The third time I remembered waking up, I felt stronger than before, and yet weaker. I had slept long enough that I was hungry again, and this time, no strange woman came barging into my borrowed room with an unnaturally well-timed bowl of soup. Instead, I would have to go seeking her on my own—fortunately, I was now capable of leaving the bed, and venturing back into the hallway. There I learned two things. First, that ‘Zia’s house was much larger than I had anticipated. Secondly, that the house had been created in a very strange way. Rather than cutting the wood into suitable shapes and assembling it into walls and a roof, the walls were seamlessly connected to each other, almost as if they had been hollowed out from a single massive block of wood—or, the ridiculous thought crossed my mind, as if they had been grown this way.

The whole house was conveniently strange like that. Even in windowless rooms and halls, the floors were carpeted by a soft, glowing moss I had never seen before, the walls delicately draped with creepers, upon which bloomed luminescent flowers. The entire house was perpetually lit in a hazy blue-green twilight, creating a dreamlike atmosphere. It was a place I could have only imagined before now, and all the greenery further confirmed my suspicions that my ‘host’ was neither the Sun Fiend nor a mortal. That left a small handful of entities ‘Zia’ could be. One choice more blatantly obvious than all the rest.

After some stumbling around, I finally found Elian’s room, where he was tucked into a similar bed to mine. True to Zia’s word, he was fast asleep.

He looked in a very bad way. Worse than me, which was...unsurprising, I concluded, as memories of weeping red skin still flashed in my mind. But compared to then, Elian looked much, much better. Much of his body was bandaged, and what little skin was still visible was now ashen and grey. Some of his hair had burned off, and what remained had been cut short to make it easier to deal with. It made him look like a patient on his deathbed, which I hoped he wasn't. His stillness didn’t help that impression. But a few moments of watching the slow rise and fall of his chest showed that he was still alive. Still breathing.

Still alive.

Elian was alive. Somehow. How had he even survived that…? How had either of us survived? The Sun Fiend had said...something about not letting Elian die. Had she deliberately…? Or was this the afterlife…? It would...make sense, if Zia really was—

“Are you satisfied I wasn’t lying yet?” A voice from the door made me jump and spin around, ready for a fight. I did not relax when I saw Zia standing in the doorway. “Now back to bed with you.”

“How is he still alive? Did you bring him back? Did you use magic?” I asked.

She shook her head, her bright green hair bouncing slightly at the motion. “No. Only a Crown—a god of life—can do that. He is still alive because you were both still alive when you came to me,” she answered. “Barely.”

“How did he even survive that fight? I saw—he was hit with one of the Sun Fiend’s spears!” I said. My mind was still grappling, turning over weakness with I survived with I should be dead with I don’t want to die with I can’t die to her I can’t be weak I need to kill her with She could kill me with But what if I di—

No. No no no no no. Fortunately, Zia did not seem to notice as I violently shook my head and pressed my fingers into my tender arms. Instead, her expression became pensive, and she gestured towards a chair in the room. I stared expectantly as I sat. Feeling like this, so weak and reliant upon the mercy of a stranger, I didn’t like this feeling. I hoped the intensity of my stare was making her sweat, reminding her that if I had survived a fight with the Sun Fiend and earned her acknowledgement in some small way, I wasn’t one who could be treated lightly, extorted, or regarded as a helpless victim. I wasn’t weak, I wasn’t. I could kill her, my hostess, too, if she made me. If she gave me reason. But the damn hermit looked as unflappable and at ease as ever. And of course she did: she had the advantage of her own home and her powers being largely unknown, while her opponents were two bedridden brats. One of whom had yet to even recover consciousness.

“I don’t know how he survived,” Zia finally said. She gave a half-shrug, and mused on the possibilities, though she didn’t sound especially settled on any of them. “Perhaps the Sun Fiend held back, but she’s not really the type. Perhaps a higher power was used to save his life.”

I tilted my head. What a cryptic way to phrase that sentence. “Higher power? You mean the Earth Goddess intervened?” I asked.

“Perhaps her,” she said, though she still seemed rather doubtful. If someone like her didn’t know the truth, then I may as well give up on ever finding out, I thought. She glanced between me and Elian, an almost pained look on her face. Again, the sense that she was more perceptive that I liked. “So long as you stay seated, you can stay by him. If you want,” she said slowly, as though speaking to a frightened, cornered animal. “Call for me immediately if something is wrong.”

