Step, step, crunch. Step, crunch, crunch.

Soleiman led the way through the forest, lifting his legs up with each step to avoid tripping over any of the underbrush. The sky’s light had turned a much dimmer orange, the few rays of light that trickled through the forest’s canopy just barely bright enough to light the way. He held Rumi’s hand with his, feeling as it pulled back on him harder and harder with each step.

“Soleiman,” she managed, hers finally slipping from his.

He turned back to look at her, her left arm and its bandaged stump of a hand awkwardly resting atop her head to keep it elevated.

“Could we stop, please?”

“But we’ve only walked fifteen or so kilometres.”

“Only?” She slouched over, her wounded arm sliding off her head, its bandage visibly turning from a dull rust-like colour to a much more vibrant red.

“Woah there!” He rushed towards her, hoisting her left arm up to stop it from bleeding any further. She slowly sank, almost falling onto her bum before Soleiman hurriedly hoisted her up by her armpits.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “Just hold on a little longer, I’ll get camp set up in no time.”

Leaving Rumi to lean against a nearby tree, Soleiman hastily wandered off, readjusting the several kilogram heavy sack he carried as he surveyed the ground for a little clearing they could call their home.

Soon enough, he came across a nice relatively flat patch of grass just large enough for the two of them to lie down side-by-side, with a little room for their equipment too. To boot, the trees that surrounded the little patch he recognised as those with drinkable saps, meaning they’d have an easy source of water throughout their rest.

He plopped down his bag, stretching and hearing as his spine popped in relief. Hastily, he whipped out one of the two tarps stored within, laying it out across the grass before securing it in place with a couple of stakes.

He led Rumi back to their rudimentary camp, sitting her down on the tarp and dusting rogue pieces of bark off of her back. She tried taking her boots off, though struggling to do so with only one hand.

Soleiman helped her, untying the laces and helping to pull them off of her feet. Finally, she could rest, sitting with her back against a nearby tree’s bark as she rolled her head back in defeat. In her moment of brief relaxation, she let her left arm fall once again to her side, its bandage’s crimson stains spreading further.

“Rumi! Careful!”

She jolted back into wakefulness, raising her hand back above her head.

Soleiman dug through his sack a little longer, fishing out a brown bottle and two rolls of bandages.

Popping off his own boots, he sat himself down on the tarp and shuffled over to where Rumi was.

“Here, give me your arm for a bit.” Gently, Soleiman took Rumi’s arm in his. Cradling it as he scooted over to her side, he tenderly unbound the bandages he’d haphazardly stuck together with the help of Pallas’ blood coating earlier.

Rumi twitched slightly, whimpering a bit as the stumps where her fingers had been met the forest air.

Tearing a bit of bandage off the roll, he uncapped the bottle, pouring a fair helping of cool liquid onto it- the smell of alcohol soon permeating the air.

“This will only hurt a little, okay?”

Rumi nodded, burying her mouth in her other elbow in anticipation.

Slowly, Soleiman dabbed the alcohol-soaked cloth against Rumi’s wounded hand, feeling the hardness of her bones, the fibrous bundles that were her muscles and tendons and the softness of her flesh as he made sure to thoroughly disinfect the wound.

Rumi yelped, her screams muffled by her elbow. The electrifying sting of the alcohol bolting through her wound and all the way up to her neck. She began squirming slightly, kicking her legs involuntarily as the pain she felt moved her on its own, prompting Soleiman to grip her arm tightly to hold it in place.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, look,” he said, lifting the dressing off of her hand. “It’s already over.”

Rumi leant back against the tree in relief, not a word coming out of her mouth.

Next, Soleiman reapplied the bandages about her hand, this time more securely tying them down- anchoring them to her wrist. Taking care to never let her hand fall below chest level, he placed her hand against her body, using up the rest of the roll to create a makeshift sling that held it in place so that she wouldn’t have to worry about keeping it over her head for every waking moment.

“There. Is that better?”

Rumi nodded slightly, eyeing the sling.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

Nodding in acknowledgement, Soleiman scooted back to his boots, slipping them on as he got back up. Pulling the metal pot from the sack and causing a great myriad of other tools to spill out, he began making preparations to cook up dinner before it got too dark. He set the pot down by the foot of a nearby tree, reaching back into the sack to retrieve a miniature hand-cranked drill and a knife.

First, he pressed the knife against the tree’s bark, making a little incision into its wooden flesh. Surely enough, tiny droplets began spilling forth, a good indication that he’d stabbed exactly where he hoped to.

He then placed the drill’s tip against the slit in the wood, slowly spinning it about itself. Then, as the first shavings began to fall out, he sped up, cranking it harder and harder, sending the drill deep into the tree.

