Konoe

The storm had grown fierce, and even Konoe’s pointed ears had trouble discerning anything of note amidst the pattering of rain against the trees and forest floor.

“Konoe, we don’t have eyes like yours,” Raila said between pants, resting a hand against a tree to maintain her balance. Konoe’s wards against the elements had since faded, and their clothes were plastered to their skin. “We’ll look for Tamatoya again tomorrow.”

Konoe made to protest, but a second glance at Raila’s, Bronwyd’s, and Nessian’s waterlogged forms and panting mouths quashed it.

“Fine,” she said. “At first light, we’ll go again.”

The group’s shoulders stayed rigid on their way back through the forest, and Konoe cast backward glances. But no blue skin or beady yellow eyes peeked out from between the trees.

Konoe parted ways with the rest of the search party, and walked home. Her legs ached, but the thought of sitting in front of a fireplace chased the pain to the back of her mind.

Tsubame and Kotori would be asleep at this time of night. Her stomach twisted at the thought of having to tell their hopeful expressions breaking. Another sleepless night of imagining her husband’s suffering...with luck, a night in front of the fireplace would help her mind settle.

But why did Tamatoya go so deep into the forest? They still had their chickens, they didn’t need more food. Maybe he might’ve been worried about the draft, and wanted to hunt more food for the future, just in case.

As she neared her home, her eyes widened as a foul stench slammed her nose.

Memories bubbled up from where she’d buried them many years ago, and she ran around her home to the chicken coop. The rake sticking out of the roof was odd, and she forced her burning legs forward with a gasp for air.

She flung open the door.

The chicken cages had been arranged in a circle, and all had fathers strewn about inside instead of attached to the chickens to which they belonged. Said chickens were nowhere to be seen.

At the center of this circle was a large and pulsing bulbous mass of red, from which a long-sleeved arm had emerged. It flailed about, scattering droplets of fluid.

Then her eyes drifted away from the flailing arm to the side, where Tsubame had pulled Kotori out of the circle. They were soaked red.

“Tsubame, Kotori!”

Konoe ran over, and checked them over feverishly.

Kotori didn’t react or open her eyes, and her heart dropped down to her stomach.

“Mrrm…”

Her eyes latched onto Tsubame’s mouth making bleary noises. The child’s face was paler than the blankets in her room.

Konoe clutched Tsubame’s hand as though it might turn to dust in her grip if she let go for even a moment.

“Mum’s here, Tsubame. Mum’s here.”

Tsubame was slow to react, her dazed eyes inching to meet her mother’s.

But after a few moments, she hugged her mother tightly with her free hand.

“Mommy,” she whispered.

“It’s okay, my sun,” Konoe said. “You’re okay.”

“Mommy!” Tsubame hugged her tightly. “Mommy!” As she came to her senses, Tsubame began sobbing. “Mommy, I-I...mommy, mommy!”

Tsubame’s arm trembled in the embrace, and Konoe swallowed her fears. She put on her best attempt at a warm and reassuring expression, and looked over Kotori again.

A closer look found Kotori’s chest lightly rising and falling. Konoe sighed with relief. Her eyes fell to the black stain on the front of Kotori’s shirt, but the flailing arm in the corner of her vision snagged her eyes.

“Stay here,” she said.

Tsubame continued to embrace her sister, nodding.

Konoe edged toward the flailing hand.

“It-It’s okay,” she said, and raised her arm for the hand to feel.

The hand grabbed ahold of her arm, and Konoe grabbed their red-drenched sleeve in return.

She clenched her teeth, and began to drag them out.

The hole from which the hand had emerged seemed malleable, and dilated to accommodate the rest of the slowly emerging figure. More fluid spilled out from around them, and when they’d come completely free, the sudden ease caught Konoe off guard, and she fell on her back.

She got to her feet, and saw that the stranger wore a cloak unlike anything she’d seen before, though it was impossible to gauge what color it had been before the pulp had enveloped it.

Without the stranger inside it, the bulbous flesh mass collapsed in on itself until it’d become a putrid puddle that smelled of chickens, fish, and fruit.

