She gasped awake.

Something was burning on her collarbone. She looked down to find that the strange tattoo she had found there yesterday was glowing red-hot like a molten iron again. When she pressed her fingers to it, she hissed and pulled them away. Her skin burned like fire.

As she watched, breathing shallowly, the tattoo cooled again to an inky black. The burning sensation subsided.

Abrial huffed a breath of relief. She threw herself back into the grass, puzzled.

Did that woman give me this tattoo? she wondered, frowning. It was burning after that weirdly vivid dream. Does it have something to do with the dream? Or is it just angry or something?

She breathed in deeply, calming her breath. The tattoo didn’t hurt any longer. She’d ask that woman about it later.

Another curious thought flitted through Abrial’s mind.

She thought of the boy from the dream again, fiercely staring at the brook with his dark eyes, unruly hair and tattered clothes.

“I wonder who he was,” Abrial muttered to herself, her brow creased in contemplation. “I’ve never met someone like him. Why would I dream something like that? His clothes were so old. He looked like he lived hundreds and hundreds of years ago…”

Which was funny, because she’d never seen clothes from hundreds of years ago, only heard about them. When did her imagination become so vivid?

She sat up. With a shrug and a small shake of the head, she cast the thoughts about this dream and the tattoo away. It probably wasn’t important, heh. Just a weirdo dream, and a plain old tattoo. That woman had probably tattooed her for healing purposes, or something. Right?

Abrial looked around.

It was late afternoon by now, reaching dusk. She stretched, a grin breaking out across her face.

“Awesome!” she grinned, reaching her arms up to the sky.

Indeed, it was an awesome landscape all around her. The sun had begun to set, turning the endless hills all manners of regal purples and sweet oranges, like a living, breathing palette of light. The grass swayed endlessly before her in the soft breeze. To her right, the mountains stood tall like silent, solemn-faced guardians, splashed with robes of scarlet and delicate pink at their snowy tips. Even the air smelled fresher than ever. Abrial inhaled deeply, feeling pure, cool wind rush into her lungs.

She hummed in satisfaction. Being free — well, sort of free — out in the hills was awesome! She’d been imprisoned for so long, when this vast, awesome world had always been out here waiting for her!

At long last, she set back towards the cottage.

She reached it as the sun was sinking behind the mountaintops. That healer-woman had returned sometime while Abrial was gone. She sat sewing intently on the cottage floor, with the annoying, stuck-up sparrow fluttering cheerily around her head.

When the woman noticed Abrial, she looked up and smiled widely.

“Back at last? How was your day out in the hills?”

Abrial sat on a stool next to the woman. Normally, this would be a bit disrespectful, since the woman was sitting on the floor, and the stool was raised higher. But Abrial had grown up in a house separated from society, so…she didn’t care all that much about being respectful, despite how much her mother had tried to drill discipline into her.

The woman, however, didn’t say anything. She simply took notice, smiled as though holding in a laugh, and continued sewing.

“How’d you know I was out in the hills?” Abrial asked, picking up what she recognized as a tangerine from a full bowl on the table. “And can I eat this?”

The woman laughed. “Where else would you be? There are only hills around here for miles. And yes, eat it. I’m surprised you asked first.”

Abrial didn’t notice the humorous suggestion of impoliteness. She peeled the tangerine, which was a deep, juicy orange inside. Yum!

“Hey, lady. You gave me this tattoo, right?”

She held the orange with one hand and pressed a finger to the tattoo with the other. Her smooth collar bone was exposed in this white sleeping robe she had worn all day, revealing the inky tattoo beneath her finger.

The woman glanced at the tattoo. She nodded.

“It will be helpful to you, I hope. I inked it while you were unconscious. The ink will wash out over time. Tattoos can be useful…for healing purposes, among other things. It will speed your recovery. If it burns, it is because it is channeling energy to keep you internally healthy.” Abrial noticed that the woman averted her eyes suddenly in the middle of her sentence. But maybe she just wanted to pay attention to her sewing. Yeah, that was it.

Abrial broke off a fourth of the tangerine and pushed it between her teeth. Juice flowed into her mouth, sweeter than honey and delightfully sour, too. She hummed in pleasure, chewing in silence.

