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Echo pulled herself from the water. Her arms were trembling, her head was pounding, her chest was heaving. She was cold, so cold. She had been sure she was going to die. The fall from the cliff, the icy water of the river, the rocks that battered her as she was carried along, until she could drag herself to shore.
Echo has always been touched by death. She has watched so many men die, thousands of them. Once, she watched the death, helpless and afraid. Now, she wields death, and thinks nothing of it. It is who she is. She lives to serve, and their death is her life.
Today, death reached back. Echo squints, trying to remember -- she sees flashes, a dark-haired girl on horseback, a broken sword, a fight. She remembers blood, remembers pain, remembers falling...
Echo’s head falls to the leafy ground of the riverbank. She remembers no more.
~*~*~
She wakes, shivering. Her clothes are still wet, the river still lapping at her boots, but now that the sun has set, the temperature has dropped. She pushes herself up from the ground, but a wave of dizziness nearly sends her back down. She touches a hand to her head and it comes away bloody, though most of it seems to be dry rather than fresh. Still, she’s weakened. The cold won’t help. Dizziness or no, she needs to move.
After another minute’s rest, she forces herself to her feet. The dizziness washes over her again, more intense this time. She finds herself retching, acid burning its way up her throat. It must have been some time since she last ate.
Shelter first. Food later.
Her head has settled to a dull throb, her stomach easier, and her vision clear. It will have to do. She walks into the forest, letting her feet lead where they may. It is difficult going, the terrain rough and overgrown, but she moves smooth and silent, as though she was born in these woods. She wonders if she was.
It’s perhaps an hour after dark when she finds the cave. Perhaps that’s a generous term for what is really just a large hole in the side of a cliff, but she is not inclined to be particular. It will block the wind and the rain, and give her a wall at her back if she needs to fight. She knows these things are important, even if she doesn’t know why.
Dead leaves coat the ground, and she pushes some into a large pile at the back of the cave. She strips off her sodden clothes, spreading them out to dry. Then she crawls into the leaves, burying herself in them to trap what heat they can. She sleeps.
She rises with the dawn, emerging from the leaves like a cocoon. Her clothes are still damp, but they are no longer wet, and the sun will dry them as she walks. Today, she will need to find food.
She carries no weapons, no tools, but her hands and her mind are all the weapon she needs. She follows the tracks of a squirrel and finds a massive hickory tree laden with nuts. As she cracks the seeds between rocks, movement catches her eye, and she throws a nut without even thinking -- a rabbit drops to the ground, motionless, its skull dented from the impact. Later, she comes across a stream and drinks deeply, then spends the afternoon catching the fish that dart to and fro with her bare hands.
She will not starve in these woods, that much she knows.
She keeps walking. She doesn’t know where she is going, but she cannot stay still. She walks for days, perhaps weeks -- she loses track. The forest is all the same, silent and empty and soothing.
And then, suddenly, it isn’t.
She’s twenty feet up a tree before she even realizes what she’s doing. She keeps climbing, sure she had a good reason, even if she isn’t quite sure what it was. There was something on the ground, something out of place, something that felt like danger.
The image crystalizes in her brain, just for a moment, but it’s long enough. A footprint. Human. Barefoot. Recent.
She twists her head around, trying to see anything through the treetops, but there’s nothing. No sign of humanity, no buildings or smoke or voices. Nothing.
But someone is out there. Somewhere.
She’s not sure why this knowledge makes her hide. She’s not afraid, not exactly. But neither does she feel safe.
For the first time since she woke up, she realizes that something is missing. She’d been aware, before, that there seemed to be things she knew, skills she had, that she didn’t know the source of. But it had never bothered her, never mattered enough to ask why. Birds know how to fly south in winter, squirrels know how to climb trees and leap between branches, she knows how to hunt and survive. Maybe she was born knowing.
But now, the fog lifts enough for her to see the gaping holes in who she was -- who she had been. Maybe that’s why she hides. This other human might know who she was. The other human might not like who she was. The other human might think she was a threat. The other human might be right.