“Call the name ‘Zia,’ you mean,” I asked flatly. “Speaking of. I did want to call you for something. I want food. You’re my host, so feed me.”

“Already? And what’s wrong with Zia? It’s as good a name as any other,” she shrugged again.

----------------------------------------

One night, I awoke to the sound of voices. Or rather, one voice: my intrepid host was speaking with someone else, but I couldn’t make out who she was speaking with. Had I misjudged? She was not the Sun Fiend, but was she an ally of the Fiend? Or perhaps…the Fiend was not the sole source of evil in this world. It was possible that this ‘Zia’ had some unrelated motive in mind, and with Elian still asleep…

With no weapon to use, I instead grabbed one of her wooden pots of flowers, dumping its contents from it. I would have preferred smashing a chair and wielding the pointy end, but the noise would surely alert her, and I wasn’t sure I even had the strength to do that at the moment. Luck was on my side in another way, however; Zia’s mossy carpet made me even quieter than normal. It was impossible for her to have heard me as I slowly navigated towards the sound of her voice. Even just outside the door, I still couldn’t hear Zia’s conversation partner, but I could clearly hear her words.

“I will, I will,” she groaned, her usual low and tired voice a little livelier. “How many times must we go through this? This is your fault, you realize. They threw me off my routine, that’s all, once I finish here I’ll go to sl—Hwyll, don’t you join in too! I gave my word, didn’t I?”

Was there more than one person in the room with her? I peered around the doorway, as stealthily as I could, but saw no one besides my truly bizarre host. She was sitting on a stool as she washed clothes in a frothing basin, but what was strange was that I caught her batting tree branches away—tree branches that had somehow grown in through the window…?

I must have been staring at the scene for quite a while, because Zia noticed me. “...Have I missed some meal again?” she asked.

“Er. No,” I said.

“Well then. What do you want?”

“What are you doing…?”

She blinked. “Sometimes, clothes experience a build-up of dirt and sweat while you wear them, making them smelly and unpleasant to wear. Or sometimes, while performing lifesaving procedures on unexpected houseguests, things will splatter upon fabric. When this happens, we take soap and water, and—”

“I know what clothes-washing is!” I snapped.

“You know. You could help out, instead of creepily watching me from the doorway.”

“I woke up in your home! You’re the creepy one!”

“‘Why thank you for saving my life, Zia. Also my friend’s life. Of course, assisting you with chores you’ve been too distracted to do is the least of the ways I could repay you.’”

Briefly, I fumed. Well, when she put it like that, it would make me the rude one to keep standing here, wouldn’t it? I was horribly bored sitting around her house anyways, and this would give me a good excuse to keep an eye on her. “What else is there to do,” I ground out.

“Well, it would be bad to get your bandages wet…so long as I’m washing things, bring me your blankets and sheets. You keep spilling.”

----------------------------------------

Elian woke up. I suspect Zia had been deliberately keeping him asleep until he was able to move more comfortably without being drugged out of his mind. Once he did awaken she shooed me from the room, to speak with him in private. Outside the room, I surreptitiously listened in as Zia explained how long he had been asleep, who she was in the vaguest terms possible, and what injuries Elian had suffered and healed from. Even now my hands still sported scars from the fight, but Elian’s injuries had been even more extensive

He took waking up in a mysterious stranger’s house much better than I did, which was typical of him. Of course he’d go from a coma to playing the part of the polite houseguest. Or had he been faking being asleep to quietly compose himself? Once Zia finished her discussion, she told me I was allowed to speak with Elian if I wanted to, but sternly instructed me ‘not to do anything stupid’. Admittedly, with more polite language, but the message was quite clear.

Stolen novel; please report.

I didn’t try to talk to him. Not immediately. Now that he was awake, now that speaking to him was an option, it was as if something barred me from entering. Every time I thought about entering his room, about actually talking to him after our encounter with the Sun Fiend, something in my chest suddenly tightened up. Instead I found myself loitering outside his room, quietly scolding Zia’s phoenix for following me around and pecking at my feet, or begrudgingly assisting Zia with her chores. Occasionally she would shoot me a glance that felt judging, but I would retaliate with a more intense glare.

This awkward limbo was not to last. Apparently Elian was fully aware of how time I spent loitering outside his room, and grew fed up with my cowardly behavior far faster than I or Zia did. “Tal, I know you’re out there,” Elian’s voice called from inside the room. His voice was a little stronger than I had expected it to be.

