Chapter Text
Kohane stood at the edge of the forest near her town, pulling a list of herbs and other plants she needed to collect for her parents today out of the pocket in her skirt. She slowly unfolded the paper and started reading it out loud.
"Basil, ginger, sage…" She repeated reading the list 10 times before someone finally interrupted her.
"Come on Kohane, you've read the list 10 times already. You know what all of these plants are."
Kohane looked at her basket and noticed a little white head sticking out. Her snake, Count Pearl, was the one who interrupted her. He slithered out farther, until half of his body was sticking out.
"I know that, but I want to make sure that I remember all of them!"
"The list isn't going to disappear, and you've already collected all of these plants before anyway."
"I guess you're right." Kohane sighed as she folded up the paper with the list and tucked it into the pocket of her dress.
Kohane entered the forest, taking the little path she's used for years. Even though the sun was shining bright today, with almost no clouds to stop the sunlight, the thick leaves of the trees managed to filter most of the sunlight from getting through to the forest floor. It was still bright enough to see well, but it darkened the area enough to be noticeable.
Around noon, Kohane decided to take a break and eat the lunch she packed for herself. She set her basket down on a rock and let Count Pearl out of her basket to hunt for mice. Sitting on the rock next to her basket, she took out her lunch and started carefully unwrapping the sandwich she packed.
She finished the sandwich and sat there waiting for Count Pearl to come back. Eventually, 15 minutes passed with no sign of her talking snake and she began to worry. Standing up and grabbing her basket, she began to call out his name.
"Count Pearl! Count Pearl! Where are you?"
The forest was very big, and Kohane knew that if Count Pearl went far, it could take days to find him.
She continued searching for another 15 minutes, not even paying attention to the list and the plants she was supposed to collect. Eventually, she sighed and sat down on another rock looking defeated, setting her basket down beside her and putting her head in her hand.
Through her hands, she noticed something glowing. At first she assumed that it was just the bits of sunlight that managed to get through the thick leaves of the trees, but it seemed too bright to be that. Taking her hands away from her face, she found the origin of the light. A tree stump that she had previously walked past and ignored, seemed to have a bright white light coming from the top.
Kohane quickly stood, basket in hand, and approached the stump cautiously. Finally standing above it, she noticed that the light seemed to be coming from a hole in the top of the stump. She reached out to touch it and then-