Sun Child- 12 -

He was out of breath, but he didn't care. He felt like collapsing on the mossy ground, but forced himself to keep running. In the distance, he heard the dogs barking. They had caught his scent. He swore to himself and pushed his body to move faster.

He dodged branches and fallen trees almost automatically. This forest was his home and he knew it better than he knew himself.

He had gone to the meeting place with stars in his eyes and hope in his heart. She had sworn her love to him and he was ready to give up everything to be with her, even if that meant living in the village, under the sun.

The moon had been in its last phase of crescent, and he remembered it reflected in the pond. He had brought her flowers from the depths of the forest because he knew they were the ones she loved the most. They were still there, at the grove where he had dropped them. Her betrayal made his mouth dry and his throat clench.

Like a prized dream, she had been there, he hardly believed it. With his attention distracted by her beauty and his love for her, he hadn't noticed the men hidden in the darkness until it was almost too late.

It was because he was different that she was there with the trap. It was because he lived in the forest and he talked to trees and animals. It was because he was taller than the others, and darker. His hair was the color of shadows and his skin a reflection of the moon. His ears were pointed, eyes slanted; and when he paused to get a drink from the river, for the first time he hated how he looked.

The dogs were far off now and he was safe, but he pushed on. Further and further into the center, into the very soul of the forest, until he reached the tree he slept in.

He collapsed against the tree and moaned painfully as he felt the night's torture creep up on him again. He sighed as the tree began to draw him in, comforting and soft on his battered body. As he drifted to sleep, deep in the trunk of the great tree, he kept his thoughts from the daughter of the sun and her haunting treachery. He slept there, blissfully unaware of the time passing, his heart slowly growing a scar to bridge the chasm that it had been split into.

He woke to a man dying. As he stepped from the tree, his gaze fell to a man who lay bleeding on the mossy growth.

Suspicious, he knelt by the man's head, eyes darting about to sense a trap. The man's eyes widened as he noticed the stranger's features, but still he struggled for breath. "Please," he gasped. "Please save my sister."

"Where is she?" he asked warily. He was not eager to aid those who had so feverishly hunted him the day before, but he was honor bound to protect those in his forest. He could do this small task and then hide away in his sanctuary to heal. His skin crawled at the thought of seeing another villager, but he reasoned as he ran in the direction the man had pointed, that he didn't have to talk to her.

Miana was frozen in fear, like the deer her brother hunted. She had always known that the villagers barely tolerated her presence, and that her brother was her only protection. His position as gamekeeper guarded her from physical harm, but it didn't stop the harassment. And this was a direct attack.

She had shouted for hours and watched the sun rise and set many times now, as she huddled at the bottom of the trap.

As night came to an end, Miana stood and tried to climb the steep, mossy walls of the pit again, rejecting death as best she could. But for all her ambitions, her actions were in vain and she collapsed on the ground once more, breathing hard and feeling dizzy. Her will was the only thing that held back death so far, but she wasn't sure how long it would last.

Feeling tears on her cheeks, Miana heard a noise above her. She froze, not daring to hope. Could it be someone from the village with an ounce of compassion? She stopped breathing as she looked up.

Her heart sank and she almost cursed the gods for their jokes. But she still needed them on her side, she realized as her eyes followed the mountain cat prowling on the edge of the pit.

Its coat was golden in the dawn light, claws digging in the ground, making dirt rain on her head. She screamed wordlessly at the cat, trying to scare it into leaving. Instead, it crouched low and purred loudly.

There is no way out of this, she thought dimly. She would die here, she knew. She only prayed it would be quick as her fear turned her vision black.

He appeared in the clearing, his senses pointing him in the right direction. At first he was confused, all he saw was a giant cat bent to the ground. Then he looked beyond it and saw the pit. There was a girl inside, most likely the dying man's sister. Her scream was born out of desperation, fear, and the refusal to die.

He spoke quickly to the cat, catching its attention and suggesting that it would find a better meal somewhere else. The cat glowered at him but left, tail swaying gently to the side.

He got closer to the pit and looked down. The girl was crumpled on the floor, not moving. He called out to her, but she didn't respond. Sighing, he dropped down into the ditch and lifted her. She was smaller than the usual sun child and was practically weightless; her bones slightly visible through her skin. He wondered how long she had been in there.

He took her to one of the caves in the mountains surrounding his forest. She would be protected from any animals that would sense her weakness and try to attack. He set her there with blankets, food and water for when she woke, and then left. He had done his part and now she would heal and return to her village.

