolizing a bench, taking a long sip of the warm mead and sighing contentedly over the aftertaste. "Surely after an entire platoon came back injured from days ago’s hunt, the king would've sent him to fix things up."

"Fix things up? Bah," the lanky man hunching near the fireplace spits, throwing several dry twigs into the fire, the flames almost as bright as his red hair. "Bollocks, is what he is. Bloody palace's far from the forest, we're the ones gettin' the burnt of it. Arse wizard 'nd his wife woulda spare us none of their time. When's last time they hold out 'em powers to help us?"

"Watch your words, dude," says a feminine voice, and a beat later a woman appears from door to the kitchen, tresses of dark hair spilling out from under a maroon headwear, long sleeves of her shirt rolled up to her elbow, each hand holding two plates of peeled fruits and slices of marinated meat. The woman bends down to place one plate of meat in front of the gruff old man, and another full of fruit for the quiet traveller sitting next to him. She glances at the man before the fireplace, "You know if they got wind of what you just said, you'll be thrown into the dry well or something—never to be heard again."

"Long as yer wife sing for me tragedy," the gruff old man cuts in, grey eyes flicking over towards where a woman is singing softly into the mic, a shorter woman next to her playing a lyre to accompany the beautiful sound. "I'd gladly be jumpin' into the mad-cursed well on his behalf, m'self."

"Dream on, old man," the woman rolls her eyes, straightening up and wiping her free hand on the piece of cloth hanging from her belt. Two syllables are sewn with care into the fabric, spelling out Hyewon.

"Ya reckon the palace's really gonna do nothing?"

Hyewon turns towards the voice, a man her age taking a big gulp from his ginger ale. He wears a loose linen shirt browning out from its repeated contact with the ground with all of its muddy glory, and the hay scattered upon broad flagstones under him is the only saving grace for the stench of animal waste lingering from his boots.

"They'll probably send out a sacrifice, won't they," a young boy next to him murmurs, head down and palms loose around a glass of water. "Just like—" the smelly man elbows him, and he shuts up.

"The youngest princess favours our part of the town, Dohyon," the muscular guy one table behind them says, "we should be safe from being made a sacrifice, at least."

The Dohyon boy doesn't reply, instead ducking his head deeper until his nose almost touches the rim of his glass. Hyewon shakes her head, and walks on towards the table crammed in the corner of the inn, occupied by a cloaked figure and a Sakura—

"Why isn't the pretty maid around," the eccentric Lieutenant demands before Hyewon can as much as say hello.

"So that's why you seem so offended tonight," says Hyewon dryly, setting down the rest of the food she's bringing on the table. "And if you meant Chaeyeon—" she barely gives a pause when Sakura exclaims who else, "she's been busy the whole day, tending to our cows. They've been mighty distressed lately, and we're at loss as to why."

Sakura scowls, pulling the plate with meat towards her. "Does it have anything to do with the forest, do you think?"

"Don't sell Eunsang out to the wolves," says Hyewon, ignoring the deadpan remark of 'stop makin’ sure I won't die' from the fireplace man, "one word to them and I'm banning you from this inn forever." Not that she's ever really worried. Sakura is among a few in the ranks who still frequently blend in with the civilians, regularly dropping by to help around the town or even just a catch up over a drink. Some speculate that it's both the reason why she manages to be a lieutenant despite her being a female and why she hasn't ever moved up the ranks, despite her good reputations with people.

A token, included within to avoid accusations of favours, appeasing the people, but never meant to climb up the ladder as fairly as anyone would like to believe.

"Threatening to separate me from my true love, now?" Sakura an eyebrow, purposefully stabbing a slice of meat harder than necessary. "That's cold."

"You're cold,"

"Damn right I am, I regret not bringing a coat with me—"

"Where are you going?" Hyewon asks, briefly glancing at the hooded person across Sakura and then back at her, "The house can lend you our winter jacket, if you promised not to trade it away to then return it to us in the form of knives."

"Sure! That'd be neat, and…" Sakura mirrors Hyewon's action to glance at her companion, who's quietly going through the bite-sized fruits, seemingly deaf to the conversation happening just a few inches away,

"Just wish us luck. Like, a lot of it."

 

 

***

 

 

There's a lost tree stump in the middle of the forest,

and you won't find it if you tried to locate where it is.

 

 

***

 

 

The clouds are spreading thin overhead—the grey sheets of cold cotton trying to cover the fullmoon but not quite managing to block its light—when two figures emerge from the outskirt of the kingdom, coming to a stop before the looming forest, dense and solemn trees climbing up like they're about to reach the sky.

"Well," says Sakura, "here we are. Whether you go in now or wait 'till dawn is your call."

For a moment, the hooded figure seems to be content in holding their usual silence. A pair of eyes silently observes the hushed nature before them, and it is in a quietest volume that a new voice finally speaks up,

"A sacrifice."

Sakura looks over, watching as the hood is slowly pulled back. She rests her hand on top of the hilt of her sword and gives her companion a lopsided smile,

"Nice of you to finally show your face to the rest of us, Healer."

The teased person merely stares back, with a gaze plainly humourless. "A sacrifice," repeats the Healer, strands of brown hair giving out a glint under the moonlight. "I thought I'm here to meet a—Ruler, of some sort, find out about the thick hostility wafting off the trees, try to find a solution for it, if it’s within my capabilities. Nothing like a suicide mission—nothing like a sacrifice."

The Lieutenant grimaces.

"Is that why you brought me to the inn first?" the cloaked woman continues, tone querying and gaze softening into a dim curiosity as she tilts her head. "You wanted me to know everything about the forest. To hear about—its reputation."

"The palace isn't the most forthcoming."

"So I've realized."

Sakura swallows, the heel of her palm slipping down from the hilt of her sword. "It's what you got," she quietly says, "if you stepped out of the boundary set by the palace."

The curiosity hardens into a sharp, piercing gaze. "Boundary," the cloaked woman says in a clipped tone, "I cured a blacksmith during a trip to the town, possibly saving one kind soul whose presence seemed to be so preciously valued within the neighbourhood, and it was deemed out of bounds—? Enough to justify this?"

"The palace doesn't serve the people nor does it offer one without something expected in return," says Sakura, voice almost a whisper, "no matter what front they're putting on during speeches or whatnots."

"But you're here, you engage with the people and you're still here—"

"And why do you think I'm here, exactly, Healer?" She smiles grimly, gesturing to the space between the two of them, and then towards the still forest. "Why do you think I'm here, when other lieutenants would be in the palace or somewhere else more safe?"

The Healer blinks slowly.

"It's because they don't mind losing me," Sakura lightly confirms, as though they're discussing the weather and not at all the matters of a sacrifice. "Because they knew I'd offer to go in your place, should you want to back out."

“She was half-serious, wasn’t she,” the Healer breathes out, and Sakura arches an eyebrow, so the explanation comes briskly, “The owner of the inn. When she told you not to sell the—fireside guy, to the wolves.”

“Ah. Well, yeah.”

“I thought it was just. A joke, like an inside gag.”

“And now that you’re here, you realized that the palace is way capable of actually doing so?”

“I had no way of knowing that the kingdom is ruled under—dictatorship.”

Sakura tips her head back and laughs a little. Humourless, with two shadows of a girl and a boy flitting past her mind, unbidden and cold. She squashes the memory and shakes her head, glancing at the companion she’s about to send off—

(Yet another shadow to add to her conscience,)

“Understandable,” she says dully, gesturing vaguely towards the ground beneath their feet. “Because the moment you know, it always ends up like this. Standing on the edge of a cliff. Or always being nudged into one.”

The Healer closes her eyes for a moment, and when she finally looks at her again, it’s with a resigned glint that she asks,

“Are you the latter?”

Sakura shrugs.

“And what of me?” asks the Healer, eyebrows knitted together. “You said I could back out. If I were to back out, what of—"

“The former, or at least—something akin to being exiled, at the very best.” At the disbelief she’s receiving, Sakura exhales slowly. “They would rely on the assumption that you would never dare to show up around the kingdom again,” she explains, scuffing the end of her boots against the ground, giving the other a look that promises the truth behind her words. “And even if you tried, they would have—something to pin on you. Like my presumed death, since I would be missing then. Since I’d go in.”

“That’s—"

“Mad? Odd? Shocking?”

“Preposterous.”

“It is easier to accept if we looked at this whole thing like everything’s a whole circus.”

She lets the Healer work through the questions in her mind, watching as a flurry of emotions crosses the other’s face. It takes a few minutes until the latter expels a loud breath, pinching the bridge of her nose,

“You said you’d go in my place—"

Sakura hums, “I don’t think you’d agree.”

“—and to be perfectly honest I don’t—" the Healer pauses at her quip, then points a menacing finger at her with a scowl, “stop stealing my words.”

She only cracks a smile, lifting her hands up in surrender.

“But you’re right,” the Healer then continues. “I do disagree. I can’t do that to—you, to the people, to my own conscience. Those people... they need you.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t propose for neither of us entering.”

“You’ve made me listen to the stories,” the Healer points out, agitation barely scratching her tone. “Every time the forest acts up—it only goes calm after a sacrifice. And it’s directly affecting your people, your friends. If I proposed that—"

“You think I’d just go in, myself, if only to stop their suffering, if anything.”

