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Yoriko looked forlornly at the sweet bun recipe her mother was planning to bake that evening and sighed. It was better with nuts on the top, the way the recipe was written. Her mother wasn’t planning on going to the market for at least a few days and they’d run out of nuts on the last batch.
Yoriko stood from the stool she’d been sitting on, found her mother, and offered to go out into the forest to get some nuts herself.
Her mother’s strong “No!” was so abrupt Yoriko jumped. Her mother’s tone dropped into something softer, but still carried the weight of a lecture for her next sentence. “Children who go playing in the woods haven’t been coming back home. I don’t want to lose you over some silly nuts for sweetened buns.” There was a sadness in her tone, which Yoriko took as sympathy. “Promise me you won’t go out there.”
“I promise I won’t,” Yoriko said, her hands behind her little back, the first two fingers of her left hand crossed firmly. She truly believed, with all the invincible enthusiasm an eight-year-old could contain, that if she went into the woods, she’d be immune to whatever evils might lurk within them. Which was why, when her mother’s back was turned, she mumbled something hasty about going to play in the meadow near the family farm and, instead, headed toward the woodlands.
Once that deception was complete, Yoriko allowed herself a conspiratorial grin. It didn’t matter that there was no one around to see it. She was just that satisfied with herself. The moment passed and she found herself looking upwards, trying to see if any of the trees near her bore nuts. With her head tilted upward, she continued along her way until she managed to step on something that, somehow, was hard, but had a slight give to it.
A sharp intake of breath was followed by the sound of something crashing off through the underbrush. “Damn,” a voice mumbled near Yoriko as its owner turned to face her, making the firm, but soft appendage shift enough that the eight-year-old girl nearly lost her balance. “You ruined my hunt! And you stepped on me! What gives?!”
Yoriko gasped, pulling her foot off the creature’s appendage. She couldn’t help it. The girl in front of her—because she did look like a girl, sort of—bore black, curved horns, matching bat-like wings, elongated ears, and a scaly black tail. Her eyes were a fiery orange, contrasting sharply with her dark purple hair. Her arms, from the hand to the elbow, were both covered in black scales no bigger than Yoriko’s fingernails. “A-are you why children have been going missing in these woods?” she stammered out. She realized it was a silly thing to ask, especially if this creature was taking the children. But it looked like she was a child herself and that made Yoriko’s judgment falter.
“What? No! Humans are disgusting! The fae, however… What are you doing out here if kids have been disappearing?”
“I needed to get some nuts for my mother’s baking. She makes the tastiest sweet buns. They’re better with nuts sprinkled on top.” Yoriko started, realizing she’d been rude by not introducing herself; since the creature hadn’t attacked her yet this may as well be a social visit. Her left hand dropped to her skirt as she curtsied sloppily. That done, she held her right hand out to the creature. “I’m Yoriko. How do you do?”
The creature cocked her head at the girl’s outstretched arm. “I’m called Touka,” she responded. “What am I supposed to do with your hand?”
“Oh!” Yoriko exclaimed, blushing. “It’s a human thing, I guess—it’s called a handshake. People do it when they meet for the first time.”
“I see,” Touka responded, taking the proffered hand and lifting her arm, and subsequently Yoriko’s, up and down once, in the stiffest way Yoriko had ever seen. “Is that good?”
“Yeah.” Yoriko smiled. “So, do you know if there are any good nuts around here? I still need to get some and get home soon, preferably before my mom realizes I’m not playing in the meadow.”
“She thinks you’re far away from here? And you’re deceiving her and potentially putting yourself in danger because the buns are really tasty with nuts on top?”
Yoriko nodded, not missing the judgmental tone the other girl took.
“Okay. Can’t say I’d make the same choice, but I can at least help you find the right type of trees. I don’t think I’m strong enough to fly you up there myself. I could bring some down for you to look at, though.”
“Sounds good! Thank you!”
