Pieces, Part 14 - Braids

We rode. And we rode. We rode until we couldn't ride anymore, our horses spluttering as they breathed, laboured and heavy, and then we rode further.

We rode west, I think, and we passed a town. It was small, just a few houses and fields, and we rode through it, not stopping. It was too small to hide in. We rode past another town, considerably larger this time, though not as large as Pinsdell, and I slowed down my tired horse, ready to call it a night, but Rosa rode past me. We couldn't stop yet, she said. She knew a better place.

And so we rode through that town as well, and when we hit a fork in the road, we turned left.

As we continued that way, the wide road became a small dirt road became a tiny path, dipping in and out of the forest that loomed ahead and to the left. We passed a field and a farmer's house. The path was basically nonexistent.

"Are you sure-" I started, looking around at the surrounding greenery. We were completely in the forest.

"Just trust me," said Rosa, keeping her horse's step steady as they trotted onward in front of me. As the road had gotten smaller, our gait had gotten slower, the horses having slowed down to a walk. As much of a hurry as we were in, the road ahead was dark, and especially in the woods it was hard to see where we were going, so we didn't urge them to go faster. Besides, I'm not sure how much faster the poor animals would have been able to go anyway.

I kept my eyes on the horse in front of me, on Rosa's back, on the way her neat braid jumped up and down as the horse moved forward. It was the only thing I could look at, the forest around me near pitch black, and the blanket of branches blocking out whatever stars were twinkling above.

I could hear a stream running merrily somewhere, and I wondered if it was part of the same river we'd been following when we left Corsilva, if it connected to it somewhere further south. I wondered if this was the same forest I'd woken up in two days ago. I wondered if it wasn't. The water gushed closer now.

Rosa curved slightly to the left again, and I saw it, the river. It was wider than I had assumed based on its sound, too wide to cross without a bridge or a boat. I stared out at the river as we rode along side it. I could see nothing on the other side, only more blackness.

"How much further?" I could hear Meera whispering in front of me. She'd taken the hood off and was visible again, sitting where I'd just previously seen Rosa's bouncing braid. Her own hair was open, her black curls falling against her back. They were clearly tangled. I wondered if it got in the way a lot.

"Not much, just a few minutes," answered Rosa, her voice gentle. Meera rested her head against her back.

There was a small light, somewhere up ahead. At first I thought I'd imagined it, my mind too fed up with the darkness, wanting to see something, but it kept getting brighter as we rode on, bigger. Eventually the small light revealed itself to be a small lantern, hooked on the ceiling of a small porch of a small cottage. As we approached the building Rosa jumped off her horse, leading it by the reins the last few dozen meters. She tied the reins on a branch near the river's edge and the horse bent down, drinking earnestly its cool water, as she helped Meera off the saddle. I joined the two girls by the river, getting off my own horse and tying it up as well.

"What's this place?" I asked, leaning closer to Rosa. "Who lives here?"

She gave me a quick glance, before walking briskly towards the house. "A guardian."

"A what?" I said, apparently to myself, as Rosa and Meera were both at the door by then. Rosa knocked three times, loud and clear, on the wooden door.

It took a moment, but soon movement could be heard from inside. The door opened slightly, a figure standing in the doorway. It was a man, I noticed, as I hurried after the two.

"Custos," said Rosa.

"Rosa?" said the man.

The door opened fully. The man had clearly gotten out of bed to answer the door, wearing only a thin linen shirt and a pair of dark brown pants, but all drowsiness seemed to melt right out of him at the sight of Rosa. There was a childish glint in his hazel eyes where they peeked from under his reddish brown hair, and a bright smile on his face, which was covered in countless freckles. He looked very familiar.

I stopped dead on my tracks a few meters from the porch, my brain trying to process the situation at hand.

"Come in, come in," I could faintly hear him saying, ushering the girls in from the porch. "It's so cold out there, you must be freezing."

The prospect of warmth nudged my body forward once more, though my mind was still reeling. The man gave me a quizzical look and then a quick smile as I brushed past him into the warm room, and closed the door behind me.

"So, what brings you to my neck of the woods?" the man asked Rosa, as he walked over to the fireplace and started to rekindle the fire that must've only recently gone out. "And do introduce me to your friends."

