Chapter 231 - Watchful Eyes

To the west of the village, a lone figure sat in the darkness of a room. The grey light of an overcast sky passed through the slits in the walls, falling upon the wooden floorboards in long, uneven shafts of light.

One of the shafts fell upon an old table, illuminating long, pale fingers that rapped irritably against the whorled, polished wood.

Two grey eyes glimmered softly, staring out into the distance beyond the house, reading the happenings within the village that was just waking up beyond the hills.

The boys gathered at the river were making their way over. They were taking care not to be spotted by the adults in the village and had nearly made it clear, but at the last moment they’d been spotted.

The silver thread of the guru-chi wafted from where it had been resting, following the boys towards the abandoned house that lay just beyond the western outskirts of the village.

The holy man was yet unaware of her presence, and she wanted to keep it that way. She knew that if she tried to manipulate his string there was a danger that he would sense her.

However she didn’t need to touch it to get what she wanted.

Within the shadows, the reflection of golden threads glimmered within her pupils as the corner of her lip curled up in a small grin.

~

A stone’s throw away from the westernmost homes, a scraggly line of trees and bramble marked the edge of the village. Beyond them the pond-ridden landscape, filled with reeds and sink holes, had long been abandoned to nature.

The boys followed the old path that meandered through the marsh. Though it was not maintained, it was still usable. They often wandered off the path, chasing frogs or investigating plants that caught their eyes, not in any hurry to reach their destination. 

Yuzu watched them quietly, her hands hovering over their threads as she ruminated on the landscape. In particular she paid attention to the boy named Nilya, whose thread was not golden like every other villager, but silver.

Out of all the villagers she had watched him the closest since she’d arrived in Fuha. The child was the sole exalted in the village, which Yuzu found quite suspicious. The simplest answer she could think of was that he was hiding his true nature much like Argus had back in Noga.

But with everything she’d seen from Nilya he was just a normal boy. How a normal boy could be an exalted without knowing it was a mystery to her. Then again, she was already aware of at least one example of someone unknowingly becoming exalted - herself.

Still, Yuzu couldn’t imagine that her circumstances were very common, and a true exalted determined to hide their identity could definitely act out a role. She’d been very careful about limiting her influence on the village, just in case. However after Nilya’s interactions with the guru-chi, Yuzu was nearly certain he was just a normal child.

On the one hand it was a relief, knowing that she could contact Nilya without exposing herself to an unknown, possibly dangerous exalted. On the other hand it meant that Nilya was not going to be much help to her.

Yuzu had learned a lot in the past few weeks, watching the villagers from afar. They lived a hard life, barely surviving off of the meagre sustenance that they could grow and forage.

The rice paddies were small and difficult to maintain. The gardens, which consisted of rows of raised dirt, needed constant, time consuming maintenance.

Wildlife was sparse and tiny, barely worth the time to catch. Foraging yielded most of their sustenance, but was unreliable and tedious.

Winter had been hard, spring had come late. Each year seemed to be colder and harder than the ones before it. The villagers were filled with worry, but more than that they were affected by a constant, underlying helplessness.

The village was slowly dying. Not a dramatic, violent death, but gradually, generation by generation, succumbing to inevitability.

From what Yuzu could tell, it wasn’t just this village that was dying, but the entire Fuha nation.

The Fuha Wastelands. That was what they called it in Kumin. A place full of rot and decay and tribalistic people with no culture or education.

Yuzu’s thoughts often returned to her visit to Prince Deka’s divine kingdom, the rich and vibrant jungle teeming with life known as the Verdant Wild.

Li Ru said that long ago, during the era of the Five Kings when Prince Deka was still a god king and was at the peak of his power, Fuha had resembled the wilds. A thick and rich jungle teeming with life, a people known for their vibrancy and joy.

But a thousand years had passed. The wilds had died out long ago, sinking into an ever-expanding swamp, and Fuha’s people had forgotten how  beautiful she used to be. 

Yuzu had learned a lot in the last two weeks, but most importantly she learned that she had somehow landed in a place far from any city or merchant route. Yuzu wanted nothing more than to leave this place and return to Kumin, but the village was cut off from the world, its tapestry of fate floating in the midst of a void.

All she could do was observe and learn, and wait for an opportunity to leave. 

