Chapter Text
Tiredness.
It was the first thing Beast felt when he regained consciousness next to the strong roots of a tree in his forest, and it was what he felt even now.
He hooked the lantern to the branch of a withered tree, inclined and soon destined to fall, then leaned against it and closed his eyes thinking, with a certain bitterness, that his condition was deadly similar to that of the plant.
The defeat that had occurred some time before by the two young brothers, the Woodsman and himself - though Beast was proud, was not fool enough to deny it - had had a terrible impact on his physique and energy. Looking at the Lantern was revealing: during his stay in the Unknown, he had never seen the light become so dim.
That the light did not shine as brightly as it did in the long period in which he had tricked the Woodsman into taking care of the Lantern could perhaps be considered normal, the machinery built by that man allowed to extract more oil from the Edelwoods, but he doubted that it really had anything to do with it.
The Beast didn't even know how he had managed to survive. He only remembered how stubborn and desperate the Woodsman's expression was when he blew, remembered his own animalistic scream, the pain, the cold, a blinding light and finally his awakening: nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps the wick had not completely extinguished and this, together with the residual oil, had miraculously rekindled the flame. He wasn't sure about what happened but that theory didn't sound completely stupid to him.
"Just as the theory that Elsewhere people are living an interesting moment," he thought.
In addition to his exhaustion, in fact, he had also noticed another thing: the number of lost souls in the Unknown had grown.
At another time he would have considered that a wonderful thing, as he did when something like that happened in the past, but at that time it was more like a burden, something very difficult to handle alone.
There were many people to follow and to deceive, people to lead in the path of depression, loss of hope and will; compared to the way he was feeling lately, there were too many. His fortune lay in the fact that lost souls often found their final death by themselves, with the consequent birth of new Edelwoods.
After a brief sigh, he convinced himself to move his lazy limbs again - even more lazy than they had been before, which he had never thought to be possible until then. He considered himself very lazy by nature - to go collect oil or to look for some wayfarers to transform into fuel, but when he reopened his eyes he was assailed by a feeling of panic very similar to that experienced just before the Woodsman's blow.
"Where is my Lantern?!"
He could not believe that it had really happened, he had rested for a short time -or so he thought- the Lantern was close to him, so how could It have disappeared?!
He stood up and looked around in a frantic search for a clue until he noticed footprints in the snow and something distant that could easily have been the dim glow of his Lantern.
Given this, he decided to get closer and try to get it without wasting any more time. His physical condition was suggesting him to try to make the person who had stolen the Lantern his new Lantern Bearer, to make the Woodsman's house in the forest inhabited again and to make the machinery the man had built after the mill's destruction work again, but after what had happened some time ago he was not too sure it was a good idea: he had always been good in pushing the Woodsman's buttons so that his own soul would be safe - ...almost - but with that thief there was nothing, nothing at all, to give him the certainty.
The first thing he noticed when he came close enough was that the thief was covered by a hooded cloak, the second thing was the flash of light on the blade of an axe, and the third was that the weapon was held by a white hand, too delicate to belong to someone used to hold such tools, or to a man.
Reassured -but not too much, because that axe looked sharp and he could boast neither great physical strength nor superhuman agility- he decided to reveal himself in front of the thief, a few meters away of course. Now he could also see her face, perhaps not very well, but enough to conclude that she was not just "pale", she was very pale. In his opinion that was a sign of an evident demonic possession. Such things were not uncommon in the Unknown.
"I believe you have something that belongs to me," he said "The Lantern that you're holding so casually. Giving it back to me may be for the better: although magical, it cannot help you get rid of your demon" he continued "but considering the nature and consequences of certain possessions, maybe we could reach an agreement".
Possessed people had a tendency to devour others and, if she had left at least one little bone, the corpses of devoured people inside his forest would have spawned other Edelwoods.
The thief sighed. "Here we go again…"
"Here we go again with… what?" he asked, vaguely perplexed by her reaction -or perhaps it was more correct to say "by the complete absence of any".