"Right, of course," said Rosa, who was hanging her coat on the coat rack and rubbing her hands together. "Custos, these are Meera," she gestured at the girl, who was sitting as close to the fireplace as humanely possible without sitting in it, "and Nemo." I gave a slight wave as he turned to me. "Guys, this is Custos. My big brother."

I knew it.

"Nemo, huh," said Custos, looking me up and down with an amused look in his eyes. I didn't particularly like it. "That's an interesting name you got there, buddy."

"Your sister gave it to me," I deadpanned and took a moment in victory as he recoiled in surprise. Then he turned, very confused, towards Rosa.

"Nemo doesn't remember who he is," she said by the way of explanation, though judging by Custos's face it wasn't much of a one. "He has no recollection of anything prior to two days ago, when we found him wondering in the woods."

"That... explains the name," he said slowly and turned to look at me again. "You don't remember... anything?"

"Nope," I said, shaking my head. "Nothing personal at least. I do remember how to... how to do things, but I don't remember... things."

"Basically he remembers stuff like how to read or ride, or fight, apparently," supplied Rosa. "But he doesn't remember anything about himself or the world." She paused and glanced down at Meera. She nodded, a sign that it was okay for Rosa to say it. "Meera is the same, although she's relearned quite a bit, since she woke up a few months back."

"Wow, that is heavy," said Custos, scratching the back of his head. I started to peel off my coat, the air in the room making me warm enough to not need it anymore, and hung it on the wall next to Rosa's. Custos looked surprised when I turned back around.

"What?" I asked, having no clue why he was staring at me again.

"No, it's just..." he said waving his hand but not taking his eyes off me. Off my chest. "You're wearing dad's clothes."

"Oh," I said, looking down at the vest I'd gotten from Ulula. Rosa had mentioned the clothes having been her father's, hadn't she? "Well, I didn't really have many clothes, so..."

"It's cool, Cus, I gave them to him," said Rosa, warming her hands by the now happily burning fire. "Dad would be happy there's some use for his old stuff."

"I know, I didn't mean..." started Custos, and then sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It fell right back on his face when the hand had passed. "I was just surprised, I didn't mean I disapproved."

Rosa gave him a quick grin and then turned back to the fire. Meera was sitting on the floor in front of it, running her hands through her own hair, though for a completely different reason. She winced as her fingers snagged on a knot. I walked over to her.

"Here, let me," I said, reaching my hand down. She looked up, surprised. She squinted at me for a moment, unsure about what I was suggesting, but then scooted a bit so I could sit behind her. I pulled her hair back, carding my fingers through the strands. It was very soft.

When I glanced up from the tangles of Meera's hair I noticed Rosa looking at me with a stupid grin and Custos frowning, rubbing a finger across his lips.

"Are you two like... a thing?" he asked finally. "Or siblings, or something?" Rosa smacked his calf with the back of her hand.

"We met for the first time less than two hours ago," said Meera, staring at the dancing flames. "If I have any kind of relation to this man, I do not know it."

"Well, neither of us remember anything about ourselves, so..." I said. "It's kinda hard to know."

"You... met two hours ago?" said Custos. He looked at Rosa again, eyes pleading. He was very confused, and understandably so. I did start to feel a little sorry for the guy. "Can someone explain to me what exactly is going on? From the beginning, preferably."

Rosa explained. I disentangled Meera's hair. Meera sat in the warmth of the fireplace, the only warmth she'd likely felt in over a day, and made occasional comments to Rosa's explanation, or approving hums to my hands in her hair.

"So you're saying that there's a bunch of mysterious thugs after Meera, and also Nemo?" Custos asked as Rosa's explanation came to an end. "For reasons none of you know, but assume to be nefarious. And you both have some kind of mysterious powers?"

"I don't have powers," I said, and paused. "That I know of, anyway..."

"But you might have?" insisted Custos. I shrugged, and allowed myself a quick grin as the last and toughest knot slipped free. Custos opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. He let a long exhale out through pursed lips. "You think these guys are from the other side?" he asked, addressing Rosa.

"The other side?" I asked, frowning.

Meera sneezed.

"Gesundheit," I said.

"Definitely from the other side," said Custos.

"Other side of what?" I asked again, frowning deeper, annoyance bubbling inside me. I collected a part of Meera's hair into my hand, and started on a braid.