“Are you okay?” Konoe said. “Can you stand?”

The figure slowly stood up, all of her clothes and skin thoroughly stained with pulpy innards. Rather than answer, she looked around, and then down at herself.

“Scrandannikia? Sniblaner!”

The stranger rummaged through the pockets of her strange cloak until she’d produced a small rectangular object. Perhaps an enchanted object of some kind. The stranger's face fell upon seeing it thoroughly drenched like the rest of her, and fell even further after a few seconds of pressing her pointer finger against it only for nothing to happen.

“Can you understand me?”

The stranger put it back in her pocket and looked up, her expression utterly lost.

A second glance at Tsubame revealed that she was in no state to fill her in on the situation, and Konoe drew in a deep breath.

She pointed to her own face.

“Konoe,” she said. “Konoe Hikou.”

The stranger nodded uncertainly at first, and then again.

She imitated Konoe’s movements.

“Nia Kumar.”

“Nia.” said Konoe, mustering up what she hoped would be a reassuring smile.

Nia didn’t smile back, her eyes still glancing about.

“Tsubame,” Konoe murmured. “Can you walk?”

It took a few moments for Tsubame to register her words, but she nodded and got to her feet. Konoe scooped Kotori into her arms, propping her up. She took Tsubame's hand and led her outside. 

Nia followed close behind.

“Scrinner sa seern?” the stranger said, glancing between Konoe and her children.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you. But here.”

Konoe motioned for Nia to follow her, and escorted the three of them out of the coop. The howling wind whipped their hair into frenzies, and the rain plastered their clothes to their bodies. But Konoe was too busy thinking over what had happened to complain about the weather.

How had this person appeared? The book with steps for the ritual had been locked in her trunk.

She should’ve burned every last page, hope for the future be damned.

If this stranger had been summoned from another world, then they should’ve been filled to the brim with magic power. But Konoe’s hair didn’t stand on end from being in close proximity to Nia, so perhaps she didn’t have much power? Or maybe the signs were different than that. But she obviously couldn’t ask the stranger or her children for the details, so she shelved the topic for now.

Their small home seemed even more cramped with a stranger entering, and Konoe led them up the stairs to the bathroom. Nia’s eyes clung to Konoe as she unclothed herself and the twins.

A glance over Konoe’s shoulder found Nia staring at the cluster of tiny pockmarks dotting the centers of Konoe’s and her children’s backs. The expression on her face was more curiosity than revulsion, and reminded Konoe of one of her colleagues back in Eternia.

“Scroon ri skeen,” Nia murmured.

“These are just…ah, you aren’t going to understand. Never mind.”

Nia waited in the bathroom while Konoe dressed her children in their matching nightgowns and tucked them into bed.

Kotori’s mouth was drawn into a grimace, and her eyes moved rapidly beneath her eyelids.

“Shh, it’s okay Kotori. Mum’s here.” Konoe rubbed the back of Kotori’s hand with her thumb, but neither her words nor the gesture reduced the severity of her daughter’s expression. Tsubame, meanwhile, had fallen into a sound sleep whilst clinging to her white blanket.

As she made to leave the bedroom, Konoe again glanced at the black stain on Kotori’s clothes. Perhaps she could send that to an acquaintance and have it looked at. Anything to understand the details of what had happened.

Upon returning to the bathroom, she found Nia looking around the cramped room like a lost little lamb, but her hands were clenched tight together rather than poking about.

“Please bathe,” Konoe said, and pointed to the tub.

Nia got the hint and undressed while Konoe plucked a few more soapberries from the jar by the tub. Once water had filled the tub again, Konoe began to scrub the red from Nia’s skin. It came away to reveal a light brown. But Nia didn’t have the light gold eyes common in Dainai, or the blue-green of those in Nillia. Hers were dark, as was her hair. The locks draped down to the middle of her back. Her ears were that of a human’s, as opposed to elven. The top of her head bore no animal’s ears like that of beastfolk.

Konoe couldn’t help but wince as she took in the softness of the girl’s features, and the lack of many wrinkles.

