Who I Will Be

 Surely it wouldn’t be eternal love, right? Why would a random huntress give a random man she met in the woods a gift symbolizing eternal love? Maybe she doesn’t know what it actually means and I'm just overthinking everything. Yes, that must be it. Though, it shouldn’t hurt to ask, yes? Maybe if I encounter her again, I’ll ask her.

A week has passed since I last saw her, my sister and I were hard at work deciphering the etchings upon the antlers, when she noticed something odd about it, “It’s still growing.” She said.

And it was true, since the week they got there’s a significant growth and branching from one side of the antler, “But it shouldn’t, yes? The host is dead, I mean it doesn’t even have a host at all.”

“Hm…” She thought about it for a moment, “I may know what the etchings mean then.”

“Huh?”

She pulled a book from the shelf, one that we already touched upon a few days prior, “I can’t believe I missed this up until now, but it could be a pair etching. That’s the reason why we can’t fully comprehend it.”

“A pair huh? Then the rest of it should be with her. That said, I haven't seen her at all this past week.”

“You said she’s a huntress? Then maybe she’s in some of the hunting grounds out of the town? We are pretty peaceful here after all.”

“Could be, makes our encounter all the more interesting though.”

Maria placed her fingers over the antlers once more, she felt the etchings as her fingers glided through its frame, “You said back then that you’ll see each other.”

“Yeah, why?”

She turned her head to the window at the opposite end of her office, where she was just slumped over a table a week ago. The view from that window was our backyard, and directly across it was the forest where I first met the huntress. It was afternoon now, two hours before the sun would set. It was at this time back then when I first saw her, “Maybe you should go now?”

“Why should I? She might not be there again.”

“Why not? Grab a book and read on your stump, certainly beats being here and not having that chance to see her in the first place. Here,” She handed me a book, “Herbology 101, you need to touch up on your medicine again you know?” Ever the doter she was. Maybe if I had a sister like her back then I wouldn’t end up like the failure as I was.

“Right, see you later, Maria.” We waved goodbye at one another as I promptly left.

Within minutes I was beyond the backyard and beyond the river. The forest’s breeze flowed through each opening in the fabric of my clothes, a scent of apricot filled the air. A familiar scent, her scent, maybe she was here. Though my heart dropped at that thought, because after the whiff of apricot was another scent.

Blood.

An overwhelming dread rushed upon me as I tried to track the source of it, but I was no dog. I yelled out, “Is anyone there!?” Yet the only response was the nothingness of the forest’s ambience.

I walked around, trying to look for any traces, blood stains, anything. This might be the huntress, either her doing, or her, or not at all. And I don’t want to take any chances.

The fallen gold and yellow leaves of autumn litter the forest floor, a crunch with each step. I pushed out two bushes together and saw her. Her attire was drenched in blood, as are the leaves around her. Her crossbow fell flat on the floor, powerless yet loaded. She was alive.

Her eyes were glued to the floor which turned over to mine, “You’re here.” She said, “Kgh!” She coughed up blood, not good. I approached her, careful not to step on any crunchy leaves, “Wait right there.” Her hands reached for the crossbow, careful not to trigger it among its many machinations. Then with a swift motion, she fired. The arrow shot across my cheek with a whistle that deafened my ears. A beast audibly fell behind me. “Damned wolves.”

Wolves, it was a wolf that made her this way, “Were you too careless?” Perhaps I shouldn’t be asking this to a hunter when I am a random civilian that has no protection whatsoever.

“I didn’t know wolves frequented this place.”

“They didn’t. Perhaps we do need someone like you around here.” I went over to her and started to tend her wounds with as much skill as I could. But it wasn’t enough, for all my skills in herbology and whatever else my sister taught me, she simply was the one capable of healing this huntress, “Can you walk?”

“No. But I’m light enough to be carried,” Her eyes darted all over my frail structure, “Light enough for you.” She sighed. Perhaps I do need to work out my body in this world, though I was never one to properly take notice of it, I do feel somewhat thin, and weak.

Even then I placed my arms under her knees and around her back and lifted her up. She placed her hands around my neck as I carefully made my way back home, her blood dripping carelessly over the forest floor, and on my house’s wooden floor.

“Maria!” I yelled inside as she left her laboratory to see me holding a frail dying girl. Afterwards, we made our way to her laboratory, and placed the huntress down upon a blanketed table.