"Other side of the river," said Rosa.

"And by extension, the forest," said Custos.

I looked up at the two siblings, blinking slowly as I tried to understand the significance of this information. "So?" I finally said. They looked at each other and then Rosa explained.

"This forest is the southern border of all that we know," she said. "No matter where you are, if you go south enough, you will run into the forest. Through the forest runs a river, the same river that we traveled along just a while back, cutting the forest in two parts: the northern part and the southern part... No one knows what's on the other side of that river."

She paused for dramatic effect. I remained unfazed.

"People have gone there, occasionally. The other side of the river," said Custos. "But no one's ever come back. They say that once you go deep enough into the woods, where you can no longer see the river, your soul will be lost to the forest... forever."

He paused for dramatic effect. I remained unfazed.

"It is called the forest of the souls, you know," said Rosa, leaning back. "Corsilva. Our town is named after the forest, since it's the closest anyone's ever built anything to it."

"So... what you're saying is," I said slowly, keeping my eyes on the braids I was making into Meera's hair. I tied a small string into it, to keep it in place while I started on another just below the first braid. "That you think Meera and I have somehow gotten through this soul eating forest, from the other side?"

"Yeah," said Custos, after thinking about is for a second. "Or! Maybe you're two of the poor people who try to go through it, but instead of getting to the other side, you emerge back on this side, void of memories, identity... or soul."

"Okay," I said. "That sounds fake, but okay."

"I don't know if there's actually any truth behind the losing your soul thing," said Rosa. "But it is true that no one who's ever gone over the river has come back. It's possible that there's some big, wild animals there, or maybe the other side is so much better that no one wants to come back, but the point still stands. No one knows what lies beyond that river."

There was a pause, sufficiently dramatic this time, and it did make me think. I tied the end of Meera's braid, and let the hair slip out of my hand, staring at it blankly. Her hand came up and touched the hair.

"Oh, you braided it," Meera said, surprised.

"Oh, I guess I did," I said, surprisingly just as surprised. I hadn't even thought about it, my fingers had just moved on their own. We stared at each other for a moment.

"Thank you," she said, finally. "It was kinda in the way when it was open, but I... had other things to worry about."

"Right," I said. "You're welcome."

"That's a really pretty braid," chimed in Rosa, peeking at the back of Meera's head. "If I knew you could braid like that, I would've made you braid my hair as well!"

I laughed, a bit awkwardly. My backpack swayed. Everybody froze.

"What was that?" whispered Custos. "Why's your backpack moving?"

I stared at it for a moment, eyes wide and mouth agape, trying to tail of a fleeting memory. The... black ended tail...

"Shit," I hissed, jumping to my feet and rushed over to the bag. I pulled out some clothes, tossing them aside, as I hurried to find...

A warm tongue swiped along my nose and I huffed out a laugh.

"I can't believe we forgot about you," I told the fox and she licked me again. I lifted her from the bag she'd probably been sleeping in for the last... six hours? Meera's eyes widened as I turned around.

"Nitya!" she called, a happy smile spreading to her lips and eyes and her whole face. The pennafox jumped off my arms and ran to her, licking at her face as she wrapped a careful hand around the fox's body. "I thought I wouldn't see you again, that you'd ran away or they..."

She didn't finish the thought, but I knew what she'd meant. Seeing their reunion was heartwarming.

It was rudely interrupted but a huge yawn from Rosa.

"Perhaps it is time to retire for the night?" suggested Custos, an amused lilt in his voice.

"Perhaps," said Rosa. "Do you have enough beds?"

"I have one bed in the other room that is big enough for two," he said. "And one bed here that can hold one... And I think I have a cot somewhere that I can use." He rubbed himself behind the neck. "So why don't you girls take the backroom bed, and you can take this one, Nemo."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I mean, I can take the cot, if you..."

"No, no that's okay," said Custos. "You seem like you've had a rough time, you can take the bed."

"Alright, thanks," I said. He smiled.

He set up the cot to the middle of the first room while the girls disappeared to the other room. I lay down on the bad in the corner, whispered a quiet "good night" to Custos, and closed my eyes with a deep breath.

Sleep came quickly, after the more than eventful evening.
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I can't believe we forgot about N.

Also look, another male character!

Your topic is "Fusion"

Pie out.