Once he had forced the entire drill bit in, he yanked it back out, waiting patiently for the sap to flow.

And flow it did. First as a few drops at a time, and then as a trickle. Acting hastily so as to not let too much of the sap go to waste, he plucked a leaf off of the tree and curled it in on itself, sticking it into the drilled hole to act as a makeshift tap so that the sap wouldn’t just drip down the bark.

Once he’d done that, he readjusted the pot to make sure that it was actually catching the flowing sap, before stepping back to examine his work.

He smiled to himself.

Looking to his right, he saw as Rumi stared in curiosity at the now constant trickle of water pouring from the tree’s insides.

“You can do that?” she asked, eyes widening in amazement.

“Mhm!” he hummed, patting the tree’s bark. “Just need to make sure it's a birch or a maple. Else you shouldn’t be drinking from it.”

“That’s… really cool,” she said, laughing to herself slightly in disbelief as she stared at the veritable wealth of fresh water now available to them. And to think she thought the only water they’d have for the entire trek were the three waterskins he’d brought along.

“Ideally, we’d have picked a tree on the forest’s edge, but,” he gestured around, as if to point out the situation they were in. “So, we’ll just settle with the tallest of the bunch.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Hmf,” she hummed amusingly. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Our Mother,” he replied. “Me and Pallas, I mean. She taught us a lot of things about living in the woods.”

Rumi nodded, the smile on her face slowly fading away as her eyes drifted to her feet in forlorn longing.

“You like syrup?”

Rumi perked up again. Now that was a word she hadn’t heard in a while.

She nodded, looking up at him in suspended disbelief, mouth opening slightly in adorably hopeful anticipation.

“We can have some tonight, if you’re willing to stay up a bit longer-”

“Yes please!”

“Alright then,” Soleiman said, sitting back down onto the tarp and pulling his bag in in search of some equipment. “Rye and- oh!”

“Yeah?”

Soleiman scooted closer to her, sitting sideways as he presented what he’d found in the goatskin containing all their foodstuffs.

“Look! Hole-bread!”

Soleiman showed her the curious doughnut, the otherwise sad, dry-as-sand piece of bread suddenly given a personality by the hole punctured straight through its centre.

Because apparently punching holes through things gives them personalities.

It was cute, small and round. Unassuming, and a well-appreciated surprise in contrast to the literal brick they had otherwise anticipated.

“Ooh! Hole-bread!”

“With syrup!” he added, waving the doughnut in the air.

Rumi’s eyes lit up even more considering the possibility of having sweet syrup-covered doughnuts for dinner. Perhaps they were placing their hopes for the humble little circle a tad bit too high, but given the dire state of things, they’d take any glimmer of light they were offered gladly with both hands.

She sat back against the tree again, placing her uninjured hand on her stomach, rubbing it gently. Cooing it as it bemoaned having to wait any longer for any nourishment.

Once he’d set up the stand for the metal pot, he set aside a flint and steel and the liquor bottle from earlier, preparing to start the fire.

“Here,” he said, handing Rumi a tightly folded-up blanket from within the seemingly bottomless bag. “It’s gonna get cold soon.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Soleiman got back up, bringing with him a knife. The sky they could see peeking through the canopies now approaching a scarlet red, he went to the same birch tree he’d bored a hole into some time ago, shaving off pieces of bark and collecting them in his left hand.

He returned to the stand he had set up in preparation for dinner, piling the pieces of bark neatly against each other under and in between the metal cage’s bars.

With the fireplace now ready to be lit, he decided he’d give the sap just a little longer to collect.

“Rumi, shall I make you your Edenberry paste now?”

“Yes! Please.”

Soleiman then withdrew a handful of Edenberries from within the goatskin, setting them down onto the tarp as plucked another large leaf from the birch tree.

Placing the leaf on his lap, he tore another small piece of cloth from the roll, lightly soaking it in alcohol. He rubbed the leaf’s surface thoroughly, moving his index and middle fingers in a circular motion about its surface to work the piece of cloth across the entire thing.

Then, he picked up his knife, carefully running the cloth against both sides of the blade. Even brushing it against its cutting edge, though with a cautious restraint that showed in how deliberate and slowly he did it.

Now, setting the leaf down on his thigh, he began smashing the Edenberries against the leaf using the knife one at a time, occasionally gathering the smear of glowing golden paste together.

One berry, then two. And when he had the paste from five on the leaf, he set it down alongside the roll by Rumi’s side.

“Can you manage by yourself?”

“Mm, yes.” She nodded, pulling the items closer to her. “Thank you.”

