Idony woke up stuck between a rock and a sharp place.

The rock was Bo, who had somehow managed to get her leg caught under his while she was sprawled out in his lap asleep.

The sharp place was the sword that hovered above her head, close to Bo's throat.

The lady holding the sword was covered head to toe in armor, well worn chainmail shrouded by a long stained and very stitched up surcoat with the barely visible insignia of a horned horse on it. The helmet made her head look like a cold faceless metal sculpture, but she could feel the eyes glaring down at them. Idony would have been curious about seeing someone from far away like her, but the sword hanging above her head was a bigger concern.

Bo was raising his hands up very slowly, "h-hey, why not put that down huh? We were just resting here."

"You did not answer my question," the voice was flat, without feeling or judgement.

"W-well, my name is Bo. This is Zhu'er."

The sword did not move an inch. With how still it was, Idony wondered if the lady holding it was actually made of stone. "Why did you bring a child to this land? Are you mad?" The woman asked.

Bo made a strange choking sound, and Idony shifted slightly to cling to him to show the lady she was willingly with the man who was being held at sword point. "N-no! No! We actually- we actually came here with others. Things just.. have happened."

Idony nodded, "yeah! Yeah! There was a dragon and then there was a castle and-and, uh, we also saw-" she briefly held the pale benevolent face in her head and shook it out just as fast. "There was a giant winged snake thing and-"

"We're actually trying to get somewhere," Bo cut her off. "We're trying to get to this mountain but we got kind of tired after traveling and decided to sit down, I guess I kind of fell asleep. But we're not threats! I promise!" Idony watched Bo awkwardly try to move the sword at his side so it was behind him. The lady's sword tip pressed to his neck. "I'm not-"

A rolling breeze ruffled Idony's hair, shaking some dirt from it and the lady's head tilted upwards. "Really? You think so?" She then sighed and moved her sword away, sheathing it. "As you wish then."

"We can go?" Idony asked, hopeful.

"No," the woman replied bluntly, "I don't know how you two made it this far off the protected roads, especially after the red moon last night, but you will be coming with me. My husband wants to speak with you."

"You have a husband?" Bo looked incredulous, "here?"

"Yes."

Idony tugged on Bo's arm, trying to tell him via what she thought to be a complex set of facial expressions and blinking to not keep questioning the lady. She had no idea if it worked but Bo stayed quiet as he got up and easily pulled her onto his back. She latched onto him and peered from his shoulder at the woman who gestured for them to start walking into the red-leafed forest. Bo was still, and she could feel his shoulders tense as he picked Liu Xie's sword up from the ground and started walking in the direction the woman pointed.

The lady had pointed them onto a pathway littered with decaying leaves and small shrubs that slowly encroached upon the trodden dirt. The smell of leaf litter was familiar, she remembered similar smells back in Norwen.

She thought about Norwen, trying to conjure up images of it in the autumn to match it to the fiery orange and dark red leaves around them. But all she could recall was sparse blackened branches reaching up to a cold night sky and the ground thickly swaddled in snow. The thought of the cold was enough to make her shiver and her lungs heave with the familiar coughs she would get when the winter reached its worst weeks, and she covered her mouth as she felt her chest rattle around with coughs and phantom phlegm.

"Please don't puke on me," Bo pleaded quietly.

Idony pulled her hand away from her mouth after the coughing stopped and looked down at her palm. It was splattered with saliva and a white flower petal. She stared at it for a long moment, then quickly wiped it off onto her skirt, where it then fell to the dirt below. She looked at Bo, who was still looking ahead as he walked, and at the lady who was forging on ahead. Idony rested her chin on Bo's shoulder as he carried her and thought about whether to tell him about the flower petal. Flowers had lately been something that worried the adults around her and without Liu Xie or Rui Yifu or anyone else besides Bo she was unsure what would happen if she told him.

She squeezed Bo a little, suddenly nervous about what would happen once he put her down.

"Hey, uh, Miss Tirunesh?" Bo called out. "Your uh... dress thing. It's got a horse with a horn on it right? When we were near the river back there, we saw other things with that symbol."

The lady stopped in her step, her helmeted head turning to look back at them. "Those were my men. Or what's left of them."

"Your men?"

"The 'horse with a horn' is a beast called a unicorn," she continued. Her voice was as flat as ever. "My company of knights used it as a standard because it represented our connection to the royal family."

"Oh."

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"But that was a long time ago," she then returned to walking.

"Bo?" Idony whispered, "where are we going?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

The trees seemed to fall away as though in response to her question, revealing a simple looking fenced house with yellowing white walls and a large vibrantly red and gold colored maple tree in its central courtyard that dominated the entire space. A canopy of leaves that left the building shrouded in shadows. The lady, Tirunesh, walked to the door and opened it, standing at its side to wait for Bo and Idony to go inside. Idony could feel the tension deepen in Bo's shoulders as he approached the threshold, stepping inside slowly.

"Welcome."

The voice seemed to come from nowhere, and Idony found herself briefly falling before Bo managed to catch her. Feeling somewhat jumbled, she grabbed onto Bo's clothes and held tightly as she looked around for the source of the voice.

It was a young man with a sleepy looking face standing nearby. His clothes were as red as the maple leaves outside and his hands were pale and very thin, as if the bones might tear from the skin at any moment.

"Hi," Bo replied, somewhat pale from surprise still. "So... uhm, we just met your wife and she took us over here. Is there a... reason?" Idony watched Bo's eyes narrow at the other man.

