Archive of Our Own

Every week, ever since their parents died, she’s sat down with her small black book and done the calculations, added up everything they needed to buy and weighed it against her measly salary, painstakingly trimming it to size. It changes with the seasons, with what they’re able to coax from their dry patch of garden, but winter is the hardest, and, well, the leaves have just begun falling in the forest. Soon they’ll be cracked and brown, their security as touch-and-go as the survival of the deer whose eyes she meets through the bared trees. This used to escape her notice, but when you start growing up there are some things you can’t miss any longer.

Ema’s more than old enough to help now, but being raised by her older sister means that to Lana, she’s always little. Always needing protection. Oh, Lana loves her, of course she does. But her misguided concern for Ema’s safety only makes Ema feel like a burden—even more than she already does.

The door squeaks as she steps outside, into the bracing air. It’s not cold, exactly, but the suggestion is there, enough after summer to make her reach for her threadbare sweater. She probably should be working on trying to find a job. She’d like to go to the university in the city, the one that treats science as more than some new form of alchemy, but they seem reluctant to let in someone like her, with no title and no money. So a job it is.

Ema used to be a big dreamer, but she’s learned to settle. It’s better, anyway, than being disappointed.

Nevertheless, she’s already applied to all of the shops within three miles from their house (anything else would be too dangerous to walk to alone), so she doesn’t feel too guilty about taking a moment to relax on the porch. Or at least, trying to, because when she goes to sit in the rocking chair that’s been there since their parents bought this place, something crinkles underneath her. She leaps to her feet out of instinct alone.

It’s just a white envelope, sealed with a strange symbol in black, two wings curving out from a center circle and three small, pointed legs. It’s not government-official, or something Ema recognizes at all. It’s not even addressed to them, but their house is pretty out of the way; it’s not like it got left there by accident. Irrepressible curiosity gets the better of her, and she breaks the seal open with impatience, almost excited even though it probably isn’t meant for her.

The row of bills facing her makes her jaw drop.

It’s not until she runs inside waving the envelope and she and Lana dump the contents all over the table that Ema sees the note, tucked in behind all the bills, written in blotchy ink. Even in the depths of night, when no other bird dares to take flight, one alone soars to shine the light of righteousness on the world's blight. -Yatagarasu

The money isn’t anything exorbitant. It’s mostly smaller bills, not life-changing—or it wouldn’t be for anyone who wasn’t as hard-up for cash as the Skyes. Ema can practically see the math behind Lana’s eyes as she sorts out the bills. It’s good news, it’s very good news, but there’s still a gnawing inside Ema: not enough to make her look this gift horse in the mouth, but enough to make her want to know where it came from. Normal people don’t just go around giving out money.

She’s a scientist, after all, and patterns and predictions are her bread and butter, even if they don’t pan out. So when no more envelopes show up over the next week of Lana squirreling the money away, too cautious to spend it immediately, Ema has one last idea.

The sun slices through the tiny gap in the curtains by Ema’s bed next Sunday morning, prompting her to get up, too; like a perfect storm, like magic, she can already hear footsteps on the porch. Half of her is convinced that it’s her imagination, but the other half, still hopeful, pipes up, Why would someone sign a note if they were never going to talk to you again? and keeps her going all the way out to the front door.

There’s a girl standing there, reaching into a bag slung around her waist. For some reason, it takes Ema aback to see her, even though she hadn’t really been picturing anyone in particular behind the envelope. She freezes on the porch, a hood drawn up but not doing much to cover her face with its bright upturned eyes and her inky hair spilling out everywhere, uncontainable. The light is strange this early in the morning, partially orange from the sun, but still blue on the other side of the sky, the last bit of night draining away, and it makes what might have been impish, almost mischievous features completely otherworldly.

Half-convinced she’s still dreaming, Ema whispers, “Hi,” and the girl jumps up what must be three feet, lands on the porch railing, and runs towards the shadows that creep at the edge of the forest, dissolving into them. The whole way, Ema watches her, and because of that, she doesn’t notice the envelope that was dropped on the dusty floor until the girl is gone.

It takes her an embarrassingly long time to pick it up and deal with it.

The whole next week, Ema’s head’s in the clouds, unusual for her. Lana doesn’t even notice, also unusual, too busy trying to figure out what to do with this unexpected boon. It’s hard to quantify just how much something like this could do for them. Food doesn’t have to be scarce anymore. Ema could try again at school. They could pay off their parents’ debts; they could hope to have a life of their own.

Ema might be a little cynical, but she’s not ungrateful, and she’s still fascinated by the girl in the trees. So the next week she finds herself awake with the light—actually, earlier, giving herself time to brush her hair and change—and on her porch once more. She doesn’t hide or wait this time, and because of that, she sees the girl when she approaches the house, creeping out of the shadows of the forest. Except today, Ema can plainly see that the girl isn’t alone.

