Cerberus Rex, Nameless

Tree Keeper, 3

Feri's eyes stung as she held the stranger sobbing in her arms. She stroked his hair, her heart a knot of pain. He didn't seem to comprehend her attempt to comfort him, but then he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. The tangibility of his sorrow dug into her chest. She wanted to help him. Whatever he was. Perhaps doing so would show her how to help herself. She withdrew, squeezed his shoulder, and knelt by the stream. It should have trickled in a weaving current by the power of the moon, but it remained as stagnant as when they arrived.

Holding one of the stranger's arms, she scooped up some water and washed the blood off him. He'd grown silent and watched with sore red eyes. A few stray tears slid down his cheeks but eventually dried up.

Feri held his palm open and rubbed the blood clean. None of it seemed to be his. The tree keeper was as powerful as they said. No wonder so many feared to trespass into the Waywin Woods. But that wasn't fair. How dare the Empire leave him alone to protect it on his own. Who were their attackers? And why would they engage her and Asinis? Were they responsible for the moon wells? She should have preserved one for questioning, but she didn't sense the tree keeper would have thought of that in his confused state. Not after that powerful and wild display of magic. Was he even in his right mind when it happened?

"Are you alright?" Feri whispered.

The tree keeper considered his clean hands before whispering, "Thank you." Then he stood and started walking away.

"Ah, wait! Tree Keeper!" Feri hopped after him and stopped when he did. It reminded her of the sound of her voice, and she looked behind her at Asinis for help. No one wanted to answer a pitch that cracked and changed and sounded mean like an angry dog or suspicious goblin.

Asinis, aware of her concern, walked up beside her. "Are you the tree keeper of this forest?" he asked.

The stranger looked over his shoulder at their feet. "Am I?" he said.

"That is what they call the one who protects these woods," Asinis said.

"I keep it safe or..." Nameless contemplated the corpses. Torn, blood masses of meat that meant nothing to him, and yet elicited a guilty expression. "I am meant to." His face crumpled, and he turned away.

Feri dared to come a little closer and tried to soften her voice. "Did these people do something to make you angry?"

He tucked in his lips and, his stare glued to the ground, nodded.

"What did they do?" Feri whispered.

Sorrow trembled through his face, and he turned away. Feri held her breath when he walked briskly from them. Then, though knowing Asinis would rather not, she chased him. Asinis hesitated but followed. Tree Keeper did not speak another word. Feri hoped that meant he didn't mind their company, rather than be too absorbed in his purpose to not notice them. She didn't want to take him by surprise. Not after what she'd just seen. They traversed the wood until coming upon a piece of forest different from the rest. Feri and Asinis paused. It looked like a ball of wind had spun through that single space. A wind that pushed back the trees and bent the foliage flat toward the ground. Tree Keeper knelt before something within the area, and Feri's heart burned with sympathy as his fingers brushed through the white hairs of a dead stag.

She tiptoed closer and knelt beside them. A waft of the recent kill snuck through the mask covering her nose and mouth. Her muscles trembled, and the urge to consume the stag ripped through her body. "Did they kill it?" she managed through the savage instinct she forced down.

"Yes." His voice was so low and soft, she might not have heard it if the forest were not so quiet.

"That is the white stag of the forest," Asinis said, his voice wobbly. "Why would anyone want it dead?"

"Perhaps for the same reason they destroyed the moon wells." Feri looked at the tree keeper. "What is your name?"

The tree keeper's hand paused in stroking the stag's face. A light of recognition spun through his eyes and then he blinked. "You use names to call each other by," he murmured as if just learning of it in that moment.

Feri looked back at Asinis and probed him closer with a shift of her red eyes. Speaking in a mild voice took too much concentration, and she had many questions he would share.

Asinis sighed and knelt beside her. "That's right. I am Asinis. This is Feri. Are you called anything?"

He shook his head.

"And what was the stag to you?" Asinis pressed.

Feri wondered the same thing. Why would he feel such sadness over the death of a creature? She knew people kept pets and mourned their loss, but she didn't suspect him and the stag shared that kind of relationship. Not if this was the stag of the Waywin Forest.

"He was my... father," he replied after some searching.

"Father?" Feri wondered. Obviously not by blood. "You mean he took care of you?"

"I realize the meaning is not quite right, but there is no better description for what he was to me," he replied.

"I understand." Feri slid a glance at Asinis staring at the stag's empty eyes.

"What will you do now?" Asinis asked. "The magic of this forest is under attack. They'll come for you too."

Tree Keeper stared a long time at the stag. Feri tilted her head to study his expression. Acceptance had slowly flattened his features. She wondered what he thought of her and Asinis—why he allowed them near him and something he loved so much?

"Who are they?" he finally asked.

"I don't know," Asinis said. "Feri is familiar with the moon wells, but I study different magic, which—" he trailed off and then took a breath to force himself forward. "Which has also been attacked."

Feri looked down at her strange hands. Her unusually long fingers against such small palms. The thin fur that covered her pinker than normal human skin. She hugged herself, and Asinis's chin fell toward his chest.

"Someone has hurt you also?" Tree Keeper asked, now finally sparing them a look. Feri winced when his gaze lingered longer on her. "I have seen humans before. But what are you?" he asked. "You look a little like a human but a little like a rabbit, too."

"We don't have a name here. They just call us beast-bunnies," she said.

"That is not what I asked." He turned away and rose. "What is the proper thing to do with the dead among your people?" he asked Asinis.

"Ah, we usually bury them. Sometimes say a few words to um... send off their spirit."

Tree Keeper nodded and then bent to shoulder the large creature. Feri gasped and stepped out of his way, and Asinis gawked as he walked past them looking unburdened by the weight.

"We should leave—Feri," Asinis whispered.

Feri stared after the tree keeper as she nibbled her lip. Then she looked beside her at Asinis and saw his hanging arm. She remembered the rogue dislocating it. "Asinis, your arm," she whispered.

"Later," he said.

She paused. Nodded. "Okay." She could reset it when they found a place to rest. Glancing over her shoulder, she followed Asinis in the opposite direction the tree keeper carried the corpse of his father.