“Would you say that my guess is wrong?”

“Not in the slightest.”

The corners of the Healer’s mouth twitch up into almost a smile. “I’m glad I could meet your friends today, Lieutenant.”

“I don’t like that sentence. You seem eager to say goodbye.”

“I have a hunch that the longer we talk, the longer you’ll feel like you’ve got to save me.”

“How’d you read me so well, Healer—"

“It’s Hitomi.”

Sakura pauses, tilting her head slowly at the nonchalant reply. The Healer gives her a smile—one no longer held back, and she snorts.

“Sakura,” she says finally, by way of accepting the offered familiarity, “though I’m sure you must’ve heard.”

A dip of a head, acknowledgment. “Don’t worry too much,” says the Healer, slowly tugging her hood back on, “on any accounts, I’ll fare better than you in the wild. I am, after all, a Healer.”

“Finally, some arrogance,” Sakura breathes out, words laced with sarcasm, any hurtful edges it might have carried immediately softened by a grin. “I almost forgot that you were once one of those palace people.”

“If I meet the God of the forest,” muses the Healer, glancing at her, “I’ll ask for them to channel the hostility to the palace, or something.”

“Well, if you met a duck,” Sakura chimes back, a mischievous glint dancing in her eyes, “tell it I said hello.”

“Is that why you asked for the inn people to wish us a lot of luck? To make sure I meet a duck?”

“Would you rather I wish for you to meet a hamster?”

“Goodbye, Lieutenant.”

“Fine, I’ll wish for you to meet a frog!”

“Goodbye, Sakura!”

“Or a blue-haired dog!”

“I already said goodbye, stop communicating with me!”

 

 

***

 

 

There’s a lost tree stump in the middle of the forest.

You won’t find it if you’re trying to locate where it is. The ‘lost’ label isn’t for the tree stump — the tree stump has always been there, with its own purpose, wading through time rooted firmly to the ground beneath—so instead, the ‘lost’ tacked onto it is there as a nod to the souls capable of stumbling upon the lone stump. The lost souls, wandering into the forest to search for themselves, walking and walking even when they no longer know where they are, the dappling sunlight filtering through the dense trees their only source of light—when they press long enough, when they’re lost deep enough, they will find themselves stepping into a small clearing, the moss-covered branches and unturned rocks standing still around the tree stump, quiet and in a strangely guarded lull, as though they’ve been waiting, expecting.

Hence why some sources say, no, you don’t go and find the lost tree stump.

The lost tree stump finds you.

 

 

***

 

 

The forest is angry, the town people have said.

They aren’t wrong.

It’s not that the forest is—a single entity, per se. Its anger can’t be described as a clear display the way you can simply point at an angered person’s scowling face. Rather, it’s in the—ambience. The unsettling rustles of the leaves and the twigs, the deafening silence that feels horribly cold, the looming trees firmly refusing to offer warmth as Hitomi the Healer navigates into the dense woods. Sometimes she feels the weight of a gaze prickling at the back of her neck, as though something is observing her from the shadows, but she resists the urge to turn, and keeps walking forward.

She has lied.

When she said that on any accounts, she’d fare better than Sakura in the wild—well, she lied. The truth is, healers don’t possess offensive affinity. Their place in the spectrum of affinities is even directly on the opposite of offensive. The Gift they can tap from within them is healing, not attacking or destroying or whooping a lion’s to the Moon and back—

Even with a few sharp medical tools among the foods and the basic necessities packed up inside her rucksack, Hitomi is fairly sure she is a walking meat to the hungry carnivores inhibiting the forest. Sakura might choose to fight upon meeting a beast, might have the chance to come out victorious. The only strategy Hitomi has for such encounters is to flee as fast as she can, surviving with minimal or at least not too grave of an injury as she does so, then retreating up onto a sturdy tree branch—or into a cave, but she won’t hold her breath—to try and heal her wounds, before even thinking of continuing her journey.

(If there’s even a journey to go on to. In the end, she is a sacrifice.)

She casts a glance towards the sky, the dark palette fading slightly out of the corner of her eyes. Her grip around the torch she’s carefully kept alive tightens. Dawn is near; she might just survive the day, she thinks, the pulsating ache painfully clawing at her feet reminding her that it couldn’t be less than three hours that she’s been constantly walking. The flasks of water she keeps strapped around her waist are nearly empty, and there’s only a bottle of water left inside of her rucksack.

So when her ears catch the sound of a water stream, she wastes no time in tracking it down.

 

 

***

 

 

There’s a lost tree stump in the middle of the forest.

No one knows where it is—or, at least, no one who knows better would claim so. Eons ago, the firsts of the lost wanderers came back bearing stories, bursting with directions. It is near a river, they would say, recounting to those enamoured by the rare tale of the hiddens. Follow the river, and you would arrive there sooner or later. And the listening ears took notes, made plans, prepared for a journey into and through the mysterious woods.

They never came back—never found, and if ever, then never alive.

So they said in hushed whispers,                      

the lost tree stump doesn’t like seekers.

The lost tree stump takes lives,

quieter and faster than one could wield their knives.

The lost tree stump lets you go so others will come trickling in, like an unsuspecting herd of fishes swimming right into a fisherman’s net—

There’s a lost tree stump in the middle of the forest,

and if you claimed to know where it is, no one would share the same table with you in the inn.

 

 

***

 

 

The forest is angry, the town people said.

With ragged breaths, Hitomi agrees.

Sometime ago, a while after she managed to find a river and took out some food to quell a little of her hunger, a wild boar suddenly came out of nowhere, charging towards her. It was only the fact that she stuck by the river that she’s still alive. She rolled to the side and faintly heard the heavy splash of the wild boar diving head-first into the rippling stream, but the moment she had collected herself enough to turn and look, the river was calm.

The wild boar was nowhere to be found.

The forest is enchanted.

The forest is enchanted and angry and Hitomi is the current human dummy for them to throw their angry projectiles towards.

(Because then a similar thing keeps happening; with a fox, a tiger, a vicious squirrel, a striking snake even. She sticks by the river, turns on the empath core within her if only to detect the sharp anger a few seconds faster, and tries her best not to die.)

Soon I won’t be able to avoid it anymore, the Healer thinks, dragging her feet against the ground. Soon, I’d be the one thrown into the river, if not mauled to death. Her feet flare with pain, and they might have been bleeding—several parts of her cloak are torn up, scratches left by claws or a particularly sharp branch she didn’t quite manage to avoid. Hitomi wonders if peace would come for a little while for her to heal herself, or would it come after she’s given in into one of these attacks, giving herself an eternal rest—

Dawn has long passed. The sun is starting to rise, so Hitomi groggily lifts her head when the surrounding is slightly darkening again, instead of brightening up, as though time is slowly ticking backwards into the night. Deep green trees curve overhead, high and curling almost protectively, and the thin layer of sunlight that manages to slip past the dense leaves barely warms the cool air, casting almost a golden glow at the—is it a clearing, she wonders idly, because should you look at it from above, the entwined branches wouldn’t allow you to think so.

Fallen needles cover the forest floor, scattered upon the ground and the pebbles and the moss-covered rocks and Hitomi can sniff the smell of flowers, thinks to herself that perhaps she’d be able to glimpse some colours among the brooding bundles of old bushes if only she looked. A weary drift of her gaze leaves the river, head lolling to look to her left, and she blinks blearily at what looks like—a tree stump.

A gentle breeze rolls past her as she swings her step away from the river-banks, the soft rustles of small animals running through the ferns chiming all around her while to world stands still. A mix of warm and cold seeps through the fabric of her cloak and upon her skin, amidst the breeze and under the dappling sunlight—and her surrounding continues to darken. She exhales out a shudder, dimly aware of the fading pain as well as the earth beneath her that rapidly looks closer and closer—

The forest is angry, the town people said.

A beat before darkness entirely consumes her, Hitomi thinks of a plate of peeled fruits and the tight-knitted folks and the homely inn.

She wishes for them to be well.

 

 

***

 

 

There’s a lost tree stump in the middle of the forest.

The tales said that you won’t find a single leaf resting upon the smooth surface, even during fall seasons, as though a soul is assigned to clean it everyday, or an invisible cover is spread above the lone stump to shield it away from the raining blades of green to brown. Some take it further, saying that should you find yourself stumbling upon it, and see a single leaf resting atop the centuries old flat-felled trunk—

The story varies, from there.

Elven children, some proposed. Disappearing into the shadows with childlike glint in their eyes, observing you and the stump from somewhere you can’t see them, surely it’s elven children.

No, others would deny. Only animals. The kinds you don’t encounter in any forests, one people won’t believe you if you’d tried to explain.

A goddess, some dreamily sighed. The goddess of the forest was watching you. Wanting to see what you’d do.

Either these stories fade or get retold, they are infused within the folklore of the kingdom, whispered and weaved as bed stories, except for the curious who pays attention closer.