He knew he was being selfish as he left her in the cave, but the betrayal had stripped him of his innocence, and he had to guard the secrets of his forest from prying sun children. For all he knew, she could be another trap. The sun children were tricky and devious beings who were not worthy of sharing his forest. This girl was no different.

By the time he had returned to the great tree to rest, the man had slipped into the next world. Solemn, he built a stack of dead branches and created a fire; one that was big enough to honor the man's spirit, but small enough to not attract attention.

When he couldn't focus the next day to heal a wounded squirrel, he blamed the girl's presence was tipping the balance of the forest. Never mind that the squirrel kept squirming and there was no peace in sleep for him inside the giant tree the night before. After managing to mend the break in the squirrel's bones, he set off to the cave where he had left the girl, furious, and ready to throw her out of the forest. She was creating too much of a disturbance.

He found her lying exactly where he had left her, still not moving or responding. If he let something die in his forest, something that could have been saved, he knew that the gods would punish him and his forest would be cursed. So, he decided, he would heal her as quickly as possible and be rid of her all that much sooner.

Every day thereafter, he brewed the healing stew of plants and roots to feed her. As she started to heal, she became prone to angry fits where she would lash out and scream curses at people in her delirium. She took to screaming for hours, until her voice stopped working.

A small part of him, buried deep, began to wake and wonder about her past and what made her sleep so restless. At night, she shivered with cold until he asked a passing animal to lie next to her and share warmth. He spent as much time as possible away from the sun girl and prayed she would leave soon. But she healed slowly, as if reluctant to be well again. He began to sit many more hours by her side, frustrated.

But finally, about a moon later, she opened her eyes and moaned. She looked around, confused, until she saw the small fire and tall man sitting by it. It was almost wholly dark in the cave, and she was scared of the walls around her. He was staring straight at her, unblinking. Unnerved, she looked away. Her eyes focused on the small pot with steam frothing out of it.

"Who are you?" she croaked, startled by her broken voice. "What is that?" Her voice started to fade, exhausted by the nights of screaming. "What happened to me?" She mouthed the words, tears running down her face.

The man stood and as he came closer, the fire threw shadows on his face and she noticed his pointed ears and peculiar eyes. Miana tried to shift closer to the wall of the cave, her eyes wide and tears still dripping.

"I will not hurt you. You need to get better so you can return to your village," he spoke in even tones, trying to suppress the pain he felt because of the fear in her eyes.

A new wave of tears fell and she shook her head.

"You do not wish to get better?" Her eyes fluttered. She opened her mouth as her throat clenched, attempting to speak. No words, no noise came out, but she kept struggling.

He placed his hand on her mouth. "Do not worry, we can talk later. You are safe here."

She relaxed into the blankets slowly and succumbed to the gentle tug of sleep. He sat and watched her throughout the day and into the night, oblivious to the time change around him. To him, one day was insignificant. She cried out once, and quieted only when he reached out and touched her face.

He had never thought about comforting her in her nightmares. He was so busy pretending to himself to be angry and resentful of the sun child that he had failed to calm her. Her body may be healing, but her spirit was damaged.

She woke the next day to an empty cave. The fire had been reduced and she couldn't see the pot from where she laid, the darkness surrounding her. She blinked rapidly, trying to find more light; but there was none and that scared her greatly. She tried to sit up, but was too weak and fell back to the blankets, eyes wide and breathing hard.

Meanwhile, he was wandering in the forest, searching for animal traps. There were getting to be too many of them, and the sun children were traveling too far into his forest. He came up behind two of such villagers and watched them in the shadows. They were easy to track because they made more noise than was necessary and their sun colored hair stuck out among the dark forest colors.

As they came up on the third empty trap of the day, the younger one swore loudly and kicked a tree. "Why does this happen, Papa? Are we cursed or just unlucky?"

The old man looked around at the trees, his eyes passing by the man who made friends with the shadows. "It is not just us in the village who cannot trap animals, Jacob. The entire forest has been cursed."

They looked at each other for a long moment. "Surely, it cannot be because of the girl?" Jacob asked quietly. The old man didn't look at him. Already turning to leave, the dark haired man stopped and focused on the conversation, interested almost against his will. "But we did nothing to her. She and the Gamekeeper went into the forest and got lost. We did look for them, Papa."

The old man glared at his son. "Do not give me such lies." He spat the words like venom. "It was a sad day when I went to the market and you children decided to take the village's fate into your small, unworthy hands." His son looked away.

"We are better without her. She was not like us. She didn't belong." He said obstinately. "Her mother-"

The old man struck his son on the back of his head. "It was not your decision. You ostracized her because she did not want you! You did not care that her mother was not of our village, and never made a point of it until she denied you. And the fool that I am, I allowed this behavior. I even encouraged it by not speaking against it. And now you have killed her and the forest is cursed."