“This might be a bit difficult even for me, would you call the apoth--” Maria’s words were interrupted by the huntress who held her wrist.

“No!” The huntress said, “You’re both capable enough. I’ll guide you if you need.”

With a shocked face, Maria nodded. Determined. Perhaps there was something assuring in the idea that the huntress would guide us in her surgery that gave her the edge to go through with it. However, I was of little help, I know little about medicine after all.

But soon, through much criticism towards Maria, it was over. And all of us were dead tired, we did after all just do impromptu human surgery upon what was supposed to be an herbalist’s laboratory.

We sat beside the table, watching over the resting huntress. Maria stared at her with fascination, as if she just saw something, then little by little, her hands made way under the huntress’ hood.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Are you not curious what’s underneath? Your stories about her did fascinate me after all.”

“Are you implying something, Maria? I think it would be best to just let her sleep there, you know?”

“Are you not a bit interested? You were the one carrying her like a bride when you came here.”

I looked away, flustered. Then the realization came to my head all at once. The exchange, the carry, how she never once criticized me for what I did. How it was all seemingly fine and dandy for her.

I couldn’t tell in my heart if what I’m feeling right now is genuine or just a matter of not thinking things through. What if in the end I would be overstepping something I should not? “I am interested,” I said, “But not now. Not when she can’t even defend herself. It would make us no different from the wolves.”

“Your sense of justice is hopeful. Much like someone I knew.” Her voice trailed off at the last sentence, one that caught my ear.

“What was that?”

“Hm? I knew a lot of people in my lifetime, you’re not the only one with an unwavering sense of justice.”

“Right. Well, I just call it being a decent person. A decent person that does things decently for other decent people. This huntress is a decent person as far as I’m aware.”

“Mhm. I get you, but does that mean you won’t be so decent and a progenitor of justice over her if you were to find out that she killed people before?”

“Maybe not, for me it would depend on if she found herself judged over it before.”

“I see…” There was silence between us for a while, “She’s beautiful though, isn’t she?” Said Maria.

The pale moonlight shone through the clouds and the window. It seemed to spotlight the huntress’ sleeping face, “She is.” From here she doesn’t seem to be such a cold-hearted huntress. One who would command even the wind if it meant her arrows hit true, she was just a person. As vulnerable as I was at that moment.

“You’re fixated on it too, aren’t you?”

“On what?”

“What I said back then, about how the antlers she gave you might be symbolic of eternal love?”

“Yeah. She didn’t seem to have it though, so I figured we should ask her when she wakes up.”

“Mhm. What do you think about it anyway? You never quite told me.”

“Of eternal love? I believe in it. I mean just look at mom and dad. They’ve been together for what, 40? That might as well be eternal in our scale.”

Maria laughed, “I guess that counts. But the eternal love in gifts like that aren’t so much, *love-that-lasts-long* rather one that goes on for beyond eternity. Beyond the confines of our lifetime.”

Lifetime huh, I remember in my previous life I had promised someone that I would love them for that entire lifetime and beyond it. A love in our youth that rang eternal and yet disappeared like many things, “No,” I said, “Love is ephemeral after all, much like all feelings ever felt by humanity. No man is angry, sad, happy, in love forever. But that’s not the point of eternal love is it not?”

“No, you missed it completely. To love eternally is to love even if it is not there. Despite being angry, sad, happy, love should encompass it all. That’s the point of eternal love, little brother. It is beyond humanity. Its emotions, its timescale.”

“Like reincarnation then.”

“Yes. Maybe, what do you think about reincarnation then, little brother?”

I was reincarnated, but I wonder if I should tell her. It’s not that I don’t trust my sister, it’s just that I don’t know the ramifications of saying it to someone else. Would they keep asking? Would they think I’m crazy? Maybe I am, maybe these past twenty or so years were just a hallucination before dying. I breathed, “I don’t know, really.” I backed away.

“I see, well then!” She stood up from her chair, “Watch over her, will you? I’ll check up on her again tomorrow, night night!” She left the laboratory, leaving me in the dark.

The huntress was asleep for a day and a half and hidden from our parents. The last thing we wanted were their sermons knowing we just harbored a stranger into our home.

It was a foggy morning when the huntress woke up. Quiet and still, she slowly took off her bandages, and by the time I saw it all happen she was already standing up. As if nothing had happened to her just days prior, “Good morning.” I speak.

“Good morning to you too,” She replied, “Mind I ask where my crossbow is?”