A few years ago,

a hushed tale roamed the deepest corner of an old inn near the dry well, of a young lost wanderer found near the forest, skin cold with barely a life but eyes warmer than a steaming flagon of mead. Souls brought him into the inn, buzzing with questions as well as trying to nurse the flicker of life back into a full fire again.

Did you find it, the excited and curious asked after a week of skirting around the topic, allowing the young wanderer to heal.

Yes, so the young wanderer finally said—ducking their head so low their nose almost touched the rim of their glass. And there was nothing but a choice.

The answer was devoid of magic they were seeking, empty of the hopes or the horrors they wished to see, causing the people to disperse and questions to cease. They took the answer in and let it fade, while the wanderer stayed, content with the simple truth, holding it close.

There’s a lost tree stump in the middle of the forest,

and it gives you a choice.

 

 

***

 

 

It’s weird, she thinks as her body lies there in a lull. She can feel the ground beneath her, feathery touch brushing against her cheek, tiny little drips of water wetting her forehead.

She isn’t sure if death is supposed to sound like a quack, if it’s supposed to feel like countless little bites to her thumb.

The quack comes again, as the droplets of water cease. The bites become frantic, and she doesn’t feel like opening her eyes, doesn’t think she can open her eyes (because isn’t she supposed to be dead, hasn’t she acquired the right to succumb into an eternal sleep—) but then she smells smoke, and her left wrist feels warm, and the temperature status shoots up into hot right away and wait a bloody second—

Her eyes fly open, and every bit of energy that she still possesses is channelled into lifting her left hand up towards her line of vision. She gasps when she sees fire, and gasps again when a duck suddenly jumps onto her stomach and slaps the fabric, quacking repeatedly as it tries to punch the fire away. A quick spurt of water comes from her right, and when Hitomi shifts to look, a frog is busy giving its all to hold the stream of water coming out of its mouth for a few seconds, until the fire dies completely, leaving burnt edges on the white shirt she’s worn under her cloak.

The duck goes quack, jumping off from her stomach and away from her hand as it falls sideways.

Hitomi blinks at the forest ceiling, trying to comprehend what she’s just experienced. For starters, she’s lying on her back, despite feeling so sure that she was crumpling forward when she had started to lose her grip on consciousness. There’s also a duck, and a frog, and—she glances to her right, squints towards her thumb that has been receiving tiny harmless bites, and my God. Is that a hamster?

“I must’ve gone insane,” she murmurs, slowly pushing herself up to sit. The hamster scurries off to hide behind the duck at her movement, while the frog leaps away somewhere out of her sight. Hitomi stares blankly at the yellow-feathered waterfowl, mouth opening and closing for a while as she tries to get some words out,

“Are you the one who got my shirt on fire?” she finally asks, voice coming out hoarse. How long has she been out?

She’s only a touch away from seriously contemplating her sanity for trying to converse with a duck, but then the duck quacks indignantly, a swing of its wing pointing towards a spot a little past her shoulder. Hitomi blinks, slowly turning her upper body to look, grimacing at the ache shooting up her nerves—

There’s a small campfire a few steps behind her, her rucksack lying near the crackling flame just enough to not have it catch fire by accident. To the south of the warmth is a tree stump, one Hitomi vaguely remembers noticing before she fainted. The frog from earlier is crouching atop of it, and then Hitomi loses all the energy to argue to the duck that the campfire is still too far for it to be the reason her sleeve is burnt—she loses all the energy to care about that tiny little detail because the frog is crouching atop the tree stump, next to what looks like a blue-haired canine, curling up and very still.

The frog croaks. And the duck quacks.

The forest comes off heavily distressed.

Hitomi turns around, exhaling slowly and pulling her legs towards herself, palms aglow with a sheen light of green: healing. She hovers her hands over her feet, knees, then her sides—quickly treating the scratches and worn-out joints, the tissues she’s torn up while she endured the vicious projectiles thrown her way in the form of wild animals. She stifles a cough when her gut squeezes and the green wavers—she lets the glow to dim and fade out of her fingertips.

There isn’t much power left in her reserve.

She closes her eyes to even out her breaths—this is fine, she tells herself firmly, she just needs to be well enough to move.

Something soft bumps into her knee, and she opens her eyes to the tiny hamster nuzzling into her side. She pulls up a small smile, reaching out to offer her hand to the small animal, watching as it climbs onto her palm. There’s a faint distress coming from the hamster, too, and Hitomi thinks of the frog and the motionless bundle of blue.

“Is the blue ball your friend?” she whispers.

The hamster nips at her index finger, and she chalks it up to a yes.

“Is your friend ill?”

Another nip, and Hitomi thinks she hears a soft whine coming from the stationary blue.

“Do you want me to take a look?” And the hamster doesn’t nip at her this time, instead looking up and slowly doing its version of a small nod. She her lips, exhaling slowly, “Very well. But I’ll need to get in a drink and a few chews first, alright? I’m running low on power reserves—”

The hamster tilts its head, tiny paw pointing towards her left. Hitomi turns, and she feels like she shouldn’t be surprised to find the duck up close, with her rucksack already dangling from its beak. Intelligent friends, she thinks, the hamster gently transferred onto her lap so she can carefully retrieve her belonging. She pulls out a bottle of water she’s refilled thanks to the river, as well as a piece of jam sandwich the Lieutenant had forced her to take from the inn.

The duck waddles close. She tears off a bit of her bread and feeds it to the yellow-feathered waterfowl, biting back a smile at the happy jig it performs in return.

She eats and drinks as fast as she can, feeling the distress of the forest shape up and spread with each ticking second. She lets her mind wander—when has the forest stopped feeling so hostile, when did the aura she’s sensing start to change—and before she knows it, she’s taking the last chugs of her water, the jam sandwich no longer holding its shape, swallowed completely into her digestive system. The hamster has long climbed her cloak, digging its tiny front paws onto her shoulder as though to lay claims of the spot, and the duck is quacking at her, webbed feet shuffling uneasily against the ground as it pads towards the tree stump.

Hitomi slowly gets onto her feet, and follows the duck to cross the otherwise short distance.

The frog croaks when she finally crouches before the tree stump, one palm gingerly reaching out to rest near the unmoving paws. The blue-haired dog shifts, perhaps at the frog’s croak, or her warmth, ears perking up weakly along with a soft whine. Its aura is on edge.

“Hello,” she murmurs, letting her palms to glow with a sheen of peach-coloured light. “This isn’t going to hurt, I promise.”

The frog croaks again, probably means it to sound comforting, and Hitomi begins to work. She focuses at the signals she’s receiving back, face growing more somber as she goes through the information her spell is giving. She closes her eyes briefly and grits her teeth when she recognizes a hint of poison, one so familiar, because how could she not, it’s the one the palace’s soldiers dip the pointed end of their arrows with—

A gentle nuzzle of fur to her neck. The hamster. She wonders if it can sense the bitterness unfurling within her.

Hitomi opens her eyes and lets out a breath,

“I will heal you.”

The frog croaks. The duck waddles closer to press itself up against the stump, watching her expectantly. The dog doesn’t make as much as a noise, but its aura wavers into something akin to acceptance.

She identifies where the arrow must have pierced the poor dog, pauses over the tell-tale of several days old wound amidst blue wools, the scar closing messily, but she shoves away the questions. Something—someone, she corrects herself—must have tried to treat it first, but it wasn’t enough.

“It would’ve killed you in a day,” Hitomi murmurs, “but you’re very strong, aren’t you? You brave soul.” She lets the green light to simmer around her fingers again, mentally runs herself through a plan. “You fought back. That’s why it’s affecting you slowly instead, spreading and causing you harm in a slow pace—and I will need to untangle everything slowly, unknotting the poisonous curls within you, but we can do this, alright?”

The dog whines, but it doesn’t move. The duck seems to turn a little green at the word untangle, but she doesn’t ponder over it for longer than a second—

Except she does, because hold on.

A duck.

A hamster.

Hitomi blinks.

A frog, and a blue-haired dog.

A night-old parting banter spoken lightly with humour replays itself inside her mind.

(“Is that why you asked for the inn people to wish us a lot of luck? To make sure I meet a duck—”

“Would you rather I wish for you to meet a hamster?”)

She lets the flicker of amusement to kindle within her, rippling out of her lips in the form of a low chuckle. She glances at the yellow-feathered waterfowl, and thinks of the Lieutenant, thinks of how she’d have to find a way to send a message to her after this, and says,

“Right, Duck. Before I forgot, someone told me to tell you they said hello.”

The duck quacks, head tilting slightly and tone oddly questioning, but Hitomi keeps her mirth to herself, taking comfort in that small speck of light in her mindscape as she starts to extend her palms towards the upper part of the left hind-leg coated in blue.

Slowly but surely, she begins to heal.

 

 

***

 

 

There’s a lost tree stump in the middle of the forest—
as well as a duck, to which your greeting has been passed on…

Sakura occupies the deepest corner of the inn, a mug of cold root beer sitting untouched on the table before her. The two-feet long parchment unrolled in front of her face is safely hiding the small smile on her lips, the relieved glint in her eyes. The scroll is unsigned, delivered by one crazy magpie that attacked her in the middle of the town before stealing the biscuit she was eating in exchange of one crumpled message.