If appearances were anything to go by, the poor girl couldn’t be older than twenty five. Did she have parents? A lover that longed to see her again? Or even children of her own, perhaps?

There was also a softness to the skin, and a lack of calluses to the fingers. The closest Konoe could liken her skin to was that of nobility that had servants to attend to them.

Most of the red had been scrubbed from her limbs and torso when Nia began to tremble.

“Are you cold?” Konoe said, knowing that the woman wouldn’t be able to understand her.

“Skina…Skina mal desti,” she said. While Konoe couldn’t understand her, the tears rolling down Nia’s cheeks and dripping into the water basin spoke volumes.

“We’ll get you back to your family soon, I promise.”

Konoe smiled, hoping that her apprehension wouldn’t be noticed. Calling someone from the planes beyond was one thing, but sending them back would require far more magical energy. And lines upon lines of glyphs. The boundary would’ve repaired itself by now, and only grown stronger.

Thrice stronger after this incident.

Nia smiled back hesitantly, and once Konoe had cleaned the last of the residue from her skin, they stared at the utterly soaked and splattered remains of her clothing in the corner of the bathroom for a moment.

It would take a lot of effort to salvage them, and if Nia’s crestfallen frown was any indication, she knew that as well.

“Err, for now, would you wait here?” Like she had before when she’d told Nia to stay put while she put the twins to bed, Konoe pointed a finger down toward the bathroom floor twice.

Nia nodded and stayed still, though she still trembled rather terribly. Perhaps the rain and wind had chilled her. It certainly had done the same to Konoe, and now that the nerves had abated, the cold racked her skin with goosebumps.

But Konoe paid her discomfort no mind for the moment.

Her nightgown sagged around Nia’s chest, and hiked a few alns above the woman’s ankles and wrists, but it would have to do.

“And you’re all clean,” she said, smiling wearily at the newcomer to her home. “Want me to take you to bed?”

Nia shook her head. Her mouth pinched at the edges into a grimace. But before Konoe could ask if she’d been hurt, perhaps as a side-effect of the summoning, she rubbed her stomach with one hand and pointed to her mouth with the other. Then she averted her eyes, perhaps out of bashfulness?

“Ah, of course,” Nia said. “I don’t blame you for being hungry. If you wait till I’ve eaten, I can give you some food.”

But they had no chickens after Kotori’s little stunt. And their pantry would soon run low if they took in another mouth to feed. But what could she do? This girl knew nothing. Did she even have a trade wherever she came from? Anything that would let her earn her keep?

The rush of water filling the basin continued as Konoe looked toward the red mess that remained of Nia’s clothing. It was impossible to tell if it’d been some kind of uniform.

Nia’s arms and legs had been lanky and thin, certainly not belonging to a warrior or a woodsman. And if she had a brilliant mind, that didn’t matter if she couldn’t communicate what was in it to other people.

“Tamatoya, where are you?” she said.

If her husband were here, then Nia wouldn’t be. And yet, even knowing that, she couldn’t help but wish that Tamatoya was here beside her.

But Tamatoya wasn’t here.

She reached up to massage her temples.

The day’s fruitless search, and now this issue to tackle.

A scream of frustration bubbled up from her stomach, and her mouth contorted into a snarl as the sound threatened to tear itself free.

It was only when Nia retreated a few feet did she realize the face she was making, and stared into her reflection in the bath water instead.

“Sorry, I…I’ll figure something out. It’s not your fault.” She ran her hands through her hair.

Nia glanced about for a few moments before holding up the sponge Konoe used to scrub the twins and Nia.

“Please…bathe?” she said, shaking the sponge in her hand.

Konoe stared at her a moment before realizing the gist.

“Thank you Nia,” she said, smiling. “But it is ‘May I wash you’?”

When Nia raised an eyebrow, Konoe repeated her words slowly, and pointed to her mouth to draw emphasis to how her lips moved.

“May I wash you?” Konoe said.

“Mayae washyuu?”

“May…I…wash…you,” Konoe repeated.

“May…I…wash…you?”

Konoe nodded.

“May I…wash you?” Nia repeated.

“Good!” Konoe said, beaming.