She looks down at herself. Faint scars decorate her arms, and as she stares at them, she sees flashes of -- something. Someone. A long line along her forearm reminds her of the roar of battle. A smaller one just above the elbow gives her the featheriness of arrow fletching, the feeling of a horse under her as she races away. There are more, she knows, not visible now but she’s seen them when she undresses. The longest ones are across her stomach and chest and back, twisting this way and that, sometimes shallow and sometimes deep. They make her think of ropes around her wrists and questions she will not answer and screaming, screaming, screaming.
It would be best to avoid this other human, she decides.
Back on the ground, she walks away from the path the footprints trace. Away from wherever they were going and wherever they were coming from. She walks quickly but silently, head turning every which way, eyes peeled for any motion, ears straining for any sound. But as she focuses all of her attention on watching and listening -- she doesn’t smell the smoke until she steps into the clearing.
She freezes, one foot in the grass, one still in the forest. It isn’t a large clearing, just a small open space in the trees. A small fire smolders in the middle of a circle of rocks, some kind of meat hanging from a stick above it. And behind the fire is a small… cabin is too generous a word for such a haphazard construction, but the structure has a roof and walls and even a door.
Someone lives here.
But they don’t seem to be here now. She scans the clearing and the forest, eyes straining, but there’s no motion except the grasses and leaves in the wind, and the smoke slowly twining up to the sky.
She swallows hard, her mouth suddenly watering at the smell of the cooking meat. She’s stayed warm and fed enough these past weeks, but she hasn’t had cooked food in… well, longer than she can remember.
Briefly, she considers taking some meat -- just a small piece, not enough to be noticed, she could be in and out in seconds. But no, that’s absurd, not worth the risk, she has no idea what this person -- people? -- what they might be like. She shouldn’t. But it smells so good.
She stands there on the edge of the forest, thinking, wondering, until suddenly there’s movement from the other side of the clearing. She steps back into the leaves in a moment, vanishing from sight -- but she doesn’t flee. She waits. She watches.
The man is tall, with sun-darkened skin and hands that look accustomed to rough work. He carries a large basket on his back, loaded with wood and nuts and something limp and furry. He sits beside the fire, setting down his pack and tearing a piece of meat off the spit.
Saliva floods her mouth again, watching him chew. She can practically taste it. Just because she’s used to rough living, plain eating, doesn’t mean she doesn’t crave more.
She settles further into the leaves, resolving to wait for him to leave. Just a few bites won’t be missed. Then she’ll be off again, on the move again. He’ll never need to know.
But he doesn’t leave. He sits for a while, then lies down in the grass, stretched out beside the fire. Eventually, she can hear the faint sound of his snores, carrying across the grass.
She leans against a tree, poking idly at the dirt with a stick and staring at the birds flitting above. The sun dips down towards the horizon, lower and lower. Still he snores on. She finds herself yawning, her eyelids growing heavy, but she doesn’t sleep. She waits.
At last, he rouses, stretching. He gathers his things, kicking some dirt onto the embers, then heads inside. The door closes behind him.
She watches. The door stays closed.
She moves around the clearing, slowly, silently, until she’s as close to the fire as possible. The door is still closed, no sign of the man.
She runs. Swift and silent as the night, she sprints across the clearing, pausing for only a moment to rip a leg from the animal still dangling over the coals before continuing into the cover of the trees on the other side.
She runs, deeper into the growing darkness, her breath settling into an easy rhythm. Only after she’s put a good ten minutes between her and the clearing does she stop and take stock of her meal.
It’s not as hot as it had been, but it’s still warm. The grease has dripped down her hand, succulent and delicious. It appears to be from some sort of bird, which is an additional treat -- she hasn’t had bird meat since the river, as despite her strength and speed, she can’t pursue them when they take to the sky.
She bites into the meat, and it’s rich and juicy and the best thing she can remember tasting in her life. She makes an involuntary noise of pleasure, swallowing the bite and immediately ripping off another.