But she can deal with that. She can deal with a sudden bird attack if this is what she gets in return. The letter doesn’t say much, doesn’t mention anything about injuries or exhaustion, but surely if the Healer was delirious during the composition of the letter, she wouldn’t be able to find a vicious magpie and bribe it into being her postman, much less training her into finding Sakura among other countless people roaming the streets of the town in the evening.

…I do hope the waves of fury is dwindling down, and that everyone is well.
A hamster wants me to tell you it said hello. Or at least that’s what I think its little bites were supposed to mean. Take care.

Well, Sakura thinks, that’s one hope dashed, not that she has the means to message the Healer back about it. Just a few minutes after she stumbled into the inn, Eunbi, the singer (as well as Hyewon’s wife) was saying something about how the forest still seems angry, taking in Sakura’s order with a cursive scribble of her quill.

She swiftly shoots down the voice inside her mind that unnecessarily quips well, she’s not dead yet, is she, that’s not yet a sacrifice—

She isn’t going to begrudge the Healer for surviving.

A chime of the front bell, and two people enter the inn. Sakura rolls up the scroll, schooling her expression into a neutral mask as Hangyul the Carpenter wanders in with the ever-so-timid Dohyon in tow. She accepts the former’s greeting with a nod, and lets her stare to linger on the latter until the boy lifts his head up and uncomfortably returns her gaze.

She brings her mug closer to herself, nonchalantly says, “Hey, a duck and a hamster said hi,” then takes a long sip of her root beer, watching out of the corner of her eye for a reaction. She isn’t disappointed:

Dohyon chokes on his own spit.

(He coughs for a long time, thumping his chest with his fist until Hyewon rushes out of the kitchen to urgently press a glass of water into his palms, and when his breathing pipes are back in business, he shoots Sakura a smile so bright Hangyul asks if he’s accidentally coughed a fair chunk of his sanity out.)

 

 

***

 

 

The forest is—less angry.

At least that’s what Hitomi senses, ever since she’s begun to treat the blue dog. She’s already on her third day—she wasn’t joking when she said the word slowly—and there were no wild animals ambushing her, eager to make a meal out of her. She hasn’t even heard a hungry growl coming from anywhere but her own stomach, and occasionally from the odd trio keeping watch.

Her food stash barely lasted her through the second morning, especially with the regular pour of her power as she patched the wounded. Which is as well, since she decided to herself that she needed to gather some medical herbs anyway—she couldn’t rely on her power alone, a few bites of food imbued with healing components would help the recovery even more. So she pulled her palms back after the bit of poison burrowing into the dog’s rump faded out, took a much-needed chug of water to wet , then looked at the duck and the frog and the hamster and told them that she needed to travel around a bit.

See, this next bit would sound crazy. It is crazy—

But in the end, she found herself carefully navigating away from the little clearing with the frog perched on her left arm, because apparently the odd trio didn’t trust her to walk alone and come back to them in one piece without getting lost. She swore she almost heard an amused, soft bark from the dog, too, the happiest noise she had ever gotten from the otherwise sick bundle of blue.

The same arrangement applies to other needs. Taking a bath near the river, washing her clothes, or even a simple act of relieving herself from nature’s calls; either the hamster or the frog would climb onto her arm or shoulder, ready to keep her safe, no questions asked.

“Think this mushroom’s safe for consumption?” she lightly asks, glancing to the hamster lazily lounging on her shoulder, her travel companion for the day. The small animal perks up a little, seeming to squint at the aforementioned object—

And then it produces a sound like a disgusted hiss.

“That’s a no, then,” she easily continues, rising up from the ground. “Do I want to know the story behind your aversion towards it?”

The hamster looks at her, unimpressed.

“Right. Possibly traumatic or at least embarrassing.” She makes a zipping motion across her lips, biting back a smile at the hamster’s solemn nod. “Got it.”

They wade through the forest a little more, on a mission to gather medical ingredients as well as several edible fruits for herself, and Hitomi pauses a little when the rustles of the leaves above them seem—anxious.

It’s a different anxiety from back when she crouched before the weakened blue for the first time; that one was laced tightly with distress, almost pressuring her to do something already, trying to get her to move quicker. This time around, it feels—lighter, somehow. Akin to an anxious anticipation, coloured with almost a… playful… dread?

She blinks, unsure of what to make of it.

A small paw presses against her cheek, and Hitomi hums, glancing at the make-do pouch she weaved with long blades of grass to destress. It’s filled almost to the brim.

“Should we head back?”

A poke, their agreed signal for a yes. Then the hamster points somewhere to her left, and Hitomi obliges, swinging her steps that way, trusting the small animal to know better than her about the way back to the tree stump.

“Do you think the duck caught some fishes for us again?”     

Another poke, slower this time, as though telling her that it’s a silly question and she shouldn’t have asked.

Occasionally, when they come back, the duck and the other left-behind member of the odd trio would be sitting around the tree stump with a feigned innocence on their expressions. Several wide, green leaves would be laid out near them, a small campfire burning quietly a few steps away. On top of the arranged leaves would be at least two headless fishes, already gutted and cleaned, ready to be cooked over an open fire. Sometimes, she would feel the weight of a gaze prickling at the back of her neck, as though something is observing her from the shadows, but she has always resisted the urge to turn, instead thanking the duck for the help—pointedly ignoring the fact that neither of the two animals would be well-equipped to gut and clean the fishes by themselves. She would then dedicate her entire attention on preparing the meal, making sure to set aside a portion of the fishes to be grilled and made into supplement balls for the blue dog, the ingredients she’d carefully picked all minced up and mixed in.

If her calculation was right, today’s batch of the supplements would be the last.

“Your blue friend is going to bounce back to health soon,” she says over the sound of wings flapping and fluttering overhead, birds taking off and chirping merrily somewhere among the treetops.

The hamster squeaks. Happiness, the empath within Hitomi translates.

“It won’t be able to run around just yet,” she adds, carefully avoiding the roots protruding above the ground. “But that will come with time.”

She continues to murmur, updating the hamster on its blue friend’s wellness, and it hasn’t felt that long of a time before she finally steps into the familiar clearing. The duck and the frog are waiting around the tree stump, the blue dog lifting its head gingerly upon hearing her footsteps. She smiles, one that turns a little curious when she sees no fishes nor campfires.

The hamster slides down from her shoulder when she crouches down to set the pouch on the ground, against the tree stump.

She looks at the duck first. “No fishes?” she asks, eyebrows climbing up when the duck shakes its head. She pushes herself up to stand, dusting her cloak, “Alright. Then I’d need to go fish, for once. Our blue friend needs it for their last batch of supplement.” The campfire is not a problem—she can make one, herself, has gathered enough dry twigs to safely start one.

The hamster climbs onto the stump and sits. The frog croaks, beady eyes seemingly staring at something past Hitomi’s shoulder.

And that’s when she feels it, again,

the weight of a stare, prickling the back of her neck.

The duck and the blue dog quietly mirror the frog’s action, staring at something past Hitomi’s shoulder. Their eyes don’t shift, fixated on one spot, and for a second, a chill runs down Hitomi’s spine.

“Guys,” she faintly says, “this isn’t funny.”

The duck quacks. Raising a wing, and then moving it in a slow, circular motion.

“No,” she quickly says, trying to sound stern, “I’m not turning around.”

She suddenly gets a bizarre feeling that the duck is currently very disappointed in her.

The frog croaks, sounding oddly supportive. The dog just huffs and closes its eyes. The hamster is very clearly already sleeping.

The duck quacks again, with the barest hint of impatience. Hitomi wishes she couldn’t detect that.

“No,” she repeats, “once a no, always a—” the duck quacks and leaps towards her, causing her to yelp. “Duck? Duck, what’s gotten into—” the duck doesn’t listen, and advances on her, eyes set into a mean glare as it flaps its wings furiously, forcing her to back off.

“Wait, wait,” she tries, holding up her hands, but the duck gets closer and snaps its beak together and she takes another step backwards—

Except her heel collides against a protruding rock.

Sweet, sweet gravity gleefully pulls her down as she loses balance. A strangled scream tugs on , but it never comes out, not really, because a pair of arms nimbly catches her from behind, stopping her fall halfway—

“Oh my,” her catcher exhales, a hooded figure awkwardly angling their upper body in a way that makes Hitomi unable glimpse their face. It feels eerily like something she’s witnessed once in one of those palace’s plays, except she’s one of the actor and she isn’t given any script.

“Sorry—can you stand?”

The quiet request jolts her out of her thoughts. She quickly regains her footing, leaping back a step away from the unknown person. Her heart is still thudding erratically inside her chest.

The hooded figure coughs, still not facing her.

The duck quacks, sounding smug.

“Shut it,” the hooded figure says, and that’s—a female voice, Hitomi rapidly realizes, hands unknowingly reaching up to rest on her chest, trying to steady her heartbeat. She allows herself to wonder if this person is the owner of the gaze that often pricks the back of her neck, observing from the shadows.

The frog croaks.

The hooded figure rolls her shoulders, resignation wafting off of her. “Not you too,” she sighs.

Hitomi clears , braving herself to ask, “Who are you?”