And in spite of everything that had happened to her, Nia smiled. A small curve of the lips that could’ve been mistaken for a trick of the light, but a smile nonetheless.

“May I wash you?” Nia repeated.

Konoe nodded, and moved to show Nia her back.

“Screen ra ken,” Nia murmured, scrubbing more hesitantly against the pockmarks.

“You can go a bit harder, Nia,” Konoe said.

She pointed to Nia’s navel, her own lack of one, and then gestured to her pockmarked back.

“They served the same function, so to speak,” Konoe said.

There was no way to tell if Nia had understood what she’d been trying to convey, but the girl began scrubbing more vigorously after a few moments.

Konoe marveled at how the sponge roamed her back, as if perceiving the aching muscles through her skin. So Nia seemed accustomed to washing others. But a life of this labor would’ve surely given her a hardier physique. Perhaps it was something she only did occasionally wherever she hailed from.

When Konoe was clean, she changed into a fresh set of undergarments and cheap linen tunics that made her want to scratch all over. But she swallowed that urge, and had Nia follow her to the pantry.

Nia’s eyes wandered every which way as they wandered through the few rooms that comprised their home.

Kotori kept the house immaculate, but even so, looking at Nia’s gaze raking across the limited furnishings and fireplace, she couldn’t help but wonder what sort of conclusions Nia was drawing. And as Nia looked about, Konoe couldn’t help but fixate on the small details she’d never given thought to before.

The crack in the wall that remained from the incident when Tsubame had punched it a bit too hard now seemed like a gaping hole.

The faint purple stains on the kitchen floor from when Kotori had tried to cook some blueveil fish with magic spells now seemed ten times as large.

Konoe took these in stride as she led Nia to the pantry in the corner of the kitchen.

“It isn’t much, but here,” she said, fishing a jar of dawnberries from the top shelf. Perhaps the bitter taste might be a bit much for the girl, but hopefully it would wake her up invigorate her after her ordeal. “This is called a dawnberry. Dawn…berry.”

Then an idea struck her, and she held one berry in her right hand.

“Dawnberry.”

She added another dawnberry to the first, rolling the two in her palm.

“Dawnberries,” she said, emphasizing the distinction between the two words.

Nia plucked one of the orange berries from Konoe’s hand, and rolled it between her thumb and forefinger.

“Dawn…berry,” she repeated. “Dawnberry.”

She popped it in her mouth, and her lips contorted at the acridity like Konoe had suspected they would.

“We have to spare our sugar,” Konoe said, squeezing Nia’s shoulder. “And the sweeter berries won’t grow for another month. I’m sorry.”

In the hopes of showing Nia that this was the only readily available food at the moment, Konoe plopped a dawnberry in her mouth. Years of eating these had given her an acquired taste, but she nevertheless forced her lips into a similar grimace.

Nia nodded, her eyes softening. Her hunger seemed to override her distaste for the food, as she held out her hand for another after swallowing the first.

“May I have another?” Konoe said slowly.

“Mayae havenother?” But before Konoe could correct her, Nia frowned at her mistake and repeated the words. Tsubame would make a similar face when struggling with a problem her classmates would find simple, and much like on those occasions, Konoe offered a patient smile.

“May I…have another?” she repeated.

“May I have another…dawnberry?” Nia said hesitantly.

“Yes, that’s right,” Konoe said, beaming again, and Nia smiled back.

A handful of berries couldn’t be called a meal, and yet it seemed to satisfy Nia’s hunger for the time being. As Konoe put the jar away, she made a mental note to pick some more from the forest’s western side the following morning.

The wood in the fireplace at the other end of the kitchen beckoned her over, but a glance at a nervous and glancing about Nia discouraged her from setting it alight. How could she consider her own comforts when a girl without anyone was standing right there?

“Follow me Nia,” she said, and led her new guest up the stairs and past the twins’ bedroom to where she and Tamatoya would sleep.

Fortunately, Nia didn’t need a lot of encouragement to get into bed, and Konoe took the other side. But Konoe didn’t sleep for a long time. How could she after everything that had happened?

And if Nia’s breathing and occasional murmurs were any indication, neither did she.