two (1/1)

Minho woke early the next morning, he stretched, sore from his long walk the day before.  He made his way through the kitchen and preformed his daily routine before he gathered his things and headed towards town.  The sun was barely peeking out from the tops of the trees of the forest.  He walked briskly down the familiar path to the tanning shop.  Upon his arrival he noticed someone was already there, the furnace lit and some tools already out.  He knew the owner had a home somewhere further in town, but it seemed like the man was always here, no matter how early or late.  Even though he had been adopted by the shop owner, Jigoon, as his apprentice, the man didn’t allow Minho to live with him, so he stayed at the orphanage until he could live in his own home. Minho deposited his bag near his work area and took out the smooth stones from his bag then laid them out on his work table.  Each stone was a slightly different color and Minho admired how they all seemed to have a unique look for all being the same material.   Noises from behind him made him turn around. Jigoon was hobbling around preparing for the day, “ah, Minho, I didn’t even hear you come in, you’re early.” Minho greeted the old man, “I thought I would come in to help prepare, I know we have a lot to do today.” Jigoon looked past him at the stones, “it looks like your trip to the forest was successful, I don’t know how I would get these things with out you, even though I probably would have grabbed a few more if I had made the trip myself.” Minho began to mindlessly set up his area while they talked, “it was fine, I forgot how long the walk was to the waterfall, I got tired on the way back.” “Did anything happen?” Jigoon stopped what he was doing and asked in a serious tone. Minho looked up at him, also stopping, “not really, I took a nap by a tree-” “Did you see anything?” his voice shook with the question and his eyes widen.  Minho suppressed the scoff that threatened to escape.  The man was always fidgety with talk of the forest, a lot of old people in town where.  “No, I did not see one of the monsters that live there,” his voice was notably sarcastic.  Jigoon was quiet a moment, so Minho continued almost feeling bad for mocking the man when he was just concerned, “I woke up with flowers on me, so really nothing bad happened.” This didn’t seem to comfort the man like Minho thought it would, “what kind of flowers, boy?” Minho set down his tools and walked to his bag, and pulled out the journal he always carried.  He opened up to the pressed flowers.  They still held their over all appearance, but hey didn’t seem to glisten with life like they had yesterday. “Here, these, I think they fell out of the tree I was under,” he knew it was a lie, but he to play innocent than feed in to the theory of something living in the forest.  Jigoon inspected the flowers with out getting to close. “I’ve heard they will give gifts to try and lure you in deeper in to the forest, so they can take your soul.” Minho pressed his lips together not wanting to argue about it.  “Okay, well, it didn’t work, I left all the same.” He closed the book and put it back in his pack.  “They’ll take your soul, boy. They’ll rip it from your body and feed it to the forest,” he almost whispered, like he was remembering it himself.  “They are just stories, to keep children from wondering, you have to stop believing them sometime,” Minho said.  Jigoon seemed to ponder his words, like he might change the whole way he had lived just for a moment, “no, they are there, the stories are old, they were passed down as a warning of how cruel those creatures are.” “If they are so evil why do they hide? Why not just kill us all and wipe out the town?” He continued to work while deep in thought, Jigoon mumbled the same story Minho had heard since he was little, “They used to rule this land, when humans came they tried to live together, tricking man in to thinking harmony was possible, elf and man, but the elves broke peace first, killing human children to feed the forest.  The humans had to fight back and eventually sealed them to the forest with magic.  They live there bitter and waiting for revenge, deep in the forest.” Minho rolled his eyes as the man talked.  No one had ever seen proof of these elves, but stories of their evil were enough to keep the forest a place of mystery.  Minho had snuck in to the forest many times with other boys form the orphanage when he was younger in hopes to catch glimpses of these creatures, but they never did.  The water fall was as far as any one ever went the water so wide you would need a boat to cross to the other bank and it surrounded the rest of the forest like a moat. Even if there were beings that lived in the secluded part of the forest there was no way they could stay solitary for such a long time, someone would have seen.  Minho was lost in his own thoughts he almost missed the question Jigoon asked, “you didn’t leave anything did you boy?” Minho looked over his shoulder at the man, he was used to lying to get out of lectures. “ No,” he looked back to his work to keep his face hidden, “what would happen if I had?” “They remember you, they will smell you, and come find you, they can take you back to the forest and take your soul.” Minho couldn’t stop the shudder that wracked his spine at the man’s words.    ~*~*~  Taemin sat in his room on the large window sill as he looked out at the expanse of trees.  They called to him, every branch needing to be climbed and leaves that wanted to be rustled and played with, but he sat. He played with his flowers he had gathered yesterday, he twirled the tendrils of color, and tied them together until he had made three different crowns.  