“I left it where I carried you off, my apologies that I wasn’t able to get it.”

“It’s alright, I know where things are. Let’s just say I was attuned to it,” she smiled a smile that only I could see, “Shall we get it?”

“We?” I sat there, flabbergasted at those words. Perhaps it’s because deep in my mind I would never realize that she would ask me for something like this. First impressions matter a lot and my first impression of her was someone so cool and dignified that she would do things alone.

“Do you not want to? Your face tells me you have a lot to say to me.”

“I don’t think I do have a lot to say, but if you’re asking for someone to accompany you to the forest then I’ll try to help.”

“Good, I’ll hold your hand so you won’t get lost.” She teased before leaving the room.

I followed after her to the forest, and sure enough, through the autumn fog she held my hand. Though it felt less like I was following her and more so being dragged around. The forest was quiet today, but it wasn’t eerie. It was alive.

The frogs hopped through shallow ponds and ate the flies that roamed around, herbivores came and went, munching what leaves and plants they could get their teeth on. Wolves howled in the distance, seeking prey. But prey we will not be, for they felt too far away.

Then we were there, where she was. Bloodstained leaves and grass long slept away by the tides of the forest. All that’s left of that incident was her crossbow, leaning upright by the tree as if someone else had kept it there. She kneeled in front of it and said silently a prayer before turning back to me, “I have heard your conversation with Maria two nights ago.”

“What conversation?”

“About reincarnation.” She stood up, “You have a lot to say about it, do you not?” She said, as if to have read my mind about my thoughts upon it.

“I do, but it would be difficult to understand.”

“Ah, you are reincarnated, aren’t you? I knew then, I knew from the start. I have read your notes when you are rested, you see.” Now’s the first time I actually felt frightened for her. I wore a nervous smile, knowing full well that I was hand in hand with a stalker as we went on deeper into the woods.

“Yes, I was.” There was no reason not to, “Do you know where I hail from then?”

“Earth, much like I.”

“Much like you? Then you are reincarnated too!?” I couldn’t hold down my voice as it echoed all throughout the silent forest. She just stared back at me, telling me to shush it. Perhaps reincarnation is more trouble than it’s worth, even for her.

“Yes, though let’s not give ourselves away too much first. You probably decided it too, haven’t you? Forego much of the past but build from it here?”

“Yeah. I even forgot my old name, so you may call me Ludwig. Ludwig Hesse.”

“Likewise, you may call me Lleuad. What were you back then?” A failure, I would tell Lleuad, but I want to save face. I thought of different ways of describing what I was, but she was from Earth. As hard as it was to believe, maybe she would understand.

“I was an accountant in some backwater black company. Didn’t earn nearly enough monthly to live. I worked to survive work. Ridiculous, right… I wish I followed after her.” I whispered the last part; she didn’t need to hear that.

“Followed after who?” But she did.

“Nevermind it. I think I just regret the last ten years of my life; wouldn’t you say the same about yours?”

“In my past life? No, the last few years were magic. Would you tell me about yours then?”

“My last ten years? They were awful. But it’s only because I had no one to help me cope with the world. My lover had died, she was wonderful. Even now, 35 or so years later I could still feel her voice and the warmth she gave around me.” I could tell more, but I would bore her to tears, maybe. But the one I love, whose name now I forgot yet feelings never left, still remained in my head.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. That’s so.” And now the memories of the past have flooded in.

Sunset flooded the colors of the wind, a lone woman stood in the middle of golden wheat fields brushed through by the breeze. A hint of nostalgia could be tasted in the air, burnt apricot-scented sweetheart found and lost. I reached out to that woman, bathed in the sunlight reflected upon her white sundress, shaded by a wide brim summer hat. She turned around and smiled a smile as wide as her face, “You know what to say when we meet again in the netherworld, right?” She asked. The energy in her voice seemed to violently contrast the failure of her body.

I tried to remember what it was that we agreed upon, then it hit me, it wouldn’t be something ridiculous like Marco Polo, it would be something special to the both of us, right? We agreed upon a flower, one that would symbolize our foolishness loving heavily so early. Our foolishness for believing in eternity. To be remembered even in death, to love for eternity, “My white rose.”

