Flower Garnish Part 1

Yuzuki lost track of when and where she was, having dozed off after a bit in the back of the wagon., It wasn’t the most comfortable ride, but after spending a long day working, the shock of being taken to another world, her body gave out to fatigue and she fell asleep. While she slept, she had fretful dreams of watching the restaurant she spent so much time in as a child with her precious grandfather crumble into dust before her eyes while her evil boss laughed behind her. Honestly, despite it being a dream, it felt more realistic than the situation she woke up to later on.

“Time to get out,” the driver said, the first words she had heard since getting in. The man’s voice was rough sounding and serious, making Yuzuki feel anxious.

The doors of the wagon flung open; outside, she could see a sliver of a sea of stars, but also a canopy of darkness. The only light was a small lantern held in the driver’s hand. Before she could say anything, he reached into the wagon to pull Yuzuki out.

“H-hey, watch it!” she shouted in protest.

“Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” the older man groused, practically throwing her outside.

Yuzuki caught herself before she stumbled to her knees, regaining her composure only fast enough to get the lantern the man held into her hand as well as a small, slightly heavy burlap sack. She looked at these items in confusion for a moment, wondering what they were for when she noticed the man climb back onto his seat in order to drive away.

“Hey, w-wait. Can’t you take me to a town or something?” she asked. Wherever she was, she had a feeling it wasn’t anywhere good. Even if she was unfamiliar with the land, a town was better than out in the middle of nowhere.

The driver looked at her with pity (or maybe it was a trick of the light from her lantern), before shaking his head.

“I’m so sorry, miss,” he told her, before setting off with his wagon. The horses began to pull away and Yuzuki instinctively gave chase, despite knowing she couldn’t keep up with horses.

“At least tell me where I am!”

“The Forest of Spirits, at the edge of the Lord of Death’s territory,” was all he yelled back at her, now speeding away.

Yuzuki gave up, knowing it was useless. She’d never keep up, plus, the night was so dark, even with her light. She shuddered, feeling the cool air already seeping into her body. Back in Japan, it was just the beginning of summer, so it had been quite warm when she had been abducted. The only clothes she had on was the uniform from her restaurant, stained with food and random liquids from working like crazy in the kitchen.

“Did he say…’Lord of Death?” Looking between the open road and the dark forest, she had no idea which would be the better choice. She didn’t know who this Lord of Death was, but from the sounds of it, he seemed like bad news and the forest bordered his territory, it would seem. She was sure the king had probably mentioned this name during his grand speech (that she interrupted with her outburst), but since Yuzuki had been too busy being in her own head, she didn’t catch a single word.

The kids she left behind seemed enraptured with what he was saying, though that was neither here, nor there. They were not around to lend a fellow Japanese citizen a hand.

In the end, Yuzuki chose to go into the woods, with the clothes on her back and the lantern she had been given, alongside the bag. As she looked around for a decent place to take shelter in the dark woods, she decided to see what had been given to her.

There was some kind of knife inside – a dagger? And a few foodstuffs that she recognized. Nothing more than a few carrots and some stale bread, though she felt it was generous calling the rock hard brick she received as bread. No water, though, so she would have to be careful about eating the bread. If she got hungry enough, the carrots would be her best bet.

Three carrots, a brick of tack and a knife. Even if she were some amazing survivalist, this felt like very little to go with. They might as well have just chucked her straight into a river to perish. It was moments like this where she missed her grandfather a lot.

Yuzuki had been orphaned early on, her parents dying when a white truck hit them out of nowhere on the way to work. There was no one else in her family, except her paternal grandparents, who agreed to take her in and raise her; both of her parents were single children and her mother’s parents had passed on before Yuzuki had been born. Yuzuki herself was an only child, so there had also been no older or younger siblings to speak of.

Yuzuki mused about her dear grandfather who had taken on the bulk of her care, as her grandmother also passed away when Yuzuki began middle school. From childhood to adulthood, the old man had stubbornly cared for Yuzuki the best that he could. He always seemed to know everything and had an answer for every question she asked him. If he were around, he would know what she needed to do.

The trek through the woods was not easy. There were spots that were too overgrown for Yuzuki to climb over safely, so she would often detour until she would find a break in the trees to move forward. At the very least, the density of the forest was enough that it cut down the biting wind, but the night was still cold enough to chill her. She slowly ate one of the carrots, finding it musty tasting and a little limp, but still edible. Keeping up her strength was important until she found someplace safe enough to rest.

With just her own thoughts to keep her company, Yuzuki thought about if there was a way to get back. Logically speaking, if there was a method to randomly summon people into another world, there should be a way to send them back. It was thoughts like these that kept her moving, one step at a time. If there was even a sliver of a chance to go home, she had to keep on living, surviving, because if she didn’t, the restaurant she worked so hard for was going to disappear!

Eventually she arrived at the base of a considerably large tree. The canopy of it stretched so far up, she couldn’t tell if it was just the darkness of the night above her, or the foliage blocking out the stars. The base of this tree had several thick roots sticking out in such a way, if Yuzuki squeezed in between them she could probably rest safely enough. Looking around, she found a crack big enough to fit herself with a bit of extra space. Though she did not enjoy the idea of sleeping on the ground and dirt, she had grown tired and felt like she could think more clearly about what she could do to survive after some sleep.

Despite how tired she was feeling, every stress of that day accumulating within her body, she worked to gather many leaves to at least cushion her body and have some added warmth. There was even enough to stuff her food bag (with what she had left inside, aside from her knife) to have a makeshift pillow. Whatever comforts she could have, she was going to have it. None of what she made was perfect and she had many doubts about surviving until morning, but she did everything she could.

Her lantern was going to be running out of whatever was fueling it, the flame now super tiny. There really was no point in continuing in the dark where she might fall into some hole and hurt herself – or worse.

Climbing into her hastily put together bed, she placed the dying lantern nearby as she curled up in the leaves, clutching her knife in its sheath. Yuzuki prayed nothing would disturb her during the night that she would need it and tried to settle in, soon laying awake in a dark so deep she couldn’t even see how white her knuckles had become from clenching her dagger so hard in anxiety.

Humming to herself was no good as a distraction as the forest was so quiet and still that it felt wrong to disturb the silence with her voice. Whether her eyes were closed or open, all she could see was blackness, so Yuzuki couldn’t even take her mind off of things by glancing around. Truly, you did not know what you had until it was all taken away; a modern Japanese woman was not meant to be in the woods all alone with the threat of something as dangerous sounding as the Lord of Death hanging over her head.

At some point during the night, she fell into a fitful sleep. Her last thoughts before exhaustion overtook her was the hope that when she woke up maybe the gods of this world would have taken pity on her and sent her home…