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Chapter Text

She was told that if she ever woke up in an Umbraan carriage pulled by Proudhorn Sernuk with majestic antlers, she shouldn’t panic. She was already doomed.

That warning from her parents came to her memory sometimes – unbidden, unwanted – like the aftertaste of smoke.

The Elderwood was silent tonight, the kind of silence that pressed against the skin. No birds, no breeze, only the slow heartbeat of the forest itself. Shafts of dim violet light filtered across the canopy – not sunlight, but the faint glow of lichen clinging to the bark of the ancient trees. Shadows moved in patterns that weren’t entirely natural.

Artemis adjusted the strap of her quiver and crouched low, up in the branches, her breath misting faintly in the cool air. Even here, hidden within a thousand roots and secrets, that memory still found her. Freedom was supposed to mean escape. But here in the Elderwood, it only meant that the world had stopped chasing – and started searching.

She checked that the mask that covered the top half of her face was fixed properly. Forged of dark platinum, vines from the Elderwood giving it texture and purple bioluminescent Palian runes decorated the forehead, cheekbones and down the bridge of the nose. That, with the hood of her cloak permanently kept up, it hid her features and eyes from the world. The only thing that was visible if anyone was unfortunate enough to get up close to the huntress, was her silver ashen hair woven into war braids that hung loose around her shoulders and peeked out from beneath the black hood.

Gloved fingers gripped her bow firmly, a slender design carved from ancient wood, and the same vines and bioluminescent runes from her mask, a matching leather bracer on her left arm, weathered from years of hunting.

She drew the string back, her fingers brushing her cheek. She aimed the arrow at an unsuspecting Ogopuu. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled to steady her arm before releasing the arrow. The arrow cut the air cleanly with a low whistle. It found its target and the Ogopuu staggered and slumped down with a pained groan.

Artemis straightened up from where she was perched, overlooking the waters from the fallen aqueduct. She let herself drop from the branch and in a flash of blue lightning, she vanished and reappeared stood soundlessly on the forest floor. The air still shimmered faintly where she had been. She strode over to the half-dead creature hooking her bow across her shoulders. She took a silver dagger from a sheath at her belt and placed a hand on the body, taking a moment out of respect before stabbing into it to finish the kill. Ogopuu meat wasn’t the nicest tasting thing, it was rather tough and tasteless, but she had grown accustomed to it.

She cleaned her dagger in silence, the blade catching faint reflections of light. The forest’s hum returned, low and steady, a pulse beneath her feet. Somewhere deep within the Elderwood, the Flow stirred, whispering through the roots of trees older than memory itself.

Artemis listened, as she always did. It wasn’t language, not truly — more a feeling, a pressure behind the ribs, as if the forest knew she didn’t belong here and tolerated her only out of pity.

She slung the carcass of the Ogopuu over her shoulder as best she could, its weight pulling her slightly off balance. The cloak shifted around her legs as she began the long walk back to her shelter.

Her home was hidden far within the Deep Forest, atop a cliff in the ruins of a vast cave. Surrounded by towering trees, stone swallowed by moss, Flowlight fungi growing between the cracks, giving the place a ghostly blue glow. It had taken her months to make it liveable. She had scavenged and stolen furniture, rebuilt a half-collapsed hearth, and fashioned a bed of woven fibre and furs. The only light came from a few flickering lanterns she’d crafted from crystals and salvaged metal, they cast a gentle light across the stone walls.

It wasn’t much. But it was hers.

Inside, she laid the Ogopuu on the worktable and stripped off her gloves. Her skin was pale, with the faintest purple tint.

She began her routine.

Clean. Skin. Salt. Hang.

Each motion was mechanical, practiced. It kept her from thinking, because thinking led to remembering, and remembering led to fear.

She kept her hood up but had removed her mask and laid it on the table beside her tools. The dark platinum etched with vines and blacked out eyeholes staring at her. Without it, her face felt unguarded, vulnerable. She caught her reflection in the cracked mirror hung on the cave wall nearby — sharp features, silver lashes, and mismatched eyes that shimmered faintly even in the dim light: one violet, one icy blue. A scar cut clean across the blue one.

She looked away quickly.

She worked until her arms ached. When the Ogopuu was finally hung and the table cleaned, she moved through the shelter towards the exit.

Outside, the mist pressed close to the stone. It was always night here, or something close to it, a half-light that never quite became dawn. The Elderwood didn’t like the sun.

Artemis drew her cloak tighter and stepped out into the air, breathing in the damp. The scent was sharp: wet bark, and the faint sweetness of glowing lichen. Somewhere distant, a low hoot echoed. She scanned the treeline automatically, eyes narrowing beneath her hood. Nothing but the shifting shadows.

She relaxed, though not entirely. She never truly relaxed.

Her path wound between tangled roots and fallen pillars, the remnants of old human ruins, a reminder that this forest had swallowed entire civilizations before her. Only their bones remained, arches of stone and carvings half-buried in moss. Flowlight trickled through the ruins like veins beneath the earth. Sometimes she thought it whispered when she passed, faint words in a tongue she didn’t understand.

When she reached the edge of the stream, she knelt and washed her hands. Ripples spread out across the dark water, scattering the reflection of her face into a thousand fragments.

Once, she’d been told that the Flow would always recognize its own, but Flow had not saved her family.

Her jaw tightened.

She pulled her hands free, water dripping from her fingers, and rose.

A faint shimmer of light rippled in the distance. The ghostly movement of an Elderwood Orchid unfurling, its petals glowing sickeningly pink against the dark. For a heartbeat, she thought she saw figures moving beyond it, long silhouettes but when she blinked, they were gone. The Elderwood played tricks like that. It liked to test its inhabitants, always reminding them who ruled this place.

She returned to her shelter before the chill sank deeper into her bones. Inside, the fire burned low. She sat beside it and took out her repair kit, arrow shafts, fletching, bowstring fibre. Each piece was checked, adjusted, and stored with quiet precision. Her tools were few and every item had been scavenged or crafted with care.

She turned a sapphire pendant in her fingers, the stone set in woven silver wire, once her mother’s. She traced the shape of its curve absentmindedly.

“Run!” her father’s cry whispered from memory.

She’d run until her lungs tore and the world vanished into streaks of blue light.

“I did…” Artemis murmured to the empty room. Her voice sounded foreign, the syllables felt strange on her tongue, rough from disuse. It had been weeks since she’d spoken aloud.

The forest creaked around her, alive in its own slow way. She listened for a long while, counting heartbeats between the sounds. The rhythm of the place was familiar now. The groan of roots shifting. The steady drip of condensation through stone. The distant, pulsing hum that rose when the Flow currents deepened beneath the surface.

It was almost enough to make her feel safe.

Almost.

A small chime sounded. A delicate tinkle from the cluster of bells she had hung by the entrance. Her hand froze mid-motion.

The bells never rang unless the wind caught them, and there was no wind tonight.

She stood, silent. The flicker of the hearth threw shadows against the walls. Her bow was in her hand before the thought had fully formed. She crept toward the entrance with soundless steps, her breathing shallow.

The mist outside was thicker now, the air heavy. The bells swayed gently, though the air was still. Artemis watched for a full minute, every muscle coiled, before stepping closer, eyes scanning the treeline. Nothing moved. No scent of danger. No sound but her pulse. Finally, she touched the nearest bell. The motion made it ring again, soft and harmless. Her shoulders loosened a fraction. Probably a small creature brushing past or a new human recently come back from extinction foraging for materials, foolishly coming to the Elderwood too soon. The Elderwood was not kind to the careless. She exhaled slowly and made a mental note: Move the perimeter farther out. Reset the traps. She turned back toward the shelter, bow still half-drawn. The forest behind her stayed silent, watchful.

After a while, she sat near the small fire in the hearth, legs crossed, black cloak pooled around her, its warmth struggling against the chill that never seemed to leave the air. The mask sat beside her hand, always close, its faint glow reflecting in her mismatched eyes.

Sleep came lightly that night, drifting between dream and waking. In one dream, she was running again, the trees flashing by, the forest splitting open in streaks of blue light. Someone shouted her name, but the sound drowned beneath her thundering heartbeat. The world fractured into blue lightning and noise and fear.

When she woke, her pulse was still racing.

The fire had died to embers. Morning, or what passed for it in this place, filtered through the cracks in the cave ceiling, a pale grey wash.

Artemis rose stiffly, splashed water on her face, and set about her morning tasks in silence: sharpen the blades, check the bowstring, relight the fire.

Outside, the mist was receding, dissipating low through the roots. She climbed up one of the great old trees, bow slung across her back, to scout the perimeter. From up here, the view stretched endlessly, a forest of shadows and distant glow. It was beautiful in a way that made her chest ache.

There were days, rare ones, when she imagined walking out of this forest and not looking back. Breathing open air again. Being truly free. Speaking her name aloud - Artemis Vaelari.

But the memory of that warning still lingered, heavy and unshakable — If you ever wake in an Umbraan carriage, you are already doomed.

She couldn’t risk being seen. So, she stayed. Hidden in the dark heart of the Elderwood.

A ghost guarding her own grave – more myth than woman.

Chapter Text

With much of the day already gone, Artemis wiled away the time with her daily tasks. True to her word, the mental note she made to check the perimeter was her top priority. It was a nerve-racking task to move the bells further out during the day. What if a stray human saw her?

If she was perfectly honest with herself, humans didn’t see as much as they thought they did. They were too arrogant in their own space to notice the silhouette clad in black and even if they did, Artemis would have zipped away in a flash of blue lightning. They would just assume that she was a Proudhorn Sernuk that had strayed too far from Bahari.

The Majiri posed a higher threat. They did actually see things. There had been too many close calls in the decade that she had spent hiding in the Elderwood, where she had ventured into Kilima in search of items she could not craft herself. She was thankful that they were too busy exploiting the humans for their naivety to get things they wanted out of them, to be interested in questioning what they thought they might have seen.

Artemis guessed that when it came down to it, she didn’t like, nor trust, either species. The resident Grimulkin of Kilima didn’t even make the scale of trust. He was to be avoided at all costs, regardless of what she might need from his store. Her hand unwittingly went to the left eye hole of her mask, the icy blue iris and scarred skin hidden beneath.

The bells jingled and jangled with each pull on the cord she made in an effort to secure them in their new locations. Once fastened, she took hold of each bell to steady and silence it. Hopefully this would now be far enough out that she would get more of a warning but not too far out that she wouldn’t hear that from her home.

She finished up with her tasks around her home and grabbed her bow and quiver, throwing both over her shoulder as she ventured beyond the seclusion of the cliff and trees and further into the Deep Forest.

From the way the light was beginning to ebb, and the bioluminescent flora was beginning to get brighter; she could tell that the sun was starting to set. It was time to venture from the Elderwood and into the likes of Bahari and Kilima, if only for a short respite from the eeriness. Even she needed a break from the closeness of the unsettling atmosphere that hung thick in that place. Besides, she also fancied something to eat that wasn’t Ogopuu.

She made her way through the Lilac Cavern and headed towards Honeymeil Slope, the door to Bahari was just beyond that. She supposed this place had its beautiful spots that made it somewhat charming. The Lilac Cavern was one of them with its stretches of glowing violet wisteria that illuminated the moss-covered trunks.

If this wasn’t a main route used by visiting humans, she might have even chosen to build her home here instead. Perhaps one day she may even do so regardless. She squashed those thoughts before they had time to fully formulate as a serious idea. It was too risky to do that, had her time here taught her nothing? She needed to stay anonymous. Her existence being known was a direct threat.

As she walked up Honeymeil Slope, she pondered at the possibility that this must be the most dangerous part of the Elderwood. It was so unsuspecting. With more light from the sun being able to penetrate the trees and ornately carved bridges across the stream, it made the Elderwood look like a pleasant mystical walk in the forest. Little known to new comers that this is nothing like what the rest of the forest looks like, nor what other creatures lie deeper within. It lulled morons into a false sense of security – she had been one of them.

When she squeezed through the door to Bahari, she saw that the sun had already passed over head and was no longer on the horizon towards the bay. This meant that it was twilight and much safer to hunt in the open. She would take the bridge from the Ancient Aqueduct and hunt in the Hideaway Bluffs.

Along her way, she heard voices, a rag tag party of humans waiting out the evening ready for midnight to strike for a chance of the Flow Grove. When she heard them rounding the corner of the Flooded Steps, she turned and ran for the cliffs of Proudhorn Pass. She disappeared in a flash of blue lightning and appeared at the cliffs’ base. Another blue flash and she appeared on top of them looking down at the path, just as the party of humans walked down it. Despite the remnant streaks of blue lightning, they seemed not to notice and continued along their way towards Lighthouse Lagoon.

Artemis let out a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding and her shoulders visibly relaxed. She heard a gruff exhale from behind her, and she spun, bow in her hand, arrow notched. She lowered her weapon upon realising the exhale had come from a curious Proudhorn Sernuk, perhaps thinking that she was one of their own. She hooked the bow across her shoulder and carefully stretched her hand out to the Sernuk, taking slow cautious steps so as not to spook the creature. The Sernuk made no move to run away, so Artemis took this as a sign to step closer until she was stood directly in front of it.

A gentle gloved hand reached its head, and she stroked along its neck. The grey fur was thick and soft, streaked with blue; warmth radiated from it through the leather of her gloves. It dipped its head to allow her easier access for stroking; it even seemed to nuzzle into her.

Her other hand traced along the majestic curls of its antlers. Humans would spend hours out here hoping to find a creature like this in the hopes to hunt it specifically for these antlers. Artemis stepped back, giving the Proudhorn Sernuk space again. It lifted its head and gave her a last look before it turned around to trot off. It disappeared in a flash of blue, reappearing further away, another flash and then gone.

A fleeting feeling of longing washed over her, how she yearned to be as free as that creature. Although, like that creature, she too had been hunted.

She continued on her path and strolled across the wooden bridge after passing through the Ancient Aqueduct. The familiar rhythmic grunt of effort followed by the clunk of metal hitting stone echoed out of the Pavel mines below. It stopped before she reached the other side of the bridge. That told her that it was around 8pm in the evening. The miner, like all the inhabitants of Kilima was a Majiri of habit and would be returning to his home and his daughter for dinner.

Artemis was glad she had chosen the longer route to her hunting ground now. Things were simpler when she didn’t need to do so much sneaking, and she didn’t fancy becoming the ghost of the mines again like the last time she nearly got seen.

Salt and sea air clung to her cloak as Artemis crouched on the edge of the Hideaway Bluffs, her bow resting against her knee. The horizon burned faintly with the afterglow of dusk, gold fading to violet, then dissolving into the indigo of night.

She pressed a hand to her mask and adjusted her hood, pulling it tighter as the wind caught strands of her silver hair.

Her stomach ached faintly with hunger.

She moved silently along the ridge, eyes scanning for movement. Eventually, she found a small flock of Chapaa scurrying near the rocks. She notched an arrow, drew, and loosed. The arrow found its mark; the nearest Chapaa crumpled instantly.

It was enough. A flash of blue saw her descended to the ground and she worked quickly, her motions clean and efficient. She murmured the quiet words her mother had taught her long ago, the ritual of thanks to the land.

When she was done, she turned toward the distant hills. Beyond them, the faint glow of Kilima Village shimmered against the dark. Curiosity tugged at her feet. Against her better judgment, she walked the path to Kilima and climbed the ridge overlooking the valley and crouched among the shadows. From there, she could see everything: the market square, the winding paths lit with warm lanterns, the river glinting like glass as it cut through the heart of the town.

Laughter rose faintly on the wind. Music too, coming from the Inn, another voice singing off-key. It sounded like the blacksmith. The sight hit her harder than she expected. A group gathered by a firepit, passing mugs between them, faces glowing with warmth and familiarity.

It was… ordinary.

And it hurt.

Artemis’s fingers tightened around the edge of her cloak. She’d forgotten what ordinary looked like.

For a long while, she stayed there, motionless, letting the sounds of Kilima fill the silence inside her.

She spotted an Umbraan carriage parked nearby the inn and a woman dressed from The Order tending the Proudhorn Sernuk that pulled it.

Then, a flash of memory. Not a vision, but the sudden, brutal clarity of the past breaking through the present.

Her mother’s voice, low and urgent: Hide, Ari.
Her father’s hand gently shoving her toward the door of her bedroom.
The crackling scent of burning torches.
The Order’s cloaked figures approaching the house, torches reflecting in their hard eyes.
The words still burned in her skull: You are to turn your daughter over to us by the morrow.

Even now, the memory left her trembling. She pressed her palm to her chest, breathing through it until the shaking stopped.

Down below, laughter echoed again — soft, unguarded, free.

It didn’t belong to her anymore.

The ache in her chest was familiar, dull from repetition. She knew she would never join them, never stand in the open light again. But sometimes, she allowed herself to imagine it: walking through the market with her hood down, mask off, buying fruit, pretending she was just another traveller passing through.

Pretending she wasn’t being hunted.

A soft breeze swept through the grass, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and roasted corn. Her stomach growled in protest, but she didn’t move. Instead, she sat there until the firelight in Kilima began to fade, until the villagers drifted home and the night returned to silence. Only then did she rise, pulling her hood low once more.

The world below belonged to the living.

She turned away, climbing back toward Bahari. The sound of the wind filled the emptiness she carried with her, steady, eternal, and far too much like her own solitude.

Back in Bahari, light spilled through an open window inside the house next to the walls of the Flooded Fortress. Inside, she could just make out the shape of a broad-shouldered man with black hair and steel-blue eyes, sitting across from a young girl. The miner, dust clung to his clothes. His laughter, deep and unrestrained carried faintly across the field.

The girl, no older than thirteen, gestured animatedly with a fork, clearly in the middle of a story. The man threw his head back and laughed again, ruffling her fiery hair before reaching for another plate.

Artemis couldn’t hear the words, only the rise and fall of their voices, comfort woven into every sound. The scene glowed with a simple, fragile beauty: the golden wash of firelight, the steam rising from bowls of stew, the echo of shared laughter.

It was nothing extraordinary. It was everything she no longer had.

Something inside her chest twisted sharply. For a fleeting heartbeat, she imagined herself at that table, a place set for her, warmth instead of shadow. The ache was so vivid she had to look away.

But when she glanced back again, her eyes lingered on the man. Even at a distance, there was something solid about him, the steadiness in the way he moved, the care in his gestures toward his daughter. She didn’t know his name. Didn’t want to.

Still, she found herself watching longer than she meant to, until the man stood and carried the girl toward the side room. The door shut, the light dimmed. The window became just another square of dark.

The laughter faded, replaced by the hum of night insects.

And Artemis was alone again. The ache in her chest settled into something colder, steadier.

She rose, pulling her hood low, and turned away from the house. The path back to the Elderwood was long, the grass slick beneath her boots. The breeze murmured at her side, patient and eternal.

As she walked, she whispered under her breath, a truth she’d spoken so many times it had become her creed.

“This is safer.”

But even as she said it, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing back, one last time, at the faint, golden glow of civilisation flickering in the dark.

A reminder of what she’d lost, and what she’d never let herself reach for again.

By the time Artemis reached her shelter, the moon had climbed high above the cliffs. The open quiet of Bahari’s coast replaced by the shadows of the Elderwood, sprawled far beyond her. She dropped her pack beside the entrance and unslung her bow, setting it gently across her knees as she sat by the dying embers of her hearth. Sparks whispered up into the night like fireflies before fading.

Her hands moved automatically: cleaning the arrow she’d used, stripping the Chapaa’s meat, salting it with a pinch of sea crystal. Rituals of survival. Movements that kept her from thinking.

But her mind refused to stay still.

That image of the house window lingered, the miner’s laughter, the warmth of the fire, the way the girl had leaned forward with absolute trust. It replayed in her mind like a melody she couldn’t forget. Her chest ached, a slow, unfamiliar pain that was both longing and guilt. She hadn’t meant to stay so long watching. She hadn’t meant to feel.

Artemis bowed her head, eyes closed. She thought of her family. The ache behind them pulsed with memory, and for a moment, she almost reached toward the warmth of the fire, as though it could offer some small comfort.

She caught herself and her jaw tightened. Slowly, she reached out and scattered the fire’s remains with her gloved hand. Sparks hissed and died in the hearth. Darkness closed around her again, safe, familiar, unyielding.

She packed away the salted meat, rewrapped her bow, and checked the traps she’d set around the perimeter of her home. Every movement deliberate, controlled. She’d built her life on control. On keeping herself invisible. No one could find what no one knew existed.

As she worked, the sounds of Kilima still echoed faintly in her mind — laughter, music, voices carried on the wind. They had felt so close, like she could step forward and touch them.

But she didn’t belong to that world anymore. She belonged to the wild things that hid from the torchlight to the silence that followed fear.

When her tasks were finished, she climbed to the top branches of one of the taller trees in the Deep Forest and sat for a while beneath the stars, mask still on, her hood drawn low. The constellations above were faint, their light scattered, but she traced them anyway, the way her father once taught her. The memory hurt, but she held onto it all the same.

“This is safer,” she whispered again, voice barely audible against the wind.

The words should have comforted her. Instead, they sounded like a lie she’d told too many times. Still, she clung to them. Because the alternative, hope, was far more dangerous.

She drew her knees to her chest and let the night close in.

When she finally went back to her shelter and sleep finally came, it was light and restless. And somewhere in the back of her mind, behind the mask and the silence, the memory of that house window still burned — soft and golden and utterly unreachable.

Chapter Text

Most days for Hodari were the same. They consisted of getting up and making breakfast for him and Najuma, even though he knew she wouldn’t eat it until much later after she had woken up. He would pass her on the way to the workshop, she like he, rarely slept, and when she did head to her room to sleep, it was as he was starting his day. He’d head into Kilima for lunch at the Inn and to catch up with Ashura on the happenings of the day in the village, before finally heading to his mines to hammer out whatever ore he could until the late evening. If sleep claimed him, which he had to admit rarely did unless he tried sixteen different positions and made a sacrifice to Maji, it would be dreamless and shallow until the whole thing repeated itself again. A Majiri of habit.

It was a pity that today was not most days. Najuma was waiting for him at the kitchen table. As he walked through the living room to the kitchen, half asleep still and bleary eyed, he didn’t notice her at first. It was only after he fired up the stove and put the kettle on it to boil water for tea and turned around that the fiery red hair caught his attention. He jumped, now finding himself suddenly awake.

