Chapter Text
When he spots the four-year-old on the other side of the Owls’ river, Reuben is sitting right by the water, his fishing rod resting on his thin jacket laid flat on a rock, an hour away from his cabin. The stream bed isn’t too wide and he can see her face clearly.
He doesn’t recognize her; must be an offspring from another village. Children are often left to wander alone, and he sometimes happens to meet some on his way to the river or the mountain. Whether they’re raised in his own village or not, they’re not usually that young unaccompanied.
They know about him. The moment they see him, they typically run in the opposite direction. If there’s any sign their parents, aunts and uncles still talk about him to this day, this is it.
That one doesn’t run, though. Too young to know.
When she gets closer to the water, he doesn’t move. Her mother or father must not be too far behind, and if they catch him moving toward her or talking to her…
Looking at that olive-skinned four-year-old child, he thinks about the time he found a lost boy crying under the weaver’s chicken coop. Reuben was only twenty-one at the time, and he brought the child back to his mother, who pointed her rifle at him as soon as her son let go of his hand.
A white owl hoots above his head the way they normally do in the middle of the night. The sun is still high in the sky.
The little girl takes a step closer, crouching, observing Light-knows-what under the water, her bare toes buried in the mud, her black braids swinging. The current isn’t too strong here, but it could take away a four-year-old, and further down the river, it gets stronger; strong enough to drown a man. It’d be easy for her to slip and fall.
Reuben is sitting his elbows on his knees, holding one wrist in his hand. He’s wearing his long, high waisted pants as is tradition, his oldest pair, well too hot for the season. His shirt is lighter, and it used to be white. Sweat is running down his back, his brow. He watches her, but doesn’t move.
He should pack his things and leave, pretend he never saw her.
Where are her parents, is what he wonders right as she slips.
The river isn’t too deep where she falls, but children this age don’t have much balance. She manages to stand back up for a moment, her head above the surface, coughing up water, her small fingers spread wide in the air, reaching for the bank. But she slips on a soft rock again, yelping. The current takes her.
Reuben’s past has kept him in the shadows for over fifteen years now. He’s thirty-three; that’s nearly half the time he’s been on earth. He’s no longer under any illusion regarding his future. All hope has been left behind a long time ago.
But he doesn’t sit and watch when the water takes the child. As soon as she falls he’s already crossing the river with rapid strides.
There and then, he can run faster than the river; but further down, the current is too strong, and he must throw himself into the water at the right time to catch the child, without losing sight of her. The heat is thick enough to slow him down; still all of it happens in a matter of seconds.
His steps are well placed; he avoids thick roots snaking down the bank and rocks hidden in the mud like a mountain cat, then jumps. Any small misstep of any kind from him would have caused the girl to never leave the river again. He fists her collar and sharply pulls her to him. Her small body lands hard on the bank. She coughs again, her tongue out. Once she’s done coughing, she starts crying.
His heart hasn’t beaten so fast in a long time. Without taking the time to catch his breath, drenched from the waist down, he sets to take the child to another adult before she does something stupid again, his hand firmly closed around her arm.
Crossing the river the opposite way, he doesn’t carry her in his arms, and simply tightens his hand above her elbow. The water reaches her torso.
He gathers his jacket, his bag and his fishing rod in one hand, lips thinning thinking about having to go back home empty handed. And for what?
Reuben catches the child’s arm again, and starts walking, heading south.
“Brother… Bro-other,” the little girl hiccups, trying to keep up with his strides, her soaked skirts sticking to her little legs. When she doesn’t get his attention, she wails: “Where are you taking meeee?”
“Look,” she whines quietly later, “Look. Look.” He glances down at her even though he shouldn’t, and frowns when she pulls up her skirts to show him her bloody knee, sniffling, her chin trembling.
He huffs and walks faster, pulling her with him.
She sobs with all her heart for a good while. “A da-a-ark spirit pu-u-shed me” she cries, her face wincing with distress -until eventually she’s done crying and falls quiet as a fish, exhausted, letting him lead the way through the forest; then through the wild fields, then the forest again, back to the village. Green fireflies dot the tall grass along the way.
“Carry me on your back,” she does try at some point. He ignores her.
When he passes the first cabin, north of the village, he picks up the pace, his eyes lowered, bracing himself for any possible sort of encounter. The child is flying by his side, her toes barely touching the grass.
But aside from crickets and frogs, the village is quiet, and he doesn’t meet anyone.
“What is your birth name?” He thinks the child asks, and oh, he won’t give it to her. If he’s lucky enough, no one will see him with her.
When he reaches Yili's cabin, he pulls the girl up in the air and drops her on the porch without climbing the stairs himself.
The front door instantly swings open. He freezes.
“Yiyi!” The girl squeals.
Yili is wearing her sun-bleached apron, squinting her good-for-nothing eyes. She’s nearly blind, yet she asks with a voice rough with age: “Where did you find her?” -and he knows she knows it’s him.
Before someone else has a chance to show up, he turns around and leaves, wincing when Yili raises her voice.
“You can’t hide from me, you cursed child.”
She doesn’t go after him -and he gets to the end of the village without meeting anyone else.