Braided Together

Tired

Rini was tired, she was always tired.

Not for lack of sleep, when the sun went down she slept perfectly fine, no matter where she was, a cave, a clearing, even the rough shore of a river, she slept like a rock.

The problem was walking, moving at all really. Though sitting and just doing something with her hands was alright. The issue was moving her head. The issue was Rini's hair. The issue was she couldn't cut it.

Several years ago she had tried, taken a sharp flint rock and attempted to saw off her thick stranded brown hair. But the moment she made progress, cut the first strand nearly in half, she felt a sudden burst of unimaginable pain. The strand of hair had begun to bleed.

Rini's hair had blood vessels. The strands were just big enough to fit them, maybe a third the diameter of her pinky. There were positives, her hair rarely knotted, was easy to braid and if she really concentrated she could move the tips, which was extraordinarily useful for reaching things.

The problem was that she had no way to shorten it, so it had grown to nearly twice her height. And it was so heavy.

Rini could only assume that her hair, which she knew was not normal, was part of the reason she had been abandoned in the woods, at night, in the middle of winter. Luckily a hunter had found her, an aging man, and he and his wife had taken care of her for several years. But they were old, and lived in the middle of nowhere without anything modern, including medicine, so they had passed on shortly after one another in her eleventh year.

With no idea where to go or what to do, a young Rini had taken to the only place where she could find comfort, the woods. Leaving the cabin they had lived in, she wandered the wilderness by herself, for nearly six years now. The only way to tell the passage of time was the rotation of the seasons.

Lying against the back of the cave she was staying in for the night, Rini wondered how much longer she would wander. The original idea had been to find other people, but it had been so long, Rini was almost certain she never would. Would she die here? All alone, without anyone's knowledge that she even existed? For how long? She could die tomorrow, she could die of old age, the woods were dangerous and nurturing at the same time, there was no telling what would happen.

Poking at the dying fire, Rini found herself moving towards it for warmth, an unconscious indication that the seasons were changing again, the easy summer had vanished. Fall was on it's way, and the harsh winter was not far off.

She attached the sleeves back to her dress before lying down on the hard ground.

She would move on in the morning, travel for a few days, find a good place to stop, rest for a week and then continue. A never ending cycle, she thought as she fell asleep.

Or so it would seem.

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The next afternoon, Rini was walking. She was leaning forward, trying to keep her hair from pulling too much in her skull. A few days previous she had braided her hair. Each individual strand. Then she had braided those braids and those braids until there was only one big braid down her back which she had tied with a large amount of string on the top of her head. It wasn't the most secure style, but her neck was incredibly sore and this made it feel better, if only for a while.

The sun was steadily approaching the end of it's trek through the sky when Rini heard the sound of a river. Another half mile and she had reached it.

It was a good bit larger than the streams she usually came across. She didn't think she could just cross it right there. The current was too strong.

She wandered slowly along the shore, looking for a place to set up camp for the night when she heard something rather peculiar.

It was a strange sound, laughter, especially after not have hearing anything remotely like it for a long time.

As Rini silently inched forward along the river's edge, several boys came into view. They were probably about her age, and the were fooling around on a small rotten looking  dock that poked out into the water.

I never thought I'd see people again, Rini thought. Crouching down in the bushes not 15 yards away from the boys. What should I do? She wondered.

Of course her worries didn't matter, because at that moment, her hair decided to free itself from the top of her head. The crash drew the attention of the boys, who looked at each other. Some of them shoved one another, teasing one of the slightly smaller boys into checking. Rini froze. She had no idea what to do.

When her hair had fallen, a few loose strands had landed outside the protection of the shrubbery. Concentrating, Rini tried to slowly inch the brown strands back toward her, hoping the boy didn't notice. He did, but he obviously didn't recognize the strands as hair.

"Snake!" He yelled, turning and running. Most of the boys ran after him with a few high pitched squeals.

How old are they? Rini wondered to herself. Slowly she stood up, moving to go back the way she'd come, not noticing one of the boys had remained.

"Hey!" He shouted, walking toward her, he seemed a little annoyed until he got closer. Noticing the frayed handmade rope she used for a hair band and the sorry state of her clothes.

"Are you okay?" He asked. Standing only a few feet off now.

Rini struggled to say something but found her throat incapable of making noise after years of disuse. So after a moment, she nodded hesitantly instead.

"You sure? you don't look so good." Once again she nodded slowly.

"Alright." He said with a shrug of his shoulders. "I'm Max." He stuck out his hand, and she slowly reached out to take it. His hand was surprisingly soft, especially compared to hers from years of hard labor.

"It's supposed to rain tonight." He said, hand retreating to his pocket. "The weatherman said it's gonna be a bad one, that's why the boys were out here, the river washes up some cool things when it's this high."

He faced the river as he said this. But his blue eyes, same color as the river, kept darting back toward her, gaging her reaction.

"You have a place to say tonight?" He asked. It was her turn to shrug. Rini was greatful for knowledge of the storm. She'd have to find a decent cave now.

She nodded her head to the boy- Max, in thanks, she focused for a moment and lifted the lose strands of hair up to her waiting hand, pulling it higher and twisting it over her head. Max's eyes went a little wide, but he didn't say anything. She began to walk away, feeling the boy's eyes still on her back.

"Wait!" He shouted and she froze. Rini turned back around. He wouldn't meet her gaze as he spoke and looked a bit embarrassed. "My house has a guest bedroom, and my mom, well, has a weird uh, fondness for strangers. So, um, if you need a place to stay..."

Rini smiled at his awkward offer, and considered it for a moment. A bed. She hadn't slept in one for so long. It was tempting but... She was an orphan, she had no idea what human society would do with her. At least the woods didn't discriminate. A person was simply a person, regardless of their past, present or future.

Just one night, she decided. Until this storm passed, then she would leave again. She nodded and Max smiled.

"Great! The road to my house is in about a mile, hope you don't mind the walk." She shook her head, indicating a mile was nothing. Still beaming, Max turned and walked away, expecting her to follow, which, apprehensivly, she did.