“You really like tangerines, huh?” the woman remarked, continuing to sew. “I’m glad. Now, why don’t we exchange names? We’ve known each other for two days now, and we still don’t have names to call each other by. I’ll go first. My name is Shin Minyeo, but you can call me eonni, like your big sister. You’ve met my sparrow, too. His name is Cham-sae.”

Abrial eyed the sparrow grudgingly.

“I’m…Han Abrial Chae-young. I’ll just call you Shin Minyeo. I don’t want to call you eonnie.” Abrial popped another fourth of tangerine into her mouth. Sour and sweet flavor burst across her tongue. “What’re you sewing?”

She’d just taken notice of the work in Shin Minyeo’s hands. It was a flowing, formless cloth that had a graceful, dark color to it, like a sheet of shadow. Shin Minyeo was meticulously sewing a silvery thread around its edges. The thread glittered like pure moonlight. Abrial had never seen anything like it!

Shin Minyeo smiled her smirky smile up at Abrial. “Just forming a robe. By the way, Abrial, your robes are rather plain, the black outer one especially. You come from a noble family. Why aren’t your clothes more luxurious?”

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Abrial shrugged, popping the rest of the tangerine into her mouth. She spoke garbled through the fruit: “Does id madder? I just need glothes to wear.”

Shin Minyeo laughed, the sound tinkling like silver bells. Cham-sae chirped. “Impressive. A rich nobleman’s daughter, and yet you don’t care about luxury. I like you.”

Abrial swallowed. Her brow knit into a frown. “How do you know I’m a nobleman’s daughter?”

“Your manners are terrible. Noble children never care to show etiquette to people in the countryside. But I have to say, your manners are much worse than any noble persons’ I’ve ever seen before.”

Abrial’s face flushed red with irritation. She opened her mouth to retort, but Shin Minyeo cut her off, grinning.

“On the topic of luxury, if you were to have any sort of fancy robe that you wanted, what kind would you want?”

Abrial frowned at the strange question, watching Shin Minyeo’s needle thread in and out of the shadowy cloth.

“What do you mean? What would I want it to look like?”

“Mmhm.”

“How is that useful conversation? Can we talk about something more important? Like, when will I be healed enough to leave? I’m getting bored here already.”

Shin Minyeo’s eyes glittered amusedly.

“I’ll only answer your question if you answer mine first, silly.”

Abrial huffed in disbelief. Shin Minyeo had to be older than her by only a few years, but she acted like a playful auntie, teasing and forcing her to answer silly, imaginary questions!

“Also, bring me a bowl of that soup on the table and come sit down next to me, too.”

Abrial made a noise of further disbelief. Shin Minyeo’s tone was both demanding and playful, as though she were ordering around a little kid in a teasing way. Her face hot with humiliation, Abrial ladled steaming rice cake soup into a bowl and set it down in front of Shin Minyeo along with a wooden spoon. Then, without asking permission, she got herself a bowl, too, and flumped down irritatedly across from Shin Minyeo. She lifted the bowl to block her humiliated, annoyed expression. Her spoon furiously shoveled soft white rice cakes into her mouth, and she swallowed them as if they were water.

If she couldn’t fight this annoying woman who was taking care of her, then she had to vent out her irritation by eating like a fierce tiger!

“Slow down,” Shin Minyeo warned. “You’ll choke.”

As if on cue, Abrial made a strangled noise as a rice cake lodged in her throat. She dropped her bowl, which was already empty. It landed with a clatter.

Calmly, Shin Minyeo reached over the black cloth spread across her legs. She turned Abrial around swiftly, then hit her expertly in a spot on her upper back with surprising force.

Abrial coughed harshly. The rice cake flew out of her throat like a dart and back into the bowl on the ground, causing it to roll further away.

She wiped her mouth, breathing heavily. Then she turned around, hunched like a stray cat, to glare at Shin Minyeo. Shin Minyeo was sewing again already, a smirky smile on her face.

“Eat slower from now on. If you continue to eat like that, if one day no one is near you, you might not be able to cough it up on your own. Then you would die a really silly death.”

Abrial massaged her throat grudgingly.