In less than a minute, the entire leg is gone. She licks every drop of the juices from her fingers, not wanting to waste a thing. Compared to her usual fare, even this feels like a feast.
She should keep moving. She should put more distance between them, it’s not even that late yet. But she wants to savour this quiet contentment, wants to bask in it for a moment before returning to the simplicity of her usual routine.
So instead, she climbs a tree, settling herself in a wide fork, and sits there in the darkness until she falls asleep.
~*~*~
She can still smell the meat on her hands when she wakes up, can still taste it under her tongue. She smiles at the memory as she climbs down from the tree. It was a nice break from routine, even just for a moment. And now, it’s back to her walking.
But why? she suddenly thinks to wonder. Why does she walk and walk? Where is she going? What is the point?
The point is to stay alive, she reminds herself. The point is to have a purpose, a goal, not to waste away doing nothing.
Is all of this walking a purpose, though? Or is this just doing nothing in motion?
The questions and the confusion are starting to make her head throb. She’s not used to thinking about anything more complex than what she’s going to eat today, or where she’s going to sleep. She rubs her forehead, but it feels like the ache only worsens. The gash on her temple has long since healed, but her head still aches from time to time, and this is the worst it’s hurt since the first day when she dragged herself from the river mud.
She’s in no condition to travel today. Best to stay put, more or less, and see how her head is tomorrow.
She tries to rest, but she’s restless. Moving hurts, though, and it’s a frustrating back-and-forth between boredom and pain. Before long, she grows hungry, too -- she’s only had that one leg of meat since the previous morning, and it’s not enough. She knows she’s in no danger, she can go days or weeks without eating… but it’s not pleasant.
Her mind turns back to the clearing. To the house, to the fire, to the cooking meat. She shouldn’t go back. It’s not safe, especially now. She can barely walk, let alone run if he were to attack her. But it tasted so good…
It takes her more than an hour to find her way back, the pain in her skull interfering with her navigation, and forcing her to stop and rest often. At last, she catches the faint whiff of wood smoke through the trees, and slows her pace still further to blend into the trees.
The clearing is empty when she reaches it, the door to the house firmly shut. She stands and watches for a few minutes, but nothing moves.
Something is different, though. Something is out of place. It takes her a moment to figure out what, but there’s a small slab of wood laid out near the fire, a small pile of food arranged on top.
She frowns. Looks around again. Creeps carefully into the clearing.
She’s almost to the slab, when she sees the marks in the dirt. Letters.
Help yourself, friend.
She runs. Her head screams at her to stop, but she does not stop. She runs. She runs until her vision grows dark and her legs feel numb and then suddenly she’s on her hands and knees, retching, spewing bile onto the ground, but as soon as the heaves stop she’s running again.
Eventually the fog clears enough for her to realize that even if she puts distance between her and the hut, it won’t help if he can see exactly where she went, crashing blindly through the forest. She pauses for a moment, catching her breath, waiting for her sight to clear, letting the pain settle from all-encompassing to merely overpowering. Then she continues, more carefully, more slowly.
At dusk, she does not climb a tree -- she does not trust her balance in the heights. Instead, she crawls into a patch of thick bushes, curling up in the middle, hidden by leaves and branches and darkness. She sleeps.
~*~*~
She spends the next two days walking, careful to not aggravate her head. It doesn’t hurt much, thankfully, but she can still feel the ache ready to return if she pushes too hard. She tries not to push, tries not to think too hard, tries not to think about what she’s not thinking about. Her success is mixed.
Her hunting, however, is downright abysmal. She still can’t run or jump or climb as well as she had been used to, and even her reflexes are slowed. The hungrier she gets, the more her abilities slip. She catches a few small fish, trapping them in the shallows of a stream, and finds a small patch of wild berries, but it’s not enough.
On the third day, she turns around. It takes three more days to retrace her steps, and she’s faintly dizzy when she reaches the edge of the clearing, just after dusk. The door to the house is shut, but a faint light seeps out from under it, like the man has lit a candle inside. There’s nothing on the fire, the embers cold and dark, but the wood slab is there again, with it’s small pile of bounty.