“By Maji, Spitfire, y’scared me” he said as he waited for his heartrate to return to normal, his thick southern accent droning through.

“Sorry, dad. I just wanted to catch you before you got busy today” Najuma replied.

Hodari observed the young Majiri. Still awake, waiting for him, her hands fidgeting in front of her – she wanted to ask him of something he wouldn’t approve of.

“No” he said simply.

Najuma stood up from the table. “But you don’t even know what it is yet!”

“I already can tell ‘Juma, y’want t’go do somethin’ that y’know I don’t want y’doin’. S’why you’re here and not meetin’ me at the bridge.”

Najuma screwed her face into a frown and crossed her arms. He never let her do anything, it was always ‘too dangerous’, but he didn’t even know what it was this time, and she had really thought about it this time.

“Can’t you just hear me out?”

Hodari sighed. “Go on.”

“I wanna go to the Elderw-”

“No.” He turned his attention back to the stove and made himself a tea to wake himself up a bit better than he currently was. Sleep tended to elude him but when it didn’t, he always woke up feeling worse than he did if he had hardly slept at all.

“But dad! I thought about it! Auni and I were gonna go to a deposit he had scouted out with N’aio the other day. And it would only be a couple hours, and I wouldn’t be alone, and I would be safe, and we would come back and it would be okay!”

“What deposit? What’re y’talking about?”

“Of platinum ore… I drew a new blueprint to update my leg…”

Hodari’s demeanour instantly crumbled, and his face softened as his shoulders sagged. He’d known for a while that she had been outgrowing the prosthetic she currently had. It wasn’t working the way it should and no amount of lubricant on the joints was going to fix the issue. His daughter was growing up, and she had her current design for many years now.

“A’right Spitfire… But you ain’t going, the Elderwood is more dangerous than the mines. I’d sooner have you go back in them and s’not happenin’ either.”

Despite the reaffirmation of overprotectiveness, Najuma’s face lit up, and she scurried over to her father to give him a tight hug from the side. He grunted with the firm impact she had against his hip. He put a hand to her head and ruffled her unruly fiery hair. So much like her mother, stubborn, fiery and when she got older, he knew would be the spitting image of her. His heart ached at that thought, how his beloved would never get to see their little girl grow up to be just like her. She would be so proud of Najuma. He pushed the thoughts to the side before they took too deep a root in his head and made him well up.

“I’ll go tomorrow, gotta prepare for a trip like that” he said. “I’ll have Hassian keep an eye on y’while m’gone, from a distance, I know y’don’t like me being too much.”

“That’s fine, thank you dad!” she gave him one last squeeze before she let him go and practically skipped to her bedroom to sleep.

His usual routine for the day changed slightly, now it had the added extra tasks to prepare for his trip to the Elderwood. While he was in Kilima for his lunch, he spoke to Hassian while he and Tau were in the fields. He asked him if he would keep an eye on Najuma while he went to the Elderwood. The young hunter, although cold in demeanour towards humans, actually liked the young Majiri girl, and was all too happy to oblige Hodari.

He would need to make extra food to take with him as well. The walk from his house to the Outskirts was long, even if he cut through his mines. This meant that the walk back would be equally as long and that didn’t account for the travel through the Elderwood to this particular vein that Najuma said Auni had spotted. In fairness, some of the orders he had to fulfil required Palium, so he had been meaning to make this trip soon, regardless.

Hodari thought of his travel plan in more detail and the route he would take while he was in his own mines carving out iron ore in the hope there might also be a vein of gold. It was a warm day in Bahari and that meant the mines were no cooler than the outside. Heat got stuck down here like a thick soup, the air felt so close it made his magenta skin sweat and his clothes stick to him.

It seemed he wasn’t the only one, as he heard from further in the mines, where the stream flowed through an unmistakable splash of a body entering water. He wasn’t surprised, a lot of humans came through his mines. What was surprising is that they didn’t usually come this deep though, nor this late in the day. If they needed to cool off or bathe, they’d do it at the little pool near one of the entrances.

He shrugged to himself, perhaps this particular human wanted more privacy, he could understand that. He felt that humans too often were happy with voyeurism when they shouldn’t be. Although, he also suspected that it was a ploy in the hopes that he would walk by when they were there. He knew what a lot of them said about him. Heard it when they thought they were quietly whispering to one another. It didn’t bother him per say, but he wasn’t particularly interested in it either.

It was getting late, or so he suspected by the way he was having to rely on the Glowbugs he had jarred for light source. He wanted to have dinner with Najuma before his trip the next day as he wasn’t sure what time he would be getting back.

As he started walking up towards the exit of the mines, he got closer to the pool of water where he had heard that person get in. When he got much closer, he began to hear the violent sloshing of water and the panicked scurrying sounds of someone pulling on clothes. As he reached the pool, there was a sudden blue flash and then nothing.

He stopped; confusion etched across his features. He could have sworn that he heard a person, but that flash of lightning suggested otherwise. There’s no way a Proudhorn Sernuk could have gotten this far into the mines, could there? He supposed it was possible if a hunting party of humans were chasing it. The poor thing likely got scared trying to escape and hide. These mines would be the perfect place to lose a hunting party. It definitely sounded like it was bathing though… He shrugged again, decided that the mines liked to play tricks on the mind, and went about his evening.

Crouched on a higher level, looking down at the miner in the shadows, Artemis’ heart was beating faster than it had in a long time. She had only had enough time to throw her clothes on and teleport out of sight, not enough to fully get dressed properly. She held her breath until she watched him leave completely, then she breathed heavily. That was too close to call. All she wanted was to get clean and this is usually the quietest spot to do so. She thought that the miner was in a different part of the mines, the rhythmic clang thunk of his pickaxe seemed to echo from a different section, it was dangerously misleading.

She rested her back against the wall of the mine and let the strength leave her legs to slide down to a sitting position to allow the panic to subside. Thank whatever deity the humans and Majiri believed in that he didn’t look to closely in the direction the lightning streaks had gone. Nor over to the pool of water, where she was forced to leave her bow and quiver in her haste of remaining unseen.

Dropping back down, and getting properly dressed, she scooped up her weapon and threw it over her shoulder. She needed to be more careful. She was getting sloppy. Another close call like that and her parents’ sacrifice would be in vain.

Stupid, stupid!

The next day, before the sun had even properly risen, Hodari got out of bed ready to set off on his journey. He made breakfast for himself and Najuma, again he knew she wouldn’t eat it until later, but he didn’t want her thinking that he was too busy today to take care of her. He threw his pack over his shoulder and left his home. He passed Najuma on the bridge and gave her a tight hug and a tender kiss on the head in farewell before he headed on his journey to the Elderwood.

Once he had squeezed through the door on the Outskirts of Bahari, he looked at the map crudely drawn by his daughter to find the location of the platinum vein. It wasn’t the worst drawn map, but Najuma had never been to the Elderwood, and was just going off what Auni knew, so it wasn’t the most accurate either. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing but not great either, at the very least the general location was there so he knew how to get there.

A lot of people had gone missing in the Elderwood, not just humans but even Sifuu’s wife a long time ago. With each step, he made sure to make a note of memorable aspects of the forest in order to remember his way back to the door to Bahari. Despite having been here a few times, it always seemed to look different each time he came. That unsettled him. He trusted the spirit of Leta to guide him back to their daughter though, she would always be with him.

It took a couple hours to find the vein that Auni had told Najuma about. Hodari had to hand it to the weird bug catching lad, it was a rich looking vein. It would certainly take some work to get the most out of it, but he was no stranger to hard work. He settled in for the long haul and got to work. His usual rhythm of grunt of exertion, clang thunk, grunt of exertion, clang thunk, completely took over, and he was utterly wrapped in his own thoughts – completely oblivious to the dangers that surrounded him.

The fire in Artemis’ hearth had burned to ash. She stirred from uneasy sleep. She sat up from her bed of woven furs, listening to the hush that pressed against the stone walls of her shelter. Her bow lay across her lap, strung and ready, as it always was. Sleep never lasted long here. Not for her. She rose, pulling on her cloak and hood in a single motion, fixed her mask in place.

Outside, the air was cool and thick enough to taste, damp earth, metal, the faint sweetness of bioluminescent fungi. The Elderwood had moods, and today, it felt uneasy. She scanned the trees. The Elderwood always shifted in the corner of her vision, branches leaning where they hadn’t before, shadows breathing when they shouldn’t. But this time, the unease had weight.

A faint indentation caught her eye in the soil beside the trap site. A boot print, large, fresh. Her pulse tightened in her throat. No one came this deep. No one living, anyway. The Elderwood swallowed most who tried.

Artemis adjusted her bow over her shoulder and moved soundlessly through the undergrowth, following the faint trail. She passed through curtains of hanging moss, through patches of glowing orchids that turned their faces as she passed, their light pulsing in warning. She moved like shadow between the roots, silent and precise. Hunting wasn’t her intent this morning. She was tracking a different kind of prey, one that wasn’t hers.

She came across another boot print and crouched to observe it properly. She traced it with a gloved hand, broad, weighted toward the heel. Not a hunter. Not an Order scout. Too grounded. Too… practical. She straightened slowly, eyes scanning the gloom between trunks. The Elderwood was alive with its usual hum, but underneath it, she sensed a faint vibration, movement deeper in the trees.

She couldn’t see the source, but she could feel it. A disturbance in the rhythm of the place. The forest whispered against her mind, not in words but in pressure. Leave. Artemis hesitated. Instinct said obey. The rest of her, the part that hadn’t spoken to another soul in years, wanted to understand. Whoever they were, they didn’t move like a soldier. They moved like someone used to the earth. She stalked onward, cloak brushing against her boots. The mist thickened around her as if trying to conceal her again.

Then she heard it.

The faintest rhythm carried through the air, soft, steady, deliberate.

Chnk.
Chnk.
Chnk.

Not loud, but unmistakable. The sound of metal striking stone.

Her breath caught. Someone was mining.

She looked up and spotted a sturdy branch for a decent vantage point. She disappeared in a flash of blue and appeared on the grand trunk and climbed the rest of the way to the branch. She crouched near the edge and looked down, watching.

Her heart thudded once, hard. She could just make out the silhouette, broad shoulders, steady stance. The miner from Bahari… He examined something at his feet, then swung the pick again. Sparks scattered like fireflies.

He was humming. The sound startled her more than the mining. No one hummed in the Elderwood. It was too alive, too aware.

She should have turned back. She knew better than to linger near people. But she couldn’t move. Something in the quiet rhythm of his movements, unhurried and patient, held her there.

She watched for what felt like hours, she told herself it was just to make sure he wasn’t causing too much disturbance. In reality, it was that gnawing curiosity that burned in her like it had a couple days before, when she had watched through his window.

He was so encapsulated by his task, so consumed by it, that anything else that was going on around him didn’t even register on his senses. That was reckless. She knew better than anyone that this ghostly forest longed for people like him.

As if her thoughts had been projected to her surroundings, it was only a short time after that the forest decided to take advantage of this clueless miner.

Hodari wasn’t sure what time it was, the sun never penetrated through properly here, he relied on how thick the mist would get to tell him it was time to go. Until that point, he would keep to his rhythm. He was so engrossed in it and his own thoughts that he hadn’t sensed a pack of rabid Muujin stalking him from behind.

Artemis, from her perch in the trees, watched frantically as the Muujin closed in.

“Leave you idiot…” she breathed. “Turn around and leave”.

He didn’t.

Two of the Muujin flanked him, the third coming up directly behind. Twisted beasts, their fur slicked dark, eyes glowing with corruption. A snarl – deep and wet.

Finally, Hodari straightened up and turned, gasped and tried to step back finding himself backed against the wall he was mining.

He was cornered. His only way out to fight. He was no fighter, not really. The only weapon he had being his pickaxe.

Immediately, his thoughts went to Najuma, and how if he didn’t try something then he would die here in the Elderwood and leave his daughter without any parents. He was all she had now since the accident with Leta, and although he was overprotective and he knew that drove Najuma crazy, he also knew she would be devastated if he didn’t make it home to her.

He wasn’t about to make his little girl an orphan. He had to try to fight his way out. His grip on the handle of his pickaxe tightened. His stance ready.

The Muujin in the middle lunged and his pickaxe swung, clumsy, driven by instinct more than skill. The blow barely grazed the creature’s flank. It cried, wounded and enraged. It backed off temporarily.

The other on the left flank lunged.

Hodari didn’t have time to swing the useless weight in his grip. It pounced on him and buried its teeth in his shoulder before he even hit the ground. He cried out in pain, wrestled to get the creature off to no avail. Blood poured from the wound, slicked his arm.

This is it, he thought. I’m not making it back to my ‘Juma…

Artemis dropped from the branch before she even breathed, disappeared in a flash of blue lightning and reappeared as she dived at the Muujin rolling to the side with it, kicking it away from her and then disappeared in another flash of blue.

Hodari pushed himself to his feet, a hand going to his shoulder in a feeble attempt to ebb the flow of blood. He tried to raise his pickaxe to re-join the fight.

Artemis reappeared, blue lightning trailing her in a streak, behind the three Muujin, bow drawn, arrow notched.

“Stay back!” she shouted.

She let the bowstring go. The arrow stuck the Muujin closest to Hodari with a shiny metallic explosion sound.

Pwang

Pwang

She fired two more into the beast before it dropped.

The other two Muujin had turned their attention to her and dug their claws into the ground as they launched themselves into a sprint towards her, leaving claw marks in the dirt with their rabid determination.

She started running off to the side and disappeared in blue lightning, reappearing again nearby and let another couple of arrows fly from her bow.

They missed.

She again teleported away and reappeared in different locations each time letting these dispel arrows shoot. Each time she trusted they would hit.

This clearing became an explosion of blue lightning, and a flurry dispel arrows. The forest’s light flashed with her, and for an instant, the clearing burned with energy, lighting up in purples and blues, sounds everywhere.

Pwang

An arrow struck the second Muujin through the eye and it slid across the forest floor having died instantly.

Hodari watched this figure clad in black with a mask and hood, not entirely believing they were real, more like a spectre he was seeing as a result of the toxins that were now fluently running through his blood stream. He felt light-headed and his eyesight was going dizzy.

Instinct drove Artemis and she trusted her power to know what she wanted to do, trusted herself.

She teleported nearby and let an arrow fly, but the last Muujin had picked up her pattern. It caught the arrow in its mouth and snapped it with a single deadly bite.

It charged at her.

She tried to dart and teleport away, but before she could, it leaped at her, and they both went sprawling.

They rolled around the dirt of the clearing. The Muujin landing on top of her. Its sharp teeth snapped at her; they got dangerously close to her mask. She could smell the rot on its breath.

She gritted her teeth, sharp incisors bared against the effort of holding the beast away. She used all her strength to keep those jaws from snapping around something vital.

Hodari half snapped out of his awe and stepped forward ready to swing his pickaxe and help the struggling huntress.

She spotted his movements out of the corner of her eye.

“I said stay back!” she yelled in warning.

Artemis shoved her left arm inside the Muujin’s mouth. Its teeth snapped and gnawed at the bracer mincing it in places, but never able to penetrate skin. It allowed her to reach with her other arm down to her belt and grasp at her silver dagger. She plunged it into the side of the beast and it yelped, partially recoiled, but stayed on her.

With a cry of exertion, she heaved the Muujin off of her with a kick, having sent it hurtling across the clearing. She scrambled to her feet, heavily breathing before she sprinted towards it vanishing in sparks just before reaching it and appeared on top of an ancient pillar not far off.

Her bow aimed, impulsively letting the arrow fly with such a proficiency that would have a made a lesser huntress falter. Artemis was no lesser huntress though and her confidence was not misplaced. The arrow hit its target directly in the heart.

Pwang

Pwang

She let off another couple, ensuring the beast was properly finished off.

She stayed stood atop the pillar for a few moments, bow still draw and tilted her head, made sure the danger was properly gone.

Silence followed.

Hodari blinked up at her, dazed, pupils blown wide from pain and shock. His gaze caught on her mask, her cloak, the faint violet glow from the runes on the mask.

“Who…?” he began to say, but the toxins from corruption from the bite and the blood loss from the wound had finally taken its toll.

Hodari faltered, taking unsteady steps before falling to one knee. Artemis teleported down from the pillar in front of him, just as he fell back and darkness clouded his vision.

The last thing he saw was that platinum mask with its blacked-out eyeholes looming over him and a gloved hand reaching down towards him, before nothing.

Artemis glanced once toward the treeline. The forest had gone quiet again but not calm. It watched. Flow stirred beneath her feet, whispering through the roots.

She shouldn’t linger.

And yet… leaving him here meant his death.

She cursed softly under her breath. Then she reached for his uninjured shoulder.

Chapter Text

“Damn you,” she muttered, the words more to herself than him.

She had managed to half lift him with his uninjured arm across the back of her shoulders, and her arm wrapped under his, but he was so much heavier than she initially thought.

She supposed she should have realised that being a miner he would have a pretty dense muscle mass. Much like the ore he mined, he was solid as rock and weighed it too.

Even with her athletic build and time spent in the Elderwood carrying back her hunts, he was too big and too heavy for her to carry completely, not all the way back to her home. Certainly not when there could still potentially be other members of that infected Muujin pack out there. She was going to have to think of a new plan.

Artemis had never used her power to teleport anyone other than herself before; she wasn’t entirely sure it was even going to work. There was no other alternative though, so she needed to try. This man’s life depended on it. If the infection spread too far into his nervous system, he would be completely lost. She could already feel the fever setting in.

The heat rose on his skin against hers in the gaps where her long gloves failed to cover all of her arms between them and her sleeveless tunic. It startled her, that warmth. Too civilised, too alive. It had been years since she’d touched another person, years since warmth had come from anything but firelight and her own pulse. His skin was rough, calloused from labour, yet there was a tremor beneath it — the body fighting to survive. She tried to ignore the way it bled through her guard, how it felt real in a way the Elderwood never did.

Focus

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, visualised what she wanted to do. Told her power that she was the one that controlled it and would give it commands. She hadn’t done this exercise since she was a child, but she was attempting something she had never tried before.

Her eyes flashed open behind the mask with determination. She stepped forward and the air split in a crack of blue light. The clearing fell behind them, and they reappeared inside the treeline.

So, it is possible to take passengers…

The thought gave her a twang of guilt deep inside her gut.

I could have taken them with me…

She shook it from her mind and continued to concentrate on making the micro-teleports towards her shelter. It was slow going and was taking all of her energy to keep it up, and all of her strength to carry the miner while doing it.

The world around them blurred in motion, her teleporting steps left trails of faint blue sparks between the trees, but she once again registered that heat of his skin, spreading like memory. The last time she had felt another heartbeat this close had been before she fled, before the masks and the hiding. Now it felt almost dangerous. Her grip tightened, not out of care but control, forcing herself to remember that he was only weight, only responsibility. Nothing more.

And still, when the air cracked and they landed before her shelter entrance, she hesitated before she took him inside, as if her body hadn’t remembered yet that it was supposed to be alone.

The glow of the crystal lanterns painted the cavern wall with shadows that danced. She half laid; half dropped him onto her bed of furs and turned away to gather her supplies. Keeping her hood up, she disconnected the cloak from the hood and threw it over the back of a chair, allowing her to move around more freely.

The fire in the hearth had died down, she threw more fuel onto it to breathe it made to life. She moved automatically, heated water over the hearth, grabbed a makeshift mortar and pestle and strips of cloth for bandages.

She whipped around to her work bench, the metal beads in her war braids clinking together, and looked around the rows of shelves she had fashioned from stolen timbers. Her hands assertively grabbed bottles and tipped some of the contents into the mortar and pestle, she grinded up each ingredient before adding the next one. This was a practiced recipe. She finally grabbed a viscous looking oil and poured it in before finally grinding everything together to make a paste.

Heading back over to the hearth, she took an empty bowl and poured the heated water into it. Steam rose from it and fell against her mask creating a sheen of condensation. She took everything back over to her bed and placed it next to her.

The miner, while still unconscious, had his brows furrowed, the toxins were beginning to take their toll. She needed to act quickly. She leant over him and tried to lift him into a sitting position so she could remove his leather jacket. This had proven to be more trouble than she felt it was worth as it had taken her longer to do than she’d have liked. So, when it came to being able to treat the wound properly, she opted for cutting up the sleeve of his shirt to the collar and folding it all away from his shoulder, which allowed her to full access to the injury.

The rabid Muujin had torn his flesh to ribbons, and although he had purple skin, the area around it was dark and raw from infection. His skin was slick with sweat from the fever, and he had begun to groan uncomfortably in his unconsciousness.

It was her first priority to clean the lacerations to his shoulder. A Clean cloth was dipped into the hot water in the bowl, Artemis dabbed as gently as she dared at the blood around the open flesh. Every so often, she would dip the cloth back in the bowl, in between his hisses of pain, and ring it out before going back to cleaning. She didn’t stop until the flesh was free of blood and the water in the bowl had turned crimson.

Artemis looked down at the miner and removed her archery bracer before reluctantly pulling off her gloves. She placed the back of her hand against his forehead, after brushing black hair out of the way. The contact jolted through her — a pulse, the heat, something that didn’t belong to her anymore. She drew back sharply, the cloth falling from her lap into the bowl with a soft splash.

She forced herself to breathe and started again, slower this time, keeping her movements mechanical. His temperature was incredibly high. She needed to cool the fever. She reached for the mortar with the paste she had made from the herbs and ingredients on her shelves. Using her hand, she scooped up some of the paste and began slathering it around the ruined flesh of his shoulder. He moaned in pain and started moving around like he was trying to get away from the source.

Artemis sighed and held her arm against his chest to pin him place while she continued to smear the salve on his shoulder. It was only slightly effective. He was a lot stronger than her even unconscious. Even so, his breathing slowed as the tension left his body inch by inch.

Finally, she took the strips of cloth and bandaged up the damage the Muujin had done as best she could. The salve underneath, left to work on the infection coursing through his veins. Every time her hand brushed his skin, the roughness of his jaw, the line of his arm, a flicker of warmth coiled in her chest and made it ache. She had forgotten the texture of another person’s presence, how it filled the air.