The man slowly nodded, "Tirunesh patrols the forest often. Sometimes I ask her to go look for travelers that come by or to find sources of disturbance to the forests."

"Uh huh," Bo sounded doubtful. Idony also looked at the man in suspicion, especially his creepy hands. "And we're... disturbances?"

"Not you in specific," the man said, sounding apologetic. "I did not mean you are a disturbance. But the sword you have is swarming with white flame and you're carrying a corpse."

"What corpse?"

"Huh?" Idony looked at the man in confusion and with a pile of uncomfortably twitching worms in her chest. Someone else had said she was dead before, but she did not believe that. She did not feel dead, for one, and secondly dead things rotted. She glanced down at her arms and saw none of the familiar green-purple tinging that came with rot.

"That one," the man pointed at Idony.

"I'm not a corpse," she shook her head. "See?" She held up her arm, "and I'm breathing! Dead people don't do that!"

The man brought up his hand to his chin, staring thoughtfully, "well, in my studies I've learned with enough purified white flame, you can essentially prolong a spirit's connection to a body almost indefinitely." Then he let his hands drop to his sides, "come with me into the main room. Tiru-" he paused. The lady had already left, "ah. Well, come on."

"No," Bo said.

"No?"

"Not until you tell me why you're actually inviting us here, and why you said Zhu'er's a corpse." Bo demanded. Idony wanted to cheer him on in standing up but she feared speaking even more might bring the man's attention to her.

The man sighed, "because tonight, there will be another Red Moon. It aggravates the lost soldiers and other cursed wanderers around. I don't know how you survived the first one as you are, but I would not risk a second time. This forest is supposed to be a refuge, Tirunesh and I work very hard to keep it that way. The child corpse you have doesn't seem to be hateful, or even realize her current state, so I am not asking you to give her up. I just want to know your situation and, if possible, help you."

"Help us, why?"

"...So you don't end up like us," the man's voice was soft and filled with regret. "Nothing truly dies here, but neither can we leave. The people we left behind will never see us again." Then he turned around to go down a short hall into the courtyard.

Idony, still clinging to Bo as he walked after the man, thought about those words. She remembered the corpse of the winged serpent they saw near the river and wondered if it was now somewhere in the air flying around. What about Shuang Que? Was he dead, or not dead? Was he going to be stuck? The thought made her heart tremble, he said they would see each other again. Did he lie to her?

The courtyard was somewhat empty, there were a few roughly hewn benches, but the space was almost entirely taken up by the massive trunk of the maple tree. The area had been kept free from the falling leaves of it, which had all been placed into neat little piles in the corners of the courtyard. The tree's trunk itself was marred with finger sized holes, some of which had tiny pipes dug into them. Once they passed by the tree they found another open door that led into a large room stacked with hundreds of old books and other material that Idony coujld see writing upon, jars upon jars with linen seals crowded on shelves and tables, three different long tables with mortars and pestles and small kettles, a loom, and several bedrolls. One of which was occupied by a slender yellow haired woman, her face partially covered by a white sheet splotched with red.

"My manners are somewhat poor," the man said as he sat down next to one massive stack of books. "My name is Zhou Feng."

"My name is Bo, and this is Zhu'er. She's my boss's uh..." Bo trailed off as he set Idony down on the ground, "it's a long story really."

"Well we have time," Tirunesh's voice came from behind them. The person beneath the armor was a tall woman with dark bronze skin and hair held in dozens of slender long braids, her eyes were a bright amber color as she swept past Bo with a tray containing a kettle, several cups and bowls that rattled on it. "Feng and I have nothing but time and each other now."

"Why are you two here then?" Bo asked, "neither of you sound really happy about being in this... place."

"Many years ago, I had traveled out of the Four Kingdoms to expand my horizons as a herbalist and a doctor. I eventually came to a stop in Archera and helped stifle a plague, Tirunesh and her knights swore themselves to me and we came back to the Four Kingdoms. We settled in the North for some time, and we even had a son," Zhou Feng explained. His face twisted with guilt, "but a strange plague came upon a few Northern cities. In order to cure it, we came here to find the First Palace and go through its library..."

Tirunesh poured hot water from the kettle into one of the bowls, "we ended up losing ourselves. Bit by bit," she gestured to the books around them. "We found so much knowledge, but no answers, and no escape." She picked up a piece of linen to soak it in the water, turning towards the yellow haired woman.

Idony tried to take a peek at what the tall woman was going to do to the other woman, but Bo took her arm and pulled her back. "Once you're here, you're stuck. Is that what you're saying?"

"Only if you are given a fatal wound," Zhou Feng said. "Or if you are poisoned, or fall deathly ill. That's why I wanted you brought here. The forest is a safe place in this mad land and-"

The kettle rattled.

Idony scooted quickly behind Bo, who in turn took several steps back.

Zhou Feng's eyes widened but he made no move.

There was a rasping sound of a sword being drawn partially free.

The kettle rattled again, toppling off the tray and spilling its contents onto the table and the floor below, the water forming a puddle on the ground. A dark shape took form, and then an arm emerged from the hot liquid. Followed by another. Tirunesh was quickly upon the emerging body, but Zhou Feng held up his hand to hold her arm, allowing the exhausted and tattered form of Rui Yifu to finish pulling himself from the steaming liquid and collapse on the ground. Idony broke away from Bo to lunge at the prone form, grabbing onto Rui Yifu as she felt like her heart was about to pop.

"Rui!" Bo also joined her, grabbing the man and pulling him, and Idony, up into his arms.

"...Oh," Zhou Feng blinked languidly. "Another guest!"