The fall was heralded by a sweep of different colors over the hills. It was a beautiful sight, the grass changing hues as the tree leaves did. It added a layer of dimension to the rolling hills, in contrast to the highest parts of the summer where the beating sun had colored the hills with a bright yellow.

The small differences in this world, such as the changing color of the grass and the Mirroring Moons have become magical to me. I breathed in, enjoying the sight. 

Over the past two weeks, Matre lost a dramatic amount of weight. She had been a thin woman before, and now she was skeletal. She had taken a sharp turn for the worse, and was very weak. It was clear to all that the end was near. It was hard to be angry or sad about it, when Matre herself was accepting of it. 

“I have a life well lived, with few regrets. That is more than many can say.” Trying to add a levity to her words, she added with a wink, “if there is one bigger regret, it is that I will not see the joining of you and Inparem.” I shyly ducked my head at that, giving her the reaction that she wanted. Truthfully, I was too much of a relationship veteran to be embarrassed by a gentle tease like that.

Inparem’s visits have become frequent. He would help with whatever needed to be done, and then head back to his home, three hours away. We had fallen into a comfortable rhythm of silence, often working together. I understood now that his awkwardness when he had first met was also from shyness, and an unfamiliarity with new people.

I stood at the threshold of the trees surrounding the village, waiting for him now. Ava would keep an eye on Matre, while Inparem and I went on an excursion, to search for Dog Stalks. It was a rare plant that grew only in the forest, properly prepared it gave the consumer a boost of vitality.

We were hoping to feed some to Matre, before tying the knot, which the ceremony included literally. It had been my idea. Her words had been meant as a joke, but I had taken the idea seriously. Despite only being a few months together, I felt a deep sense of loyalty towards her and Inparem. If there was anything at all I could do to make her passing more joyful, I would.

Inparem had been happy when I brought it up, he agreed to both doing the ceremony and my terms. I had told Inparem that this was a fast development for me, and that I wished to be joined in name only and allow things to grow naturally. He had become a part of my home here, but marriage was a big step, that as a daughter of a divorced one, was suspicious to me. 

Half a year ago I would never have considered it, but I had implicit trust in Inparem. He had saved me, seen me at one of my lowest points, and helped me through it. We worked well together, and were kind to one another. Some marriages were built on less. Only in my darkest moments, when buzzing thoughts kept me up at night, would a little voice come out, saying that the real reason was that I was afraid to be alone in this world and Inparem was my shield to that. 

On the background cast of red, yellow and brown I saw a walking figure in the distance with his distinct limp, I waved and headed towards him. He saw me and waved back. 

This journey was also our honeymoon of sorts. It was one of our last chances to be together before an expected busy time. After this, I would focus on taking care of Matre as well as the harvest and soon, Inparems fur-hunting season would begin. Fall and early winter were the best seasons for it, because that is when the animals' fur were thickest and healthiest.

That is another shift I had in my thinking. In my old world, before The River, I was staunchly against fur. I had been vegetarian most of my life, and had only recently begun eating a little meat before The River. Eating little meat has continued here, as that was the way of life in the village. With only primitive farming tools, the villagers were dependent on every harvest, year in and year out. If there was a bad harvest, people would starve. It was as simple as that. 

Inparem’s fur hunting was a buffer against that. A struggle against the poverty the village was living in. That I could respect. I had wondered aloud once, why not more people did it. Ava, Porco’s wife, had answered me bluntly. Putting aside the most coveted furs were that of predators, and hunting them was dangerous in itself, but more alarmingly just being present in the Walker’s Forest was forbidden and punishable by death. 

That is another reason I had insisted on picking the Dog Stalks together. I would not put Inparem in any danger that I was not willing to be in myself. It was a matter of equality to me. He had been reluctant, but had then laughed at my stubborn insistence, saying that we are already playing the married couple.

I longed to do more, to somehow use the technology of my world to miraculously improve the lives around me. But what did I really know about farming machines or even the technology from home? To build something, anything useful completely from scratch? Ashamedly nothing. Even a simple pump was beyond me, especially without batteries. Light that came as easy as a switch, water that didn’t need to be fetched from a well, and easy access to information were daydreams of times past for me.

Reaching each other broke my musings, with a shy kiss of greeting we headed our way. In a basket I carried a skin of water and two small loaves of rock bread from the village, the same sort as what had first broken my fast, months ago. I learned that it was covered in a substance that made it hard, but enabled it to be stored for longer without molding and discouraged bugs and animals from nibbling at it. I privately suspected that any such substance was likely a light poison, but the villagers relied on this method for storing bread safely, especially throughout winter. Without a better method or proof, it didn’t try speaking out. Everyone seemed healthy enough, and it was a method used for generations. Inparem had his customary hammock swung over his shoulder, tied into a shoulder bag.

This would be my first time in the forest. Inparems’s home was built a good distance away from the edge, and the village was even further. The weather was clear and brisk. We walked hand in hand, in our familiar comfortable silence we often had. It was one of the many things I had come to appreciate being with him. 

Slowly, the rolling hills began to flatten and more trees dotted the horizon. Shortly before nightfall, we reached the edge of the forest. Entering the forest, there was a clear and sudden change, the trees were older and larger. It was much darker too, the sky above us covered by the interlocking branches high above. Even the sounds around us were different, muffled by the fallen leaves. Before we entered deeper into the forest, we split the loaf, sat and ate. I looked up, searching for a patch of sky.

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“Want to tell me a story?” I asked. Inparem was used to it, it was through this way that I was learning of the customs and legends of this place. Sometimes we would take turns, and I would tell stories from my own world.