When she finished, she stood and took the items away from the bed and placed them on the table, also throwing down the chewed-up archery bracer, damaged beyond repair in the fight with the Muujin. She pulled her hood down but kept the mask and pulled her gloves back on before she sat back in a wooden chair by the fire. She stared at the miner from across the room. He had settled only a fraction as now he was mumbling in his sleep, having some fever dream nightmare she refused to speculate on.

“Leta…” he murmured. “Leta, m’sorry…”

Artemis had no idea who or what he was talking about. She should rest. She should turn away. Instead, she found herself tracing the edge of her glove, the place where the fabric ended and skin began. That brief contact still lingered there — a ghost of heat that refused to fade.

The flicker of firelight painted shadows across the cavern walls. Her fingers trembled faintly — not from exhaustion, but from the memory of warmth still clinging to them. It was foolish. Dangerous.

She curled her hands into fists, tucking them beneath her cloak as if to smother the feeling.

It meant nothing, she told herself.

Just necessity. Just survival. But her body didn’t believe it. Beneath her skin, the echo of contact throbbed like a heartbeat that wasn’t hers.

Across the fire, the miner stirred faintly in his fevered sleep, a sound half between a sigh and a groan. She froze, instinct ready to vanish into mist, but he didn’t wake. His breathing steadied again, heavy and human and alive. Artemis let out a slow breath of her own, quieter than the crackle of flame.

For ten years, the forest had been her only witness. It had never breathed like this. It had never felt like this. And for one unguarded moment, as she watched the faint rise and fall of his chest, Artemis wondered if she even remembered how to exist in a world that wasn’t made entirely of silence.

Then she turned away, pulling her hood up again.

“This is safer” she reminded herself.

The words sounded hollow in the hush of the cave, but they were all she had.

Najuma stood in the open doorway of the house she and her father lived in at Bahari Bay. The moon was high in the sky, and the night air was cool against the skin of her cheeks. It lightly blew her unruly hair around her face. She huddled her arms around her small frame against the chill, intently watching the empty path leading to and from the house.

She had expected her father home by now, in truth, she had expected him home hours ago. She had kept her word and not followed him into the Elderwood. She focussed instead on staying home and trying to prove she could handle herself responsibly at home. She had tidied the workshop and her room, and she had made dinner for them both, although she suspected she may have used too many seasonings. She had even been pleasant to Hassian, even though she felt he had hovered a little too much during the day.

She was so excited for her father to come home and see everything she had done all by herself. He would be so proud of her, maybe he would even finally see that she was capable of looking after herself. Maybe he would even see if she could handle doing that, he might be willing to let her go back to the mines with him. Under his watchful eye, she had no doubt, but at least it would be a step in the direction she wanted.

So, why wasn’t he here?

Why wasn’t he walking up at path to greet her, to ruffle her hair, call her ‘Spitfire’ and ask her about her day?

Where was he?

A terrible thought entered her mind that at first, she tried hard not to give any weight, tried to shake from her mind by literally shaking her head like an etch-a-sketch. It had already taken root though, and was burrowing deep, clawed at the source of her anxiety.

What if something happened to him in the Elderwood?

He would never not make it home at the time he said he would unless something had stopped him from doing so, and even then, as polite as he was, Najuma came first. The only reason he wouldn’t keep his word is because something awful happened to him.

Najuma felt her chest clench. Her hands shook at the memory of her mother. How it was her fault that her mother had died. Now, if the same thing had happened to her father, that would be her fault too.

Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks as her eyes welled up. She pushed them down with a newfound determination. Her whole mission was to prove that she could handle herself, this new situation was no different. She needed to find out if her father was okay.

She knew he would be angry if she ventured into the Elderwood looking for him herself, but perhaps if she recruited someone that knew the terrain better than her and could fight better than she if they happened across trouble.

Najuma adjusted the goggles on her head and trudged out of the house and across the fields towards the Hideaway Bluffs where she knew Hassian lived. She hoped that he would still be awake.

Chapaa squeaked and ran to dive into their burrows when she passed them. Sernuk watched her curiously but eventually cantered away too.

Finally, she reached Hassian’s grove. She took a deep breath before knocking on the door. She waited several moments without an answer before knocking again, this time more urgently.

Hassian opened the door, bleary eyed with Tau lazily wagging his tail a short way behind him. The Plumehound barged his way passed Hassian upon seeing Najuma and jumped up at her in excitement trying to get all the scritches. Najuma only half-heartedly offered them to him.

“Najuma, what is it? It’s late” Hassian asked, still half asleep.

“M-my dad…” she replied meekly.

Hassian stood a little straighter looking passed her and into the open wilderness. “Where is he?”

She shook her head, the tears threatening to make themselves known again. “I don’t know… He hasn’t come home yet.”

“Not like him to be delayed for this length of time.”

“Will you go-” but before she could finish her sentence, Hassian was already gathering up his bow and quiver and walking out of his grove.

“Go home, Najuma. Tau and I will go search for him in the Elderwood. He told me where he would be mining, I will start there.”

“Can I at least come with you to the border?”

“Alright…” Hassian said reluctantly. “But if I find out you’ve followed me through, I’m telling your father.”

Najuma nodded in agreement and quickened her pace to fall in step with Hassian as they began to make their way to the Elderwood border on the Outskirts.

Truth is, Hassian could understand why the girl wanted to come with and why it would be pointless to argue that she stay put. He didn’t when it was his parent.

They reached the door to the Elderwood and Hassian once again gave his warning about not following to Najuma. She sat herself on old human ruin nearby and nodded. Her eyes never left him as he passed through the door and into the quiet-unquiet of the Elderwood.

It hadn’t taken Hassian long to find where Hodari had originally been mining. He moved through the undergrowth with a hunter’s precision, bow slung low, hand brushing the earth every few steps. The signs were faint, but he knew Hodari’s tread as well as his own heartbeat. The heavy scuff of a miner’s boots. The drag of a wounded step. The scattered prints of rabid Muujin tearing through the soil.

He crouched beside a patch of disturbed moss, running his thumb over the dark stain soaking into the roots. It wasn’t Muujin blood. The metallic tang bit the air — Majiri, then.

“Hodari…” he muttered under his breath, the name barely more than an exhale.

He’d last seen the miner at the edge of Bahari, loading supplies into his pack and promising his daughter he’d be home before nightfall. Since then, nothing. No word. No trace.

But friendship carried its own obligations. And Hassian had never been one to ignore a missing man, especially one with a child waiting for him.

The tracks wound deeper into the forest, where the ground gave way to slick stone and tangled roots. Faint pulses of Flowlight shimmered beneath the moss, guiding him toward a clearing. The air grew colder, the silence thicker.

Then he saw it, the remnants of a struggle. Deep gouges in dirt. Scattered Muujin fur, blackened at the edges as though burned by lightning. Broken dispel arrows that had missed their mark in haste. He crouched again, fingertips grazing a small scorch mark in the bark of a tree. It was too precise, too sudden to be natural. Not a wild strike. Controlled. Deliberate.

Someone else had been here.

Hassian rose slowly, scanning the trees. His instincts prickled. The forest was watching. He could feel it in the way the mist shifted, in the hush between heartbeats.

He followed the faintest hint of drag marks — the kind left by a heavy body pulled through uneven ground. The trail led uphill, toward the cliffs, and ended abruptly in a patch of disturbed ferns. No prints beyond that. Just… gone.

His eyes scanned the tree line again and just up ahead; he saw that same scorch mark in the bark of another tree. He followed it and found another further ahead.

Each one was only a few metres in front of the other, and where each scorch mark was, there were disturbances in the ground where a pause had been made before nothing to the next one. This pattern was odd and nothing he had ever seen before, but the gait matched that in the clearing, so he continued.

The perimeter bells sang.

Artemis’s eyes snapped open. The fire in the hearth had burned low, little more than a nest of embers breathing light against the stone walls. For a moment, she thought it was a dream, the faint chiming from her perimeter, echoing like a ghost through her half-sleep. But then it came again: a single, deliberate note that thrummed through the stillness.

She was on her feet before thought could form, bow in hand, cloak once again fixed to her hood. The shift from rest to readiness was instinct. Years of solitude had carved it into her bones.

She moved toward the entrance, each step soundless over the packed earth. The mist pressed against the mouth of the cavern, thick as breath. Beyond it, the faint chime of her bells glimmered between the trees, their runes reacting when disturbed. One shimmered now, its jingle flickering erratically. Something had passed through.

She cursed silently and melted into the shadows, her form blurring as she stepped through a flicker of blue light, teleporting from the entrance of her home to a higher tree above. The sudden shift left a faint ozone scent in the air, quickly swallowed by the damp forest.

From her vantage point among the twisted branches, she saw movement below: a tall figure moving cautiously through the mist. His bow was unstrung, held low but ready. His steps were careful, deliberate. Experienced. Whoever he was, he knew how to track.

The man paused near the disturbed ferns just beyond her traps. He crouched, examining the ground, and for a heartbeat she caught his face through the mist, sharp, focused, eyes the colour of earth. Majiri.

The man straightened, scanning the trees. Artemis froze, body still as carved stone. His gaze swept right past her perch, trained, but not enough to pierce the forest’s veil. He hesitated, frowning, as though he sensed something watching.

Artemis exhaled slowly through her nose. Whoever he was, he wasn’t here to hunt prey. He was looking for someone.

The miner.

She sighed. This Majiri had not been sent by The Order to find her. He was just looking for his friend.

She silently dropped from the tree in a flash of blue light and appeared crouched behind the overgrowth nearby the young hunter.

With her bow drawn low, arrow notched, ready, she slowly stepped out and into view. Hassian raised his bow instantly, aiming it directly at the mysterious figure clad in black.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice hard and firm. “Where is Hodari Pavel?”

Artemis made no move with her weapon, and no further steps towards the young hunter.

“Answer me” he demanded.

“Safe” she said, her voice foreign even to her. The dark eyeholes of her mask watched the young hunter’s movements carefully.

“Where is he?”

“Safe” she repeated.

Hassian pulled his bowstring back further in warning. “By Maji, give me answers before I shoot you.”

Artemis let out a wry smile that didn’t bare her teeth. “You don’t know these woods like I do, boy, and I’m too fast.”

Hassian regarded her in confusion. “No one lives in these woods.”

Another wry smile. “The miner is alive, barely. He was attacked by a pack of infected Muujin.”

“Take me to him.”

“No.”

“I said take me to him; his daughter is worried about him.”

“I promise I am doing everything I can to heal him, but I will not expose my home to a stranger.”

“You already have.”

She clenched her jaw, the hunter was right, by taking the miner in, she had exposed her home, her safe spot, her hiding, to a stranger.

“Trust me” her voice was strained now; she hadn’t done this much talking in years. “Once the fever has broken and he is able to move, he will be leaving and will return to Bahari, you have my word.”

“That’s a lot to ask for someone who didn’t exist until five minutes ago.”

“You don’t have a choice” she shrugged. “Tell the girl if he survives, he’ll be home in a couple days.”

With that, she turned and treaded back into the overgrowth, when out of sight teleported in a flash of blue lightning back to the base of the cliffs where her shelter was atop.

Hassian could do nothing but lower his bow. He ran to the overgrowth and crouched searching for a track to trace, for the scorch marks to follow. This time there were none, this figure, whoever she was, knew how to hide herself. Knew with such a level of expertise, how not to be followed, as if doing it for years. Which suggested, the tracks he had followed, the scorch marks before, it had all been done without the care that she had this time. That meant that something else had taken priority, survival, but not hers. She really was trying to help Hodari.

He straightened, satisfied, if only for now, that his friend was safe. He would take care of Najuma for now, and if Hodari did not return in a couple days like this stranger had said, he would return to find this stranger again.

Artemis returned to her home and found the miner unsettled again, he was rolling around her bed, murmuring again.

“Najuma… ‘Juma…”

Outside, the forest breathed, slow, ancient, endless. She had spent years convincing herself it didn’t judge her for the life she’d taken here, the life she’d refused to leave behind. But tonight, under that quiet gaze, she felt exposed.

There wasn’t much more she could do for him tonight. She shouldn’t care. Yet here she was, brushing damp strands of hair from his temple, whispering soft curses to the fever as though it would listen.

She replaced the cloth, careful not to touch him again, and sat back. The cavern’s chill returned quickly without the fire’s warmth, and she drew her cloak tight, curling in the corner. Her mismatched eyes stayed fixed on him beneath her mask, even when her head began to dip. Sleep was a thing she rarely surrendered to, but her exhaustion was a steady weight, her body finally demanding rest.

Before her thoughts blurred entirely, she let herself trace the truth she’d buried beneath instinct and fear, the truth she couldn’t name aloud.

It had been ten years since another heartbeat had shared her space. Ten years since another soul had needed her.

And though she told herself again:

This is safer

The words no longer held the same certainty.

She fell asleep with her bow still within reach. The dying fire casting faint light over the two of them, the huntress and the miner, bound for now by nothing but warmth, and the quiet, dangerous mercy of survival.

Chapter Text

Artemis dreamed of rain.

Not the gentle kind that brushed across leaves, but the storm that had come the night everything changed. The air had smelled of petrichor, the sky split open with streaks of lightning gone wild. She remembered her mother’s hand — warm, trembling — ushering her toward the carriage door. The flash of antlers through the rain. The shout of her father’s voice, a warning as The Order came.

When she jolted awake, her heart was pounding as if she’d been running for miles.

The cavern was dim, only the crystal lanterns cast trails of light against the stone. The fire had burned down to a cradle of embers, their light spilling across the rough floor in slow, pulsing rhythm. For a moment, Artemis didn’t move. She simply listened to the quiet, to the dripping of condensation down the wall, to the fragile sound of breath that wasn’t her own.

He was still here.

She turned her head slightly. The miner lay where she’d left him, half-wrapped in a rough wool blanket.

She pushed herself up, detached her cloak from the hood and laid it against the chair. She ensured her hood and mask were properly fixed before stepping over to where he lay. She took one glove off and carefully pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. His fever had mostly broken sometime in the night; his breathing was steadier now; the tension eased from his jaw. The faint glow of the lanterns flickered across the edges of his pointed ears, tracing the ridges of his jaw.

She exhaled, quiet and slow, the relief catching her by surprise.

Straightening up, she replaced the glove on her hand pulling it up her arm. She walked over to the table and picked up the bowl, taking it over to a barrel of collected water. She scooped up the liquid and with a scrap of cloth headed back over to the bed.

Kneeled beside him, she soaked the cloth and leaned forward to dab his brow, careful not to wake him, but his eyes began to flutter open as the cloth met his skin.

For a heartbeat, neither moved.

Hodari blinked, disoriented. His gaze swept the dim room, the low stone walls, the glimmering lichen clinging to the ceiling — and then her. The hood, the mask, the faint glow of runes across dark platinum, the ashen hair woven into war braids.

“Where…” He swallowed, voice hoarse. “Where am I?”

“Alive,” she said quietly, the words automatic, her tone measured.

“Najuma…” remembering himself, he tried to suddenly move and winced. “Najuma’ll be-!”

“Relax… A young hunter came, I told him you were safe but needed to recover, he is looking out for the girl.”

Hodari stopped and regarded the mysterious stranger before him, pausing to really consider the fact that the Elderwood was her home.

“I thought…” He began. “They said no one lives in these woods.”

Artemis met his gaze through the mask, a sardonic smile that didn’t bare teeth crept on her lips. “They were almost right.”

He shifted slightly again, wincing as he tried to sit up. She pressed a hand to his shoulder — gloved, but firm — keeping him still.

“Don’t,” she murmured. “You’re not healed yet.”

He stilled beneath her touch, eyes flicking toward her hand and back to the mask that hid most of her face. There was curiosity there, not fear. “Who are you?”

Artemis hesitated. She had rehearsed answers for this question before, for imagined scenarios, brief encounters, moments when she might need to lie. None of them fit now.

At last, another smile. “No one.”

He studied her in silence, as though weighing something unseen. “I thought all the humans that came back were given plots to live on.”

Artemis turned away, breaking the moment before it could settle. “You were lucky. The infected creatures that attack reckless seekers such as yourself rarely survive.”

She rose, crossing to the hearth to stir the embers back to flame. Behind her, she could feel his eyes following her movements — assessing, not in suspicion, but in quiet gratitude.

Hodari gazed at his surroundings, at the cavern that the strange huntress had made into a home. He noted that there was only one of everything, one chair, one plate, one set of cutlery. Everything looked like it was patched together with bits of parts. The cavern ceiling leaked drips of water into rusted buckets. The work bench had so many dents and cuts and appeared to stand on hopes and prayers. Her clothes were worn, the leather weathered, her boots scuffed. And yet despite all this, it looked like a home, or what could pass for one. The makeshift crystal lanterns and the layers of furs beneath him. She had tried to make it cosy.

“Y’live here alone?” he asked softly.

“Yes” she said.

If you can call it living.

“Y’not part of a human party that’ll take care o’ya?”

“No.”

“There not anyone?”

Artemis stared into the hearth as her hand absentmindedly went to the sapphire stone around her neck.

Not anymore…

He sensed she was no longer in the room with him and changed the subject. “Name’s Hodari, by t’way, Hodari Pavel of Pav-”

“The mines, yes. I know” she interrupted, still half in her own mind. “I’ve heard you working there before whenever I have needed to venture from the Elderwood.”

“So y’do leave this place. How come I’ve never seen you around?”

“Probably because I don’t want to be seen.”

“I see y’now” he said smugly.

“Because I’m letting you.”

“Ah, so you’re like a Proudhorn Sernuk, only letting glimpses be seen.”

She spun around to face him so fast it nearly made him jump. She wasn’t sure why she did it. What was she going to say to him? How much did he remember of the fight in the clearing? She knew she made a risk exposing her power to him like that, but she figured that after he passed out, he wouldn’t remember the fight.

“Y’got a name?” he asked, once again half pulling her out of her own mind.

“No” she said simply and turned around to face the embers in the hearth again.

“Ev’ryone’s got a name.”

She sighed. “Not one I’m willing to give you.”

As the fire caught, warmth crept back into the cave. She poured water into a dented tin cup and brought it to him, crouching at his side. He very gingerly sat himself up. When he reached for it, their hands brushed and again, that sharp, unfamiliar jolt passed through her. The heat of skin through the leather of her glove.

She drew back too quickly, almost spilling the cup.

“Drink,” she said, voice a hint of unsteadiness.

He obeyed, the faintest smile ghosting across his lips as he lowered the cup. “Y’ain’t used t’company” it was a statement, not a question, that southern accent thick in the words.

Her head snapped up, startled. “What makes you think that?”

“The way y’flinch.” His tone was gentle, not accusing. “Like the world might vanish if someone breathes too close.”

Artemis said nothing. She turned away again, the faint light from the fire tracing the scar beneath her mask, the pale violet shimmer of her exposed skin where her gloves didn’t reach.

Outside, the forest sighed. The long, slow exhale of the Elderwood waking.

Hodari leaned back against the rough stone, his eyes heavy but calm. “Whoever y’are,” he said quietly, “thank you.”

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The words tangled somewhere in her chest.

Instead, she busied herself with checking the wound to his shoulder. Leaning over him as she carefully undid the bandages from the night before. The metal beads in her braids clinked together as they swayed midair above Hodari.

He looked up, peering deep into her hood, trying to see beyond her mask while she wasn’t paying attention. The lighting wasn’t great in the cavern despite the lanterns and glowing lichen. There were no identifying features that he could see. She had hidden everything sufficiently. What in Maji could she possibly have to hide?

“You’re staring” she said as she finally pulled the old bandage away.

He suddenly averted his eyes and watched her gloved hands work at his shoulder. “I was gazin’.”

“Stop, you won’t find what you’re looking for.”

Straightening up, she walked over to the table and placed the old bandages on it. Once again grabbing the mortar and pestle to grind the same ingredients into. Dari cloves, emerald carpet moss, elderflower, and that viscous oil all ground into a paste. She walked back over with the mortar and fresh bandages before grabbing a fresh bowl of water to clean the wound again.

She worked in silence, hoping he wouldn’t try to strike up another conversation, but it seemed that at least for now, he was done with talking. He simply just watched her as she cleaned away yesterday’s salve, dried and crusted on his purple skin.

Hodari did his best not to wince and hiss in pain. He didn’t want this huntress to think that he was fussing. He’d had his fair share of injuries before, mostly from mining and mostly his back. He damn near spent every night with back pain, kept him awake so much that he kept needing Tamala’s tinctures. This was a different kind of pain though, deep. It sunk into his bones and his very being.

It dawned on him that it wasn’t the lesions that she was treating, but actually whatever infection those rabid Muujin had inadvertently passed onto him when they tore into his flesh. That was what was sinking deep into him, what was causing his fever. And why this stranger, who apparently never let anyone know she existed, had shown herself and saved him, was still saving him.

Without her, he would never have made it home to Najuma, and without her even now, he still might not. The invasive thought made his chest clench. He had been foolish to let himself become too engrossed in his task, to be oblivious to his surroundings. It was everything he had warned Najuma about. He suddenly felt a wave of guilt and anger at himself.

It was soon replaced by a different line of thinking.

How did she save me?

Bursts of memories flooded back to him. A flash of blue lightning and a figure in black blurring passed as it dove into the Muujin attacking him. More flashes of blue, the figure disappearing and reappearing in them. Dispel arrows flying in all directions, such ease and confidence from the archer. The archer teleporting down in front of him. An arm reaching out to him. The cloak, the hood, the mask… The archer being the huntress.

His eyes widened.

The huntress was now lathering the fresh salve onto his wound.

“How’d y’do that, in the clearin’?”

She froze for a split second but regained her composure, trying to play it off. She moved cooly, picked up the fresh bandages and continued her work. “Do what?”

“Y’know what” he said firmly.

She finished bandaging his shoulder again and sat back on her haunches. She studied him for the longest time. A part of her burned to tell him everything, for someone to know the truth, for someone to know her.

Dangerous, stupid.

She closed her eyes behind her mask and exhaled slowly, her scar stretching across her skin as her brows furrowed – struggling with her own thoughts.

“It’s not something I can explain” she said softly.

“Can’t? or won’t?”

“It’s… just… safer if I don’t.”