Silence falls over the area, for a moment. The odd trio and the blue dog seem content to not make a sound. The hooded figure stills, and for a moment Hitomi fears that her time to be sacrificed has come—considering the blue dog is almost close to healthy again by now—

“Pardon my manners,” the figure says, and then the hood is slowly tugged back, revealing a smooth red hair that gleams prettily under the dappled sunlight, framing a beautiful face, a small smile curving a pair of rosy lips. Hitomi stops breathing.

“You can call me Chaewon.”

The duck quacks again, and the mysterious woman—Chaewon—shoots it a glare. Hitomi inhales, trying to get her lungs to work again—

The frog croaks.

Chaewon looks like she’s wishing she had a rock to throw as she curtly replies to the frog, “I know her name.”

Hitomi blinks owlishly, trying to make sense of the exchange. “Whose name—mine? Do you—?” And her voice seems to startle the other woman, a flush creeping on pale cheeks as though the latter has forgotten for a moment that she’s here too.

“Well, yeah, yours—Yujin told me.” A cough into a curled fist, a gaze that averts away.

Hitomi tilts her head, “Yujin?”

“The dog.”

She purses her lips. “Ah,” she slowly says, nodding, “I must’ve mentioned it during one of our healing sessions, and—” she halts when Chaewon finally meets her gaze, a soft smile on the other’s lips, a wondering glint in her eyes.

“Thank you,” Chaewon says, and Hitomi looks away, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Her gaze lands on the duck, who quacks, for once not sounding annoying. It sounds a lot like thanks, if Hitomi were to pay a closer attention. The frog follows, croaking gratefully, and the dog lets out a small woof.

She glances towards the snoozing hamster.

“She’s thanking you in her sleep,” Chaewon murmurs, a rustle of a footstep filling the air, and when Hitomi looks at her again, the other has taken a step towards her. She resists the urge to stumble back, standing still in her spot. Her empath core is still on, and Chaewon feels like a bundle of anxiety, with a vague air of embarrassment and a fading worry.

“It was you,” and Hitomi hasn’t realized that she’s said out loud until she sees the pair of brown eyes widening. She continues quickly, “The gaze. I kept feeling like someone was watching me. It was you.”

The woman opens , and closes it again, seemingly at loss of words. So Hitomi continues,

“The distress, too. The anxiety. It was you. You were worried for the dog—for your… friend.”

There’s that again, the soft smile on rosy lips at the word ‘friend’. “It wasn’t all me,” Chaewon quietly says. Her voice sounds really nice, a little lighter than windchimes and warmer than the small campfires, “The forest—feels, too. But you are half right. A lot of it is coming from me.”

“It scares the town people,” Hitomi says before she can stop herself.

Then smile rapidly fades. Wrong move, the voice in Hitomi’s head screams, but she doesn’t need it to tell her because the embarrassment across the pale face is instantly replaced with quiet fury,

“They hurt Yujin.”

The tone drops from warm to cold, words enunciated in a low, threatening timbre. The urge to step back resurfaces, but Hitomi digs her feet in and stays still. “It was one of the palace soldiers,” she tries to explain, “The one who hurt your friend. It’s not one of the town people, it’s the soldiers. I would know. The arrow—” Chaewon’s eyes darken at the mention of the weapon that had hurt her friend, anger flaring sharply, but Hitomi pushes forward, “the poison coating the arrow isn’t one distributed freely in town. It’s only brewed and made in the palace.”

“And how do you know this.”

“I used to stay there. I was one of the people who knew how to treat the wounds caused by it. Some of our newbie archers shouldn’t be trusted with such a poison, there’re too much arrows missing the targets and veering off to a living being but they insist—”

Cold fingers curl around her right wrist, cutting off her ramble, and if it was any tighter, Hitomi would’ve screamed. But the hold is light, a little tentative, and Chaewon is tilting her head, looking at her like she’s trying to stare into her soul.

“You’re telling the truth,” the other breathes out after a beat. The steely aura around her melts, not entirely, but enough to make Hitomi no longer feels like she is in absolute need of an escape.

“You can—” Hitomi swallows, “you can detect lies?”

Chaewon releases her wrist, lips thinning into a tight line. No answer. Curiosity seeps in, dangerously almost, and Hitomi stutters out,

“Are you, by any chance, with the wizards of the palace—”

A spike of dismay, and she clamps shut. One of these days her curiosity, and by proxy , is going to get her killed. She slightly flinches back when Chaewon moves, something the other probably notices because Chaewon proceeds to stiffen, looking at her for a long beat of a pause.

Then the other heaves a deep breath, running one hand through her red hair and turning away from her. “The town people are scared, you say?”

Hitomi nods, not trusting herself to not make anything worse. Chaewon furrows her eyebrows, pacing in front of her with slow steps,

“I can ask the forest to tone it down, but if it means having those foolish soldiers come marching into our home again—”

“Would it be possible to concentrate it straight into the palace instead?” she mumbles, almost inaudibly. Chaewon stops and stares at her, but the gaze doesn’t seem unkind. There’s a of sardonic amusement in her aura as Chaewon replies,

“Can we start a campfire and make the smoke appear several feet away?”

The duck quacks, and Chaewon rolls her eyes.

“I was trying to give an analogy, Yena.”

Another quack.

“Quit sassing me or I’m sending you to the palace.”

“You can understand them,” Hitomi murmurs over the following horrified quack, a little amazed. Chaewon turns back to her, shoulders going up in a nonchalant shrug.

“Quite.”

She files that interesting tidbit away and bites at her lower lip, looking down. “About the palace—I apologise for the impossible idea. It’s just that, um, the hostility messes with the town people’s poultry and livestock. Perhaps if—if you, make it so that… whoever steps into the forest gets repelled—I’m sorry it must sound dumb—”

There is another touch to her wrist again, and Hitomi winces, lips pressing tightly into a line, barely managing to not struggle away from the grip. She lifts her head, and Chaewon is looking at her, her air unreadable.

“Are you scared of me?”

Hitomi exhales slowly, reminding herself that the other would know if she were to lie. She wishes fleetingly to be able to back her answer up with a story first, of the unpleasant things she’s had to bear because of a honesty-discerning grip on her hand, of the cruelty she knows the wielder of such touch is capable to commit, of the stress and tension her body’s been going through for the last few days as she tries to survive, of Chaewon’s own gaze from the shadows that has kept her constantly on alert up to a while ago—

“A little,” she admits, swallowing the untold stories down.

The hold around her wrist loosens, falling away.

The aura wavers,

then it turns really sad.

 

 

***

 

 

The palace has never been home.

(Not like she’s ever allowed to think of it as home.)

It stands for everything Sakura wishes it wouldn’t be, filled with the kinds of people Sakura wishes wouldn’t ever be graced with power,

but wishes are wishes; and she’s but a dreamer.

“It has been days,” the King says, crown heavy on his head and gaze piercing from the throne. Good dreams are made of the ways Sakura can see herself steal that crown away, burn it along with the throne down in flames. She says nothing. “Is it safe to send another platoon to the forest again?”

Sakura stands straight under the gaze, barely budging when the wizard of the palace descends from the King’s side to grab her arm. Her expression is carefully neutral, a mask of calm that doesn’t betray any ripples that floods her chest as she replies,

“The town people have reported that the forest seems… less-hostile.” The King motions for her to continue, and she swallows. “The livestock is no longer in as much a distress. The poultry has started to give results, too. It’s getting better.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“I have no way of knowing that, Your Majesty. Perhaps it’s safe, perhaps it isn’t. This hostility started because a platoon was sent into the forest in the first place.”

The King’s eyes narrow. “Wizard.”

The wizard lets go of Sakura’s arm with a jerk, visibly wiping his hand on his robes as though he has touched a plebeian thing.

“She’s telling the truth, Your Majesty.”

The King’s eyes narrow even more as he leans forward. “What does this mean for our plan to deforest that side of our kingdom, Wizard?”

The wizard’s eyes flick towards Sakura briefly. “It is better to privately discuss it, Your Majesty.”

The King leans back. “You are right,” he says, looking at Sakura and waving a bored hand. “You are dismissed, Lieutenant.”

Sakura bites her tongue and bows to him, wasting no time to turn around and leave the room as fast as palace’s etiquette allows her. She resists the urge to rip the fabric the wizard has touched, disgust coursing through her veins.

Deforestation.

Sakura clenches her fists.

She thinks of the letter delivered by a ruddy magpie, thinks of a quiet Healer and the greeting from a duck and a hamster. She thinks of the relieved murmurs of her friends a day after, of the light that has returned to their eyes as they talked about how their businesses have start to flourish again. She thinks of the silence afterwards, of the absence of rude magpies, of the wrath of the forest that seems to have faded, of what everything usually means.

(The last time this happened, they found Dohyon barely a day after the forest calmed down, exhausted, but alive.

It has been days.

The Healer hasn’t shown up anywhere, alive or—)

She finds herself standing under an old oak tree, on the outer gate of the palace. She touches the old trunk, falling on her knees before it as her fingers trail down until they brush over the two letters, CW, that she had engraved years back into the trunk with a dull knife and a sharp cry.

