anneandrogen

  Content WarningsDog death, it isn't focused on but it does happen. Also, brief mentions of dead names and dead families.

  [colpse]

  The woods bent around her, the Lady providing help to reach the tops of the trees as Nesta’s feet found solid purchase with each step, like climbing stairs. The dog was still barking, moving away from the grove and away from the Goddess’s heart.

  From up high, she saw yet another group of invaders. Heavily armed men, leading more dogs on thick rope ties, svering to join the hunt. Their progress was slow, as the forest tried to turn them around with every step, but under the assault of hatchets and machetes there was only so much it could do. More evil too close to home.

  A thought that she’d been avoiding for some time came back to her. Was the Lady okay? She used to be different, when Nesta first came to her. Her power was limitless. It seemed to Nesta then that she could bend the whole mountain to her will. They saw regur visitors, but never any with ill intent. The Lady stopped them before they ever got close, but now… more hunters that Nesta had to chase away, and fewer supplicants.

  She began to rely more on Nesta to do simple things. Like talking to the supplicants without the Lady’s disguise, or pruning sick branches from trees that had never before fallen ill. It had been ages since she had asked her for help climbing the trees, because Nesta saw how it drained her to do so. For days after she asked the Lady to exert more control, the animals ran from her when she passed, and the fruit withered on the vine.

  And then there was the water. It took more for Nesta to feel like herself. Up from a single swallow to whole cups, and who knew how it affected the girls who had taken the vials when they left the grove.

  She was ailing, and Nesta had been so x in her duty. Too busy pying at being someone’s child again. Gamel wouldn’t be her mother. She wouldn’t even be a woman. She insisted otherwise. They had gone around the normal processes, and spent so much of the Lady’s limited resources on someone who didn’t even want the changes. If they had asked Gamel the questions, tested her will, what would they have found? No. Nesta trusted the Lady’s judgement. Gamel was a woman, like her, but maybe she wasn’t ready when she came to them. Gamel had even known what the Lady did, and instead of seeking out the waters for herself, she had brought another girl to them. She was kind, and she never treated Nesta like she was stupid, or wrong, and Nesta had allowed herself to be lulled into that security.

  There wasn’t time to be a child. She was thirteen, practically grown. It was time to protect the Lady like she had protected her. There were too many god damned witches and kidnappers in her forest.

  She ran atop the trees and whispered to the Goddess while branches rearranged themselves under her. “I’ll keep you safe. Make you well again. If I can keep the whole world out, I will.”

  The barking dog went silent with a high pitched scream.

  Nesta jumped from the trees to the spot she’d st heard it. This was right on the edge of the Lady’s forest. Beyond here were the true wilds. For the rest of the mountain, fall was setting in. The rare orange leaves were scattered among the evergreens. Even the grass and dirt changed form as it left the Lady’s influence. It was less beautiful, less concerned with being walked on. The rest of the world had different designs, ones that never bent to anyone’s will.

  The dog was on the ground, on its side, with a boy and a growing pool of blood. It was dead, skewered on a stick like roasting meat. The boy was kneeling, his hair covering his face. His clothes were nice, better than anything that Nesta had ever seen people in her vilge wearing. Maybe some merchants had coats that looked like that, with real metal buttons instead of wood. These looked like silver, like the cups her grandmother never let anyone use, but without the tarnish.

  He was crying, his hands still tight around his makeshift weapon. There were bite wounds on his hands, and his wrists were bruised, a deep purple that stood out against how pale he was. His head whipped up at her approach, and Nesta carefully raised her hands to show she wasn’t a threat.

  “You’re getting blood on your clothes,” she informed him.

  He started crying harder. There was snot dripping from his nose. Nesta knelt down and pried his fingers off the stick. It was like he’d never killed anything before. Maybe rich boys didn’t have to. While she dragged the dog away from him and wiped her hands on the hem of her dress, she kept talking to him. “My name’s Nesta, and you’re in my woods. I’m sorry you had to kill the dog, and I hope you don’t get rabies, but now you have to turn around and go home. Sorry, but this isn’t a pce where you’re supposed to be chased by a dog— or people. I saw them on the way over here. They look super, uh, unhappy.” This wasn’t working. Now he was sobbing, his shoulders working up and down, and an unhappy wail-y sound was coming from his mouth. Maybe he’d hit his head. “Come on, guy.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him to his feet. He wasn’t wearing any shoes. “This is the Lady’s forest, but I’m in charge of it when the Lady is busy. You can’t be here, please and thank you.”

  He looked up at her at the mention of the Lady. “Is that the spirit? The one who…” He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “The one who… makes… girls?”

  Oh no. All her worst suspicions were correct. This wasn’t any random rich boy. This was the sad girl Gamel had tried to bring to the Lady. Her father’s men captured her days ago! Why were they still here?

  “You’re Ade?” she asked, trying to look the girl— who was obviously a girl with a second look; she held herself like all the supplicants who came to see them— in the eyes, and project some air of authority.

  Her eyes went wide, and some color came back to her face. “Yes. Are you the spirit, or, the Lady’s daughter?” Nesta shrugged, accepting the fttery. “Please, ma’am. You have to help me. They’re going to take me back to my father and he’s going to force me to be a boy. Please, you knew my name, you must know that I need this.”

  This was a good opportunity. If she could Get Ade back to the Lady and give her the blessings, the normalcy of it might help to revitalize the Lady. She would get the waters, and leave with the men who were hunting her following behind.

  And Gamel at her side. There would be no way to keep her around when she was reunited with Ade. Which was good. It had to be. Gamel was a distraction to Nesta. She didn’t need to be taking care of an injured woman. That would leave her with one problem, the witches, instead of four.

  “It’s not my decision. The Lady will judge your soul.” Ade would pass. Gamel had even answered a few of the questions when she was talking about her. “And when you are judged worthy, the Lady will bless you with girlhood. And you can take your Gamel with you. He—” better not to mention Gamel’s transformation until it was absolutely necessary— “has been a big pain in my side.”

  “Gamel’s with you?” Ade lit up at the mention of her. Nesta renewed her drive to get the both of them out of her forest as soon as possible. Ade was so childish. She was weeping one moment and bouncing on her feet the next.

  The sound of men’s voices broke Ade’s reverie. The soldiers, or whatever they were, had found them, and quicker than Nesta had hoped. The forest was slowing down too, and its powers of confusion were at their limits with so many people wandering around.

  They were coming from the exact direction that Nesta and Ade needed to go. Her options were limited, especially if Ade was as physically incompetent as Nesta thought she was. Hiding wouldn’t work, because the men had dogs. Fighting wasn’t an option with Ade there, not to mention that Nesta’s confidence in her own abilities had already been shaken by the witch.

  The forest butted up against cliffs on the northern side, and in her exploring, Nesta’d found caves that tunnelled in and out of the mountainside. A few would spit them out on the opposite side of the grove from the men. Even sick as she was, the Lady would allow no one into her heart. The safest pce was by the pond, so that’s where they’d go. She took Ade’s hand and ran out away from the grove. She’d make a wide arc and get to the caves by nightfall.

  Across the boundary line, the air was harsh and cold. They stumbled over stones and roots, while the men behind them found the dog. They shouted and swore, cursing a name that made Ade flinch. Nesta thought that it might be lucky that no one was left to know her old name.