“Thank you,” she muttered, almost inaudibly.

The corners of Shin Minyeo’s mouth curved up. It was almost imperceptible.

When Abrial had returned with another bowl of rice cake soup, this time setting it down less forcefully, she spoke. Her voice was reluctant and somewhat embarrassed, and she kept her eyes down on her spoon, stirring the rice cakes.

“If I could have any robe I wanted, I guess I would want it to look intimidating, so that the people I fight would be scared of me. And dark. Maybe with a big, majestic dragon on the back, and shining thread and stuff. I like red, too. Some red thread…And it would be cool if it kind of flowed…Like…I have a blade fighting instructor whose robes just kind of floated, almost like there was a breeze inside them! That would look cool. They would just look like they were breathing!”

When Abrial looked up, Shin Minyeo was gazing at her with a look of tenderness that seemed unmatched to the words she had just spoken. She couldn’t quite explain the warm, and yet faraway quality of that gaze.

“That’s a very fine robe idea,” Shin Minyeo breathed, her voice quiet. Then she returned to sewing, her eyes twinkling again. “And what about your friend? Finley? What kind of fancy robe would be her favorite?”

Abrial swallowed her mouthful of soup, staring at Shin Minyeo. “Why would you need to know that?”

Shin Minyeo winked.

“Just wondering.”

Abrial narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

“I’m not the best person to ask. I don’t really know what she’d want to wear.”

“Are you sure? You’re telling me you don’t know anything about what she likes?”

Abrial swallowed another bite of properly chewed rice cake, frowning in irritation.

“I know some things! Like…I guess Finley likes light colors. White, pastel, light pink and flowery colors. And she has honey-colored hair. Gold thread would go really nicely with it. They would sparkle together…” A captivated smile curved on her lips as she thought of Finley’s long, glittering honey hair fluttering over the golden threads of a robe. “She’s super pretty — no, beautiful — like a queen. So, something flowing and pale with golden threads and flowers. She would like that.”

When she looked up this time, a peculiar smirk was twitching on Shin Minyeo’s face. She had stopped sewing for a moment. Her silver needle sat atop the shadowy cloth, resting in one of her thin, pale hands.

She leaned forward, placing her chin on her other hand. An utterly mischievous grin broke across her face.

“Tell me,” she said, her voice teasing, “Finley, this friend. What kind of friend is she?”

Abrial blinked. She swallowed the last mouthful of soup.

“What do you mean? She’s my…childhood friend?”

Shin Minyeo’s face lit up with delight.

“Ah, even better!” Abrial couldn’t understand the glee in her voice. “So, you like this childhood friend?”

Abrial frowned. “Yes? Duh?”

“But what kind of ‘like’, is the question? Do you think she’s lovely? Do you want to — “

Realization had finally dawned on Abrial. Her face bloomed as crimson as a rich person’s wedding dress, and her cheeks heated up so much they seemed to be two burning stoves. She hurled her bowl and spoon without thinking, nearly bashing Shin Minyeo in the head. Shin Minyeo dodged swiftly, and the empty bowl crashed into the wall instead. She was laughing silently with so much gleefulness that her cheeks were turning pink and her eyes had become closed crescents. Cham-sae fluttered around Shin Minyeo’s head, its high-pitched chirps sounding like cackles.

“It’s not like that!” Abrial hollered, vaulting to her feet. She clenched her fists. “We’re just friends! And we’re both women! Stop making it weird!”

“Who says — “ Shin Minyeo managed between gasps of laughter, “ — that women — can’t love — one another — like that? It’s — ”

“ARGH!” Abrial bellowed, pulling at her hair. She dashed the visions of Finley’s fluttering honey locks from her mind. Finley’s bright smile and soft pink lips took that image’s place, and she tore that to pieces, too. She covered her ears. “Stop it, you stupid old crone!”

Then she stormed through the plants and out into the night.

Only some time after Abrial had gone, Shin Minyeo regained her normal breathing. She sighed with a smile, at last lifted her knitting needle again.

“Shao Cheng, Shao Cheng,” she murmured, a misty look in her eye. The residue of laughter still hadn’t left her face. “She is so much like you.”