“Hey,” she whispers, trying to carve a smile out of her own lips—but failing. She tries to get herself talk of—the weather, the town people, the sky, like she usually does whenever she drops by, but all she feels is despair as she gazes at the inscribed letters upon dry brown.

“I wish they were as nice as you,” she murmurs, heart squeezing painfully inside her chest. She lets her mask crumble, lets her face to contort into a painting of anguish. “I wish you were here and they’re the ones gone. You can’t make a kingdom last with kindness. What a load of bollocks, right? They’re just afraid—”

Images of the past surge into her mind, of the coldest night and a silent goodbye, Sakura, of the darkest sky as tall soldiers came to take away her friend, of the absence of noises as people murmured they’re taking her to the forest, poor thing, of the bleak dawn that returned to the horizon over and over again after that, but never with her—

She stifles back a sob, trying to swallow past the heavy block lodged inside .

“I wish you were here,” she whispers, leaning her head against the engraved letters. “Maybe then no sacrifices would be in vain. Maybe then there won’t be any sacrifices needed in the first place.”

She thinks of the Healer, of her indignation, of a heavy quip, I’ll ask for them to channel the hostility to the palace, or something.

“You’d like her,” she murmurs, a wobble to her lips trying to form a smile. “One of the palace people, but she came out alright. A kind soul. Fitting for her healer role. You’d like her, Chaewon, if only—”

She swallows heavily, pulling back and wiping away at her tears with her sleeve.

“I’m trying,” she whispers, and her breath catches painfully again. “I’m trying to be what we wished to be. But it’s so hard—” she squeezes her eyes shut and chokes out, “they’re going to antagonize the forest again, and then what? Another sacrifice? Another innocent soul? I need to figure out their plan and do something but—”

She grabs at the grass beneath her, fingers curling tightly into fists until her knuckles turn white.

“I don’t know what to do, Chaewon—”

She needs a way to stop them, has to find a way to stop them—

“—help and tell me what to do, please.”

 

 

***

 

 

It has been a week since she went into the forest, ready to die—

Yet her she is, still alive.

“Try to lean some weight on your hind legs,” Hitomi softly coaxes, a smile blooming on her lips when the blue dog complies. “Does it feel fine?”

A soft bark, an affirmative. The dog slowly walks towards her to nuzzle to her side.

“Don’t go running around yet,” she cautions, reaching out to give it a pat. The dog huffs, but her palm as though to say okay. The hamster slides down her arm from her shoulder to settle on top of the dog’s nape, deciding to have its nap among soft blue wools instead of atop her cloak.

A croak sounds. The dog perks up, and Hitomi turns around as the excited blue canine trots towards the source of the noise as much as not running allows it to. Chaewon steps into the clearing with the frog on her shoulder, both hands occupied with three cleaned fishes and a basket of fruits with some herbs to dress the meat with. The frog looks pretty pleased with itself for some reason, and Chaewon must have noticed the long stare Hitomi is giving to the palm-sized amphibian, because she parts her lips, as though to say something.

A something that never comes.

Chaewon closes again, seemingly thinking the better of it, and just gives her something akin to the barest hint of a smile. The frog leaps to land on the dog’s back, and Chaewon steers away from where Hitomi is crouching, walking instead towards the campfire the duck is diligently keeping alive.

She lets out the breath she doesn’t remember holding.

It’s a bit easier, having finally met Chaewon. It’s a bit easier because now whenever a weight of a gaze pricks the back of her neck, she knows not to get startled, knows that a beat later Chaewon will make her presence known. It’s a bit easier because she doesn’t have to spend the nights staying awake and wondering how the duck or the hamster would gut the fishes, because it isn’t them, it was Chaewon, it is Chaewon, who would come into the clearing with the edges of her robes wet from the running river and sit down to clean the fishes with a sharpened knife instead of leaving them already gutted and headless atop of long, green leaves.

It’s also a little hard.

It’s a little hard because Chaewon is quiet, in the way that Hitomi would find her murmuring or chuckling or bantering with one of her animal friends but the moment the dry leaves under her give out a scrunch all idle conversations cease. It’s a little hard because Chaewon barely says anything to her, avoids her eyes whenever she tries to update her on the blue dog’s progress. It’s a little hard because Hitomi isn’t used to approaching someone first and Chaewon doesn’t seem interested in initiating anything, even after she caught the other staring for more times than she’d cared to count.

It’s a little hard because whenever Hitomi turns her empath core on, wanting to get an idea on what the other woman is thinking, Chaewon gives off the air of sadness and hesitation, cloaked and hidden under the rippling fondness for her animal friends. It climbs up and folds and grows and forces Hitomi to turn that particular ability off most of the time, now, lest she drowns in the suffocating dejection without as much as a lifeline to pull her out when she needs to breath.

She inhales slowly, moving to stand.

Chaewon is sitting by the campfire, a bucket of water next to her and her back facing Hitomi, while the dog is giving its small friends a ride around the clearing in a peaceful pace, seemingly chatting away if the soft barks and the amused croaks are any indication. The duck is keeping Chaewon company, head swivelling towards her as it senses her silent approach, and she hastens to press a finger in front of her lips.

The duck gives her a wink.

“—the forest gave me an old boot earlier,” she faintly hears Chaewon murmur, “cheeky, huh? I had to put it aside. Can’t have it reach the sea.”

A neutral quack, giving no hint to the busy woman that someone else is eavesdropping. It’s a pity the palace’s official plays don’t recruit ducks, because Hitomi feels like she’s just found a perfect candidate that would’ve gone places.

Then again, she doesn’t think the duck would want anything to do with the palace.

“Go around tomorrow, Yena,” Chaewon continues lightly, “you must’ve missed eating some slugs. Let’s go together, I need to hunt for some meat—Yujin would want a change, after all, after a week of fishes—”

“I thought the dog has is allergic to meat,” Hitomi murmurs, bending down to crouch next to her, and Chaewon freezes.

The duck quacks. Hitomi considers scanning its aura, just to guess what it’s trying to say, but then Chaewon clears , stiffly but no longer frozen,

“You surprised me.”

Hitomi hums, carefully taking a seat. “What did the duck say? About the dog being allergic to meat.”

Chaewon finally moves again, nimble hands resuming their work in cleaning out a fish of its entrails and detaching the gill filaments. She doesn’t spare a glance to Hitomi as she murmurs the requested translation, “Fat chance.”

The duck quacks. Chaewon sighs.

“Very fat chance,” she clarifies.

Hitomi smiles, gathering her knees up to hug them close to her chest. “So, no allergy?”

Chaewon moves to scrape out the remaining organs, and the duck covers its eyes, the next quack dripping with disgust.

“No, not really.”

“Is there any particular reason we kept having fishes, then? Not that it’s not great. You’ve been a great help, and I’m not sure if I’ve thanked you for that. Thank you.”

Chaewon visibly swallows, fingers skilfully removing the black stomach lining inside the fish’ cavity.

A quiet answer,

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be okay with meat.”

Hitomi tilts her head, considering the words. “That’s sweet,” she softly says, and the winged animal quacks, causing Chaewon to duck her head low. Hitomi gets the briefest urge to sense the emotion behind that, but.

A flick of a finger, and the water inside the bucket obediently swirls and travels as a stream to wash over the gutted fish.

Hitomi lets herself to be lost in the sight for a moment, filing away the sight as yet another confirmation that Chaewon is a witch. It fascinates her, though she can’t say it out loud—she’s never encountered one outside of the palace, and even then, they never wield magic as freely as Chaewon, much less having four animal friends and living inside a forest long thought to be cursed.

The only glimpses she’s ever had of the palace wizards were—unpleasant, rigid, and have a lot to do with gripping people to discern the truth.

Which adds to her quiet curiosity: Chaewon’s magic seems to function similarly, in that regard. Then again, even with her empath turned off, Hitomi doesn’t think she can be heartless enough to ask her about it, not when the other comes off uncomfortable even at the mere mention of them.

“So, since you’re planning to get it tomorrow,” she brings herself to say, trying to shake herself off from that thought. She glances at Chaewon, “What finally clued you that I’m actually fine with meat?”

The stream abruptly gets stronger, going off-course and spraying the duck in the face.

“Oh, Hell,” Chaewon exhales in surprise amidst the duck’s helpless quack. “Sorry, sorry—” she furrows her brows and the stream of water instantly stops fighting gravity, dropping down and wetting the ground. “Oh my God. Sorry, Yena.”

The duck is burying its head inside its wings. There’s a defeated quack coming from behind the feathers.

“That was not because I—” Chaewon halts, looking at Hitomi. She sighs and sets the cleaned fish aside, looking very much like she wants to pinch the bridge of her nose. She turns away to submerge her hands into the bucket of water instead, ignoring the duck’s second defeated quack.

Hitomi bites her lower lip, taking in the exchange happening before her with a mild bemusement. Logically, what happened just now must be Chaewon’s magic going out of control for the briefest moment, which means that Hitomi’s question has caught her off-guard.

“I feel like I need to say sorry,” she carefully says, “even though I have no idea what’s happening.”

The duck quacks again, indecipherable to her non-Chaewon ears, and Hitomi feels a ridiculous urge to quack back.

