Red Harvest's Winter

Interwoven Greens

My eyes snapped open at when the sun was just starting to rise over the horizon. It took me a second to remember how I had ended up next to the old barn. When I finally remembered the woman involved, I cautiously sat up and walked through the broken door frame. She was no longer asleep, but rather huddled up against the hay stacks, shaking like she was caught in the middle of the first snow with no warning. It did dawn on me that the thin layer of snow outside may have been partially the cause, but I highly doubted that was the main reason.

I began walking closer to her, she had noticed me. We were now engaged in what could be considered sizing each other up. The barn was still dark, but the light strand of light flowing through the broken roof allowed for her to partially study my features. She froze completely once I stood above her. 

"Please don't hurt me," That was the first noise either of us made in what must have been around two minutes. I decided not to speak, but to merely shake my head.

"What are you going to do to me?" Looking away from her face, my eyes locked onto her exposed leg. Blood had begun to dry on her thigh, but the wound still looked painful. I squatted down next to it a ripped a strip off of the tarp hanging over the side of the bales. She gasped at the sound and start scooting farther away. I slowly stood and calmly pointed at her leg, her owns eyes seemed to dance over the cut and then to the cloth in my hand. She nodded. 

After wiping off the excess blood, I could more clearly see the wound. It wasn't as bad as I had first thought, it was really only a small gash from her mid outer thigh, to her inner mid thigh. I used more of the tarp to create a make shift bandage that I carefully wrapped around the exposed wound. We didn't speak, the only noises that could be heard were the birds chirping and her occasional whimper.

When I had finished I looked up at her. There was still mud streaking down the left half of her face, though most of it had been rubbed off on the tarp, and her hair was matted down to her neck by what looked like mud as well. I stood and wrapped my arm around her waist, lifting her to her feet and providing support to her as I began walking us outside into the light. My quick movements caused her to yelp out.

Her movements were slightly shaky and uncertain while she was taking her steps. I was scared she would break if she put too much pressure on her leg, so I put my right arm under her legs and picked her up, like I was cradling a newborn. She let out another noise that I had become used to in the hour that had just passed. When we finally reached the old log I had fallen asleep on, I gently set her down and went over to my horse, taking a light blanket off of his back. I returned to her and set it in front of her. She was confused and only looked at the cloth. I made a motion like I was wiping off my face, and her head nodded in understanding as she picked it up and began cleansing her face of the mud. I stepped back to observe her more clearly as her features became clearer, and the light from the new sun lit up the surroundings.

I was right in my earlier assumptions, she was short, and young. While standing next to me, she barely hit my shoulders. She couldn't be more than twenty years old, but she was definitely older than sixteen. Her body was curvy, but not large, maybe 120 to 130 pounds. Her hair color, while distorted by the mud and dirt, was red and reached down to her mid back. She was also very pale, not in a sickly way, but more like she hadn't been allowed outside for a year. I was so lost in memorizing her features, I didn't notice she had finished rubbing of the mud and was now looking up at me. Her eyes were green. Not bright green, or dark green, just green. So many greens interwoven and laced through each other, that no word could describe the color besides, green. They were empty though. It was as if all those greens had never felt the emotions that the grass felt when it was met with the sun. I spoke first.

"Name."