Her face was one full of tears, the red blush on her cheek made it seem like she had more blood in her body than she actually did. She felt so beautiful, fragile, as if a tiny misstep would get her killed. And yet despite that, her smile remained. I made sure to make the last years of her life wonderful, as wonderful as it could be. A trip to an aquarium park, a zoo, restaurants and shops. Even this beautiful golden wheat farm, so that I could show her all the beauty I could show. I hope she found it beautiful, maybe she did, as she said the words she would tell me in death, “Forget-me-not.”

She would die the next day. Leaving me behind for ten grueling years, and twenty-five beyond. Yet in this life I have not once uttered that phrase, even as I found a patch of white roses. It didn’t feel right, this didn’t feel like the netherworld. And yet…

We stopped on the shores of a lake. The fog made it harder to see the other side of the lake, or far at all. In the distance were shadows I could barely make out, was it a body, or a log. Or perhaps a creature undocumented. I would love to discover one, after all. But there’s a more pressing matter right now.

Lleuad let go of my hand and sat down upon the gravel shore, she tapped beside her, as if to tell me to sit beside her. Which I did, “The last years of my life were beautiful. But they were a haze, like a dream as vivid yet as mystical as the fog that surrounds us.” She began, “I fell in love, acquired a sickness, and died.”

“Quite broad, but I’d understand. It was like her after all, say, was it happy?”

“Was I happy? In those last few years? Maybe. It’s easy to be happy when you know it has an end, a conclusion. You can pour all your heart and soul to it to make the last few moments beautiful and memorable, before it all fades away. But…” There was always a but, an exception, even for her.

“But it’s never that easy, yeah? You want that moment to last forever.”

“More than anything.” She spoke. Silence fell on us afterwards, what was there to say. Many, really, after all this might be the first time in a while, we knew someone from Earth. What was it? The food? The places we visited. They all didn’t seem important now, they didn’t even exist anymore.

“Those antlers you gave me.” I broke the silence around us, grasping at whatever straw I could.

“Hm?”

“Did you know what they mean? Surely you didn’t give it to me for no reason, right?”

“Of course, eternal love.”

“What? Why?” Of course, it was eternal love. At the back of my head that’s what it always meant. Why else would some girls give it to me for no apparent reason? Was it a flirting tactic? Yeah? Yeah? I’m grasping at whatever I can here. I’m fully, truly, at my wit’s end, unaware. And yet the same memories keep on hurting my soul.

“I felt compelled to. Tell me, Ludwig, why do you think those pairs of antlers symbolize eternal love?”

“No clue. Etchings aren’t my field of study here. It was more on astrology and geology.” That’s what separated me from my sister. While she was focused on the herbs, I was focused on the stars and what they meant. Because Astrology has a basis in this world.

“It’s because they grow in pairs which continue to grow despite being taken from its root. Like how your sister said before. Eternal love is beyond the emotions and timescales of man, the antlers are beyond the emotions and timescale of an elk. It grows, and grows, together, even if apart.”

“To grow together, even if apart.” I get it now. I took her warm hand, interlocking fingers with mine. A bold move but I know who she is. I stammered in my words, felt tears streaming down my eyes, I breathed, it was real. I was here, “I see now, I’m sorry for making you wait… My white rose.”

She pulled and gripped my hands, sending me down to the sand, and yet there was silence. I looked up and saw her quivering face. The once cool huntress now turned into a crying, sobbing mess, “Two hundred and fifty years… you made me wait two hundred and fifty years. How dare you.” Through bated breaths she held me closer to her, warmth upon the warmth of our bodies. The fog felt like it’s starting to clear, “No. The fact that you’re here means I’ve waited just enough… Forget-me-not. That’s what I was supposed to say, was it?”

I relished in the warmth, digging my face down her shoulders. I made her wait for so long, didn't I? She underwent so much change, grew so much as a person and yet I’m still stuck as I am, the same spectator from the past as I am in the present, “I figured it out, Lleuad. I’m sorry it took this long; I was unsure but I’m glad you found me.”

The morning sun shone upon her face; she smiled as wide as from back then. With quivering lips and falling tears, whatever. She was here now, I was here now. “I would wait for you in a million lifetimes.” She said.

“You don’t have to. I’ll be here with you, from now on, and beyond.” I figured it out now. Staying as a mere spectator all the time, just the stagnancy of looking. That’s all I’ve been both my entire life, but now. As I held her crying face, bumping my forehead upon hers. A flash of a smile, an exchange of sobs beyond tears. I figured out what I will be. And that is to be with her. Beyond space, beyond time.