Himawari

She worked for the Fae until the massacre.

She didn’t know what happened. She had come back from a gathering trip to buy medicine from the Longnecks, and there they were. Broken bodies strewn along the forest floor. Peaceful village houses smeared in blood. The sight of it was bad, but the smell... She wanted to keel over. Come now, Himawari, no time to waste. Just clean up and... and we’ll figure this out later. She packed her feelings into a tight ball and began the dirty, grubby work of clearing the bodies from where they lay.

Several days later, the graveyard had many fresh additions, the newly turned dirt thick with violets. Himawari had planted many stone markers, but she hadn’t known the names of everyone, and so some remained miserably blank in death. She stood, panting, at the graveyard’s edge. Her skin felt dirty. She turned, dropping her shovel absentmindedly, and entered one of the houses.

She had shared this house with her two Gaoler friends, the only ones in the whole clan, Cactus and Aloe. They were known for being a lovely and agreeable couple, but in the past year they too had sadly fallen prey to the mysterious sleeping sickness that had hung like a shadow over the whole town. The two of them, thankfully, had not been harmed by whatever killed the Fae, but they were still in a comatose state in their quaint little house. It had been Himawari’s job to care for them, and she had gone off to the Longnecks seeking a cure. Now, she wasn’t sure whether to break down crying or laughing at the irony.

Himawari padded upstairs and ran a hot bath, painstakingly scrubbing the grave dirt and dried blood off of her leathery skin. The water turned dark but she did not feel any cleaner. She got out and toweled off, gazing emptily at Aloe’s numerous floral decorations. She reflected on how unlike a typical Gaoler he was, thinking of his dreams to be a fashion designer, and his magpie-like sensibilities around pretty objects. Cactus found most of what he created fairly ridiculous, but at the end of the day he was still helping his husband press flowers between the pages of thick books and bringing home feathers and smooth, round stones from the river. Indeed, every surface in their living room was still littered with gleaming pebbles.

A thud in the bedroom, and a creak sounded on the hallway floorboards, and her head whipped around. Instantly the sound had broken her reverie. She had been the only one in the house. She burst through the door, frantically looking around, but there was nothing obvious to indicate an intruder. Walking to the bedroom where Cactus and Aloe lay, she noticed that the shutters on the window had been blowing into the outer wall of the house, creating the loud slam. She relaxed somewhat. But what made the creak in the hall? she thought, and grew uneasy again. Perhaps she should rest. Not sleep, but rest. Surely it would help.