The two walked deeper into the woods, Touka trying to guide Yoriko’s feet to places on the forest floor that would avoid snapping twigs and alerting other creatures to their presence.
After a few moments, Touka held up a foreclaw and stopped moving. Yoriko almost bumped into her before she managed to halt her forward momentum. She struggled to look over Touka’s shoulder past the girl’s wing and discovered what had likely created the commotion when they’d first met. A deer stood there, neck bent low to nibble at the brush. “It’s beautiful,” Yoriko whispered.
Touka turned her head and lowered her wing to look at the girl, disbelief plain on her face. “It’s…” She looked back at the deer; the way its pelt caught the sun leapt out at her this time, the light making it glimmer just so. Wonder filled her for a moment. She turned her head back to Yoriko, a softer expression on her face. “I guess it is,” she whispered back. “They’re also delicious.”
“Oh.”
“Well, if you’ve ever had venison, you’d know.”
“Papa has brought some home on occasion,” Yoriko said.
“Did you like it?”
“It was pretty good. It’s just a little sad to see the deer and immediately think of killing it, don’t you think?”
“I suppose. But someone like me can’t just go to the market and buy venison, can they?” Touka turned to face Yoriko fully, displaying the entirety of her draconic form.
“I guess not. You’re pretty in your own way, though.”
Touka blushed. “Pretty?”
“Yeah.”
The deer looked up from its grazing, ears perked up. Its frantic gaze found its watchers and its tail flipped upward. It froze, maintaining its line-of-sight on the girls, human and dragon alike, before it came to the conclusion that running would serve it best.
As the deer fled, the dragon turned her gaze back to the human, an odd, warm feeling spreading through her chest. She couldn’t quite keep a smile from her face. “Anyway, let’s find your nuts.”
A short time later, the two came to a stand of trees with several hard shells littering the forest floor around them. The occasional squirrel skittered by, picking up a hard-shelled nut and running off. “These look right!” Yoriko said, excitement creeping into her voice. She sobered a little, however, upon realizing how large the trees that had ostensibly shed the nuts were. “You can fly up to get some, right? Bugs might have gotten to the ones on the ground.”
Touka chuckled. “Of course, I can. I just wouldn’t be able to carry you up there to get nuts. Give me a moment or two.”
True to her word, Touka was able to get nuts for Yoriko, though, unlike her promise had dictated, she had to climb the trees to get them. The branches up high were too close together to support her wide wingspan even as a child. The last thing she needed to do was rip a wing open. Once she was fully grown, there would be no way she’d be able to take flight from the forest floor unless she found a wide clearing. It was a sobering thought she wished she hadn’t had.
“Do you think you can make your way out of here by yourself?” Touka asked. “I could take you back to where we met if you’d feel safer that way, but I really shouldn’t go too close to human civilization.”
“I think so,” Yoriko said, clutching her skirts together around the bounty of nuts Touka had harvested for her. Some element of her true uncertainty must have slipped out, though.
“I’ll take you back as far as I can.” The dragon wore a slightly amused expression.
“I’ll bring you one of the buns tomorrow in exchange,” Yoriko said, grinning as a tiny laugh escaped her lips.
“I look forward to it,” Touka said. “This way.” She pointed back the way they had come.
“Thank you!” Yoriko said once they’d made it.
“Don’t mention it. Seriously. Don’t tell your parents I helped you if you can avoid it. They might send knights in there to see if we’re why your young are disappearing. I’d bet a good deer haunch the fae are your problem. Stay safe. Keep your friends and family out of here. We’ll handle the fae.” With that, the dragon turned, scaled the tallest of the nearby trees, and took wing after she left Yoriko’s line of sight. The only thing that signaled her flight was a loud whoosh and then she was gone.
Yoriko didn’t think to look up once she’d made it back to her meadow. The circling dragon smiled down at the girl before flying off.