"Papa, I-"

The man cut him short by a wave of his hand. "We have no time to dwell on that, the children are hungry and we must feed them. You and the rest will have to live with your shame. I pity your souls."

The old man stalked off and Jacob set the trap again. He gave one last look around and departed after his father. The man detached himself from the shadow, tripped the string, making the trap useless again, and ran to the cave.

He found the girl struggling to sit up and tried to push her back, but she resisted.

"You need to rest more. You can not go back to your home if you are sick."
The girl glared at him. He noticed suddenly that her eyes were the brilliant shade of grass. "I have no home," she rasped. "Save only my brother, whom I fear is dead." He nodded slowly and she looked away, blinking back tears. She was glad that Nicolah was in the next world, but she felt even worse now that she knew for true that she was alone in this world. "Where is the sun? Why is there only darkness here?"

"You are safe in a cave in the mountains. Why can you not return to your village and your friends there?" he cocked his head to the side, curious. Her people had sun hair and dirt colored eyes. He knew he had seen those eyes before, but it was something half-remembered, as if from a dream.

"I have no friends in the village, and I do not wish to return to there." She said bitterly. "I only wish you would have let me pass into the next world." She covered her face as tears rose to her eyes. A warm hand brushed her fingers. She looked up to see the night blue of his slanted eyes and Miana felt her heart jump in her chest and her tears die. "What is your name?"

He withdrew and his face subtly shifted into a mask. "You may call me Fyn. You may also stay here until you regain all your strength, but then you must leave." With that, he stood and walked out of the cave, leaving her to her tangled thoughts.

She was getting too close to him; he was becoming attached to the sun child. He should not care what caused her heart pain; he only needed to heal the wounds of her flesh. But now he found himself feeling protective of the girl, and even worse, he wanted her to remain in the cave, where he could visit her every day. He had to remind himself of the betrayal of the last sun girl he had wanted to protect.

It was still too dark in the cavern for Miana, and she longed for the caress of the sun on her skin, but there was nothing he could do about it now. She lay back on the blankets and stared into the fire, honoring her brother by whispering the Passing Chant until she fell asleep.

When Fyn returned to the cave, he first noticed the fire had grown too large for the small pit he had dug, and it was on the brink of raging out of control. The sun girl was sitting on the blankets, smiling contentedly to herself as the branches turned to ash. He squatted next to her. "I see that you are feeling better?" She nodded.

"But I still cannot walk. It frustrates me." She waved her hands helplessly as he nodded.

"Why were you in the pit trap?" He asked her bluntly. Startled, she looked at him. His head was tilted to the side and she was reminded of another time, when she sat with a different man in front of a fire.

"I," she licked her lips as she began. "I did not wish to be married. The man who wanted me could not allow me to live in the village, defying him, and so he sent his hounds after me one day and they chased me into the bear pit. I had no luck because I did not fall into the pit with the staves. Or much luck," she murmured to herself as she watched the strange man beside her. Fyn pretended that he did not hear those last words and he stared at the ceiling of the cave. He was still wary of the girl, but slowly his resolve was breaking down and it was scaring him.

"Where are you going when you heal completely?" He asked her evenly.

She looked back at the fire. "I do not know. Perhaps I could stay here?" she asked hopefully.

He shook his head, throwing her hopes to the rocks. Silence fell in the cave between the two until Miana grew drowsy and rested back in the blankets. The fire crackled. Fyn looked at her face, gentle and defenseless in her sleep.

His sigh came from the depths of his soul. "You cannot stay here because I fear I am growing attached to you. I cannot be close to you, or any sun child. Once, I think before your time, I thought I had fallen in love. She was a sun child, beautiful to my eyes and she loved the forest, or so it seemed. On the night we were to be joined, she betrayed me to the villagers and I had to flee for my life. You see, even though I grow fond of you, I do not know if I can trust you." He ran his fingers lightly over her face and she smiled in her sleep. "Green dreams to you."

As he stood to bank the fire, he heard her whisper something. He turned to see if she was awake, his heart pounding because of what she might have heard. But she still slept, her eyes fluttered gently. "Fyn," she sighed. He watched her, his night blue eyes on her face.

Over the next few days, Fyn watched her carefully. She never asked about the secrets of the forest, or to leave him. When she could walk, he took her out of the cave to the moonlit forest. As he watched her hobble around, he impulsively decided to take her to the very center of the forest to see if she could see the faye creatures there. If she could, then he would tell her what he had practiced when she was sleeping.