Acknowledging with a nod, Soleiman turned away from Rumi as she unbuttoned her Thosmodene vest, waiting patiently as the sound of sap streaming into the metal pot gurgled in the background.

Only when the sky began transitioning into the twilight gradient of vivid red to abyssal navy blue was the pot filled with enough sap for Soleiman to begin preparing their dinner.

He made sure to sprinkle the pieces of bark he’d collected very sparsely with alcohol, bunching them up one last time before placing the pot atop its metal stand. Then, brandishing the flint and steel, he set the little pile of tinder aflame, burning modestly amidst the dark depths of the forest.

It wasn’t too bright so as to attract any unwarranted Hashashiyyin attention, but it was hot enough to get the water going sooner or later.

He then retrieved a handful of desiccated chicken bits from the goatskin, leaving the sap to come to a boil. The miscellaneous tiny pebble-sized cuts of meat were tough to the touch and dry and coarse on the outside. And it almost felt as though he were holding an actual rock.

A splendid main course, he figured.

“Rumi!” He called out, holding the biggest bit of jerky in his palm as he turned back to her. “Have some chicken-”

He paused mid-sentence.

She’d fallen asleep.

Her vest still unbuttoned and her undershirt rolled up to just below her chest, she lay unconscious against the tree behind her, her chest rising and falling gently with each breath she took. She’d finished up all the paste, its golden glow now spread across the left side of her abdomen, reaching down into her pants. Yet even through its radiant shine, he could see the gruesome mess of her skin that it covered over.

A mess that he was, ultimately, responsible for.

And even though she was shivering ever so slightly, the blanket he’d given her earlier remained unused and bunched up to her side.

Setting the chicken back down, Soleiman carefully crawled on over to Rumi’s side.

Reaching out, he hesitated momentarily before poking her softly on her shoulder.

“Rumi. Rumi,” he whispered, the second one more drawn out.

Still asleep.

Soleiman paused briefly, before poking her again.

“Rumi!” he whispered slightly more loudly this time.

…Still asleep.

Poor girl.

In all fairness, even he struggled to keep his eyelids from slamming shut while he waited for the pot to fill up.

He put his entire hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently.

“Rumi…”

She finally stirred from her slumber, taking a while to understand what had happened before she turned to face Soleiman.

“You want some chicken first before we have our dessert?”

“Nh?” she hummed in confusion. “Oh, y-yes please,” she said, her voice soft and groggy.

Nodding, he hurriedly crawled away, fetching the little chunks of meat from the goatskin.

He wasted no time in hurrying back to Rumi’s side, handing her the biggest piece out of the bunch.

“It’s a bit tough, so be careful.”

Rumi nodded, cautiously sinking her teeth into the rock.

And… It wasn't so bad.

Perhaps it was her hunger, so voracious she felt as though her stomach had been shrinking in on itself for the past few hours. Or perhaps it was her exhaustion, the mental toll of the past two days fooling her mind into hallucinating a taste that didn’t exist and deluding her into the belief that she enjoyed the meal.

Or maybe she just liked the chicken. It was certainly well salted, after all.

A look of pleasant surprise soon spread across her face, and before long she’d taken another bite out of the piece of meat.

Warming up at the sight of Rumi’s enjoyment, Soleiman too began eating his share of the chicken bits, holding his left palm out as a plate to hold their food so that Rumi could eat in relative ease.

And so the two of them ate their way into the night, their food and faces lit only dimly by the amber hue of the small flame below the pot. They finished the chicken, sparing not a single morsel of food. Then, once the sap had been boiled down to a thick enough consistency, Soleiman took it off the fire and let it cool, the two of them drinking in its sweet, warm vapours as they huddled under their blankets in patient waiting.

And when the time came for them to enjoy their so-coveted syrup-covered doughnuts, they made sure to savour each and every last moment of it. Every crumb, every drop and every last bite. They didn’t know if they’d ever be able to be as relaxed as they were now again, or if they would run into trouble as soon as they stepped foot into Mesimeos. Or if they’d even ever see Pallas and Qingxi again. For just as the darkness of the forest obscured the trees beyond the flicker of their flames in unfathomable shadows, so too did uncertainty enshroud their fates in a cruel anxious unknowingness.

But, the flame, while small, still let them see what lay before them. Their food, their blankets, and each other. And for however long that flame would last, they would make sure to embrace each passing moment given to them with every ounce of gratitude they had in them. For even if they had no guarantee that they’d live to see the future of freedom and of fulfilment they so wished for, they would at least be able to say that they lived knowing that they did the best they could given their circumstances.

That they tried their best.

Indeed, that is the true victory. The human victory.