There are two others with her, dressed in similar clothes—adventurer’s clothes. She doesn’t know if they’re aware of her yet, so she stands frozen in the doorway, until the girl in the blue hood turns—and then it’s clear, a mutual acknowledgment in the hardening of her gaze.

She glances between the envelope in her hands and Ema, clearly hesitant, but eventually she takes a step forward, then another, her boots soundless on the path until she’s at the foot of the stairs. Her eyes are just as bright as they were before, even without the sunrise to light them on this foggy morning.

“Hi,” Ema says. It occurs to her that she’s spoken two words to this girl who has her so… spellbound, and they’ve both been ‘hi.’ Suppressing a cringe at the thought, she resists the urge to wipe her sweaty palms on her nightgown.

“Why do you keep watching me?” The response is nearly emotionless, but Ema can see the tendons of the girl’s wrist beneath her gloves, clenching on a strap that leads around her back to a quiver. She hadn’t worn that last week.

To buy herself time, Ema folds her arms across her chest and tries to look just as aloof. It must work; the girl must take it as a gamble, because she rushes out, “Because if you’re working for the police, that’s just wrong. All we did was try to help you!” This time, the grip on her weapon is a clear threat, and the girls lingering at the mouth of the woods must hear her voice raise, because they start to creep forward.

Okay. Wrong move. Ema raises her hands, instead, as open as possible. “I’m not. I swear I’m not. I’m just…” She chews her lip for a moment and tries to put into words what she’s feeling, the insatiable curiosity that’s always lived inside her turned up to almost a hunger at the implicit freedom she sees in this wild girl. “I don’t get why you give this away. Money.”

That seems to stop the mystery girl in her tracks. She beckons behind her, not looking away from Ema’s face, and her companions approach less stealthily, their raised weapons falling. “You need it, don’tcha?”

For some reason, Ema hadn’t expected it to be that simple. All of this mystery, and it turns out to be… charity?

But wait. Wait, there’s something else she isn’t considering.

The girl seems to be waiting for something, too—for Ema to put it together, and when Ema finally does, she feels kind of naïve. She hates that feeling more and more every day. “I mean, we do,” she says slowly. “We really need it. But… where did it come from?”

The other two women are close enough now that Ema can make out their features, and the one on the left smiles, her face breaking into a bright moon. “Someone who doesn’t. Need it, I mean.” She tucks one strand of long black hair behind her ear.

“She means we steal it!” interjects the other woman, with a grin of her own that puts the previous girl’s smile to shame.

It’s what Ema had figured out; she was really just asking for effect. Nonetheless, hearing it put out there quite so proudly does give her pause—enough for the original woman, the one who seems to have thieved away her own space in Ema’s thoughts as well, to step forward. “That’s Maya–” nodding to the woman on her left, who pats a dagger in a scabbard at her hip— “that’s Regina–” the other one, who twirls her walking stick— “and I’m Kay.”

Kay. It’s almost too common a name for this woman, but that’s remedied when she continues. “We’re the Yatagarasu.” That’s more like what Ema had been expecting; a group name, the stuff of legends. “Together, all three of us. We steal—money, yeah, but other things, too. Justice. The truth.”

“One alone dares to take flight,” Ema paraphrases from the first envelope.

“Only a couple people know about the Yatagarasu,” Kay continues. “Actually… um, only us.” She gestures between the three of them, pointing at their waists; now Ema sees that they all wear belts with matching buckles, that same crow that stamped the envelopes. “And you.”

Some kind of look passes between the women that Ema doesn’t understand, Kay’s eyebrows dancing. It’s all over in a brief second, before Ema can be too confused, and then, like a dream, like their first meeting, Kay fixes her in her gaze. This time, though, she stretches out her hand. All of a sudden, Ema’s short of breath. Whatever this is—whatever she wants—it already has her captivated.

“You should come with us,” Kay says, feigned nonchalance barely covering real interest, the kind that sends excited sparks through Ema.

They don’t know a thing about her beyond the fact that she’s poor. They don’t know the story of her parents, they don’t know about Lana and how hard she works, they don’t know what Ema could bring to them. All they know is that she wants something different, that curiosity rolls off her in waves, and for them, that’s enough. She’s enough. It’s intoxicating, to be wanted like that.

Ema is tired of standing by, tired of watching things from the sidelines like the quiet deer in the forest. She wants to move, to work, to take flight in a flock.

Kay’s hand still hovers towards her, and Ema can imagine how it would feel entwined with her own.