“Legend has it of a giant tree in the Old Forest-”

I shifted, interrupting him as smoothly as I could. “I think I heard that one before.” 

“Have I told you the story of the Mirroring Moons and the Dual River?” Inparem asked. 

“No,” I smiled, “I would like to hear that one.” 

“Once, it was only one moon and the river, it wasn’t the Dual River then. Any names it had were given to it by the animals who lived and drank from it. The moon loved the river, looking down upon it every night, moving and dancing along the light the moon shone. However the moon grew jealous that the river had another light that danced with it, the sun.

Every evening and every morning, the moon would try to catch the sun, to become the only light for the river. The moon was never fast enough, until one day the moon started to cry. It’s face began to blacken, it’s light started to go out. Out of fear for the moon’s life, the stars gathered around the moon. 

‘We cannot make you faster than the light of the sun,’ they sang as one. ‘But we can make you brighter and lighter than you are now.’

‘At a cost,’ the youngest star whispered. 

‘If I can’t catch the sun, I will be better than it!’ The moon declared and accepted the deal.

The stars made way for their rulers, the cluster of the brightest and oldest stars. With one cleave of an axe, that they wielded together, the moon was split almost perfectly in two. Only a small part broke off and fell screaming. From there the third piece saw what from above it could not. On each side of the river, the very nature of the forest living on either side of the river had been split in half by it. On one side, the Warring Forest, which is today the Walker’s Forest, and on the other the Old Forest.

The river laughed, ‘now we truly are fit for one another, each of us thrice faced, light and lovely.’ As the river said this, it shone the light of the moon mockingly back at it, dancing it along the moon’s face as the moon had often done to the river. The silvery sliver of the moon that had fallen in the river, had given it some of its power.

In pain, the two in the sky cried. ‘Fix me!’

‘I cannot make whole from two that which is three’ said the rulers.

‘Fix me!’ They cried again. The third had already been swiftly hidden by the river.

By then the first sun rays of the morning had come. They reached across the sky to the two halves of the moons, and healed them. The moon waxes and wanes crying for the third piece of itself hidden in the river until today.”

As if a part of the story, the end of Inparem’s tale was punctuated by the howl of an animal.

“We should not stay here like this. It is dangerous at night.”

I knew what Inparem meant by this, we had talked about it before, and although we had practiced on smaller trees before coming, I was nervous. We headed deeper into the forest, to find a tree that would fit for tonight.

“That one looks easy to climb,” he pointed to one on his left. 

It looked the same as the others to me. An old tree with a long trunk, branches starting up high. He took my basket to carry himself, comically putting the large handle over his head to leave it hanging like a necklace around his neck, the hold of the basket towards his back. I climbed up the trunk slowly, using every crevice I could to get a hold of to drag myself up. With a rope connecting us, Inparem climbed above me. After finally making it to the lowest branch, we sat there as I caught my breath. What had taken me slow excruciatingly long minutes of climbing, Inparem could have done gracefully in one or two. Climbing to him was more natural than walking.

“We need to go higher, there are still predators that can reach the lower branches.” And so, higher we went, until the branches were so thin they were creaking from our weight and we dared only to step at the base of the branch, where it connected to the trunk. Through the branches I could again see the sky, a spread of stars above us. Only then, Inparem declared us safe. He untied his shoulder sling bag, unfolded it to his hammock, and for stability tied the ends almost vertically across different branches around the same places we stood, as close to the trunk as possible.

I shivered, grateful to be stepping into the hammock. In the summer the nights had been warm, but now it was getting colder with nightfall and being high up in the trees added to it. Building a fire and staying on the ground was not safe. There were animals who were attracted to the fire, and anyways, leaving traces of a fire inside or on the edges of the forest could spark a manhunt from the Walkers who owned and lived in the forest.

Our journey had been a quick decision, and there was no time to weave or piece together a second hammock. It was a given for Inparem that I would be the one to sleep in it. He had learned from me, and had agreed to us doing this trip together with terms of his own. One of them was that I slept in the hammock. Inparem undid the rope around us.

“Here,” he gave it to me. I tied it outside the hammock around my waist. That way something would hold me in the hammock, while I slept. If I slept. I wasn’t sure that I could sleep like this, even if wrapped in it, it was slightly warmer than before. Inparem curled up on a branch under me. 

“Do you think the story has something to do with how I came here?” I asked. 

“What do you mean?”

“The river having a part of the moon.” 

“It is just a legend.”

“But the river having a hidden power must be true, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.” 

“Perhaps it is you that has a hidden power? Or the place you came from?”

“I think it has to have been the river.”

“Why?”

“Back then, the river seemed like a living thing around me.” Besides, if it had been me, wouldn’t I have felt it?

“Who knows? Every forest, animal and hill around here has a legend, but they are just stories, made up to pass-“ Inparem sneezed, “the time.”

“Are you cold?” I asked, although I already knew the answer to the question. Even wrapped as I was like a cocoon in the layers of the hammock, being here on the tops of the trees, it was cold.

“No, it is a warm night.”

“I think you are.”

“No.” 

A few minutes later, I heard another sneeze. I sighed fondly, he could be stubborn. 

“Well I am cold.” 

Inparem stood up and looked at me. “You’re cold?”

“Yes, very. If we share the hammock we will both be warmer.” Now that I could see him, I was happy I had said something. His nose and eyes were beginning to be red and puffy. 

I undid the rope around my waist and tied it around us both. We shared the hammock, sleeping face to face, in each other’s arms. I truly could sleep, no longer afraid of slipping out of the hammock in Inparem’s arms. The night became progressively colder, but through it there was a heat shared between us that kept me warm.