“Then m’leavin’” he started to try to stand, heaving himself onto his feet, using the cavern wall for all of the stability to stay upright.

She joined him in standing. “Stop, you’re not ready, you won’t make it 100 metres and the path back to Bahari is hard.”

“Y’got t’see this from my side of things. I don’t know you, y’won’t tell me y’name, y’covered head to toe and you teleport like a Proudhorn Sernuk.”

“Please…” she carefully guided him back down onto the bed of furs. “Yes, I can do that, but I can’t explain why. Know I am not a threat to you or your daughter though. And right now I am the only thing keeping you alive” her voice was going hoarse; she hadn’t done so much talking in years.

Hodari’s shoulder’s softened, he knew she was right. He was going to have to accept that answer for now. There was more to this, that he knew, but he had picked up on something she hadn’t anticipated on – fear. There was a slight shake in her voice. The only kind that’s present when you’re scared. Of what, he didn’t know, but it was clearly great. And she had clearly been hiding here for years, risked the safety she must have illusioned herself with to save his life.

He nodded and leaned back again.

Artemis stood again and carried the mortar and bowl of now dirty water back to the table.

“The fever has nearly broken, you’ll be able to leave in a day or two” she said.

But when she glanced back at him, his eyes were closed, his breath even, the smallest trace of trust in his face.

Something old and fragile stirred inside her. A memory of warmth. Of belonging. Of what it had cost her to lose both.

She pressed her palm against her ribs, as if she could quiet it.

This is safer, she reminded herself.

But for the first time in a decade, she wasn’t sure she believed it.

The next day, Artemis slipped into a rhythm so unfamiliar it almost unsettled her.

She rose with the dim Elderwood half-light, moving silently through the cave as she always did, stoking the fire, checking her traps, preparing whatever meagre meal the forest offered. But now, every quiet task carried a new awareness: there was someone else breathing in the room.

Hodari slept in long stretches, his body mending in deep, healing cycles. He healed slowly. Too slowly, in her opinion. At night, she could hear him shift and grit his teeth in the dark. She offered a pain potion. He accepted it with quiet gratitude.

He asked for nothing else.

But the cave changed simply by having him in it.

Majiri resilience ran deep, but so did their fevers. Each time he stirred, Artemis was already there with a damp cloth or a cup of herbal broth. She changed the bandages and reapplied the salve to keep fighting the infection. He didn’t question how she always seemed to know when he was waking. She didn’t question why she hadn’t left him alone for more than an hour at a time since dragging him through the Elderwood.

His fever broke fully in the second night; she had stayed awake to watch him. Now the lesions just had to heal enough for him to safely make the journey back to Bahari.

By the third morning, he managed to sit up without help, but still wincing.

“M’sturdier than I look,” he rasped when she nudged a cup of tea toward him.

She returned to the hearth to make her own. “You were unconscious for the better part of two days,” she replied, the faintest impatience edging her voice. “Sit still.”

He didn’t listen. He tried to stand. His knee buckled immediately.

Artemis caught him before he hit the floor. Blue sparks trailed behind her where she had teleported from the hearth over to the bed.

Her hands wrapped around his upper arms out of reflex, his bare skin was warm, against the weathered leather of her gloves. The glow of the runes on her mask the only thing visible beneath her hood. He sucked in a breath, startled. She let go instantly, stepping back as though burned.

“I told you,” she said, turning sharply toward the hearth. “Sit still.”

His quiet laugh followed her. It wasn’t loud. Not mocking. Just… amused. Gentle. It was a strange sound in her cave — warm in a place that had forgotten what warmth meant.

“Y’strong,” he said. “Stronger than y’look.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t know how.

His presence made the space feel smaller, the shadows softer, the fire warmer. He had a habit of humming under his breath when he was awake, quiet, low, a melody she didn’t recognize. It filled the silence in ways she wasn’t used to. Unsettling ways. She caught herself listening too closely.

The Elderwood rarely stirred with natural wind, but on the third night a cold draft slipped through the mouth of the cavern, despite it being covered with a curtain of foliage, and made the lanterns flicker. Hodari shivered, barely, but enough that Artemis noticed. She rose without thinking, adjusting the blanket around his shoulders.

He blinked up at her, surprised by the casualness of the gesture.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

The words were simple. Too simple. They sank into her, unsettlingly warm.

Her breath caught. Something in her chest tightened and loosened all at once. She turned away before the feeling could fully form.

“You should rest, miner” she said stiffly.

“Hodari, please” he said lying back. “What about you?”

She shrugged.

“Do y’ever sleep?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” she answered.

“That sounds like a lie.”

She ignored him. He smiled anyway.

“Sounds just like m’Juma.”

She froze. She didn’t turn around. She didn’t trust herself to.

“Rest” she said again.

Instead, she returned to her spot near the fire, close enough to hear his breathing, steady and alive.

For the first time in years, Artemis did not feel alone.

On the fourth morning, he managed to stand with only a slight tremor in his legs. Artemis watched him from across the cave, arms crossed in front of her, mask angled just enough to catch the faint glow of the lanterns.

“Looks like you’re mostly recovered” she said.

“Majiri bones are stubborn,” he replied, stretching carefully. “We don’t break as easily as humans.”

He watched for her reaction to the word human. She offered none.

But he didn’t miss the flicker — so faint he might have imagined it — of tension in her posture.

“So,” he continued carefully, “M’still in the Elderwood.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve been… takin’ care of me.”

“It would have been foolish to let an injured Majiri wander out into the forest alone.”

“Is that the only reason?”

Artemis paused, mid-motion as she reached for an herb jar. Her gloved fingers tightened on the lid. She didn’t answer, just replaced the jar to its place on the shelf.

Hodari didn’t press.

“I need to get back to m’daughter, now that I can” he said.

“I know, and you should. I don’t need that other hunter looking for you again and exposing my home” her voice sounded harder than it had the previous night.

His eyes softened, studying her as though seeing something she hadn’t meant to show.

“I owe y’thanks, huntress.”

“You owe me nothing, miner” she turned to him arms crossed.

A half smile. “Hodari, please.”

“Go back to Bahari, to your daughter, forget this place and forget about me.”

“But-”

“I mean it, forget it all. I don’t need more Majiri residents to find me. Leave and forget.”

Despite not being able to see her facial expressions, Hodari could hear in her voice that she was serious. He also detected a hint of fear in her tone. The prospect of being found truly seemed to terrify her, and it confirmed it for him then that she had risked a lot by saving his life and continuing to heal him. His eyes drifted to her work table, he saw her archery bracer, chewed up and mauled where she had fought off the Muujin. While her back was turned, he swiped it and stuffed it in his leather jacket.

“Y’might not want it, but y’do have my thanks, huntress” he said softly.

She kept her back turned to him, she wasn’t sure if it was because she was impatient with the goodbye or because she couldn’t bear to see him go.

“We’re hidden within the Deep Woods, go north, you’ll reach the door to Bahari.”

He walked out so carefully, shoulder still stiff, but stubborn enough to hide it, and paused at the threshold with that ridiculous, earnest gentleness. One last look. One last “take care of y’self.” As though the words were something fragile he was handing to her.

She allowed herself to turn to look at him. “Goodbye… Hodari…”

And then he was gone.

Artemis stayed standing where he’d left her, fingers still faintly curled as though the air might hold the shape of his presence. The quiet came down fast. Too fast. It pressed against her ears, her ribs, the back of her throat. Before he arrived, she had lived in silence without noticing it. Now it felt like something vast and hollow peeling open inside her.

She took a breath. It came out unsteady.

She turned away from the doorway before the ache behind her sternum could sharpen. She moved through the shelter out of habit, checking nothing in particular, adjusting tools already in place, straightening things that didn’t need straightening. Her gloves trembled faintly, so she stilled them on the edge of the table.

It shouldn’t be like this.

It hadn’t been like this before. She had lived here for years, alone, unseen, unbothered. Solitude had been a constant, her shield, her refuge, her punishment, her freedom. Now every breath tasted wrong, as though the air itself had changed shape around the absence he left behind.

She crossed to the bed where he’d slept. The furs still carried the weight of him, the faint heat of Majiri resilience lingering longer than human warmth ever would. Artemis reached out, then stopped short. Her hand hovered over the surface before she forced it back to her side.

No. She couldn’t allow that. Letting herself feel that echo would be dangerous.

She stepped away abruptly, pacing once, twice. The cavern felt too small. Or she felt too aware. The quiet tracked her every movement, heavy as a held breath.

It would fade. It had to.

Artemis braced both hands on the table and let her head drop between her shoulders. She breathed in the scent of moss and stone, the grounding smell of her own solitude. It should have comforted her.

It didn’t.

He had smiled at her when he left. Not a grateful smile, not a relieved one—something softer. Something that suggested he saw her as a person instead of a shadow in a hood and mask. That was the part she couldn’t seem to push away.

Idiot. He didn’t understand what she was, what she carried, what danger trailed behind her like a scent. The Order. The Cartel. The memory of bindings. The warning whispered by her parents, not to trust people, not to be seen, not to be found.

She straightened, forcing her breath steady.

This feeling—this ache—was a trick of proximity. Nothing more. She had let someone get too close because he’d been wounded and she’d been foolish enough to care whether he lived. It wouldn’t happen again.

Because it couldn’t.

The quiet settled deeper, colder. It wasn’t empty anymore—it was a verdict.

Artemis closed her eyes, letting the cavern’s stillness wrap around her like a mantle she hadn’t worn in days. It was heavier than she remembered. But it was familiar. Predictable. Safe.

She whispered it aloud, because the silence demanded something in return.

“This is safer.”

The words echoed faintly, swallowed by stone and mist.

And for now—she clung to them.

Chapter Text

It had been a few days since Hodari had returned from his misadventure in the Elderwood. Since he had been the patient of an untrusting huntress clad in black with fewer words to say than him. A huntress who moved in blue lightning like a Proudhorn Sernuk and just as quick to spook. A living ghost haunting the Elderwood rarely venturing from it. He thought back to every time he saw a flash of blue light thinking it was a Proudhorn and wondered how many times it had actually been the huntress.

When he had first arrived home, Najuma had run out of their house and barrelled towards him, only stopping once she had thrown her arms around his waist and thudded into him. His baby girl had been so worried about him, scared that he might never come home despite what Hassian had said. It made his heart heavy and his chest tight, but he had reassured her that he was fine and mostly recovered, and he would never scare her like that again. He had wiped away the tears forming in her eyes and pulled her into his waist for the tightest hug he could bear.

He also touched base with Hassian, who had asked entirely too many questions about the masked huntress and where she was keeping him. Hodari had been surprised by how he defensive he had been when explaining that the huntress wasn’t keeping him anywhere as if it was against his will, and she was actually healing him before he could move, all too happy when he was strong enough to leave. His other questions about who she was, where she lived, and if they needed to take action, Hodari tried to dodge and avoid answering completely. He wasn’t sure how much Hassian believed him, or how satisfied he was with the wishy-washy answers.

His shoulder still wasn’t fully healed, he had gone to see Chayne the day after he got back, Najuma had insisted on it. He didn’t like to see his daughter worry about him, that was his job, so he begrudgingly agreed.

Chayne had gone over the huntress’ handywork, assuming that it was Tamala that had created the salve that fought the infection from the rabid Muujin. Hodari didn’t correct him, the huntress wouldn’t want others to know that she existed. Chayne had added some stitches to the deeper lesions to make sure they were properly closed and able to heal faster before adding a proper bandage. He quietly scolded Tamala for the ripped-up pieces of cloth that had previously been used. And although Hodari felt defensive on the huntress’ behalf again, he stayed silent. Chayne sent him on his way with a caution not to overdo it in the mines otherwise he would rip the stitches. It would leave a scar but other than that he would be fine.

So now, he found himself in the mines, slowly chipping away at an iron vein, not making much progress thanks to his shoulder. He was avoiding going into Kilima for lunch and would do until this whole thing blew over. His presence had been missed, not only by his friends who wanted to know the story, but also the never-ending trail of humans with crushes, also wanting to know where he had been for days. He didn’t like to be rude, and he didn’t consider himself to be impolite, but it was all too much. The humans he could brush off, but Ashura and the others? That was more difficult. He didn’t like being centre of attention. It was best he avoided the gossip mongers for the time being.

Najuma had wanted to know all as well of course. Her wild fiery hair and big brown eyes gleamed with hopefulness at the tale. He hadn’t told her yet, always managing to find some excuse. He was too tired, too sore, he doesn’t remember much of it. He knew she would wear him down eventually though; she always did. He pondered why he didn’t tell her. His daughter was like him, kept herself to herself for the most part, didn’t like people and certainly wouldn’t tell them things if they were important enough to keep secret.

By Maji he knew she could keep things to herself…

He should have seen the survivor’s guilt sooner…

No.

That line of thinking had to stop. It was only going to serve to put a rift in their relationship again and he had worked too hard to try to be the father she deserved. He had his own guilt too, often wishing that it had been him instead of Leta, that it should have been him instead of Leta. Leta would’ve known what to do, how to raise their daughter without blundering through it all the time. She wouldn’t have been so overbearing and near ruined their relationship.

Stop.

Najuma loves you. She was in tears at the thought of you being gone too.
                He sighed and straightened up. No decent amount of progress was going to be made in the mines until his shoulder was back to full strength. He gathered his tools and what little ore he had mined and started the trek out of the mines and up the footpath towards his home.

He kept looking around, his eyes ever vigilant. He wasn’t sure why he was doing it; he never did before. Maybe he was hoping to catch a glimpse of something. He knew what something. A flash of blue. There was none. He was surprised to find that that disappointed him.

Shing Pa-Ting

His head snapped around in the direction he had heard the teleportation noise from. A grey Chapaa with a blue streak dove into a hole in the ground nearby.

His shoulders sagged and he grunted. “Damn Azure Chapaa.”

This was stupid, she had told him to forget about her. She was hardly going to come out to Bahari and make herself known now. Especially considering as he had no idea how long she had been hiding in the Elderwood before all of this. Or how often she ventured from the Elderwood into Bahari or Kilima for that matter.

He kicked a nearby stone and continued on his way home.

As expected, Najuma was there waiting for him, a hopeful smile on her face. She had made an attempt at dinner. A kind of meat a vegetable broth, it didn’t look awful he had to admit. He placed his bag next to the door as he strode in, and she skipped up to him giving him a big hug.

“N’what’s all this for, eh?” he asked, an eyebrow raised, already knowing the answer.

“I just didn’t want you coming home from work and overdoing it with house stuff to” she said innocently.

She walked over to the table where the pot of broth sat and started ladling it into bowls to serve.

“N’this has got nothin’ to do with you wantin’ t’know what happened?” he took a seat at the table with her, eyeing her suspiciously.

To her credit, she kept up the ruse. Sitting also and nonchalantly shrugging as she tucked into the meal.

“You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready. I know it was pretty scary for you.”

He sighed. “S’not that Spitfire… s’just…”

Her eyes shot up to him, big and wide.

“It’s just… s’kinda hard to talk about without-”

“It’s like a secret?” she asked. She always was as inquisitive as her mother.

“Yeah, Spitfire… a secret.”

“I can keep a secret, you know I can.”

“Yeah… I know y’can…”

She looked at him again with those pools of dark brown and this time he knew he would relent, may Maji forgive him.

“Look, if I tell y’this, y’really can’t tell anyone, not even Auni” he said.

“I promise, dad.”

He nodded. “Y’know how m’always tellin’ you the Elderwood isn’t safe n’d y’need to keep y’wits about you?”

She nodded.

“I didn’t. And I got attacked by rabid creatures” he took a breath, the memory that he thought he wouldn’t make it home washing over him. “But a huntress who lives in the Elderwood fought em off and saved me.”

“A huntress?!” Najuma had a spoonful hovering just in front of her mouth, suddenly fascinated. “How’d she do that?”

“M’still not entirely sure… but she moved like lightning n’d smoke…”

“Like a storm?”

“A what?” he stopped, stunned.

Najuma shrugged. “Lightning and smoke, kinda sounds like a storm.”

“Right… well yeah, anyway. She took me back t’where she lives in the Elderwood n’d made sure I stayed alive, made sure I could make it home to you, Spitfire.”

“So, is that the secret?”

“Partially, no one knows she exists. She doesn’t want people t’know. Only me and Hassian do, now you.”

“Sounds awful lonely.”

“It does” he said stiffly as he chewed on a chunk of meat.

“You thank her?”

“I did but… didn’t seem enough given ev’rything. She wants t’be alone, told me to forget about the whole endeavour.” He swallowed and shook his head. “Now y’know. Don’t go tellin’ people.”

“I won’t but I feel like we should do something more.”

Hodari reached into his leather jacket pocket and pulled out the mauled arm bracer.

“This was hers, got damaged in the fight. Didn’t look like she had access to a whole lotta stuff. I was thinkin’ I could repair it, but it looks beyond that.”

“Why don’t we make her a new one? You could take it to her” Najuma suggested as she finished her dinner.

Hodari smiled and ruffled her hair, getting a small cry of protest as he did. “Y’read my mind Spitfire.”

Hodari had another portion of the broth before he retired to his room. He had asked Najuma to draw up a schematic in her workshop for a new archery bracer that he could forge for the huntress. His daughter’s eyes had lit up at the prospect, and she had scampered off faster than a spooked Chapaa. He had told her it needed to be sturdy to withstand daily use and be able to hold up against the age of time. Najuma suggested he make it out of some of the platinum he mined when the attack happened. He would also blend in iron to strengthen it and make the colour darker to match the mysterious mask she wore.

It wouldn’t take long to make once Najuma had finished the schematic and then he could go and take it to her. The thought of leaving Najuma to venture into the Elderwood again gave him pause. He couldn’t tell Hassian the real reason he was going back, he was suspicious enough as it is, and Hodari knew he would be going against the huntress’ wishes by seeking her out again anyway.

He laid on his bed and exhaled deeply. Najuma would know not to follow him, and he knew she wouldn’t tell anyone about any of this. It was only a quick trip. Dropping off the bracer and leaving, it was his fault it got ruined in the first place. This was the least he could do for causing so much trouble for her.

Artemis watched through the window, crouched on the ridge opposite the house, at the miner and his daughter. The warm orange glow from the lights and the fire made the room look so inviting. It beckoned her to go in. Tempted her out of her solitude and into danger.

No. This was safer

Observing from a distance can be justified. Actively jeopardising her safety by introducing herself to society wasn’t.

He had had two servings of the meal.

Good.

If he hadn’t lost his appetite, then her work with the healing salve had done the trick. He wasn’t infected. The more he eats, the quicker the wound will heal too. He would be back to mining properly in no time.

She had been keeping an eye on him ever since he left her home. She knew it was foolish, and she knew it was risky. She had to know that he was going to be alright. Not because she cared about him, only that all she risked hadn’t been a waste.

The number of reports of “disco deer” sightings over the last few days had been greatly exaggerated by the human parties. She was nearly spotted so many times and had to teleport out of sight.

Once, as he adjusted the strap on his pack, he had paused and looked sharply up toward the cliffs, toward her vantage point. As if something had brushed his senses. As if he felt the weight of eyes. Artemis held still, breath tight in her throat. He couldn’t have seen her; the distance and the gloom shielded her well. Still, he lingered a moment, brow furrowed, before shaking the thought away and continuing down the shoreline.

She was nearly seen tonight too. That damn Azure Chapaa spooked so easily, alerting the miner to look in her direction. She was lucky to have disappeared before he saw anything too closely.

She had told him to forget about her, and it seemed he was doing exactly that. He was getting on with his life, as best he could while he was still healing. He was going to the mines, although he didn’t sound like he was able to do much mining. He continued to go into Kilima to have lunch at the Inn, even though again that stopped the last day or so. He took care of his fire-cracker of a daughter whenever she let him without too much fuss.

Good…

That is what she wanted. Wasn’t it?

Then how come she felt a twang of something heavy in her chest? It couldn’t possibly be disappointment. That would be ridiculous and stupid. She did the right thing by sending him away and telling him not to come back.

This would be the last time she watched him and his daughter. This would be the last time she checked on them both, made sure all was as it should be.

If her parents could see the risks she was taking, squandering their sacrifice, they would rain curses down upon her head.

Artemis straightened up. The wind whipped her cloak around her ankles and threatened to blow her hood down. She made sure to pull it low without obscuring her vision before turning to travel back to her isolation in the Elderwood. Her feet felt heavy and the road hard at that thought.

It had been a mistake to let a stranger into her shelter. The presence of another person after years of being alone had been intoxicating as much as it had been unsettling. She hadn’t spoken a word aloud since he had gone, and the silence felt deafening, something she was trying to get used to again.

The Elderwood greeted her with its usual hush, the kind that sank into the bones and made every thought sound too loud. Artemis slipped through the trees like a wraith, the Bahari wind still clinging to her cloak, smelling faintly of salt and warmth and something civilised she couldn’t name.

She tried to let the forest swallow it. To let its cool dampness wash away the imprint of lanternlight on her memory. But each step back toward her shelter only sharpened the contrast—Bahari’s brightness fading behind her, replaced by the violet gloom and shifting shadows that had once felt like safety.

That safety now felt… thin.

Inside the cavern, she lit the crystal lanterns and took off her mask and detached her cloak from the hood. The glow was just enough to illuminate the mask lying beside her tools, her mismatched eyes reflected the dancing lights, the scar casting a line of shadow across her blue one. She brushed her thumb over its textured vines, over the runes that only glowed when she wore it. It was ridiculous, how quiet the shelter felt. As if Hodari’s presence had rearranged the air, and its absence had left an echo.

Artemis shook the thought off and began checking her perimeter traps, testing snares, resetting bells. She worked with slow, precise motions, refusing to dwell on the sound of his laughter with his daughter—how strangely it had warmed her and hollowed her all at once.

She told herself again it was logical. Sensible. A wounded stranger had recovered and returned home. Nothing more.

She clicked her tongue softly in annoyance and retreated inside. The fire had burned low; she fed it a few thin pieces of wood and sat with her knees drawn up, cloak wrapped around her like a second skin.

The silence pressed in—not hostile, not comforting. Something in between. A mirror to the emptiness threading slowly through her chest.

She should be relieved. She was relieved. The miner’s recovery meant no more risk, no more proximity, no more chance of being seen too clearly. No more danger of slipping into something she couldn’t protect herself from.