A chance came a week ago, when a life domain cultist with a golden fate thread had come to the village. She was spreading news that the God of Life had been resurrected, unaware of what had really transpired. Watching the cultist carefully, Yuzu determined that the news of Deka’s death hadn’t reached the wastelands yet. 

Yuzu considered finding a way to travel with the cultist to leave the village, but it didn’t feel right. She wasn’t sure how the cultists would take the news when it eventually came out, or what part the White Maiden would have in the story. There was also the question of how exactly Yuzu would explain her situation, and convince the cultist to let her join her. Yuzu decided it was best to be cautious, letting the cultist leave without any interaction.

She sighed, turning her attention back to the boys.

The edges of the path the boys followed were formed from woody plants whose roots dug into the earth and held the dirt together against the natural forces of erosion. This was the signature style of the Fuha people, who didn’t build their structures so much as grow them. 

Trees were planted in the shape of the home or building they wanted to build, and a skeleton of a frame was built out of bamboo. As the trees grew, their trunks were twisted and pruned to form the walls. The roofs were formed from bundles of straw thatching tied to a skillful frame grown directly from the branches of the trees.

From afar, the village looked like random huts with leafy green roofs, far from the sophisticated civilization that Yuzu had come from. But there was an elegance to them as well, a connection to the land that showed a deep appreciation and mastery of their environment.

Yuzu looked around the dark room that had served as her living room for the past two weeks. The curved, imperfect walls that had cracks from where the ‘walls’ had grown out from years of abandonment. The bamboo flooring, warped from roots bulging out from below. It was far from the modern comfort that she had never known a lack of until now.

Her eyes fell on the metal pot on a warped table that still held a few servings of cold boar stew. It was clearly imported from her homeland; the villagers did have modern tools that they took care of. And she had to admit the stew itself was surprisingly delicious.

She found herself appreciating the way that the chair she was sitting on gently supported the curves of her body, and how the house, despite its state of disrepair, remained at a surprisingly comfortable temperature at all times of day. 

The house was built on a hill, at the edge of a cliff that looked to the north. From the sunken remains in the swamp, the hill had extended northwards in the past but erosion had eaten away at the earth. Only the house remained, its roots clinging to the earth and stopping the hill from eroding further. 

Yuzu ran her fingers along the smooth, curved arm of the chair. If she ever returned to her pawn shop back at home, she’d have to look into importing some of this furniture.

A flicker of movement in the fate threads brought Yuzu back to the moment. The future had caught up to the present. The silver thread of the young boy was at the bottom of the hill to the east, along with his three friends.

Yuzu reached out to the golden threads, gently halting their approach while being careful not to touch Nilya’s thread. Her eyes focused on the scene as the slight intervention shifted the tapestry ever so slightly.

The strings twirled together as the guru-chi who had been silently following them made himself known to the boys.

~

The boy named Taylor paused mid-stride and turned to look behind them.

“What’s wrong?” Nilya asked, noticing the change in the lanky boy’s mood.

“Feels like we’re being watched.” Taylor muttered.

The boys all stopped to look. Splotches of yellow-green grasses peppered the landscape, broken up by round spike bushes, sprawling bramble and shoulder-height reeds. Wispy white clouds drifting on a grey sky reflected off the still marsh waters.

The staccato croak of a stick frog clacked noisily in the distance.

“There.” Nilya pointed in the direction of a spike bush, where the path was obscured. He hadn’t seen or heard anything in that direction, but his something in his gut told him there was someone there.

As he pointed the guru-chi emerged with his staff, casually looking off to the swamp. He appeared as if he was just on a walk and was unconcerned about the boys, even as he walked directly toward them.

The boys stood in a row next to the path, watching in nervous silence as the heavily-robed guru-chi approached.

As the guru-chi passed in front of them Taylor opened his mouth to greet the guru-chi, but no sound came out of his mouth. The guru-chi paid them no mind, passing by each of them without so much as glancing at them, until he came to Nilya at the end.

The man sniffed at the air, inhaling deeply as his head turned toward Nilya. He faced Nilya and stepped up to the boy, towering over the boy as he drew in a deep breath through his nostrils.

“So it was you that I smelled in your home. And here I thought it was your sister.” The guru-chi said in a low voice. “Could you be the one I’ve been searching for?“