Yoriko’s mother was furious at her daughter’s deception, though her temper cooled upon noticing that Yoriko herself was unscathed. A tight hug, a firm smack, and a firm scolding later, all was right as rain. Yoriko was still rubbing her cheek when the sweet buns went into the oven, complete with their sliced nut topping. It was all worth the trouble. Especially when Yoriko considered her new friend.
“Please try this new cake recipe for me,” Yoriko said, handing a small basket with the aforementioned cake inside.
Touka chuckled lightly, taking the basket. “Sure.” She delicately pulled a slice of cake from the basket and took a bite. She closed her eyes, letting the flavors play over her tongue. She let out a happy murmur. “I know you really liked your mom’s sweet bun recipe, but I have to say this cake is better.”
Yoriko chuckled. “Thanks,” she said. The two were having a quiet picnic in a small clearing in the woods. They tried to have at least one such meet-up every month, just to keep in touch.
“So, how’ve things been for you?”
“Pretty good! My bakery’s up and running! It’s hard to keep everything in stock, but I’m having a lot of fun with it.”
Touka smiled, taking a small sip from Yoriko’s wineskin. “I’m happy for you.” Gods, is she cute! “Doing something you love for a living? It sounds like that’s not too common amongst humans, is it?”
“Frequently, no. We do what we must, more often than not. I’m very lucky.” Yoriko’s smile took a more tender note. “So, how are things for you?”
“We still haven’t found the main fae stronghold. But we have managed to take out a few smaller fae groups. This section of forest is the safest it’s been since we were kids.”
Touka grinned winningly. Her tail curled past her calf to stroke Yoriko’s forearm gently. “Still, try to avoid tempting fate,” Touka said playfully.
“It was a one-time thing!” Yoriko responded, playing along.
“Except for the part where you came back the next day.”
“The sweet buns were done! I wanted to share them with you!” Yoriko laughed. “It’d be worth any trouble I went through as long as you got to try one. And, you did, so it was just fine!”
“All jests aside, you should be more careful.”
Yoriko sobered. “I guess. Thank you for looking out for me back then. It was really kind of you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The two continued enjoying each other’s company until Touka excused herself. In her defense, it was getting sort of late and Yoriko did have a little shopping to do before opening the bakery the following morning.
Yoriko stood, brushed off her skirts and set off to the market, the basket that she’d offered to Touka when it’d been full of cake now empty and hanging from her forearm. The general hubbub of the market was broken by a blond boy just a little older than she was. He was wearing messenger’s clothes and looking distraught, darting around as he scanned the crowd for someone.
“Ma’am,” he said when she got within hearing distance, “have you seen my friend around here? Now, he’d be about my size, perhaps a touch skinnier, with black hair and grey eyes. He attended the mage’s college near here with me. It’d mean the world to me if you help.” The last sentence was quiet, almost too quiet to hear. His gaze dropped to his toes and stayed there a few moments before finding her eyes again.
Yoriko felt a sharp pain in her chest, the boy’s own pain resonating with her more deeply than she’d thought was possible. It was too easy to imagine herself in his shoes. In a way, she didn’t have to. He looked like her mother had for a moment just after she’d come home from meeting Touka. “No, sir,” she said, chest tightening as the boy flinched as if struck by her words.
“Thank you anyway,” he said, trying not to sound too glum. “I’ll be in the area for the next week. Let me know if you see him. Please.”
“Of course,” Yoriko said, eyes stinging. If this was even a fraction of what her mother had felt while she was out in the woods, Yoriko understood exactly why her mother had responded the way she had. The slap was still a little much. But that boy had looked like he’d watched his whole family die just to be told that one of his kin might have survived—if he could only find him, he wouldn’t be alone. Yoriko wiped her eyes, said a silent prayer to the God of the Lost, and made her way to the few shops she frequented for ingredients.
“I want to give her something nice, Nishio. She’s always giving me stuff. What do humans like?”
Nishio Nishiki sighed. He was lounging on a stump, using the fallen tree that’d parted ways with his seat as a back rest. “Depends on the human. What does yours do for fun?”