This was good.

This was right.

She told herself all of it again, because apparently the first several times it wasn’t sinking in.

But as she finally lay down on her bed of furs, pulling the wool blanket around her tightly, the truth settled with a weight she couldn’t quite shake:

For the first time in ten years, the Elderwood felt lonely.

She stared at the cavern ceiling until her vision blurred, listening to the heartbeat of the forest in the roots and stones around her, waiting for it to feel like home again.

It was three days after she stopped following him that he came back. She nearly shot him.

The Elderwood steeped in its usual dim wash of violet light. Artemis was crouched high in the branches, resetting a snare, when the bells at the southern perimeter chimed once, clear, deliberate.

Not wind.

Not animal.

Her head snapped up and immediately she was on alert. She dropped silently to the forest floor, bow raised, breath held.

“H—hello?”

The southern accented voice was unmistakable. Deeper than she remembered, warmer, and—was he out of breath?

“Miner,” she hissed under her breath, lowering the bow before she could stop herself.

He was caught in one of her snares but eventually managed to extract himself. He stepped into view through the mist; hands raised in peace and nearly tripped over a root. “Sorry! I—uh—brought something. For you.”

She scowled from beneath her hood. “Why?”

He lifted a small box. “Y’used a lot of materials tendin’ t’me. Figured I should replace what I used” a beat. “And some leather scraps and iron nails. Figured y’might… use them.”

She stared. He beamed, hopeful.

She snatched the box out of his hands a little too quickly. He didn’t flinch, he just looked faintly pleased that she accepted it at all.

“Oh, n’d I made this for you.” He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out something wrapped in fabric. He unfolded the cotton sheet. An arm bracer sat in his palm made of dark platinum and black leather. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it appeared that he had tried to etch vines into the metal in attempt to match the vines on her mask. He held it out to her.

“I took your other one, it was destroyed. Used it to get the sizin’ right.”

She eyed the archery bracer and then him. If he could have seen beneath the mask, he would have seen conflict carved into every ounce of her features. An internal dilemma had overtaken all other processes in her mind. On one hand, she needed a new bracer, he was right, hers had been ruined. On the other, what were the obligations of accepting this? She didn’t want to be friends, couldn’t. Not safe. She also didn’t want to reject this act of kindness. Accepting a piece of equipment didn’t have to mean that she needed to interact with him much passed this conversation.

She sighed and this time slowly took it from him. “Thank you” she murmured.

A ridiculous smile. She rolled her eyes.

“Go home.”

“Right” he said, nodding. “O’course I’ll… do that.”

He did not do that.

The next time, he arrived carrying a bundle of wood and a repaired tool.

“I notic’d the handle was loose” he explained. “Thought I’d fix it before it broke.”

Artemis blinked at him from beneath the mask and hood. She hadn’t even noticed that the item was gone let alone loose. “I didn’t ask you to do that” she muttered.

“Y’didn’t have to” he held it out with both hands like an offering.

She took it only because he kept standing there with that earnest look, like rejection wouldn’t stop him, only delay him.

She retreated a few steps into the shadows of her shelter. “You need to stop returning. You have no reason to.”

“I know.” He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck with his good arm. “But I wanted to.”

Something tightened in her chest. Dangerous, unwelcome. She said nothing and threw back the curtain of foliage, closing the entrance of the cavern.

He laughed softly on the other side. “See you tomorrow, huntress.”

She clenched her fists raising them to her hood, pulling the top over her face completely and cursed into the fabric.

He didn’t come the next day, or the day after. She told herself that she didn’t care. That maybe he had finally listened to her.

Then the perimeter bells chimed on the third morning, and she nearly smiled, until she caught herself and forced her expression flat again. He appeared between the trees and shrubs with an armful of fresh-cut branches and a grin. Apparently his shoulder was better, the stack was resting against it.

“Y’firewood pile is embarrassingly low” he said.

“It’s fine” she huffed.

“S’tragic.”

“It’s sufficient.”

“It’s a cry for help.”

She glared. He grinned wider, those steel blue eyes gleaming.

She tried to stay silent, but the words slipped out anyway. “You’re insufferable.”

He blinked, then laughed, loud and delighted. “Ah. There t’is.”

“There what is?”

“Your humour.” He looked absurdly proud of himself. “I been tryin’ to get even a glimmer of it.”

Heat crawled up her throat beneath her mask. She turned on her heel. “Leave the wood and go.”

“Can I help stack it?” he asked.

“No.”

“…Can I help with anythin’?”

“No.”

“Can I-”

“Hodari” she whirled back around to face him, her gloved fists clenched by her sides, cloak settling back around her ankles.

He fell silent. For a moment, she thought she had finally scared him away. But instead, he just gave her a small, soft smile. Patient, steady. “I’ll be around” he said.

She watched him disappear into the mist. She waited until she was sure he was out of earshot before whispering, “Why?” The Elderwood gave no answer.

Over the next couple weeks, he kept returning. It became so occurrent that even Najuma started teasing Hodari about ‘visiting the huntress again’ and as he didn’t know her name, that was all he could call her.

He once came to her delivering another bag of nails. She hadn’t used the first load. Once with fish he insisted were “too many for one person”, even though he didn’t like fish at all. Another time with a hammer he claimed she “absolutely needed.” She did not. Artemis resisted him the way stone resists water, unyielding at first, but slowly, inevitably, worn down by gentle persistence.

She only answered him in short words at first. Then full sentences. Then, gods help her, she let him see her laugh. Teeth bared as she did, sharp incisors catching on her lower lip. It was quiet and fleeting, but it was real. Hodari didn’t celebrate when it happened. Didn’t tease. He just looked at her like something precious had decided, against all reason, to reveal itself to him.

And that was worse. Far worse.

Her guard slipped in tiny movements she couldn’t control. She let him see her fix a bowstring with elegant precision, let him hear her mutter under her breath, let him stand a little closer while he passed her a repaired lantern.

Not close enough to touch. Never that. But close enough that she felt the warmth of him through her cloak. Close enough that she could hear the uneven catch in his breath when she spoke softly.

Close enough that the Elderwood no longer felt quite so silent.

And she hated how easily she got used to it.

Chapter Text

Hodari continued to come to visit Artemis in the Elderwood. She no longer bothered to tell him not to, forgetting that he wouldn’t listen even if she did. There was now a part of her that no longer wanted to. The Elderwood felt far vaster and hollower when he was gone than it had ever been since before she saved him. The other part that continued to linger, deep under the surface, demanded to be heard.

This is a mistake.

It was too deep to heed though.

Hodari worked with a focus that was almost reverent, kneeling beside the warped wooden brace that held up part of her shelving. Artemis lingered near the doorway, half-in shadow, as if standing too close might shift something she wasn’t ready to examine.

The early Elderwood light filtered through the narrow gaps in the cavern roof, diluted, moss-soft, shimmering in suspended dust. It caught the beads of sweat on Hodari’s purple skin as he tightened a bolt, muttering something under his breath about “whoever built this thought moss counted as structural integrity.”

Artemis couldn’t help the quiet huff of amusement.

He looked up immediately, steel-blue eyes brightening at the sound.

“There it is,” he said, like he’d spotted a rare creature. “Thought I imagined you laughin’ the other night I was here.”

“I didn’t laugh,” she countered, too quickly.

Hodari grinned. “Y’did. T’was very small. But definitely real.”

She crossed her arms, trying for stern, but her lips betrayed her with another faint lift, aware enough not to part them. He turned back to the wood, satisfied.

This time he’d come with the excuse of “deliverin’ reinforced brackets”, which she strongly suspected he had made specifically for the sake of having another excuse and now he was “just makin’ sure they fit right.”

He hadn’t stopped talking since he arrived. Not rambling, just gentle, steady conversation that filled her home like a warm lantern glow.

“So,” he said as he adjusted another screw, “y’weren’t lyin’ y’actually live up here full-time. No neighbours. No… nothing.”

“Peace,” Artemis said. “I have that.”

He paused his work. “Do you?”

The question hung between them, too direct, too knowing. She looked away, scanning the treetops outside the cavern, pretending she hadn’t heard him. Hodari returned to tightening the brace, more carefully this time.

This is safer…

After a moment, she decided she would brave heading further in and crouched to examine the piece he’d finished. “Your repairs are… thorough.”

“Is that your polite way of saying ‘overbuilt’?”

“It won’t fall apart again,” she said. “That’s for sure...”

He smiled, softer than before. “Then you’re welcome.”

Artemis reached to test the edge of the new brace. At the same time, Hodari reached to brush sawdust from it. Their hands moved into the same space…

…close.

Too close.

His fingers were about to graze the back of her knuckles.

And Artemis recoiled like she’d touched fire.

It wasn’t dramatic. It was small. A breath-fast withdrawal. A shift of weight backward that most people wouldn’t notice.

But Hodari did.

His hand stopped mid-air. Not freezing, just pausing, then lowering gently as if respecting a boundary without making her feel exposed. His expression didn’t close off, and it didn’t pity her. It simply… understood.

“Sorry,” he murmured, voice low, warm. “Didn’t mean to crowd you.”

“You didn’t,” she replied, too quick, too clipped.

He gave her a look, not challenging, not pushing, just quietly accepting the truth she wouldn’t say aloud.

Artemis shifted again, grounding herself with a slow inhale. “I just… don’t like being surprised.”

“That’s alright.” Hodari resumed adjusting the bracket, more deliberate this time. “We can take things slow.”

Her stomach tightened.

“We?” she echoed.

He didn’t look up, but his smile curved enough to tell her he’d chosen his words carefully. “Talkin’. Bein’ around each other. Whatever this is.”

“Like friends?”

“Of course,” he said. “I’d even like it if y’would leave the Elderwood n’d join me in Bahari. I know ‘Juma would love t’finally meet you.”

Artemis couldn’t form an answer.

But she found herself sitting down nearby, not close enough to touch, not far enough to be distant. Just… nearby. Watching him work. Letting the silence settle without needing to fill it. Letting him be here.

And Hodari, for his part, spoke softly about trivial things, the stubbornness of certain ores, the new fishing spot Ashura showed him even though he doesn’t like fish, how he keeps burning breakfast even though he swears he followed the instructions.

Nothing heavy. Nothing dangerous. Just conversation. Just presence.

Just the slow, patient rhythm of two lives brushing together, cautiously, quietly, but undeniably moving closer.

It had been a few days since Hodari’s last visit. He had said now that his shoulder was completely healed, he needed to get back in the mines and work on the backlog of orders that he had missed whiles out of commission.

The silence of the Elderwood was creeping into her bones again, making her unsettled. She hated that it felt more like that lately than the quiet safety it used to feel. The silence and safety were at war with each other, and she was stuck in the middle.

Artemis kept thinking about his last visit, how their hands nearly touched and the reaction she had had from it. His words also rattled around her mind, refusing to be forgotten.

“I’d even like it if y’would leave the Elderwood n’d join me in Bahari.”

It was intended to be an open invitation, she knew this. One thing about Hodari that could be said was that he didn’t mince his words. He meant what he said and said what he meant. It was risky enough as it was to leave the Elderwood on her normal excursions to Bahari and Kilima, and that’s when she was actively sneaking. This wouldn’t be that though. He wanted to see her and for her to be seen.

Dangerous.

Stupid.

But…

But he had already seen her in the Elderwood multiple times, what would the difference really be in Bahari, honestly? She had gone to Bahari before, and Kilima which arguably was riskier. As far as she knew, only he and his daughter lived on that side of Bahari. Not like the village where everyone was. And she would still have her mask on and her hood up, naturally. It wasn’t like she’d be dumb enough to remove them while anyone was around.

She took a breath and stood from where she was sat in front of the hearth. She grabbed her cloak from the hook that Hodari had made on one of his many excuses to visit and attached it to her hood. As she snatched up her bow, she slung it over her shoulder and pulled her hood up over her head.

The walk through the Elderwood to the door to Bahari was more anxiety inducing than usual. This time it was different, the reasons were not out of necessity but out of desire. She could hear her parents’ voices whispering like smoke through the branches. It seemed even the Elderwood didn’t think this was a good idea. She ignored it all and pushed through the eeriness of the overgrowth.

Once through the door, she was hit with that cool sea breeze. The light of the day hurt her eyes, and she pulled her hood lower to allow her eyes to adjust from the dark murk of the Elderwood, to the bright rays of Bahari.

Birdsong filtered across the sky as she walked, and all manner of bugs flitted across the fields to settle on flowers. It was so much warmer here than in the Elderwood. Perhaps a little too warm, she could feel the skin on her arms and back becoming slick where her gloves didn’t allow her skin to breathe and the layers of tunic, corset and cloak offered little relief either. Any other person would have taken the layers off, however she did not. So, when she reached the shade and cool air of the mines, she was more than thankful for the reprieve from the glaring sun.

Artemis wasn’t sure where Hodari would be. She didn’t know his routine like he knew hers. Not that her was difficult to work out or remember, safest bet for him to find her was in the Elderwood, usually somewhere in the Deep Forest.

She traipsed through the mines, being sure to stick to the shadows and allow them to envelop her. Listening out for the tell-tale sign of metal against stone. She didn’t hear anything, so ventured deeper within. She saw the scores on the walls from years of persistence at stubborn veins. The air was moist the further in she went, cooler, it was a great relief from the harsh heat of the sun. She passed the pool of water where she had been nearly caught bathing, by Hodari oddly enough. She could feel the heat in her cheeks rise at the memory.

Then she heard the all too familiar rhythmic chnk chnk chnk coming from one of the shafts. Artemis followed it down. Hodari had his back to her, working hard at a piece of iron ore. His leather jacket lay neatly over a rock, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up revealing big arms and broad shoulders, the muscles flexing with every swing.

Artemis stayed in the shadows and watched as he paused to wipe his brow with the back of his glove. He looked around behind him, right in the direction of her hiding spot. She held her breath, wondering if he knew she was there or whether he was just more alert since the attack.

His side smile told her all she needed to know. “That you, huntress?”

She stepped out of the shadows and into view. “There’s no way you knew I was there, I was hidden” she said, maybe a little too defensively.

“Darlin’ I know these mines. I know when the air changes with another presence.”

She tilted her head, and he stopped in his tracks, realising what he had said and stammered to back track.

“I mean… er” he rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make y’uncomfortable, s’just I dunno y’name.”

“It’s alright, miner” she replied, a ghost of a smile on her lips as she walked closer to him.

“Didn’t think I’d see y’out here, y’came all this way t’see me?”

“Against my better judgement… I did.”

There was that ridiculous yet shy smile again, she hated how it warmed her chest to see it.

“Y’should come back with me, I was just finishin’ up anyway.”

She took a deep, steadying breath and nodded. This was the reason she had come after all. She waited as he gathered up his jacket and shook it on, he swung the pickaxe up to rest on his shoulder before he began leading the way out of the mines.

“Y’coming huntress?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his tone.

With little encouragement, she followed. Her head continuously looking around in case of humans passing through the mines. This nervousness only seemed to be exacerbated when they were out in the open air of Bahari, walking freely on the path. She felt too exposed and was constantly checking her mask was fixed and her hood was up, and her cloak was pulled around her, with every few steps they took.

“Relax, darlin’” he said eyeing her cautiously. “I’ll tell ya if anyone is comin’, you’ll be able to zap outta sight.”

Twice, in as many minutes.

She wanted him to stop.

No, she didn’t.

It was familiarity she wasn’t comfortable with. It needed to stop.

“Huntress is fine” she said.

It wasn’t though. She wanted that familiarity but that was a step too far, a step she wasn’t going to allow herself. Venturing to visit him was far enough.

They continued up the path, tall ridges on either side of them. It wasn’t long before Artemis heard blunders of footsteps and movement in the distance. Before Hodari could warn her that people were coming, she had already disappeared in a flash of blue, out of sight, high on the ridge. A human slowed to a stop in front of Hodari looking around at the remnants of the lightning streaks.

“Did a disco deer just go by?” the human asked.

Hodari gave them a blank expression. “A what?”

“Disco – a Proudhorn” the human replied.

Hodari instantly clammed up. “Can’t say I saw anythin’.”

Artemis nearly smiled from where she was crouched, watching the interaction below.

“Somethin’ y’need?” Hodari asked the human.

“Uh, yeah, uh…” the human pulled out a box of chocolates and tried handing it to him.

This is when Hodari went from clammed up to becoming rigid and awkward, and Artemis tilted her head in curiosity at the change in demeanour.

“Look…” Hodari began. “I appreciate the gesture… s’just m’not lookin’ for anyhin’ like that. Najuma’ll think m’replacin’ her mum and I dunno if I can give m’heart to another right now.”

The human looked downtrodden, putting the box away, their cheeks flushed and they stepped back.

“Of course, Hodari… I didn’t mean to push our friendship too soon. Have a good day.”

Hodari nodded in response, no further words needed, and the human back away completely before turning tail and running back in the direction of Kilima. He then looked around, searching the tops of the ridges assumably for Artemis. She teleported back down next to him in that same flash of blue once she was sure the coast was clear.

“Welcome back” he said.

She nodded in response and they continued walking. There was silence between them and for a while neither of them felt the need to fill it. Artemis allowed herself to enjoy the rays of sunlight that she soaked up, the sound of gulls coming from the cove and the buzzing sound of the bugs flitting passed. The interaction with the human gnawed at her and she felt the need to break the silence to satisfy her curiosity.

“What was it that human was trying to give you?” she asked, as casual as if it was a normal question.

“You don’t know the significance of a box of chocolates?” he asked in return and eyed her. She offered no reaction that he could discern was recognition about any of it, just a look of indignance, and then he realised that if she had spent all her time away from people then, no she probably didn’t. “No, I suppose y’wouldn’t…” he took a breath. “It’s a gesture, t’show interest in someone romantically.”

“And by accepting them, it means you’re interested?”

“Somethin’ like that, yeah.”

“But you did not accept them.”

“No, I didn’t” he said stiffly.

She tilted her head. “Because of Leta.”

Hodari stopped in his tracks, stunned.

“You mumbled a lot in your unconsciousness” she said simply sensing his change. “Mentioned her a lot, it’s alright miner, we have all lost people we loved.”

They reached his house without exchanging many more words. This was when Artemis began to slow her pace and drag behind. All of a sudden, she wasn’t sure about her decision making. It dawned on her that his daughter would be there, and although Hodari had basically told her that his daughter knew about her, that didn’t make the uneasy feeling any less heavy.

Hodari strolled into his house and removed his pack to hang on a hook on the wall. Artemis hung in the doorway, not venturing further. It was like crossing the threshold meant she was crossing all boundaries she had instilled for herself for the last decade. By crossing the threshold, she was letting go of all of that and allowing entry to the desires she had kept buried and locked deep inside herself. Entering the acceptance of friendship and the possibility of belonging and family and freedom.

“Y’can come in” Hodari’s signature accent pulled her from her thoughts, at the right time, like he knew.

This isn’t safe.

She stepped into the house and stood there for a moment. Nothing happened. No one ambushed her. She stepped in further. Still nothing.

Hodari eyed her movements intently. He didn’t try to get closer, didn’t try to convince her into coming in more than she was ready, didn’t tell her to make herself at home. He simply gave her the space to work out what she was comfortable with, and his gaze softened in that patient way. She would figure it out.

Her eyes were wide beneath her mask, darting to all corners of the room, her breath shallow and fast. She was okay, she could do this. It was just a house. Just someone else’s house, a friend’s house.

Friend… I have a friend… And friends won’t hurt me.

Her shoulders lowered the more tension eased out of them. She made her way further in and settled in the same vicinity Hodari was in.

“Thought y’might turn tail n’d run for a second there, huntress” he said with a playful smile.

“I figured the likelihood of something jumping out of the sofa to attack me was slim” she replied returning his smile, her lips pressed together.

He let out a laugh and slapped his thigh. “Nothin’ so dangerous in here, huntress” he leaned forward putting the side of his hand against his mouth. “Unless you count Najuma’s explosives.”

Now it was her turn to laugh, small and controlled, but still a laugh. “Where is she anyway?”

He walked towards the back of the house, and she slowly followed him. He gestured to the dining table and chairs, but she opted to stay standing in the doorway of the room.

“She’ll be along in a minute, she don’t like me callin’ her home, likes her freedom.”

“I can understand the sentiment, living in the Elderwood gives me that, means I’m not tied to one of these plots you mentioned.”

“Does it?” he asked, matter of factly. He eyed her reaction as she crossed her arms and bristled where she stood. “All I mean is, must get lonely not being around your own kind.”

She uncrossed her arms and placed them by her sides. “You know nothing about my kind.”

“Forgive me, I meant no offense” he said gently. “I’m not so good with talkin’.”

Her demeanour softened again and she nodded.

“Y’thirsty? Hot day today.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond. He knew she would be, having traipsed through Bahari in this heat. Damn, he was thirsty just walking to and from the mines in this heat in his loose-fitting clothes, let alone her in all the leather and black.

He poured her a cup of cool water and walked over to her, keeping his distance, and reached out to hand it to her. The cup was made of clay and looked old judging by the discolouration. She extended her arm and took it to sip from it slowly, a hint of relief spread across her mouth. Not one for voicing her needs yet, clearly.

“Look like y’needed that” he said.

She nodded.

“You walk all the way here, or did y’use that teleport power o’yours?”

She eyed him suspiciously. “I walked.”

“Suppose it would get more tirin’.”

“Not even. If the wrong people knew what I could do, they would seek to control me for it… perhaps worse…” she trailed off.

“Hey, s’okay… I ain’t pryin’, just curious is all” he said softly.

That explained a small piece of the enigma that was the huntress, her fear of being controlled ruled her entire life. It was something he had guessed without her saying it, but it didn’t really solve anything else of the riddle. This alone couldn’t possibly have created the woman before him. It couldn’t possibly have meant that she would rather isolate herself from the world in the most dangerous part of it. It couldn’t be the sole reason she avoided people and trusted the creatures in the Elderwood more than them. It couldn’t be the reason she became cold and prickly whenever a nerve was struck. There had to be something more.

Little conversation was had after that. Artemis didn’t want to feel the need to fill the silence and Hodari just watched her coming to grips with her surroundings and giving her all the time she needed to relax in them. She was quietly thankful for this.