He was so bored. He wanted to go outside, but the thought of upsetting his sister kept him still.  He tried no to let his thoughts drift to his sister very often, but today all he could do was think.  She was so hard to understand. It seemed to happen over night, she stopped laughing, she stopped smiling, stopped playing, she changed.  After their mother died his sister had changed, he thought it was because she was sad.  Everyone had been sad, even the forest. He had been sad and had acted different, but eventually he began to heal and act as he had before.  But his sister remained cold and mean.  This made him sad too.  It was hard enough to loose a mother but a sister at the same time was too much.  He had tried so hard to make her happy, he brought her gifts, he would do tricks, and tell funny stories, he would listen and obey her orders, he would do the things she told him to, even when he didn’t want to. Nothing seemed to make his sister happy. Taemin pulled his long legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his knees, he suddenly felt cold.  He looked at his arm. He had many pretty things tied to his wrist, but the little leather cord seemed to stick out among the colorful stands of string and cloth.  It was a simple braid a style of weaving Taemin hadn’t seen done before, but the little stone attached to it was what made Taemin love it so much.  The rock was foreign to the forest, it was dark blue with flecks of gold scattered like stars all over it.  He thought of the boy.  He had never seen a human slow close before, at first he had been scared, all the stories of how humans how tortured and killed his ancestors flooded him.  He had thought to run before he was seen, but something held him still.  He watched the human boy, eyes closed, sound asleep.  He looked so comfortable in the forest.  Taemin wanted to see him again, but he knew if his sister found out she would be angry enough to maybe actually lock him away.  Taemin knew the risk he took when he had approached the boy.  He had gotten close enough to see the lashes that covered his eyes and the small freckles the sun had given his nose, and the smell of his body.  Taemin had wanted badly to touch him, but feared waking him. He had laid some of the flowers he had gathered in the curls of the boy’s hair, like his sister had done with him when he was younger.  They had looked so pretty in his black hair. Taemin smiled at the memory, he had not expected anything in return, and was overjoyed when the boy left a gift.  A sad feeling settle in his chest, the thought of never seeing the human again just because he was scared of how his sister would react didn’t seem fair to Taemin. Why should he sacrifice his happiness for her after trying so hard?  He made up his mind.  If the boy came back, he would not worry about Hyora, he would do as he pleased. He didn’t plan to live the rest of his life caged by her.  This human would be his way of breaking free from her.  ~*~*~  Hyora sat in her own room, absently brushing her long white hair.  The words her brother had said seared in her memory.  Did he really feel like she had died, had she changed so much, he felt she was no longer his sister?  It couldn’t be true.  She wished she could explain to him why she had to change, she wished he could understand, but there were no words for it now. It would be easier this way.   Her mother had told her of her fate, which she would become the mother of the forest, she would become the center of Lyf, but that was all.  She had told her daughter that when it happened her life would change, but her mother had made it seem like such a good thing.  Hyora felt betrayed.  When their mother had died and her ‘gift’ passed on. Hyora was overwhelmed with the forest.  She felt every life enter her like a needle, threaded to their body, she felt tied down like she was drowning, thoughts and feelings in her head so loud she lost her own.  It had taken days for Hyora to find her self in the mess of Lyf that filled her.  When she was able to finally come back to her self and learned to quiet the forest, she realized the other changes she then had to face.  Her brother had become her son, her mother was no longer there to care for or teach them, another weight that fell heavy on Hyora.  She worried for Taemin, that she would ruin his up bringing, not teach him the things he needed, that he would not grow as he should with a proper mother.  She felt like she was failing.  How was she supposed to keep the forest alive and raise a child, how had her mother done this before, why was she so ill prepared for it? She wanted to blame her mother, but it didn’t seem fair.  Their mother was taken from this world early; maybe she planned on teaching Hyora.  She had waited to long, and now it was too late, Hyora was left to figure it out on her own and she felt like she was doing it all wrong.  She wanted nothing more than to play and laugh with her brother, but if she did and lost control of the Lyf in her again she feared she would not be able to come back like she had before, then her poor brother would really be alone, and the forest would grow out of control.  It was her curse and she had to live it alone.  She fought the tears that pooled in her black eyes and simply continued to brush her hair, listening to the forest in her heart, letting her thoughts dissipate into the void.     (A/N:Thank you for reading, please leave a comment! I’d love to know what you think!)