She shouldn’t. It’s risky. It’s stupid.
But she’s hungry. And she’s not even entirely sure what she’s afraid of.
She creeps across to the pile, and starts shoving food in her mouth.
She only means to take a few bites, before grabbing what she can carry and fleeing, but it’s so good. And she’s so hungry. A few bites turns into a few more, and then suddenly she’s eaten half the pile. She can carry the rest, so she grabs it, glances back towards the house -- and freezes.
The door has swung silently open. The man sits in the opening, legs crossed, half-watching her as he sips from a wooden cup.
“Hi,” he says, smiling at her. “I was starting to wonder if you’d come back.”
She runs.
“I mean you no harm,” he calls after her. “I have plenty of food for both of us.”
She disappears into the edge of the forest, but pauses just a few steps into the trees. She waits. She listens.
The man doesn’t move from the doorway. “I am a peaceful man,” he says, his voice gentle but carrying. “I live alone, far from any other humans. It would be nice, to have a friend.”
It would be nice. A friend would be nice.
She doesn’t have friends, though. She can’t remember why, but she knows it’s true. She knows there’s a reason. She knows friends are dangerous.
“I will leave more food tomorrow,” he says. “In case you come back.” Then, he closes the door.
She comes back, the next morning, waiting for him to leave for the day before slipping into the clearing to collect the food he leaves. She can’t resist peeking through the door of his house, which contains only a simple room -- a few shelves, a few boxes, a rickety bed. She settles in a tree at the edge of the clearing, where she can watch without being seen, and digs into the meal
The food is good. Warm meat, but this time there are some baked roots as well, and a handful of berries. She eats it all, climbing down from the tree only for water. Then she returns to her perch and watches.
He returns an hour before sunset, settling by the fire again with his pack. He checks the wooden slab, and she sees him smile to find it empty. He looks out around the clearing, scanning the edge of the forest, but she is well-hidden.
He places some more food on the slab, then heads into the house. She waits for the door to shut, but it doesn’t. Instead, he sits just inside the doorway, head bent over a torn shirt that he works to mend with tiny, careful stitches.
She waits. He finishes the shirt, and turns to a pair of trousers. She waits. The trousers are fixed, so he sets to weaving a basket out of river reeds.
She is patient, but so is he. She is stubborn, but so is he. She could leave, of course, decide that this is not worth the food or the risk. But if he’d wanted to hurt her, he could have. It wouldn’t have gone well for him, but he hasn’t so much as tried. She can’t help being curious about him.
She lowers herself silently from the tree, and walks into the clearing. Her gait is slow and careful, and she’s nearly to the slab when he finally looks up and sees her.
For a moment, they just stare at each other, silent. Sizing each other up. Each trying to figure out what to make of the other.
“Hello,” he says at last. “My name is Thicket.”
She says nothing, but she doesn’t flee either.
“I built this place as my own,” he continues. “A home away from… everything that had come before. It’s peaceful here.”
“Are you hiding?” she asks. Her voice is thin and dry, unused for so long.
He shrugs. “Depends what you mean,” he says. “I left some things behind, sure. But is it hiding if no one is looking for you?”
She wonders if anyone is looking for her. She wonders what they would do if they found her.
“What about you?” he asks. “What are you looking for?”
Looking for. Her. What is she looking for. The concept feels odd, for some reason. Like she’s not used to making that decision. In the past weeks, she has looked for food, for water, for shelter, but she somehow knows that’s not what he means.
“I don’t know.”
He nods. “That’s fair,” he says. “Where are you from?”
She swallows. “I don’t know.”
He tilts his head slightly, but doesn’t question it. “What should I call you?”
She takes a step back.
“You don’t have to give me your name,” he says, softly. “Or your old name. You can be someone new, here. Like I am.”
She shakes her head, takes another step back. Her head is starting to hurt, her chest tightening.
“May I call you Smoke?” he asks. “For the way you found this place. For the way you disappear into the trees. For the way your eyes burn in the darkness.”