“She bakes, mostly. That’s why she has me try out her recipes.”
“Does she like pretty things?” Nishio stretched his arms and wings at the same time, showing off his stunning cobalt scales as he tried and failed to stifle a yawn.
“Yeah! Actually… she called this deer pretty the day we met. Do you think she’d like something with a deer on it?” Touka asked, propping her chin on her clawed fist, which in turn was resting on her knee. She was seated on the ground in front of Nishio, her tail curled around her like a cat’s.
“Sounds exactly like the kind of sentimental crap Kimi’s into.”
“She’d probably kill you if you called it that in front of her.”
“Probably.” Nishio laughed. “Beat it. I’ve got some stuff I need to do. Alone.” Though his tone was rough, his expression lacked any true barb.
Touka did as he said, however, smiling the whole time.
The next day, Touka and Yoriko met up again, mostly because Touka had managed to sneak a little note under Yoriko’s front door. It was almost laughable how much the town crier missed. They were seated around a small fire in the woods, just after Yoriko had closed the bakery for the evening.
“What did you want to show me?” Yoriko asked, eager to find out.
Touka smiled. “Well, I wanted to show you this,” she said, carefully reaching into her almost knee-high stocking and producing a stylized glass deer-head pendant on a long leather cord.
Yoriko gasped. “It’s beautiful! Just like the deer we saw when we were kids! That’s really cute!”
“It’s for you. Turn around.” Touka couldn’t stop grinning as she deftly, even despite her large claws, tied the cord behind Yoriko’s nape. To her credit, the human girl had held her hair out of the dragon’s way. “Okay. You can turn back around now.” Touka swallowed, trying to gauge the moment. She took a deep breath, deciding it was better now than never. “So, uh,” she said. Her heart was racing and she couldn’t get it to slow down. Shit. This is so much harder than I thought. “I think I’m in love with you.” It seemed to Touka that the words sat there between them for an interminable period of time before Yoriko met her eyes.
“I think I’m in love with you, too. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but…” She smiled. “I’m pretty sure there’s no one I love as much as you.”
“Yeah?” Touka asked, trying to keep the shock from her face. A moment passed before she flushed, averted her gaze , and said, “That’s cute. Unbelievably cute.” Before she could say another word, Yoriko was holding her close in a hug so tight it should probably have hurt and kissing her so passionately that she couldn’t think about anything else. When they parted, panting, Touka let out a quiet murmur, “Glad you liked the necklace.” Yoriko chuckled.
“Where’d you get it, off-hand?”
“Had a little help from a friend. And I dyed some sand and roasted it. To be totally fair, it’s really difficult to get it to become glass just so.”
“You were up all night making it, weren’t you?”
“Only half the night! The important thing is you like it.” Touka grinned.
“Oh! I almost forgot!” Yoriko said, brow furrowing.
Touka’s face assumed a concerned expression. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Hey, if you see a boy a little older than us with black hair and grey eyes, let me know.”
“You accepted my love confession only to tell me to hunt your ex? Poor form,” Touka said, half-joking.
“No, no. There was this messenger looking for his friend in the market yesterday. He was so worried…”
“Let me guess. You wanna help this poor guy.”
“Yeah. If we can.”
“Yoriko,” Touka said, stretching her wings and rolling her neck, eliciting a series of popping noises, “I appreciate your kindness, but one day, this sweet heart of yours is going to get one or both of us killed.”
“He wasn’t pretending. He was so scared. The only time I’ve seen anyone look like that was my mom.” She didn’t have to clarify when.
“We’ll find this kid,” Touka pledged. “But after this, no more, okay?” Her voice was quiet for the second sentence, tone firm, however. “I won’t lose you.”
“I won’t lose you, either. And I won’t go off on a suicidal mission.” Yoriko stroked Touka’s cheek gently. “I love you,” she said. The dragon smiled.