And The Forest Whispers

6

Shion closed the door behind him, shutting out the winter storm. His cabin was a portal to another world, in a sense; as soon as the heavy wooden door clicked shut, all the cold wind and frost vanished into a thing of distant memory. The smooth floorboards beneath Shion's bare feet radiated with comfortable warmth, as if they'd been baking in the spring sunlight all day.

          Shion exhaled with relief as the heat worked its way through his icy toes. He shifted the balls of his feet against the solid wood, careful not to stomp on the little flower bulbs pushing up from between the boards. A small puddle formed on the wood where he was standing as the snow melted off his skin. He didn't worry—there were bigger things to focus on now.

          He lifted his head and peered into the heart of his cabin. Now that he'd jolted out of a dead sleep, the flower charms radiated with all the warmth and light of a calm morning. Shion could see the hearth neatly tucked in the far corner, the coals still smoldering from his dinner that evening. The soup cauldron, scrubbed clean and set gently off to the side, sat like a massive black stone.

          And in the center of it all stood Nezumi.

          He loomed like a solid strip of shadow, his heavy hood concealing his face. He'd tramped through Shion's cabin, his heavy boots leaving a trail of snow and dirt in the center of the floor. It wouldn't take much to clean—a simple brush of a broom and Shion could sweep away the remnants of the icy storm outside—but there was something so strange about him standing there in the heart of Shion's world, rooted in place like a tree that had sprung up straight out of the ground and spread its branches throughout the cabin.

          Shion shrugged his cloak off his shoulders and hung it gently on the hook beside the door. He had no intentions to head back into the storm this evening. He hadn't been planning to venture out into it at all when he'd fallen asleep that evening, but Nezumi's muted, pained hiss had somehow reached into his subconscious and pulled him into the waking world.

          Nezumi glanced around the cabin, and Shion could practically feel the unease rolling off him. He scanned the walls and glowing flowers as if searching for snares that weren't present, and Shion tried not to be offended.

          His hands were sticky with blood. Shion flexed his fingers, feeling it cooling against his skin, in the creases of his fingers and palms.

          He swallowed a wave of fear and went to the pail of water sitting by the door. He'd been waiting for a warmer day to dump it outside, as doing so now would guarantee that it would freeze and cause a slipping hazard for him the next time he ventured outside. Shion was suddenly grateful for it as he dunked his hands inside and rubbed them together. He had no soap readily available near the bucket, but scrubbing his knuckles and palms got the still-damp blood off his skin.

          Shion flicked the water off his hands and patted them dry against his trousers. The water inside the bucket was not clean, and he couldn't use it to wash Nezumi's wound, but he'd take care of that soon enough.

          He turned to look at Nezumi, and then took a careful step forward. Nezumi's eyes immediately darted to him. Shion resisted the urge to freeze beneath his piercing gaze and continued to move forward. It wouldn't do him any good if Nezumi began to suspect him of wrongdoing.

          He crossed carefully to his cot and drew back the blanket. The mattress was still warm from his body, and Shion willed a little bit of magic from the flowers surrounding him into keeping it comfortable. A few bound bushels of lavender flowers sat beneath his mattress to keep the room smelling nice, to lull him into a peaceful rest. Shion murmured to them and drifted his fingers through the air, pulling the natural lavender scents and weaving them into the fabric covering his cot and the pillows. If he was going to do this, then he wanted Nezumi to be comfortable.