Her eyelids flutter, not yet opening. Murmurs float around in her head, before exiting through one ear. The corner of her lip tugs upwards, twitching uncontrollably. A force urges at her chest, pulling her lung down further and further until she feels her heart falling through the platform and-

She gasps, eyes shooting wide open as she lurches forward and sits upright. Panting, she places a hand over her chest, feeling her heartbeat stable, but racing, and definitely contained within her.

"Oh, you're awake." 

Yaebin takes a sharp breath and holds it in. Her eyes glint towards the couch in front of her, just barely making out the silhouette propped against the armrest. She closes her eyes, seeing the painful white linger as she adjusted to the lights above her head. She rests her hand on the silken shawl sprawled over her newly clothed body. Yaebin doesn't respond. 

Moments must have passed, before she heard the sound of skin peeling from the surface of leather and heels clicking against the tiled floor. A click of a switch, and she notices the lights have dimmed. 

"I"m Roa," she hears the voice say.

"No, you're not." 

The answer must have shocked her, as a chill settled in the room. Yaebin opens her eyes, looking dead straight into the woman who stands stiff in her tracks. 

"What I mean is that I go by Roa. You shouldn't be so hostile." 

Yaebin continues to eye her as she sits back down on the couch. Roa leans over to the small table and empties the contents of a couple of uncoloured jars into a goblet. She keeps her guard up even as Roa approaches for the first time and she shrinks back ever so slightly. Whether it was unnoticed or Roa was simply unfazed, she makes no hesitation and sits down on the edge of the ebony planks Yaebin was on.

"This," she begins, extending one hand out with the goblet, "should have you better than before." 

Her arm lingers in the air, unshaking. Roa breaks no eye contact with Yaebin, who after much deliberation, reaches out to grab the cup of the goblet, sliding her hands underneath Roa's, who retracts her fingers slowly as the goblet passes to Yaebin. All her fingers, Yaebin notes, were at different temperatures. 

She lays the goblet on her lap. If Roa wanted her dead, she would have done so ages ago when she was unconscious, but Yaebin knows that death wasn't what she should fear, not in a witch's den. 

"If you don't want to take it, then fine, just leave it there. I'll have it if you don't." 

Yaebin places the goblet beside her, and true to her words, the woman picks it up and downs half its content. 

"If I had wanted anything from you, I wouldn't have to resort to some lousy brewery." 

Yaebin supposes she was right. If she hadn't been able to tell from an initial glance, the sensation of her burning retinas as she stared into Roa's as her irises turned blue revealed she was one to be feared. Yaebin finished the rest of the drink, only then realising how much less she had been hearing, feeling, seeing, and more before then.

"What did I say, better?" 

Yaebin turns her face to the side, knowing it was not wise to scowl at a powerful witch but not enough to stop it from appearing at all. 

"Better," she mutters. 

"Well, that's good," Roa says, standing up to return to her beloved couch. "So, who are you?" 

Yaebin. That's all she had. It'll be too much to give it away. 

"I already gave my name to a mage, it'll be even playing fields if she gave hers to me." 

Roa stares off at a wall, dragging her fingers along her jaw down to her neck before back up and again. Awaiting her answer, she seems unbothered at Yaebin's unresponsiveness, accrediting it to the shock she must have bestowed onto her by identifying her nature.

"You may refer to me as Rena, but you may not have it." 

Yaebin hears her giggle. 

"Smart. You were raised well. Seems like you've interacted with a few of us before," Roa smiles, and her eyes seem to disappear under the crescents. She snaps her head back and Yaebin feels a burn at the back of her eyes again. "Perhaps too much to have kept your last name safe." 

Yaebin winces as she tears her eyes away. Perhaps the humiliation of doing so was the price of keeping her vision. 

"You're a stubborn girl. How could you have lost yours?" 

"I didn't." 

"Right." 

Yaebin basks in the silence, staring at Roa who doesn't quite meet her in the eyes. Yaebin suspects it is out of pity for her, since she knows that she can't look at her straight without making Yaebin blind. Not now, anyway. 

She flings the cover over and turns so her bare feet are just hovering above the tiled floor. 

"I'll take my leave then," she began while fixing the piece of black hair that frames the sides of her face. 

"Nonsense," Roa responds, and Yaebin finds herself stuck, unable to move.

Roa rises on both her feet and the air turns cold. Yaebin freezes. 

"You're in no shape to go back out there and clearly you have no intention of telling me anything about yourself so you're going to stay here until you are well." 

Much to her frustration, Yaebin has no choice but to agree. 

"Why?" 

"Just consider yourself lucky. If I were you, I'd be resting as much as I can. I'll be down if you need me then." The room returns to normal as she drawls out the final words. "Rena." 

The burning of her retinas; a sensation Yaebin has already grown accustomed to. 

"You are kind to put forward your hospitality like so, Roa." 

Yaebin swears she catches the start of a chuckle, but Roa was gone in a matter of seconds, leaving nothing but an imprint of her figure where she had been in Yaebin's mind. 

She realises then that there were no entrances to whichever room of her den she was in. 

Marvellous. It seems Yaebin has no choice but to fulfill the witch's wish.
__________

Roa hadn't been kidding when she said she'd be there when she needed, because as soon as Yaebin rose to consciousness, the witch appeared looming over the bedside. She jumped, unbeknownst to her the witch had been gazing at her in her sleep. The laughter of the witch rings across the room, echoing in the hollow chamber. 

"How long have you been here for?" 

"Not long, why?" 

Yaebin sneers. "Liar." 

"You're quite a smart mage aren't you? So," she continues, once again sitting down on the narrow strip of space on the mattress. This time Yaebin shifts inwards and up so that she is upright. "What village do you come from?" 

"It's none of your concern." 

"Come on, you said so yourself that I have so kindly invited you in." She leans in, the corners of her lips tugging up to form a sly grin. "Why don't you pay back some of the gratitude by entertaining me?" 

"I was not invited in. In fact, you made it impossible for me to leave. If anything, I am being held hostage." 

The finger that had been tracing up Yaebin's neck stopped in its tracks. Her smile faded to be replaced by a frown paired with furrowed brows. 

For a moment Yaebin feared what her reaction would be, and just as she should because Roa lunged forward towards her, pushing the poor mage down to the bedding, hand now gripping around Yaebin's thin frail neck.
Gasping for air, Yaebin finds regret fill every crevice of her mind, wishing that perhaps just once in her life she had the restraint to not get herself almost killed. She closes her eyes, unable to keep