“It’s fine,” comes the faint answer, back still resolutely Hitomi; she wonders if it’s necessary to wash hands that long. “Yena just likes sassing me,” the other continues.

Another quack, probably out of defiance, a guess that gets confirmed when Chaewon hisses a beat later, “Quiet.”

“Your bond is lovely,” Hitomi comments, biting back a smile when the duck shoots her a dismayed glare as if to say how dare you bring up wholesome things like bonds when I’m suffering like this, “the five of you, actually. It’s nice to see.”

There is a long pause before Chaewon finally says,

“Yeah. Well. At least they aren’t scared of me.”

Hitomi tilts her head, feeling oddly like she’s just been given a stick to prod the hypothetical pinata she’s been curious about for days—except the pinata has four animal friends and a rare smile that contrasts the suffocating aura her empath would sense. She cautiously takes the metaphorical stick and pokes,

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me,” she carefully poses, “because I said that I’m scared of you?”

There is no answer, but the duck has gone very still, eyes wide towards her direction like Hitomi has brought up a forbidden topic.

The silence doesn’t last long, thankfully. The prolonged pause is broken by a soft bark, followed with a bundle of blue fur snuggling up to Hitomi’s side. She lets out a sigh, lifting the nudged arm and smiling when the dog forces its way to her lap, the frog leaping off from its back to hop towards Chaewon’s quiet figure while the hamster is still snoozing on the dog’s nape.

“We’ll return you to town tomorrow.”

Hitomi blinks at the quiet announcement, fingers halfway into retrieving the sleeping hamster from the dog. The duck quacks softly, burying its head into its wings, and the frog croaks.

“I’m sorry?” she asks, unsure of what she’s just heard.

Chaewon hasn’t looked at her, though she doesn’t look like she’s washing her hands anymore. “You can go back to the town tomorrow, since Yujin is mostly back to health already. We will need to—erase your memory of me and where this clearing is, because no one can know. But the guys can choose whether or not they want you to remember.”

Going back. Hitomi feels her heartbeat slowing down as she digests the words. To the town?

Cold colours her fingertips. The cogs inside her brain are turning frantically, trying to reason to herself if she’d done something wrong—if this whole talk is happening because she had crossed some kind of line, if one of her actions had served to infuriate Chaewon, somehow. She’s acutely aware of her breathing, the ins and outs of every breath slowly filling her with despair because—

“That’s cruel,” she finds herself murmur.

The remark seems to give a jolt to Chaewon’s composure. The other finally turns around to look at her, surprise pouring through the normally impassive mask.

“Cruel,” Chaewon repeats, disbelieving. She stares at Hitomi like she’s an odd piece of puzzle she can’t comprehend, “We’re returning you home. How is that cruel?”

Home. The word gives a twist to her gut, causing her to expel a breath, looking down. The dog whines, peering at her, and she tries to form a smile, shaking her head and giving it a pat.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs, “I’ll leave. This isn’t my place, anyway.”

Except—where is her place anymore?

The palace isn’t her place, has no longer been her place, now, ever since they saw it fit to send her into a suicide mission. The town—she had felt like a guest during her stay, and she doesn’t think Sakura will allow her to stay. Too high of a chance to encounter a palace person, and then she will be questioned, surely. Monitored intensely, and she doesn’t want anything to do with the palace anymore, and yet—

“I’ve arranged with the forest to not direct wrath to your people anymore,” Chaewon says, seemingly trying to explain the decision. “We’ll just try to repel any force that tries to enter, like you’ve said. So you don’t have to worry anymore—”

“My people,” she faintly chuckles, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve.

Hitomi the Healer has no people—she never does. The people she has encountered in her life, they’re either the palace’s, or Sakura’s.

She suddenly feels so alone.

She’s no more than a Healer. No more than a sacrifice, now. Perhaps she could go to cross the borders, hopping into another kingdom, but even then, would a home ever be a guarantee?

Would she ever belong?

Chaewon pauses, seemingly taking in the two words Hitomi has spoken. What follows is a tentative touch to her arm, which she dodges with a jerk of her hand.

“Ask what you want,” she faintly breathes out, feeling her chest burn. She doesn’t look at Chaewon, doesn’t try to sense what she’s feeling. Her own feelings are overwhelming her, the flicker of emptiness—that she’s had to fight off back in her first day venturing into the forest—threatening to consume her again. “You don’t have to check on my honesty, I’ll answer truthfully.”

The frog croaks, sounding distressed. The dog burrows deeper into her lap, as though trying to give her comfort.

And then Chaewon quietly asks, “You do have a home, don’t you?”

She swallows heavily, channelling every bit of her helpless emotions into patting the blue dog, shaking her head at its wide, concerned eyes when it looks up at her.

“Yes,” she replies.

A lie.

Because if she said no, what then? Will it force Chaewon to let her stay? Will it force them to let her be in their midst, against their want? She can’t do that. She has no right to disturb their dynamic, has no right to invade the forest and its peace. She can’t force Chaewon to be comfortable around her, especially since the latter has been trying her hardest to avoid her.

(Especially since the latter probably hates her.)

The duck lets out a series of quacks, but she doesn’t look up, focusing on combing the blue fur beneath her fingers as she tries to keep herself at bay. It’s probably trying to talk to Chaewon, if the urgency is any indication.

A touch to her arm, and she lets it be this time. She can just refuse to answer, let the question linger awkwardly until the wind blows it away.

Only what comes up isn’t a question as much as it is a quiet statement,

“I don’t hate you.”

As though Chaewon has read her mind, the words hang in the air, countering the thought shee has had just a moment ago. She bites her lip, refusing to look, wishing for a second that she has the power of the palace’s wizards, to identify honesty, because Chaewon is an enigma she doesn’t understand, a figure filled with more questions than she has answers.

“The guys like you,” Chaewon continues.

The dog huffs in her lap, nuzzling into her palm. Hitomi averts her gaze away towards the duck, and it quacks, sounding oddly sad.

“I’m—” Chaewon exhales, “I’m sorry, I’m not good at this. It’s just—”

The slumbering animal on the dog’s nape stirs at that. The hamster stretches, rolling over, almost slipping off from the dog until Hitomi catches it, quietly whispering ‘whoa, be careful’.

The tiny animal looks at her, giving out a squeak, blinking blearily as though assessing the situation.

The frog croaks.

The hamster yawns.

Chaewon looks very lost.

Hitomi inhales slowly, glancing at her. “What do you want to say, Chaewon?”

“That none of us hates you.” Chaewon shifts under her gaze, the hand not holding her arm reaching up to tug on a strand of red, long hair, “And that—I’m sorry. If I made you think that we want you out. It’s not true. It’s just—the guys have been sharing with me about you. About the stress they see in you, about the exhaustion in you. About the—sadness, in you.” Chaewon takes a deep breath, hand falling away from her hair to scoop the frog from the ground,

“They like you and the forest welcomes you but you have a home. People usually do. You must’ve had a home and we’re keeping you away from going back and that’s cruel—”

The hamster squeaks from Hitomi’s palms, and Chaewon huffs out a breath, smiling faintly.

“Well, Yuri’s just admonished me,” she says. Hitomi looks at the hamster, who simply plops down on her palm. The touch on her arm is slowly followed with a gentle curl of fingers, Chaewon’s voice sounding softer than she’s ever heard before, “But she's right. I haven’t really thought it through, haven’t really tried to ask you. I guess I—I’ve been thinking too much. I was too afraid that you’d think bad of m—us for making you work, for imprisoning you here—”

“It’s not a prison,” Hitomi finally murmurs, sighing when her nose warms up with emotions again. This is what happens when she doesn’t let herself grieve for her situation at all, she mentally reflects, all those feelings are bound to stew and multiply until the bottle is on the verge of blowing up.

She shakes her head, taking a deep breath,

“I don’t… I’ve never felt forced to treat the d—Yujin. I did it because I wanted to.”

The dog yips, and the hamster attempts to climb up her arm, trying to reach her shoulder. She quietly assists the small animal, lets it hop onto her shoulder and dig its tiny paw into the fabric.

Then the hold around her arm tightens ever so slightly,

“Is there a home for you?”

And she tries to get her voice to work. Tries to get a word out, but a blink of her eyes causes a tear to fall, disappearing into the soft blue in her lap. The dog looks up at her in alarm, and her voice cracks when she finally manages to say,

“No.”

The hamster squeaks, frantically trying to reach her cheek to wipe her tears, and Hitomi chuckles softly, stopping its vain attempt with a shake of her head. The dog shifts in her lap, seemingly glaring towards where Chaewon is sitting somewhere next to her, and she hears frantic flaps of wings, sees the duck out of the corner of her eye slapping Chaewon’s back indignantly as though scolding her. The frog is croaking patiently, like it’s trying to coach Chaewon into doing something, but when Hitomi finally manages to get her tears back in and braves herself to glance over, said woman is looking at her without a word, eyes holding the same glint she had back when they first met.

Sadness.

“I’m sorry,” Chaewon murmurs, voice wavering. “I should’ve—I assumed. I didn’t give you an option. You were right. I’m cruel.”