Once she felt less on edge, she realised that the sun was beginning to set. Hodari recognised her body language and knew her well enough to know that she was going to leave.

“I’ll walk y’back to the Outskirts door, if you’d like the company?” he asked, more than a hint of hopefulness in his tone.

“I think… I’d like that” she replied, almost without thinking.

The pair of them began to head for the front door and then Najuma came home. Hodari, who was leading the way, stopped dead and Artemis nearly walked into his back. Najuma looked up at her father with her big brown eyes and then passed him at the stranger in black, their face hidden, only a few ashen braids clearly visible.

Her eyes suddenly lit up. “She came!”

“That she did, Spitfire. Didn’t even know she was m’self” Hodari awkwardly stepped to the side revealing Artemis completely. Despite her athletic stature, his frame still mostly engulfed her.

Najuma stepped forward shyly. “N-nice to meet you, finally” she said.

Artemis turned her head to look at Hodari who just nodded in encouragement, she turned back to the Majiri child and tried a soft smile that didn’t bare teeth.

“And you, your father talks about you often during his unwarranted visits.”

“Unwarranted or unwanted?” Najuma replied.

The smile widened, her mouth still closed. “Quite.”

“Feel outnumbered ‘ere” Hodari grumbled.

“Don’t be so salty, miner. If you step in another one of my snares stumbling your way to my home, next time I’ll leave you there” Artemis said dryly but with more than a hint of humour.

“Oh, ha ha” he grumbled again, this time folding his arms in a slight huff.

Najuma giggled and a breath of surprise crossed Hodari’s brow for a moment before furrowing back together.

“You’re heading back to the Elderwood now?” Najuma asked.

The huntress nodded.

“Will you come back soon?”

Artemis faltered, she hadn’t planned on making this a regular thing. This was a one off out of pure curiosity. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to come again.

No.

Stupid. Dangerous. But…

But, occasionally? Surely that would be okay. It wouldn’t be a daily occurrence. She wouldn’t let it get that far.

This isn’t safe.

“I will endeavour to try” she said.

Najuma reserved any reaction other than a timid nod. She stepped out of the way of the door, her hands gathered up in front of her.

“Goodbye…” Najuma tried a little smile.

Hodari walked over to her and ruffled her fiery hair. “M’takin’ the huntress to the door, I’ll be back to make dinner.”

“Okay, dad. Please be safe.”

“He’ll be fine, I’ll be there” said Artemis with a cocky grin as she walked out of the house.

Hodari went to protest but just sighed knowing that this wasn’t a protest he could win. He winked to Najuma before he followed Artemis out.

The sun was beginning to set bringing warm orange and red hues cascading down from the cliffs and into the valley. They were heading back towards the mines, presumably to cut through them and the Flooded Fortress. It was cooler but not by much, the breeze had picked up making it feel a lot less stifling.

“I didn’t want to mention anything back at the house, but your daughter’s leg…”

Hodari’s jaw clenched and he swallowed thickly to loosen it. “There was an accident, many years ago. A cave in at the old mine.”

Artemis didn’t say anything, she felt she needed to let Hodari tell her whatever amount he was comfortable with.

“Took more than just m’Juma’s leg…”

“Leta.”

Hodari nodded.

“I’m sorry, Hodari” she said gently. “I’m not the best at empathy, being alone does that, but I know that must have been extremely difficult for you.”

He shrugged nonchalantly, but grief was etched in every movement. “S’like you said, we’ve all lost someone we loved” he eyed her cautiously for any indication of anything.

She gave none.

They entered the mines beginning their cut through. They appeared darker than before now that the sun was going down. Hodari moved through them like a cat with dark-vision, his steps light, barely making a sound. They were his mines, of course he knew where to step and the complete layout even in the dark.

For Artemis it was a different situation, the dimmer light combined with her vision being impaired by the mask and hood normally meant her visibility was at an all time low. Unlike the Elderwood, this was foreign territory, and she stumbled and blundered her way through. Similar to how he did, trying to find his way around the traps, snares and bells of her perimeter.

Hodari refrained from making any comments about it, but it amused him to see her out of her element for a change.

A plank Artemis stepped on snapped underfoot and she lost her balance. She staggered. Lost her footing entirely and started falling towards the edge of a sheer drop.

She gasped, too stunned to trigger a teleport.

A hand whipped out.

Grabbed her arm.

Hodari stepped forward, his other arm wrapping around her waist, enveloping it. Pulled her close to him.

Pulled her right up against him, the exposed skin of her cheek brushing against his jawline.

For a heartbeat, the world froze.

Artemis’s breath lodged in her chest, sharp and painful. Every instinct in her screamed to get free, not from danger, but from the closeness, the contact, the raw warmth of another person pressed against her. Her body went rigid in his hold, muscles coiling as if she might vanish straight through the floor just to escape being touched.

Hodari didn’t tighten his grip, didn’t trap her.
He just held her steady. Solid, grounded, real.

“Easy, huntress” he murmured, voice low beside her ear. His breath stirred the loose strands of her hair. “I’ve got you.”

Those three words cut deeper than the fall would have.

He turned his head, daring to look at her this closely. Despite the darkness, he caught a glimpse of her eyes beneath the eye-holes of her mask, a flash of two colours. He turned his head again like he’d been burned by something he shouldn’t have seen.

She swallowed hard, heat flaring at her throat, her pulse thundering against the inside of her skin. She could smell the faint mineral tang of ore dust on him, the warm spice of whatever tea he’d had that morning, the clean scent of the ocean still clinging to him from Bahari.

Too much.
Far too much.

“I—” Her voice cracked, barely a sound. She couldn’t look at him; she stared somewhere over his shoulder, anywhere but his eyes. “Let go. I’m fine.”

Hodari’s arms loosened at once. Not abruptly, gently. Carefully. As if he knew any sudden movement might shatter something delicate she didn’t want him to see.

He didn’t step back far. Just enough that she had space again. Enough that the imprint of his touch stayed ghosted along her skin.

“Y’almost went over,” he said, not chastising, not smug. Just shaken in a quiet way, concern flickering across his features.

Artemis forced her feet to steady beneath her, though her legs still trembled faintly from the adrenaline. “I had it under control.”

A slow exhale escaped him, disbelief, affection, and a touch of amusement woven together.

“Sure, y’did.”

She bristled, but she couldn’t muster a proper glare. Her heart was still pounding too violently, her thoughts too scattered.

He reached out, very slightly, as if offering to help her straighten herself. Then he paused mid-gesture, remembering the way she flinched earlier. His hand hovered in the empty space for a moment before he drew it back.

Artemis felt the absence more keenly than the touch.

She cleared her throat, looking anywhere but him. “Thank you,” she said quietly, the words tasting unfamiliar on her tongue. “For… catching me.”

Hodari’s expression softened, warm, earnest, utterly unguarded.

“Anytime,” he said.

And the worst part, the part that hit her like a second fall, was that he meant it.

The rest of the walk was done in silence, and by the time they reached the door to the Elderwood, the sun had half set behind the cliffs creating a gentle twilight in The Outskirts. Lantern bugs were emerging and created floating beacons of light that scattered around.

Hodari stopped a metre from the door and Artemis stopped just before it and turned to look at him.

“Thank you for comin’ t’visit today” he said. “I know it meant more to Najuma than she let on. She’s a shy kid, but she likes you, I can tell.”

Artemis didn’t know what to say, so she simply nodded. Hodari nodded back, lingering when he knew he should let her leave.

“Goodbye, huntress…” he murmured.

He turned and started walking back in the direction of the south side of Bahari.

She resisted the urge to step forward before he got too far away.

“Artemis.”

Hodari stopped dead, turned back.

“My name… is Artemis” she said softly. “Artemis Vaelari…”

A smile, deep, warm and honoured settled widely on his face.

“Artemis…” he rolled the syllables off his tongue, holding onto each one like they were a fragile gift, given only to him. “The old human goddess of the hunt, wilderness and wild animals… suits you beautifully.”

He allowed himself to gaze at her a little longer, like seeing her in an entirely new way. She had entrusted him with something she held close to her, something he doubted anyone else knew, offered it with the same care one might use to uncover a blade, slow, deliberate, knowing its weight.

He waited for her to walk through the door to the Elderwood and disappear from his sight before he restarted his journey.

Her name tumbled around his mind the entire trip home. He felt it settle in his chest, altering something he wasn’t ready to name.

Chapter Text

The Elderwood had a way of swallowing time, but Artemis felt every day of the past week like a stone added to her chest.

Since that night. Since her name left her mouth and entered someone else’s care.

She had expected the forest to mend the wound she’d opened, expected distance to settle her nerves, to cauterize the reckless warmth she’d let spark between them.

It hadn’t.

If anything, the cavern felt colder for his absence. The silence ringed sharper. Even the Flow-light seemed dimmer, as though the forest itself knew she’d done something irreversible.

She curled her knees to her chest, chin resting on them, staring at the faint glow of the lanterns she’d crafted years ago. She should go back to the world she knew. The rhythm she knew. Hunting. Repairing. Surviving.

Being no one. Being safe.

This is safer.

And yet the words trembled now, the edges frayed with something perilously close to longing.

Artemis forced herself into routine.

She rose with the eerie seep of morning, as the Elderwood defined it, stoked the fire, checked her traps, scouted the perimeter. Every movement was measured, efficient, the familiar patterns meant to steady her heartbeat and settle her thoughts.

But nothing sat right.

Her steps felt half a beat off, her breath too shallow, her fingers clumsy when they had never been clumsy. The forest seemed to notice, the lichen-glow muted, the windless air stiller than usual, as if even the Elderwood withheld something from her.

Late that afternoon, while she was resetting a snare near the cliff edge, a sound drifted through the trees.

Laughter.

Not close, but not far either, thin, carried strangely through the roots. A pair of voices, bright and soft, unmistakably human. Artemis froze, breath catching on the hook of it. Laughter was a sound she had only really started to experience again, and only Hodari’s. After years she almost forgot how to imagine, much less hear it.

It hit harder than she expected. A crack beneath the ribs. Sharp and hollowing. She stayed crouched until the voices faded into nothing. Only then did she move again, hands steady but pulse unsettled.

That night, exhaustion dragged her under quickly. The cavern warmed around her, firelight flickering against the stone. She drifted into a dream before she could fight it.

A carriage.

Ancient wood. Flow-gold trim.

The snap of reins.

Sernuk Hooves striking earth.

Her mother’s hand slipping from hers as she was pushed away.

Her father’s voice, low and fierce, “Run, Artemis, run now!”

The dream broke like glass. She jolted upright, breath ragged, a cold sweat clinging to her temples. The cavern was silent except for her heartbeat, pounding like a warning against her ribs. She pressed her palms to her eyes, grounding herself, making sure the world hadn’t shifted back to that day. It hadn’t. She was alone. Safe. Hidden.

This is safer.

She repeated it until her breathing slowed.

But something in her chest tugged, restless and disobedient. The memory of Hodari saying her name, careful and reverent, slipped through the cracks she was trying to seal. She exhaled sharply, frustrated with herself. With this. With him.

She stood. Not with a plan. Not even with clarity. But because sitting still suddenly felt unbearable.

Artemis crossed the cavern to her gear. She checked her bowstring, tightened the strap on her quiver, slipped the dagger back into its sheath. She fixed her mask in place, attached her cloak to her hood, pulled it low over her head. Her hands moved without thought, guided by something deeper, quieter, more reckless than she wanted to admit.

She took one step toward the exit. Stopped. Swallowed. She wasn’t going to Bahari, she told herself that firmly, deliberately. She was only… making sure the perimeter was secure, and perhaps expanding it, and perhaps making sure the forest still felt like hers.

Only that.

But her heart didn’t believe her. Not even a little.

Still, Artemis stepped into the rising day, the Elderwood mist curling around her like an old, knowing friend.

She wasn’t ready to see him again. She wasn’t ready to want to.

But she was moving. And for the first time in days, she knew exactly where she was going. So, it was no surprise to her when she found herself on Honeymiel Slope, and then directly in front of the door to Bahari.

It wasn’t to see him. It wasn’t. She just wanted something other than Ogopuu to eat. She would hunt a Sernuk and maybe even collect a few oysters to grill and then she would go back. She wouldn’t venture to the south side, and she wouldn’t risk being seen by anyone. She’d stay away from the mines. She’d stay away from that little house by the wall of the Flooded Fortress.

The forest spat her out onto the sun-bright Outskirts. The sea breeze struck her like a slap, clean and cool, a shock after a week wrapped in Elderwood damp. It should have been refreshing, instead it made her feel exposed.

Proudhorn Pass was rich with game, and Coral Shores was crawling with shellfish and critters that fetched good trade, if she traded, and the open terrain was useful for practicing long-range shots.

That was all.

She loosened her shoulders beneath the cloak, adjusted the mask. The surf hissed below. Sernuk moved in the distance. Her bow fit comfortably in her hands again. She tried to lose herself in the familiar rhythm, spot, breathe, aim, release, and for a time, she managed. Her arrow struck cleanly. Another followed. She harvested quickly, efficiently, movements quiet and practiced. By all accounts, it should have felt like any other hunt.

But the entire time, her ears strained for distant voices. Her eyes drifted, too often, toward the cliffs that dipped south-west. Her steps carried a faint pull; a gravity she did not consent to.

By midday the sun was climbing, warm against the black weave of her cloak. She wiped sweat from her brow and looked up, realizing she had drifted far from the shoreline.

Too far.

The slope ahead was familiar. Dark stone, dry brush, the faint tang of iron carried by the wind. Somewhere beyond this crest, the land dipped into the winding path toward the mines.

Her stomach tightened.

Turn back. Hunt the Lagoon. Take your kill and return home.

This is safer.

She angled her body toward the sea. Took three steps.

Stopped.

She clenched her fists and looked down at her feet, already turned toward the path leading inland.

“Ridiculous,” she whispered to herself, the word flat beneath her hood. But she didn’t turn back.

Instead, she moved silently up the ridge, keeping low, letting shadow and rock swallow her shape. A hunter’s movements. A ghost’s movements.

She wasn’t here for him. She wasn’t. She only needed to check something. Anything.

Everything.

The ridge opened into a view of the winding road that led toward the mines. She followed along the top until she was looking down at the entrance to them, stayed low, unseen. The sun at her back. The distance was safe, too far for anyone to see her unless they knew exactly where to look.

There he was, the miner, stood outside his mines, talking to a freshly materialised human, probably giving them tips to improve their skill. She crouched, rested an arm on her knee keeping her bow firmly in her other hand, and watched a world she still told herself she didn’t miss.

The human handed him something that looked like a plank of wood, likely for repairs. Heat rushed to Artemis’ cheeks with the memory of his closeness a week ago. His arm enveloped around her waist, her body pressed against his, her skin brushing his. Her grip tightened on her bow, and she shook her head to dislodge the feelings coming with the memory.

How could she have been so careless with where she was walking? Had the Elderwood taught her nothing about being light-footed? Why did she let him hold her for the length of time she did before telling him to let go of her?

The answer was simple, yet she wasn’t sure if she was ready to accept it. Because she wanted connection… after ten long years, she was latching onto something that she subconsciously had been sorely lacking. Now she had a taste of it, her subconscious was making itself more known and driving her to be more impulsive.

Reckless.

Stupid.

Dangerous.

Necessary…

Her breath caught with the sting of it, and she gritted her teeth against the incoming wave of conflict that toiled around inside her again at her decision making.

She could easily go down and talk to him, ask him why he hadn’t come to see her since… Easily tell him she missed his visits despite her repeatedly telling him not to before. He hadn’t listened then, surely, he wouldn’t have started now. That was before she had told him something she hadn’t said aloud for a decade. What did she have to be afraid of? He had smiled, knew what it meant which was surprising in and of itself, told her it suited her beautifully…

Fear was stopping her, fear of the past.

She closed her eyes against the memories that threatened to flood her mind, as if simply shutting out her sight would shut everything else out.

“Artemis?” said a voice from behind her.

She whirled, bow notched and ready. Her eyes widened beneath her mask, and she lowered it instantly when she saw Najuma stood meekly several paces from her.

“Najuma…” Artemis breathed. “Forgive me, I didn’t hear you come up behind me.”

“Too busy stalking my dad” she replied like she wanted to tease her but was too shy to put any real effort behind it.

Artemis let out an amused breath. “I wasn’t stalking, I was…” she searched for a reasonable explanation. “Just making sure… he had in fact fully recovered.”

“You’re not so great at lying.”

Artemis walked over to her slinging her bow across her shoulders. “I’m better than you think” she looked at the small Majiri girl, her hands gathered in front of her. “Your father told you my name.”

Najuma nodded. “He was pretty happy about it, at least I think he was happy. He told me but said I had to keep it a secret, bit like your existence, that you prefer to hide.”

Artemis stood a little straighter tried to brush off the misconception of preferring when in reality it was needed.

“He’s very open with you” she said.

“He’s trying to be… I think it’s an attempt at not wrapping me in padding” Najuma replied.

“I’m sure he has his reasons.”

“The reasons are ridiculous” she said beginning to get animated. “He thinks that keeping me away from the mines and the Elderwood is going to keep me safe, but I want to be in the mines with him. It’s my path.”

Artemis tilted her head. “Perhaps he is worried you want to grow up too fast without enjoying your childhood. I know if I had had a choice I would have chosen my childhood.”

Najuma’s head dipped and her shoulder sank, sullen. But then she lifted her head with an inquisitive look on her face, brown eyes fixed on Artemis.

“Because the Phoenix Shrine materialised you like the others?”

Now it was Artemis’ turn for her head to dip. She didn’t answer the Majiri girl, didn’t see the point. Her braids dangled out of the hood, the metal beads clinking together, the sun catching them reflecting little shapes of light against her dark clothes.

“D-do you do that every day?” Najuma asked, gesturing to the braids.

Artemis turned her head slightly to look at them and then raised it back to Najuma. “No, it’s a lot of work. I take them out once a week to wash my hair and then do them again.”

“Do they hurt?”

Artemis shook her head. “Not once they’re done, they’re a little uncomfortable to do initially, I imagine it’d be easier with a mirror.”

Najuma fidgeted with her hands in front of her and her voice got soft and shaky. “C-can I… feel one?” She scrunched her face up like she had said something wrong.

Artemis was taken aback. Her frame became rigid. Her mind sought for any excuse as to why she could tell the Majiri girl that she couldn’t. Her mind came up with nothing plausible. She supposed there was no real reason not to, it was just child-like curiosity after all. She had forgotten what that had felt like.

Artemis simply nodded and knelt down to be a similar height to Najuma. The young girl slowly stepped forward and cautiously reached her hand out to one of the hanging braids, as if sudden movements would trigger it to lash out and bite. Her thumb brushed along the woven strands of ashen hair, the metal cool against her gloved hands. Confidence increased and her other hand came up to the other side of braids, hand stroking the biggest predominant one.

Artemis watched, Najuma’s eyes full of wonder and delight. It brought a dull ache behind her chest, thudding against her ribcage with every heartbeat. She saw herself in the girl, a version of herself that was allowed to be a child. Who was allowed to explore her curiosities, who was encouraged to be herself and nurtured into being confident in who she was. It made the dull ache turn into a sharp pain, and Artemis closed her eyes against it. It was all she could do not to recoil and scare off Najuma.

“If my hair was long enough, I’d do this too” said Najuma, pulling Artemis from her thoughts just like Hodari could. “I only have one small one.” Her hands retreated and she stepped back to allow Artemis to stand up again.

“Perhaps if it does get long enough, I can visit to do it” Artemis offered, she wasn’t entirely sure why.

Najuma nodded without looking at her, the timidness returning to her. Artemis tilted her head again.

“Do you want to come hunting with me?” the proposal fell from her lips before Artemis even realised what she was saying.

Najuma’s eyes lit up and she nodded frantically. “I watch Hassian sometimes, he’s pretty good, very rarely strikes out.”

“Come along then, young Najuma the Pulsewater Plains aren’t far.”

Artemis strode passed the small Majiri girl, her cloak catching the wind billowing behind her, heading slightly further south towards Pulsewater Plains. Swallowing down the residual feelings that still lingered beneath the surface. Najuma spun around and ran a bit to catch her up and match her speed.

“We will observe from the top of the ridge, it will be easier not to spook them that way, unlikely to see us coming and we’ll be able to get clean kills.”

They made their way to the ridge in question. Artemis helping Najuma climb in places. It would have been a lot easier for her to teleport them up, but she wasn’t sure how much Hodari had told his daughter. She also didn’t want to scare her in case she wasn’t aware.

Once they were at the top, Artemis guided them near the edge and crouched down watching the grazing Sernuk on the plains. While she had seen a lot of human parties hunting from the ground, Artemis had always hunted from high in the trees of the Deep Forest. Hunting high up was her forte and doing so in Bahari wouldn’t be any different. This way she could keep Najuma away from the herd of Sernuk in case they decided to stampede when one of their own had been hit. Her people skills were few and rusty, but she knew Hodari was incredibly protective of his daughter. She wouldn’t do anything to put the young girl in immediate danger.

She took her bow off her shoulders and handed it to Najuma along with an arrow.

“Position your hands so that your dominant one is pulling back the bowstring” Artemis carefully moved the bow in Najuma’s hands to a more comfortable hold. “Notch the arrow against the string, like this” she helped her place the arrow. “Pull back slowly, taking a deep breath inwards, hold it as you aim and then when you’re ready, let the string go.”

Najuma did everything Artemis told her with intense thought. Her aim was clumsy, and she struggled to hold the bow steady, but she let the string go when she managed to hold it still. The arrow flew only a few feet, hitting nothing but a patch of grass a long way from the Sernuk. Najuma looked disappointed, but Artemis gave her a small smile.

“That was a good first try, the bowstring is at a high tension and can be stiff to beginners, try again.”

Najuma tried again, she pulled the string back with more conviction this time, tried to lock her arm so that the aim was less shaky. Her entire body was stiff but at least the bow wasn’t wavering so much. Najuma released again, this time the arrow gained a little more traction but bounced off a rock, scattering some of the Sernuk to a different area of the Plains.

The young Majiri pouted and her shoulders sagged. It made Artemis let out a breath of amusement, coming close to a laugh.