Well. No excuses now. I should at least try to speak with him, shouldn’t I? See how he recovered, at the very minimum. Entering, his complexion looked a little healthier, though there were heavy bags beneath his eyes. Normally nothing could wipe his bright smile off his face, but it seemed a little more strained and forced as I looked at him now. His expression felt like the equivalent of walking in on nearly walking in on something indecent, and forcing the other to rush and cover himself.

A part of me was relieved that he was okay. That was something I couldn’t deny, no matter how much I tried to tell myself he was making me weak, or that I shouldn’t care for him. But at the same time, sitting here in the room with him felt uncomfortable, as though I were sitting on needles.

“You look like shit, Tal,” he said, smiling that strained smile again.

“You’re one to talk. Take a look at yourself,” I quickly returned. This was comfortable, at least.

“So cruel to me,” he snickered. “You alright?”

“Fine. Yourself?”

He nodded. “Better than ever.”

I snorted, to his apparent amusement. “Be grateful then. You very nearly died. That was very reckless.” Though we had fallen back into our usual banter, it didn’t feel as it usually did. We were two storytellers, actors, reciting lines and going through the motions.

“As reckless as trying to fight the goddamn Sun Fiend?” he asked. Though he asked me lightly, I couldn’t help the bitter tone that seeped into my reply.

“Wasn’t that what you tried doing, yourself?”

“I said we should run,” he said, a hard edge to his voice. He was keeping something from me.

It took me a moment to respond, as I carefully reflected on my memories of that time. They were a mess, much like the incident itself had been, the heat and smoke blurring into the edges of a nightmare, but...“That’s not what you said,” I said incredulously, shaking my head.

“Yes, it was. I told you to run, so why didn’t you run?” he insisted. The hard edge was becoming cold stone now. He was so unwilling to open up to me about this? I thought—

“No. No, you told her to leave me alone—because it was you she wanted,” I shot back. The old banter was becoming a fight, and this one I was intent on winning.

He muttered his next words, so low I only just caught them. Was he ashamed? “I still told you to run.”

“Do you think so lowly of me, Elian?” I snapped, my own tone rising. “Did you forget why we agreed to spar and train? Why we became friends at all? It wasn’t because I like you. It wasn’t because you were friendly.”

“...I haven’t.”

My anger only grew, and beneath it, something which stabbed into my heart, like a painful splinter lodged into it. “Then how could you possibly accuse me of just fleeing? Do you think I’m a coward, do you think so low of me, after all this time?” I curled my hands into fists as I spoke, and felt my palms grow slick and sweaty. “If you want to run away, then that’s on you. But I swore an oath. I-I promised. Maybe you had a point earlier, that I didn’t need to fight Angra’s wars. But how can I possibly leave when she appears in front of me? She is why I fight.”

“Is fighting all you fucking think about, Talon?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Fighting is why I’m alive. Fighting is why I tolerate you.”

He’d given up even trying to smile. His warm mask had slid from his face and shattered upon the ground. What remained struck me as distant and tired. “...Then why are you even checking up on me? Scared I’ll die before I can kill you?”

I said nothing, merely digging my fingernails into my palms. Then I spoke, voice low and beginning to rasp, “...Why did you say that?”

“I’m only responding to you. You said everything was about fighting,” he replied calmly, but not evenly.

“No. Not that,” I said, frantically thinking back to that nightmare of fire and ash and smoke. Something was very wrong with El, but what was it. Something I said? Or something which happened back then? “Back then. You told her she’s more interested in you, not me. Why would you say that?”

Elian gazed at me, then tilted his head, his face still blank and distant. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you dare lie to me, Elian,” I hissed, “I’m trying to help you, you idiot, so don’t act all stubborn—”

“Why would you try to help someone you only tolerate?”

“You—!!” My cheeks began to heat up. But Elian didn’t stop.

“And stubborn? From you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded

An unfamiliar smirk curled Elian’s lips. “You’re so determined to be miserable and die that you’d even reject the girl you’re in love with.”

“I—I’m not in love with anyone!”

“Please, Talon. If you didn’t love her, you would’ve told her so. Maybe even left her with a bruise. But you’re so fixated on vengeance and death, that you reject everything else, because that’s all you think you deserve, it’s all you want—”

“And you’re so fixated on everyone else’s safety that you’d let them murder you without even complaint!” I finally snapped. “You keep coming back to myself and Nania because no one else could possibly tolerate you. Because to them you’re a childish little freak who shoves them all away while waiting for death.”