"I've already explained this to the old lady with black teeth who lives with her niece relatively close by, or far away, on the right… or on the left… well, somewhere…" the girl -or woman, Beast couldn't be sure about how old she was- shrugged "It's a weird place, this one. I realized it soon, I suppose due the animal musicians that I saw… hm, what was I saying? Ah, yes: I am not possessed by a demon, I am just naturally pale. Don't be alarmed".
Like the surface of a lake in windless days, there was only one way to define that person and her manner of speaking: flat. Unemotional, at least for the moment. Moreover, the lack of cough seemed to confirm her words about being naturally pale. Beast's perplexity went from being vague to being full.
"I am not alarmed… nor am I the one who should be" he pointed out to her, deciding to come a little closer.
"Of course you're not, after all we're in your forest".
The further it went, the more that conversation sounded strange; and thought by someone who lived in the Unknown, it was saying a lot. "So you knew very well who the Lantern belonged, and belongs to, when you took it".
"It wasn't that obvious, it could have belonged to someone even more lost than I am".
A lost soul: although her attitude was bizarre, was no more nor less than that, just like anyone who happened to be in that forest before. "It's easy to lose your way home, finding it again is not. Sometimes is easier to give up, give in to tiredness, and fall asleep in the snow," he said in a warm and bewitching voice.
"Or maybe falling asleep against a tree" she responded.
It was a peculiarity of Beast's ability to exert a little influence on small animals, small magical creatures and in some cases even human beings -without the help of his little turtles of oil-: It was the extra magic "quid" that, along with psychological manipulation, had lead the Woodsman to close himself to the world and listen only to his voice for many years, but that was not the case. Feeling so exposed in his weakness, Beast felt a certain irritation. Not enough to induce him to challenge the axe blade, however: never enough.
"Listen to me" continued the thief, lost soul and bizarre person, lowering the hood "You seem to be rather tired and so am I. I need shelter. Do you want to make a deal? You show me a place to stay for tonight and I will owe you a favor".
From perplexity and irritation, Beast passed into amazement. It was the first time ever that a person wandering in the Unknown proposed to him a deal of their own free will, and that one was also a kind of deal open to anything.
He wondered if that person knew what she was doing, if she really realized what it meant to propose similar agreements or if she was just very naive even if she didn't seem so, since she already knew who he was. There were also some odd details he couldn't figure out at that moment, but there was the house where the Woodsman had lived, it could be a good opportunity to start the oil machine again, and she was lost, and he was tired.
Why not try it?
"Maybe I can agree, I can say yes," he said, "but not to someone whose I don't know anything about, not even their name".
The girl, woman or whatever her age was, indefinibile looking at her features, displayed a thoughtful face. "I noticed that people in this place have a tendency to present themselves in a quite artistic way, I guess I have to adopt those social costumes. "Tall nor short is the one who's lost, thin nor fat: has curves, at most. Where's her home? Don't know the way. What is 'home'? She just can't say. As long as she's lost in this place full of madness, if you call her by name, let her be 'Nameless'!" she concluded, with a brief bow of her head.
"Nameless," he repeated.
Beast was undecided whether to simply ignore such strangeness or feeling mocked. Clearly that couldn't be her birth name, but choosing such a name - or better, to deprive herself of it - was even more absurd than anything else.
For him, Nameless was also as irrelevant as the Woodsman was, but "Woodsman" was at least a qualification, a piece of that person's identity, a clue when it came to understand who the person in front of him was.
On the contrary, while introducing herself she had not said who she was, she had said who and what she wasn't, nor had she said something he didn't already know.
"And after presenting myself in rhyme to someone who, if he could, would have gladly turned me into a tree of oil, I'd say that I can consider myself fully integrated into the Unknown. Do we have a deal? ...or not?"
There was time, there would have been; and in any case, for once in his life, if it would have been the case he could have decided to lower himself to the level of getting his hands dirty and take care of Nameless after seeing her give in to sleep. She was only a human being after all.
"Follow me," he said to the girl, woman or whatever "I'll take you to the shelter you asked me about… and I'll tell you how you can return the favor".