“Try to relax your shoulders a bit, you don’t want the bow to move in your grip, but you want flexibility to manoeuvre, if necessary, here let’s go again.”

She walked around behind Najuma and crouched to her height. She placed her gloved hand over Najuma’s holding the bow, and then with her other, she grasped Najuma’s wrist to help her pull the string back.

“Relax… hold your breath… aim… exhale slowly before the release…” Artemis spoke softly next to Najuma’s ear.

Then Najuma let the string go again, and the arrow flew far across the plains, very nearly hitting a Sernuk grazing on some grass. It let out a surprised grunt and trotted off.

“There, see?” said Artemis stepping back and returning to her original position. “You nearly had it that time.”

Najuma turned to her. “With your help” she pouted again.

“So? All I did was steady you, the aiming was all you. With some training and practice, I don’t see why you couldn’t master the skill.”

“Did someone train you?” Najuma asked.

Artemis’ half smile turned rigid. “No” she said. “I taught myself.”

“All by yourself? What if you didn’t get anything?”

“Then I went hungry. It’s quite the motivator to master a skill that depends on your survival.”

“Was that the only skill you had to master for survival?” the girl asked, there was curiosity there but also something else, like she was asking out of her own experience.

“No, there were others” Artemis turned her attention down towards the Sernuk, trying to avoid the child’s gaze. “Learning to be alone was one of the hardest.”

“Did you have to be? Could you not have joined a human party?”

“Yes… I did…” Artemis replied, her voice becoming a whisper.

“It depended on your survival?”

Artemis nodded slowly, her eyes fixed below. Najuma watched as the huntress began to retreat into herself as the silence filled the space between them. Although only young, she recognised the behaviour immediately, she was guilty of it in the past.

“Can I see you hunt?” Najuma asked.

Artemis’ attention shot back to the young girl, how did this family both have the same habit of being able to pull her back from the depths of her mind?

“You want to see me hunt?”

Najuma nodded frantically and held the bow out to her.

Artemis took back her bow. “Alright, young Najuma, but whatever you see, you must stay on the ridge, okay?”

Najuma nodded again, a ghost of an excited smile rising in the corners of her mouth.

Artemis crouched once again by the edge and peered down. She picked one of the Sernuk to target. She picked up some dirt from the ground and slowly dropped it, watched the wind take it to test the speed.

She lightly held the bow-grip and placed an arrow against the string. She was wearing the arm bracer Najuma and Hodari had made to replace her old one. Taking a deep breath, she raised the bow, the string resting up by her face.

She took aim. Adjusted for the wind.

Slowly exhaled.

Released.

The arrow flew far through the air with such speed and precision, met its target in the upper abdomen. It howled and started cantering off.

Artemis stood upright.

“Lesson two: never let an animal suffer.”

She took a few paces backwards, Najuma’s brows furrowed together.

“Remember, stay” Artemis said.

The huntress started to bolt, bow still in one hand. She leaped from the edge of the ridge and then disappeared in a flash of blue. Najuma’s eyes shot wide.

Artemis reappeared in midair above the running Sernuk, a trail of blue sparks behind her. Her legs were bent at the knee, up by her chest, beginning to descend from the air.

She notched another arrow, twisted her body to get the right angle to aim.

No time for thought.

Release.

The arrow hit the Sernuk. It fell to the floor and didn’t move again.

Artemis continued descending and Najuma gasped thinking she was going to hit the ground, but the huntress vanished in blue lightning again. She teleported safely to the ground next to the dead Sernuk. Taking her silver dagger from its sheath, she knelt to harvest her hunt.

Najuma’s mouth was agape. Her expression etched in awe. This must have been what her father had meant when he said she ‘moved like lightning and smoke’. Artemis commanded Flow like it was a part of her. Najuma hadn’t even seen Subira, the Order official, use Flow in the same way.  Her creative mind was going into overdrive, thinking of all the ways it could be possible.

Artemis couldn’t be using Flow Runes, could she? Why didn’t her father tell her about this? A wave of anger rose within her. It was typical of him to try to ‘protect’ her from something like this.

She didn’t need protecting from this. Artemis had the teleportation powers of Proudhorn Sernuk, that didn’t make her dangerous. It made her…

Oh…

Najuma let the anger dissipate. Her father hadn’t told her to protect her; he hadn’t told her to protect Artemis.

She let out a huff and leant against the edge of the ridge. Loose rocks crumbled under the weight and came away from the cliff face, along with Najuma who began to tumble and fall through the air, fast approaching the solid ground of the Plains below.

Najuma screamed, the sound carried on the wind.

Artemis’s head snapped back towards the cliff. Her eyes widened beneath the mask.

“Najuma!” she shouted.

Artemis broke into a sprint towards where the Majiri girl was falling. She jumped and vanished in a burst of blue sparks, reappearing in the air just under Najuma. She grabbed the girl, pulled her close to her chest and wrapped one arm around her waist, up her back, and the other over her head, holding her tightly.

There was no time to teleport again. Artemis turned the pair of them, so Najuma was on top of her.

She hit a ledge, hard, with a sickening thud.

She let out a pained grunt; her teeth gritted against the collision. Still, she held onto Najuma, even when she bounced off the ledge and down to the ground. Another impact sent ripples through her bones, and she hissed in pain as the pair of them rolled across the grass until finally coming to a stop.

Hodari was exiting the mines for the day, ready for a hot bowl of Sernuk noodle soup and a decent night’s sleep, aches and pains depending, when he heard a scream carried on the wind. He recognised it immediately. He could never mistake the sound of his daughter in distress.

His heart leapt into his mouth. He dropped his pickaxe and lamp and raced up the path towards where the scream had come from, heading directly into the Pulsewater Plains. He didn’t know how fast he was running, didn’t care. Bahari whipped by as he went, sweat beginning to drip down his forehead. He hadn’t run like this since… Leta… Not his babygirl too…

He entered the valley in time to see a blur of black and a mess of red hair rolling across the ground, eventually coming to a stop, dust and dirt settling where it had been kicked up. He stopped, his heart hammering against his ribcage, breath shallow. He saw the dead Sernuk, half processed to the side, the pair of them on the ground not far from it, he drew his conclusions.

“Najuma!” Hodari yelled as he picked up his pace again to get to his daughter.

“Dad!” Najuma scrambled to her feet, having disentangled herself from Artemis’ limbs.

She rushed over to him, her arms flying around him. He threw his around her and hugged her so tightly, Najuma couldn’t breathe properly. She was unharmed, just covered in grass stains and dirt from the rolling.

Artemis continued to lay on the ground for a moment. She was winded and struggled to suck in air. She assessed the rest of the damage. Her back was in agony and when she could breathe, it sent sharp daggers of pain through it. Her shoulders and the tops of her arms were aching with any pressure, deep bruises to come. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like she had broken any bones.

She rolled onto her side, wincing heavily. She made sure her mask and hood were in place before she pushed herself into a standing position with shaky arms. She hadn’t taken a fall like that in years, not since the first few months of her time in the Elderwood. She straightened up, winced again and held one of her shoulders to bite back the rising pain.

Hodari finally loosened his grip on Najuma and turned his attention to the huntress. There was fury in his eyes, that steel blue colour having gone dark.

“What in Maji’s name were y’thinkin’?” his voiced was raised.

“Hodari, I-” she started, her voice strained.

“What the fuck happened?!”

“Dad, it was an accident…” Najuma’s timid voice spoke up, although she hadn’t seen her dad this angry in a long time.

“I don’t care! You’re still only a child ‘Juma. Y’could’ve been hurt, or worse!” he turned his attention back to Artemis. “What were y’thinkin’? Hunting with m’daughter in the vicinity?”

She dared to take a step forward offering her gloved hand.

“No” he said firmly.

She stopped, put her hand back by her side.

“I took pity on you because y’saved m’life and I thought y’just needed help reintegratin’ with people, but you’re a danger to m’family.”

If she wasn’t wearing a mask, Hodari would have seen the range of emotions that passed through her mismatched eyes before settling into nothing.

“I’m sorry…” she tried to say, but the words seemed to get stuck in her throat.

“Go back to the Elderwood, Artemis” she flinched at his use of her name so harshly. “S’clearly where you belong.”

 Artemis squared her shoulders, taking a painful breath.

This was a mistake.

“Dad!” Najuma pushed away from her father, a glare on her face. His attention now on the fiery haired Majiri. “It wasn’t Artemis’ fault! She had me up on the ridge away from it all! The rocks gave way, I fell!”

Hodari’s brows furrowed together, the fury fleeting. “What?”

“I fell, Artemis teleported to catch me, s-she broke my fall… took the brunt…”

Hodari was taken aback. “She didn’t have you in danger?”

“No! She told me to stay away and watch and you’ve been a complete Ogopuu about it and spat horrible things without the story.”

Shame and guilt burrowed its way into Hodari’s expression and his shoulders sagged. He turned to look back to Artemis. But she was already gone. Only the last remnants of sparks, any clue that she was ever there at all. His head went on the swivel, squinting to see the trail of where they led to, where she would have reappeared. He saw none.

“How come I’ve never seen you around?” he asked.

“Probably because I don’t want to be seen” Artemis answered.

“I see y’now.”

“Because I’m letting you.”

The memory replayed and hit Hodari like train of carriages.

She doesn’t want to be seen.

So, she’s not letting me.

“She was one of the only adults that didn’t treat me like a completely inept kid” Najuma scrunched her face up in frustration. “You were so mean…” she gathered her hands in front of her, a deeply saddened look settling on her features. “What if she doesn’t come back now…?”

It pained Hodari to see his daughter so distressed this way, and surprised him too, that one day with the huntress created such a reaction as this.

“You gotta fix this!” she yelled.

“I will Spitfire… m’sorry” he said sullenly.

“Tell Artemis that.”

He cringed at hearing her name, something she trusted him with and the first time he used it since she told him, it was in anger. Shame wasn’t cutting it anymore. It was all out self-loathing. He looked back over to the dead Sernuk, saw the huntress’ bow and dagger dropped on the ground, likely in her haste to get to Najuma. He paced over and bent to pick them up.

“Get y’self home, Spitfire… m’gonna go to the Elderwood… try to… apologise.”

Najuma nodded and wiped her face on her sleeve. Hodari walked over and ruffled her hair.

“I can always count on you, to tell me when I’ve had Ormuu crap-for-brains” he gave her a small smile, which she half-heartedly returned.

He slung the bow over his shoulder and placed the dagger in the pouch on his belt before he began the journey across Bahari to the Elderwood. The sun was sinking in the sky, casting the clouds in an orange and pink hue. It would be a beautiful evening if it didn’t feel so heavy.

Artemis had returned to her cavern in the Elderwood. She had made it in record time, teleporting a lot of the way across Bahari until she reached the door. Even then she was running. The overgrowth and vines and glowing flora ripped by in a blur. She hadn’t run like that since….

She threw a couple of logs into the hearth and coaxed a flame back to life, an attempt to bring warmth to the hollow that the stone walls now gave. Her crystal lanterns, now many, thanks to Hodari, fought hard to brighten the cavern up and offer decent light to all corners.

She detached her cloak from the hood and hung it on the hook. Paced over to her workbench dragging her hood off her head, her ashen hair bouncing free down her back, metal beads clanking together. After removing her gloves, she wrenched the mask from her face and threw it down onto the workbench.

How could she have been so stupid? Why did she ever think that there was even a glimmer of hope that she would belong anywhere other than here? Other than the Elderwood. Other than her routine. Other than isolation. People were dangerous, it didn’t matter what species they were, Human, Majiri, Grimulkin, they were all the same. And she hated herself that she allowed a connection to burrow its way into being so much so, that what had happened had hurt her.

She screwed her eyes shut, tight. She ached all over. Nothing was broken but she knew if she felt this sore now, she was going to feel worse tomorrow. A clenched fist went to her chest, and she repeated the mantra she shouldn’t have stopped paying attention to.

This is safer.

The words having their solidity back again.

This is safer.

This is safer.

This is safer.

This is…

“Artemis?”

A southern swirl accent. Hodari’s voice, warm but uncertain.

Artemis whirled around, eyes wide, she hadn’t heard the perimeter bells, hadn’t heard the foliage being pushed aside at the entrance, hadn’t heard him enter.

“Hodari- you shouldn’t-”

But it was too late. He was already there.

The lantern-light fell cleanly over her defined features. Her skin a pastel violet and not because of the cold, mismatched eyes of deep purple with a scar cut across an icy blue one, wide with shock and fear. Longer than normal incisors, like fangs where her mouth was slightly agape, not knowing what to say. And her ears, sharper than a human’s, marginally pointed at the ends.

For a breath neither moved. She saw the realization flicker across his face, the small widening of his eyes, the soft intake of breath that wasn’t fear so much as awe.

“Artemis…” he breathed. “You’re… Majiri.”

Chapter Text

Some decades ago, no one could pinpoint exactly when, humans started emerging from the Phoenix Shrine in Kilima. Most Majiri assumed it was an isolated incident purely in that village. There were a lot of human ruins in the area after all. Perhaps it was hubris that led to that assumption, as if the extinct species hadn’t colonised all corners of the world.

So, it came as a surprise when humans started appearing from a similar shrine near The Capital. Granted this was at a much slower rate and nowhere near as many as that little village, Kilima. It meant that The Order couldn’t ignore it anymore and had to get involved. Measures were put in place to ensure that the humans were integrated into society and allowed to be a part of the Majiri communities, should they want to.

Of course, it wasn’t a completely smooth transition. There were teething problems, questions on what laws humans would fall under and what applied to them. Whether or not a specific section of The Capital should be kept purely for humans, to segregate them from Majiri.

This idea was quickly abandoned for moral reasons. Instead, a more nurturing approach was taken. It wasn’t just disorientating for the Majiri but supremely so for humans. They had no memory of who they were or where they came from before, only their names. So, the humans were taught how to be independent and take care of themselves and live the way Majiri did. Safe to say it was a more than successful approach.

Dorian Thorne was one of the few humans that came from the shrine in The Capital. A mess of ashen hair and icy blue eyes, wide and curious, a stocky build, taller than other humans before him.

Determined to show solidarity with the plan they had decided, The Order assisted him in his early days. They gave him a previously condemned home that he could do up and work on as his own. He was assigned a young Majiri woman, to support him further than Order officials could.

When he first laid eyes on her, he hadn’t seen anything more beautiful, and that was coming from someone who had only been conscious for a couple weeks. Her violet skin complimented her deep purple eyes, with dark hair that perfectly framed her face, thick and tied into a messy bun where half still hung down. He found himself nervous around her always.

She had held her hand out to him, a warm smile making her entire face light up. “My name is Celeste; it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

He went to shake her hand, but a blue spark jumped between their hands like static and he pulled back “Sorry…” he said nervously before clearing his throat and trying again. “Likewise, miss. Name’s Dorian Thorne, but you can just call me Dor… actually no that’s stupid, sorry.”

She giggled, small and delicate, the sound of silver bells. It made him blush and he tried to avert his gaze from the embarrassment. She didn’t seem to mind.

“The Order has assigned you to me as the person you can come to with any questions, or if you need any support getting on your feet here in the Capital” she said.

“I might need a lot of help I’m afraid. It’s all very…”

“Overwhelming” they said in unison.

He blushed again and another giggle left her voice.

“Don’t worry” she said softly. “You’ll get used to it and I’ll be here every step of the way.”

“That’s kind of you, miss.”

“Celeste, please.”

Some Majiri had trouble with their assigned newcomers, mismatched personalities, cultural friction, or just a lack of rapport. But Dorian adjusted quickly, not because the Capital was easy to learn, but because he listened.

And Celeste had to admit, because he trusted her. He asked thoughtful questions, the kind that showed he wasn’t just memorising rules but trying to understand the why behind them.

“Why do the buildings curve inward like that?” he asked.

“They’re designed to catch the breeze, our summers get hot” she replied.

“Oh. That’s brilliant. I don’t think I would have thought of that.”

She snorted before she could stop herself. Professionalism bent, slightly.

His curiosity warmed something in her. His patience, too, gentle, steady, never assuming he deserved her time but grateful for it. He didn’t treat her like an instructor. He treated her like… a person worth knowing.

And that wasn’t forbidden. The integration program encouraged strong bonds. Majiri believed relationships made adaptation smoother.

So, when she found herself looking forward to his visits, she didn’t chastise herself. When he lingered afterwards, asking about local food stalls or festivals, she didn’t discourage him.

She enjoyed him.

Plain and simple.

It happened naturally: small moments that built something warm and steady between them. Dorian started arriving earlier than usual to share whatever odd thing he’d discovered wandering on his own.

“I found this bakery,” he said once, handing her a still-warm pastry. “They said it’s best when shared.”

“Did they?” Celeste replied, but she took it.

Another time, he watched a group of children playing with a skipping rope in the market square and turned to her with a grin.

“Think I’d break my leg if I tried that?”

“Highly probable.”

He laughed so brightly she couldn’t help smiling back.

And on evenings when they left the tavern late, they often walked homeward side-by-side. Not holding hands. Not touching. Just… comfortable. She didn’t realize how unusual that comfort was until she missed it on the days they didn’t meet.

The turning point wasn’t dramatic, just a quiet moment that said more than either of them admitted.

They were on an upper terrace, dusk deepening around them, the flow-lamps beginning to light up like luminous Glowbugs. She was explaining the history of the district, something she’d said a dozen times to dozens of newcomers, when she noticed he wasn’t looking at the buildings.

He was looking at her.

Softly.

Curiously.

Kindly.

“You really love this place,” he said, not as an observation but almost as a realisation.

She blinked. “I grew up here. It’s home.”

“No,” he corrected gently. “I mean… you light up when you talk about it.”

Heat rose up the back of her neck. She didn’t blush often.

“I… suppose I do.”

He smiled, that slow, earnest smile that had charmed half the vendors on the street by now.

“It’s one of my favourite things about you.”

Her breath hitched. Not out of shock, but because she felt something shift inside her, subtle as a new current beneath familiar waters.

This wasn’t against any rule. It was simply real. A connection forming because they were two people who fit.

After that, the world seemed to notice before they did.

Vendors gave them knowing smiles. An older Majiri couple insisted she “bring your partner” next time, and Dorian flushed so deeply it nearly made Celeste laugh out loud. Children pointed and whispered because they looked “comfortable together,” in the way adults often were when they belonged to each other. Neither of them corrected it. And neither of them stepped away.

If anything… they drifted even closer.

He started waiting for her after her shift, leaning against a railing with that half-smile he always saved for her. He had begun walking her home even when he didn’t need to, saying it was “on his way” when it absolutely wasn’t.

Their conversations grew deeper, not just about the Capital, but about hopes, fears, silly human stories and Majiri traditions she’d never admitted were her favourites. He listened with full attention, not the courtesy of a student but the devotion of someone who genuinely wanted to understand her.

And she found herself wanting him to understand.

To see her.

Truly.

Then it happened on an ordinary evening. Dorian asked Celeste to meet him on the upper terrace where she had shown him the buildings of the Capital. She sat on the same bench they had done the night he first made her blush and waited. It was dusk by the time he arrived, and the lanterns had started coming on one by one.

He looked sweaty and out of breath, nervous. One hand was behind his back, and his icy blue eyes were avoiding her deep purple ones. She observed him inquisitively, sensing what was about to come, scared by it but also hopeful and excited.

“Celeste…” he started. “I’m sorry I’m late but I had to make a detour before I came here…”

She raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“Without your guidance and support, I would still be an overwhelmed and scared human trying to find his way…”

“You would have been alright” she said, before adding, “eventually.”

He half laughed. “I listened to you, and I want you to know that I take Majiri traditions seriously despite not being originally one of you… So I…”

“Yes?”

“The detour I made…”

“Yes?”

“Was to the florist… and… well…”

He pulled the arm out from behind his back revealing a Heartdrop Lily. He gingerly presented it to her and waited with bated breath.

Celeste felt her pulse quicken, needing to take a deeper breath than the one before. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks, and everything felt warm despite a cool breeze blowing around them.

A human and a Majiri in a romantic relationship. There was no knowledge of this happening before, certainly not in the Capital. There weren’t any measures in place for this, Celeste guessed that the Order hadn’t anticipated on this ever happening. But it was happening right now and potential consequences be damned, she wanted it.

She gently reached out her hand and took the red bloom from him, a static of blue once again jumping between them, but they both acted as though they didn’t notice.

“I will have you, Dorian Thorne, and you can have me until either Maji or Embra take us into their warm embrace.”

His smile was wide, gleaming, and without thinking he closed the space between them to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her close to him. He leaned in and kissed her deeply. All around, if the gods were listening, you could swear they would have heard the sound of two souls whispering ever so quietly ‘welcome home’.

Despite apprehension from some Capital residents at first, regarding the unusual nature of their ‘blended’ relationship, everyone soon came to realise that inter-partnerships weren’t something to quash but to celebrate. It meant that humans and Majiri could co-exist in harmony after all. The Order’s decision of integration was confirmed as the successful path to follow with the increase of more humans appearing.

Their relationship settled into an easy, solid partnership that felt older than it was. They shared meals, routines, countless evenings wandering the lantern-lit terraces and even exchanged pins. Celeste’s parents adored him. If he had any family of his own, he would have told them all about Celeste, and he knew they would love her too.

It was only natural that one evening, as they rested on the steps overlooking the gardens, he turned to her and said softly, “I’d like to spend my life with you. If… you want that too.”

She didn’t speak at first. Majiri did not treat major decisions lightly. But her reaction wasn’t hesitation, it was depth.

Weight.

Meaning.

She placed her hand over his heart, feeling the steady human rhythm beneath her fingers. “I already chose you,” she murmured. “Long before this moment.”

The ceremony was held in the Capital’s temple to Maji, where pale-blue light filtered through marble arches. Majiri weddings typically emphasised exchange, of stories, of promises, of a symbolic binding of hands to show unity of paths.

But because Dorian was human, the Elder council permitted some flexibility. They encouraged the creation of a blended ritual, one reflecting both their heritages.

She insisted it remain small.

He insisted it remain sincere.

They compromised by inviting only their closest circle, her immediate family, a few Majiri colleagues, and the handful of humans who Dorian had become close to during his time in the Capital.