“...Which of us are you talking about?” Elian asked.

“You—”

“Boys.”

We both turned our heads, to see Zia in the door. Her normally stoic expression had cracked and exposed a glimpse of something raw and bleeding beneath, her lower lip wobbling, bright green eyes plainly worried. Behind her ankles cowered her Phoenix. Even it seemed scared and frightened by our argument. Zia managed to keep most of her composure

“Too much excitement,” she said, gesturing with a thumb for me to leave the room.

----------------------------------------

I had a new nightmare. I dreamed about the final words of my younger brother.

Was I a coward for thinking I could run away with Elian and Nania? Could preventing these events from ever repeating really make up for getting it so wrong? Were my feelings truly so unique? Did I really just want to be miserable?

I thought...or did it matter what I thought?

It didn’t matter to Kite. What had happened had happened.

----------------------------------------

There was no use dancing around it. I was strong enough to leave now. And there was no point in staying any longer, either. Enough time had been wasted here.

I couldn’t find my bow within Zia’s home, but I did find my daggers in one of her many rooms for storing plants. After I attached their sheathes to my hips, I made it through her house and out the door, to discover something truly incredible. Of course her house looked like it had been grown this way from a single tree. Somehow, she really was living in an utterly massive tree, so tall that we were in the Deep Woods’ canopy. I was closer to the sky here than I had ever been before. Truly this must be the realm of the gods. Her front door exited onto a balcony, which opened up onto an environment I wasn’t sure I had the language to describe.

It was a realm of green clouds and wooden earth. A combination of branches, leaves, and moss somehow created a stable ground above the ground, a hidden realm within the treetops. Carefully, tentatively, I placed on foot upon this strange ground, then another. It held my weight, and so I began to walk, then run, ignoring the dull ache in my legs.

In truth, I didn’t expect to get very far. Especially not if ‘Zia’ was who I suspected her to be, and she almost definitely was. Still, I could no longer remain here. I had to find a path elsewhere. If nothing else, I should at least get a feel for the environment.

Just as I expected, I didn’t get very far, but it wasn’t Zia who stopped me. It was my own legs. I tripped, falling face first into a cushion of moss and earth. At least it didn’t seem to reopen my recently-healed wounds, or leave me with any new ones. Only then did I notice two things. The branches that had tripped me, by loosely wrapping around my ankles, and how winded I had become. When I tried to sit up again and continue running, more branches rose up from the ground, grasping and brushing my arms as if trying to hold me down.

“What—get—get back!” I snapped. I knew the Deep Woods were home to many monsters and strange plants, but I’d never seen anything like this before. There were carnivorous plants that ate small animals, but there were no plants that could move so fast and so deliberately, like...like they were alive. “Get away, get back!”

What was this, some new magical monster which only looked like a plant? Was it carnivorous, pretending to be harmless until it lured its unfortunate victims close? Or perhaps the purest and most undiluted form of the Flower Goddess’ curse? Nothing seemed impossible here. I was in a strange world, and I didn’t know the rules. Despite trying to cut myself free with a dagger, it did nothing at all to help. More branches would take the places of the ones cut, while a few other branches tried to gently pry the dagger from my hands.

“Don’t,” a voice rang out, freezing my movements. With jerky motions I twisted around to see Zia approaching me, that same phoenix waddling along beside her.

“Don’t hurt them,” she told me, her voice quiet and on the edge of pleading rather than its usual blunt confidence.

“Is that a warning or a threat?” I asked. “I’ve never seen the plants so active like this. This is your curse, isn’t it, Hallow Zaya?”

Zia, no, Hallow Zaya sighed. “It’s neither. It’s not a curse, either. That was a genuine request to not hurt yourself, or my friends.” With a slight gesture, the branches released me, and only in retrospect did I realize how small and gentle they had been, compared to the heavy, thick boughs that likely kept this whole realm stable and capable of existing. As I patted down my body, it occurred to me that they could have snapped my bones in two if they had really wanted to...but who were ‘they’?

“Just come with me, okay? I don’t like leaving my home to chase people down,” Hallow Zaya said, with a small bit of awkwardness. “I...probably should have told you some things earlier. So I may as well tell you all of them now.”