“You didn’t know,” she hoarsely says, realizing that she hates the tone of self-hatred underlying Chaewon’s words. “Besides—what other option is there?”

“There is,” Chaewon softly murmurs, fingers leaving Hitomi’s arm. When she turns to look, the other is fiddling with the sleeve of the hand the frog is perching on, voice almost as low as a whisper when Chaewon poses a question:

“Would you want to—stay?” She gestures to her animal friends, “With them?”

The furious flapping of wings fade. The dog lets out a soft bark. The frog is still croaking something out, although less urgently, and the hamster sits down on Hitomi’s shoulder, seemingly content to observe the scene.

And she wonders.

She wonders why Chaewon doesn’t include herself in her question, wonders why she seems so broken at times, wonders if the dog wasn’t the only one with wounds, wonders if her early assumption was true—that Chaewon thinks she wouldn’t want to interact with her because she’s said that she’s afraid,

“With you,” so she says before she can think over the wisdom of saying her thought out loud. “With you, too. It’s not only with them if I ever chose to stay, isn’t it?”

Chaewon looks at her, a wondering glint in her eyes. “You’re afraid of me,” she carefully says, as though trying to remind her.

She thinks of the glimpses of a carefree Chaewon, who engages with her animal friends in banter and easy camaraderie. Thinks of the rare smile that resurfaced when Hitomi reported to her that the dog could walk now, that it’s going to be okay. Thinks of the warm blanket she found draped over her form one morning, after a restless sleep in a particularly cold night.

So she takes a deep breath and says,

“If you would let me to know you better, I don’t think I’d be afraid.”

The frog quiets down. The dog looks at her, blinking almost owlishly. The hamster stumbles off her shoulder to land on the dog’s back. Chaewon and the duck only stare at her, unblinking, the former silently taking in the words. Then, slowly, she places the frog down on the ground, her gaze isn’t leaving Hitomi.

“Really?”

A word, questioning, coloured with disbelief.

Hitomi nods. “Really.”

Chaewon falls silent for a moment. When she finally speaks again, her voice is quiet.

“Minjoo said to me,” a nod towards the direction of the frog, “that you’re sad, and a hug will help.”

Hitomi blinks, unmoving as the dog gets up and clambers off from her lap. Was that what the frog has been patiently saying to Chaewon? The probability comes off as amusing, to her, and she bites her lower lip to prevent a smile.

“I didn’t—I haven’t had much experience,” the other hurriedly continues, grimacing, mistakenly interpreting Hitomi’s reaction as one of incredulity, “in interacting with people, that is. I’ve been with these guys for so long. That’s why they keep trying to help me out, like this, even though their advices are infuriating sometimes—”

An offended quack,

“Especially the ones from you,” comes the curt confirmation accompanied by a sharp glare.

The duck produces a strangled, offended gasp, and falls back onto its .

Chaewon ignores the dramatic reaction and clears , turning her attention back to Hitomi. There’s a clear hesitation in her eyes, one that makes Hitomi wonder yet again.

Is this what Chaewon has been feeling around her all this time, and was the avoiding only an attempt to salvage the situation?

Her heart aches at the thought that perhaps she isn’t too far of the mark when she guessed that the dog isn’t the only one wounded. Chaewon is, too, with scars indiscernible by eyes.

The focus of her thoughts sighs, shoulders visibly, painfully rigid. “So that’s why—I want to say that I haven’t been avoiding you, but that would be a lie.” Chaewon swallows, “I did. And this one of the reasons why. While—the other reasons are—”

“Talking about it makes you sad,” Hitomi softly cuts in. She doesn’t want to push Chaewon into explaining everything, not when the other has to forcefully open her wounds to do so. She wants to know her better, true, but not at the expense of Chaewon’s comfort. Never at the expense of her comfort.

Chaewon drops her gaze, not refuting her observation.

“You know,” Hitomi continues, “Minjoo is right, a hug can help you when you’re sad.” Chaewon looks up at her with a bemused raise of her eyebrows at that, and she feels her face heat up as she hastens to add, “But—! But it’s not the only way. You can help by—holding the person’s hand. Not like—” she points at the arm Chaewon was holding a moment ago, “not like you’re trying to tell their honesty. Just, by holding their fingers. Lightly.”

“Oh,” Chaewon says, looking at her own hand and frowning.

“Yes,” she intelligently replies. “And, well, since you’re sad—"

She trails off when Chaewon scoots closer, right hand reaching out slowly, as though she’s giving Hitomi a chance to pull away. She swallows, thinks with mildly amused despair that she is the one supposed to do this, but she doesn’t pull away. She stays still, and slightly colder fingertips fleetingly graze upon her knuckles a beat later, before the hesitant fingers slowly slips in, filling the gaps with warm awkwardness.

Chaewon tilts her head to look at her, expectant, and Hitomi gives her a serious nod as though she’s delivering another update of the dog’s health,

“This helps me a lot.” It does. There's a flutter of warmth unfurling within her chest that she can't help but want to cherish. She then points at other, gaze softening, “Does it help you too?”

A nod, and a smile graces Chaewon’s features. “You—reminded me of someone,” she murmurs, shoulders relaxing and smile staying. “Only I know for sure that she isn’t you.”

Hitomi hums, glancing at the oddly quiet animal friends and breaking into an amused smile when she glimpses the duck trying to get the hamster to rest its tiny paw on the duck’s outstretched wing.

“How is she like?” she lightly asks. This would be the second bit of herself Chaewon is trying to share, as though she’s attempting to do just exactly what Hitomi asked, to let her know her better.

“It was long ago. Before… everything.”

For a moment, she thinks that it’s the end of the explanation, but Chaewon looks down, giving their linked hands a slight squeeze, then continues,

“She was crazy about swords, the wooden ones since we were so little. Real swords would’ve gotten someone hurt. She would… strap a wooden sword around her waist with a rubber band, and rest her palm atop the hilt.” A small chuckle, laced with pain dulled by the passing time. “She’s got a big heart. Loved to put other people first, and was so good at getting them to open up, too.”

Hitomi breathes out slowly, resting her other palm on top of Chaewon’s, allowing a smile to spread on her lips when the other looks up to catch her gaze.

“Sounds like a lieutenant I know,” she says. “Her name is Sakura. In fact—back when you said my people—it’s wrong because the town people aren’t mine, it’s hers.” She thinks of the folks, of the inn, of the caring person with a habit of fiddling with the hilt of her sword, “They’re her people.”

The same way Chaewon is with her animal friends, she thinks fleetingly, letting that thought remain unspoken.

“Hold on,” Chaewon breathes out. The fingers untangle urgently from her hand, and when she looks up in bemusement, Chaewon is staring at her, eyes widening in surprise.

“Did you say Sakura?”

 

 

***

 

 

Sakura briskly enters the inn, a scroll tightly gripped in her hold. She orders a flagon of hot mead, then goes to the deepest corner of the inn with a scowl on her face. A drunk magpie bombed her with unpleasant turds in the middle of the town, just now, before finally throwing said scroll to her face, then promptly flying away. For a moment, she considers comparing this with the vicious magpie from several days ago—

Her scowl dies completely as she shakes her head, squashing that thought and sagging down into her chair. She shuts her eyes tightly, rubbing a palm over her face as she sighs heavily.

It’s impossible. The forest has calmed down, and the Healer’s nowhere to be found, which means that—

“Your drink,” a voice says, and Sakura looks up, barely managing a smile when Chaeyeon fills her view. The flagon is placed before her, and the woman pauses, not immediately walking away.

“You look down, Lieutenant,” she comments instead.

Sakura sighs, fiddling with the scroll in her hold while Chaeyeon takes the seat across her without a word. Always the bright one, knowing a troubled mind when she sees it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Chaeyeon softly queries.

Sakura shakes her head. There’s no way she can burden Chaeyeon with her mental baggage, and especially not the ones concerning the palace and every bad thing that comes with it.

“Do you want me to leave?”

A beat, and Sakura shakes her head again.

“Alright,” Chaeyeon says, “I’ll stay then.”

“Thanks,” Sakura says, smiling in gratitude. She doesn’t know when it started; her taking comfort in Chaeyeon’s presence. At first she was sure that she’s only drawn to her because of her beauty and the odd dynamic her hair possesses whenever Chaeyeon moves, but the small talks that followed shortly after managed to seal her heart and focus, the key thrown away somewhere into the dry well without as much as a goodbye.

So she comes back, and gravitates to her. She would occupy a table with the stress given by the palace, and leave the inn with a genuine smile because of the time spent in Chaeyeon’s company.

Even now, even though Chaeyeon being there doesn’t instantly make everything better, having her there makes the tension in Sakura’s shoulder eases away a little. She pulls the flagon towards her, taking a sip as she unrolls the scroll with one hand,

There’s a lost tree stump in the middle of the forest, and I originally planned to never send a message again after the first but something’s just came up—

Sakura instantly chokes on her drink, coughing violently.
 

Before everything, however, I’d like to say that aside from the animal friends, a kind-hearted witch also, er, wished to send you a hello—

Her coughing gets louder, to the point of nearly wheezing her lungs out, and she can only faintly hear Chaeyeon’s concerned words nearing in because what.

What.

What?!