On the morning of the ceremony, Celeste adorned herself in traditional Majiri silk, deep violet and silver threaded with symbols for courage and devotion. He wore a simple, formal coat gifted by her parents, Majiri embroidery tracing the cuffs and collar, blending seamlessly with his human attire.

When they faced each other before the flowing altar, the officiant guided them through the braided vow tradition. A length of woven cord, dark blue, silver, and white, was draped across their hands. Each strand represented something different:
Choice. Trust. Future.

“Speak your unspoken truths,” the officiant said.

She went first. Her voice was steady but soft, every word carrying centuries of Majiri weight.

“I vow to walk beside you, not ahead, not behind. I vow to share knowledge, to seek understanding, to hold gentle all the things you give me. And I vow…” she paused, letting a rare smile touch her lips, “…to choose you again, every day.”

He swallowed, eyes bright.

“I vow to take your name: Vaelari to honour the home you have given me, I vow to continue to learn your world and uphold your traditions. To meet you where you are, even when the path is unfamiliar. To honour the strength and grace you carry. And…” his thumb brushed her knuckles “…to choose you, every day, without hesitation.”

Their hands were bound together, lightly knotted.

Not tethered but connected.

A Majiri symbol of unity, never ownership.

When the officiant declared their binding complete, the woven cord flashed with blue lightning sparks. Gasps rose from the small crowd.

“The gods approve” her mother whispered behind them, voice thick with tears.

The final step was a shared sip of honey wine from a carved wooden cup. Dorian grimaced at the taste, he always did, but he drank anyway. Celeste tried not to laugh and failed, and that moment of warm, human imperfection became many guests’ favourite part of the whole ceremony.

When he kissed her, slow, reverent, certain, the entire temple glowed brighter, as though the Flow itself leaned in to bless the joining.

Their reception was modest but joyful: food of both their favourite things, quiet music played by drifting harps, conversation that ran late into the night. Celeste’s father toasted them with steady pride. Dorian’s closest friend embraced him so firmly he nearly choked.

And the way Celeste rested her head on Dorian’s shoulder while they danced told everyone the same thing:

They hadn’t just married out of love, they had married out of compatibility, out of mutual choice and out of certainty. Two worlds, Majiri and human, joined not by duty, nor necessity, but by two hearts deciding they wanted the same future.

They didn’t plan for a child, not immediately. They were still finding their rhythm as newlyweds, still learning the soft corners of each other’s habits, still building a home that felt like it belonged equally to both of them. But life, as the Majiri liked to say, flowed where it wished.

One morning, as they prepared breakfast together, Celeste went faintly pale at the scent of spiced tea. She set the cup down too quickly, steadying herself on the countertop.

Dorian was beside her instantly. “Are you alright?”

She blinked, surprised by her own sudden unease. “I—I think so. I just… feel strange.”

A physician confirmed what they had not dared to assume.

She was pregnant.

The news settled over them like dawn light. Soft. Expansive. A little overwhelming.

Majiri pregnancies with human partners hadn’t really been recorded of happening before, possible in theory, but requiring careful monitoring. The healer congratulated them warmly but emphasised rest, balance, and regular check-ins.

She listened with serene attentiveness. He listened with fierce protectiveness.

That night, when they returned home, they sat together in stunned silence. The capital lanterns glowed through the window, casting silver patterns across their joined hands.

He finally whispered, almost in disbelief. “We’re going to be parents.”

Her eyes filled, but she didn’t turn away. “Yes. And our child will belong to both worlds. Like us.”

Their friends and family celebrated. Her mother wept openly, her family rarely displayed emotion so without restraint, which only emphasized how deeply she felt it.

But outside their circle, the reaction was… more complicated. Mixed-heritage births were uncommon enough to attract attention. Majiri scholars were curious, administrators were watchful. The Order, those responsible for safeguarding the balance of the Capital, observed with particularly sharp interest.

Not hostility.

Just… scrutiny.

Occasionally, she would notice an extra robed figure at her healer’s appointments. He would notice questions phrased in a little too much detail. But they reassured themselves that this was simply procedure, caution, bureaucracy.

Nothing more.

As her belly grew, he grew bolder in his affection. He would rest his ear against her stomach in the evenings, hoping to hear movement long before any healer told him it was possible. She’d laugh, smoothing his hair fondly, indulgently.

“You are impatient,” she would murmur.

“I like to think of it as enthusiastic,” he would counter, grinning.

Their child kicked for the first time during one of their evening garden walks. She stopped mid-sentence, inhaling softly. His hand immediately flew to her belly, eyes wide.

“There,” she whispered, guiding his fingers.

A second flutter. A tiny miracle. His breath shook and her eyes shone. From that moment on, he was hopelessly, irrevocably attached.

As the months went by, she began to sense… something. Not wrong or dangerous, just different. Their child’s energy didn’t feel strictly Majiri, or strictly human. It felt brighter, sharper. Like a current that did not flow smoothly but pulsed. The healers noticed too, though they hid it behind pleasant smiles.

“A child of two worlds may simply express their heritage strongly,” one suggested.

Another added, “We will continue to monitor, of course. Purely precautionary.”

She accepted that explanation.

He wanted to.

But sometimes, when she caught her reflection in the mirror, hand curved protectively over her abdomen, she felt a stirring of instinct older than any tradition.

Majiri intuition. A sense of importance, somehow, of potential, of fragility.

As the final months approached, he redecorated the small room beside their bedroom. Soft blankets, carved wooden toys he made by hand, a mobile of shimmering crystal leaves gifted by her mother.

She would stand in the doorway some evenings, watching him arrange things again and again until they were “just right.”

“You’re nesting,” she teased.

“You’re not?” he shot back, flustered and earnest.

She laughed and kissed him, slow and sure. “Of course, I am.”

But neither of them voiced the quiet truth both sensed: The future felt brighter than ever, and yet, somehow, more uncertain. A child of two worlds was a blessing. A miracle even. A hope. But hope had a way of drawing attention, and attention had a way of becoming something else.

The labour began in the soft hours before dawn. Celeste woke with a sharp intake of breath, gripping the edge of the bed. Dorian was awake before she could speak, instinct and love pulling him upright.

“It’s time” she whispered, voice steady but trembling at the edges.

The birth was long, but not difficult. Challenging, but not dangerous.

The healers moved with practiced calm, guiding her breathing, reminding her when to push, when to pause. Her husband stayed at her side, holding her hand, whispering reassurances, though he shook with every surge of pain she felt.

And then –

A wail, sharp and clear, cut through the air.

Their daughter entered the world wrapped in a shimmer of Flow-light the healers had no explanation for. Not a flare. Not dangerous. Just a soft, fleeting glow that faded as quickly as it came.

Dorian froze.

Celeste stilled.

Even the healers exchanged looks.

But then they placed the child in her arms, and everything else fell away.

“What shall we name her?” he asked looking down at his daughter, already knowing she had his heart

“I like Artemis” she replied.

“Really? But that’s-”

“An old human goddess long before Embra, yes I know… but she is the best parts of both of us, it’s only right she has a name that reflects that.”

“Alright then…” he smiled and kissed his wife’s forehead. “Welcome to Palia, my dearest daughter: Artemis Vaelari.”

It was evident from the offset that their child was different from others. Her skin was a paler violet than other Majiri which was more purple. She had heterochromia giving her the deep purple from her mother and the icy blue from her father. Paired with her ashen coloured hair and Artemis looked almost ethereal, ghostly even.

It was more than that though, there was something spiritually different about her and the Order sensed it too. They kept a close watch on the family.

Artemis was a happy child, and she grew with grace and decorum. She always felt the warmth of her parents. Her mother’s loving scrubs at her dirty face, her father’s tight hugs when she was scared of the dark in her room. She had friends and they accepted her as she was. They didn’t care that her ears weren’t as pointed as theirs, they didn’t care that she didn’t have as sharp incisors as they did, they didn’t care that there was a half human side to her. They had been raised in a time where humans were emerging again after being extinct. This was the first new generation that saw it as normalcy, even though she was anything but.

It was when Artemis was five that everything shifted. She was playing in the garden of their home in the Captial, catch with her father. Celeste was sat on a picnic blanket in the shade of a tree, a spread of little finger foods laid out. The sun was high in the sky, and it was a stunning summer’s day. Her father threw the ball a little too far and Artemis began to run to catch it. In a blink and a mess of blue sparks she was gone.

Celeste squealed and stood up suddenly, spilling the cup of apple juice she had been drinking. Dorian’s body went rigid, his eyes wide.

“Artemis?!” he shouted.

Artemis reappeared in another mess of blue sparks at the far end of the garden where the ball had landed. A look of terror heavily set on her features.

“Dad…” her bottom lip quivered.

Her father rushed over to her and scooped her up to hold her in his arms shushing her and stroking her hair. Her mother didn’t move, too stunned to do or say anything. But the pair of them exchanged a look, one that silently communicated everything they were both thinking: their life was about to change.

Their daughter was different. Not in a dangerous way, not in a cursed way, but in a rare way. A significant way.

A way the Order would not ignore.

A hybrid child was rare enough, but one that had raw Flow coursing through them so freely, manifesting itself into abilities had never been heard of.

That night her mother whispered to her husband, voice almost breaking, “How is this possible? Only the Order are able to use Flow like that and they spend years training.”

“I don’t know” Dorian said softly. “It might have something to do with me and her human genetics.”

“It’s possible… not much is known about the natural flow abilities humans had. The Order will take interest.”

“It’s not illegal for humans to access Flow.”

“It is for Majiri, our daughter poses a difficult conundrum.”

“She will need training as this power continues to manifest” he said.

“She will need protection. Real protection.”

Her father nodded, tightening his grip on them both. “She will have it.”

The thing about miracles is that miracles invite wonder. But wonders attract scrutiny. And scrutiny, in the Capital, is never harmless.

As the years went on, and Artemis’ emotions became more complex, her power to teleport manifested itself more and more, usually in erratic ways that she struggled to control. It would get worse whenever she was nervous or scared. By now the Order had taken notice, her parents tried to keep it a secret as much as they could, but when a mixed-heritage child is born, privacy becomes harder to come by.

They would constantly arrive at the house unannounced in attempt to speak to Artemis, but her parents turned them away every time. They warned her parents that she would need proper training if she was to meet her full potential, and they wanted to help her to do this. Celeste didn’t believe that their intentions were entirely selfless, so she refused. The fact remained though, the Order were right, Artemis did need training to get a handle on her powers sooner rather than later.

“Mama, are they going to take me away from you and dad?” the eleven-year old’s question near shattered Celeste’s heart.

"No, my sweet girl, your father and I won’t let them” she knelt down to her child’s height, eyes warm and hands soft. “We will make sure you can control your power. You’re special Artemis, that’s not to be feared but protected.”

“But what if I can’t? What if the Order decides to take me away anyway?” Artemis’ eyes welled up and blue sparks started forming around her. She disappeared in a flash of blue lightning appearing in a different room of the house.

She burst into tears, her sobs the only indication of which room she had appeared in. Celeste joined her in there to see that Dorian was already holding Artemis in his arms tightly, stroking her hair and soothing her.

“It’s alright, little Proudhorn” he whispered. “We will start to get a handle on this tomorrow. You’ll master this, you’ll see and then you’ll live a happy life.”

Celeste walked further in and turned her daughter to face her. “Your father is right” she said, her arms going behind her neck to take off a sapphire necklace woven in silver wire. She clasped it around Artemis’ neck “Your father gave this to me when we exchanged pins, a sign of his love. Now I’m giving it to you, a sign of our love for you.”

"We will never abandon you, Ari” her father said. “We will always keep you safe.”

They spent months training Artemis to be able to control her powers, it should have been done before but they didn’t realise how strong her abilities would manifest like they have.

“Take a deep breath, Ari” her father said to her in the garden. “Close your eyes and visualise what you want to do and where you want to go.”

Artemis did as she was told, she closed her eyes and really tried to think hard about what she wanted to do.

“Feel the Flow through you, don’t try to fight it, let it wash over you, but you are the one that controls it and you will give it commands.”

“I am teleporting… next to you…” she said slowly.

She began to feel the sparks around her, and she tried not to fight it but also tried to stay firm in her control of it. She teleported. Not next to Dorian, but not massively far away either. It was a start and she had proved to herself that it could be possible.

It took a long time, but by the time she was a teenager, Artemis was finally in full control of her power. She used it freely to her will but only when she was sure the Order weren’t around with their watchful eyes. Her parents continued to warn her that they were always around and always there and to be careful, but they didn’t want to diminish a gift that the gods had blessed her with after they spent all that time ensuring she no longer feared herself.

It seemed like their family was settled after the difficulty they had gone through during the uncertainty, and for a couple of years, the future looked bright. Artemis was doing well in her classes, history was her favourite, she loved learning about her father’s people. She had a knack for using her hands as well. Her teachers would praise her for how well she was able to make things out of scraps that she found. Her parents grew prouder by the day.

Unfortunately, the Order were always hovering in the background, and her parents knew a day would come when they couldn’t keep them at bay any longer. They knew by now that the Order were never going to let their daughter be a normal child. There would come a day they would want her, and it was fast approaching, along with Artemis’ sixteenth. They needed a plan.

Celeste went to a contact in the Grimulkin Cartel and made a deal that when the time came, if needed, the cartel would smuggle the three of them out of the Capital and somewhere safe where they could start a new life. The Cartel agreed for a hefty fee, Celeste and Dorian saw it as a small price to pay for their family’s safety. Little did they know that the Cartel also started looking into their family and why they were so desperate to need an escape plan from the Order. It didn’t take them long to find out about Artemis and what she could do, and it made sense to them why the Order would want her. The Cartel wanted nothing more than to screw over the Order, but they would do it in their own way.

It was the night of Artemis’ sixteenth when the Order came. The Order’s cloaked figures approached the house, torches reflecting in their hard eyes. They knocked, once, hard.

Celeste looked to her daughter, fear in her eyes. “Hide, Ari” her voice was low, urgent.

Her father’s hand gently shoved her toward the door of her bedroom. Her mother opened the front door, the crackling scent of burning torches filled the entrance.

“Celeste and Dorian Vaelari” one of the cloaked figures said. “You are to turn your daughter over to us by the morrow.”

“She’s done nothing wrong” her father said.

“That is neither here nor there, she will be trained to be an operative of the Order.”

“You can’t be serious; she’s still a child” Celeste exclaimed.

“It matters not. She has been a matter of interest to the Order for years. Please, you knew this had to happen.”

Dorian clenched his fist and for a moment, Artemis, watching from the crack of the door from her bedroom, was convinced her father would start swinging. Instead, he slowly unclenched his fist and nodded. A few more words were exchanged which she couldn’t make out before her parents closed the door.

They looked at each other, exchanging a knowing look, a silent communication that they both knew. It then dawned on Artemis that she knew that look too. It was acceptance that their life here in the Capital was over.

“Ari, pack a bag” her mother’s voice, firm and commanding. “We’re leaving tonight.”

Artemis opened her door wider. “Where are we going to go?”

“We are going to go to the countryside where no one knows us. We heard that a village called Kilima has a large population of humans, we will look less conspicuous there. Pack. Now.”

Artemis did as she was told, throwing clothes and belongings into a waxed canvas bag. Her tiny frame was filled with so much anxiety that she had to pause to carry out the breathing exercises she had been taught in order not to spontaneously teleport.

The three of them stole into the night, no lanterns, stumbling in the pitch black. Artemis held onto her father’s arm as tight as she could through fear that she would lose them. The air smelled of petrichor and the sky split open with streaks of lightning gone wild. They were meeting the Cartel in the fields. In the gloom and haze of the heavy rain, Artemis could just make out the faint lanterns hanging on a carriage and three Grimulkin waiting for them. A strike of lightning clapped overhead, and Artemis saw the flash of antlers through the rain.

“Hurry, get in! They found us!” her father’s warning shout made Celeste turn to look in time to see a group of torches heading their way – the Order.

Her mother’s hand was warm and trembled as it ushered her towards the carriage door. Artemis clambered in along with her mother, followed by her father after he hurriedly handed one of the Grimulkin a heavy pouch. There was a snap of reins and the ancient wood of the carriage creaked as it began to move. Hooves struck the ground at a thundering rate as the pace picked up.

“Are we going to be alright?” she asked her father.

“Yes Ari, you don’t need to worry anymore. The Order won’t get you. But if you ever wake up in an Umbraan carriage pulled by Proudhorn Sernuk with majestic antlers, you shouldn’t panic.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re already doomed” Celeste said.

They were travelling for a full day, maybe even two. It was hard to tell because time felt skewed in that carriage. They had very little to eat and weren’t sure what they would arrive to in Kilima. Celeste knew that they were taking a similar approach to humans that the Capital had. She also knew a lot of Majiri emigrated there for a more peaceful life after the trade wars. This was the right thing to do. Celeste just felt guilty as they should have done it a lot sooner. She hadn’t even told her parents or other family members what they had planned to do. They will forever just think they fled without saying goodbye. It was too late for regret.

Dawn was blessing the shores of Bahari Bay, the sun only just beginning to peak above the water creating a shimmering mirror of light reflecting off the water. The carriage rolled to a stop near Lighthouse Lagoon. Artemis stirred, her head rested on her mother’s lap. She sat up bleary eyed and rubbed them awake.

“What’s going on, are we there?” she asked.

“No, we’re still a little way out. I’ll see what’s going on” Dorian said.

He stepped out of the carriage and went to speak to one of the Grimulkin that was snacking on an oyster.

“Why have we stopped?” he asked.

The Grimulkin regarded him, looked to his friends before back to Dorian. “There’s been a bit of a change of plans I’m afraid.”

“What are you talking about, we agreed you take us to Kilima.”

“Ah, yeah, see that was before we knew the true value of the cargo we’re smuggling. You weren’t truthful about your daughter.”

Dorian’s eyes grew dark. “My daughter isn’t cargo.”

“You and your wife are free to continue on to Kilima, but your daughter is coming with us. With powers like hers, she’d be an asset to the cartel.”

“Absolutely not! You’re not having her!”

“Oh buddy, we ain’t asking, this is happening” the Grimulkin nodded to his friends who began to advance on the carriage.

Dorian panicked. He picked up a rock from the sand and smashed it against the head of the Grimulkin he was talking to and bolted for the carriage.

“Celeste! We’ve been betrayed! Get Artemis and go!” he pulled a weapon from his bag as his wife began to drag Artemis from the carriage.

Dorian started fighting with another of the three Grimulkin and the third started attacking Celeste. She kept a firm hand on Artemis’ as she tried to fend off her attacker.

“You are not fighters” the first Grimulkin said, walking up to the scene, blood dripping down his fur from a cut on his head. “There is only one way this ends. You die and we still get her.”

Dorian and Celeste looked at each other across from where they were struggling with their opponents. He nodded to his wife and Celeste closed her eyes, tears spilling out of them. There was no other way.

She whipped away from her opponent and turned to Artemis. “You can’t let anyone know you exist.”

“What?” Artemis looked at her mother with eyes full of fear and uncertainty.

“If anyone knows you’re alive, The Order will come, the Cartel will take you” she took a moment to beat back the Grimulkin behind her and turned back to her daughter. “Go, now Ari! Remember… your father and I love you...”

Her mother’s hand slipped from hers as she was pushed away. She took a couple of steps back as Celeste continued to try to fend off the Grimulkin and cover her escape.

Artemis spun to run but the first Grimulkin had slipped past her parents and grabbed her from behind. She cried out and started struggling as she was being dragged. She managed to land a right hook into the Grimulkin’s face. Her knuckles exploded with pain and the Grimulkin hissed at her and swiped his paw across her face, his claw gifting her a deep cut across the icy blue eye. She screamed, warm blood trickling down her face and into her eye, all she could see was red. Dorian wrenched the Grimulkin away from Artemis and threw him to the floor with a swift kick. He looked up at her, urgency in every ounce of him.

“Run, Artemis! Run now!” her father’s voice, low and fierce.

She obeyed. And ran.

She ran as fast as she could, not knowing what direction she was going in. She didn’t care. She just tried to get as far away from the carriage and the beach as possible. She dared to look back and saw one of the Grimulkin was running after her. Neither of her parents to be seen. Her lungs burned and the muscles in her legs ached with overuse, but she ignored it all and continued to sprint.

She reached a large opening. White marble doors built into the cliff face, forced ajar with the ruinous of time. Eerie purple foliage grew around the entrance, and she couldn’t see what lay beyond the opening. She slowed to look back. The Grimulkin still determined but stopped when he saw the marble opening, his ears turned downward and he pulled an uncomfortable face. Artemis looked back at the opening, whatever was in there, her pursuer didn’t seem like he was going to follow.

She darted through and disappeared into the gloom.

The Grimulkin let out a snarl of frustration and reluctantly followed her in. When she heard his footsteps, she started running again. She barely took in her surroundings. She used her powers to teleport further and further in. Flashes of blue lighting up this ancient looking forest, the muted colours of purple and blue, the glowing lichen and fungi. She continued on until she was sure she had lost him.

She eventually came to a stop at the edge of a cliff. She finally looked at where she was. Giant trees, taller and larger than anything she had ever seen towered out across the expanse. Their branches and leaves so thick that sunlight could no longer penetrate through. She had no idea if it was night or day here. The air was thick with mist, and everything felt so much closer. Spectral sounds of whatever was living here echoed out sending a shiver down her spine. The whole atmosphere here was unsettling. It was no wonder the Grimulkin was reluctant to follow her in.

Artemis had no idea if her parents were still alive, but she had a feeling that as they didn’t follow her when she ran, they probably weren’t. The look they gave each other before telling her to run solidified that theory, they had no intention of making it out alive, only that she did. Her chest burst and she fell to her knees with heavy sobs rolling out from her. Her shoulders shuddered with every inhale. Her tears mixed with the blood on her face and caused red streaks to roll down her skin. She placed a clenched fist over her heart pushing it into her chest in any feeble attempt to ground herself.

She had no idea how far out from Kilima she was, but it didn’t seem right that she should go there now. Everything had been ripped away from her. It was her parent’s wish that she survives. In order to do that, she needed to not exist, to be a ghost, be a myth.

Artemis looked out towards the Deep Forest of the Elderwood again. This place would become her home, and she would honour her parents’ sacrifice. She would survive here.

Unseen.

This is safer.