Smoke. She likes that. Quiet and warm and subtle and deadly. A memory of destruction, and of making something new. It feels right.
“Smoke,” she repeats. “I like Smoke.”
He smiles. “I like Smoke too,” he says. “Hello, Smoke. Nice to meet you.”
He stands, and Smoke starts backwards instinctively. The man -- Thicket -- holds up his hands. “I’m going to bed,” he says. “I know you don’t trust me yet. I’ll let you eat.” He smiles again. “But I hope you’ll come back, Smoke.”
She comes back, the next morning. She follows him as he hunts, collecting animals from snares and gathering berries from bushes. He finds a patch of mushrooms, and digs roots from a riverbed. She watches, silent, a shadow. When he makes his way back to the clearing, she pauses. Thinks. Retraces their steps to the river.
When Smoke emerges from the trees, he’s standing up from the fire, but he notices her at once. He smiles. “You’ve never come to me in the daytime before,” he says.
She doesn’t answer, just holds up the three fish she pulled from the water. His eyebrows rise.
“How did you get those?” he asks.
“I caught them.”
“Have you a rod? A spear?”
She blinks. “I caught them,” she says. “I need no tools.”
He lets out a low whistle. “You’re full of surprises, Smoke.”
She lays the fish by the edge of the firepit, then backs off again as Thicket spits them over the coals. He talks quietly as it cooks, and she half-listens as he discusses the day’s hunting, the quality of his firewood, the weather.
“You know, this is the first time it’s been light enough for me to see your tattoos,” Thicket says suddenly. Smoke tenses, instinctively, and Thicket’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry,” he says, softly. “Didn’t realize that was a sore spot. We don’t have to talk about it. You can leave the past behind, here”
Smoke looks down at the dark shapes on her right shoulder, touching them gently. Not for the first time, she wonders what they mean. She wonders what story they tell about who she used to be. She wonders if the story is still true.
“Not sore,” she says. “No past.”
“That’s right,” Thicket says, nodding. “The past doesn’t have to hurt you, not here.”
“No,” she says, struggling to find the words in a throat that hasn’t spoken in a month. “There is -- no past to hurt. I have no past.”
He frowns. “What do you mean?” he asks.
Her fingers slip down her arm, brushing across the scars. “I have no past,” she says. “I am Smoke. Before… I don’t know.”
Thicket’s brows furrow. “You don’t remember your past?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
He lets out a long breath. “Is it okay if I’m jealous?”
Smoke laughs. She doesn’t remember laughing before, but she laughs now, loud and long and carefree. Thicket laughs too, but softer, sadder.
“You carry many scars,” he says, when she is quiet again. “I suspect you have left many, too. As have I. I came here to find peace. You may find peace here too. With or without your past.”
The words feel like a gift, like a kindness. The sensation seems unfamiliar, but it feels nice. Smoke smiles. “Thank you,” she says.
Thicket checks the fish. “It’s ready,” he says, tossing her one.
~*~*~
Smoke comes back. She comes back again and again and again. And then she stops coming back. Because she stops leaving. She stays, in the clearing, then in the house. She joins Thicket on his hunting trips, or sometimes one of them goes alone while the other tends the fire or the house. She stays. He stays. The past stays away.
One night, she wakes from her bed beside the fire. She doesn’t know what has woken her, but she pads over to the house and opens the door. Thicket sits on the bed, his head in his hands. He looks up as she enters. There are tears in his eyes, and small semicircles of blood on his palms. Smoke sits beside him, silent.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” he says. “I had a nightmare. You should sleep.”
Smoke shakes her head. “Wake me,” she says. “I’ll be here. With you. Now.” She slides her hand into his. “The past is gone,” she says. “We left it behind. We’re here. Now.”
He touches the side of her face, burying his fingers in her hair. “We’re here,” he repeats. “You’re here. With me.” He swallows. “Yes?”
Smoke smiles. “Yes,” she says, and pulls his mouth to hers.