Breefolk

The holidays have been kicking my ass, so it's been slow going. This particular interlude was so big I almost made it a full on chapter, but ultimately decided the perspective change would be a bit too jarring if I did.

Cat woke with a start.  The last thing she remembered was letting go of the ledge and falling.  She had no idea how she wound up waking beside a campfire where a strange woman with a crown of thick, brown hair was roasting a marshmallow.

“Morning,” the stranger said cheerily.  Then she picked up a bag and held it out to Cat.  “Marshmallow?”

“Um… sure?” Cat said warily, reaching into the bag and plucking out one of the fluffy, white sugar puffs.

“I couldn’t help noticing that you needed some help, so I took the initiative.”  The stranger rested a hand on her chest. “I’m Sappho.”

Cat wasn’t sure what to make of this strange woman.  Sappho didn’t harm her while she was unconscious, but that didn’t mean it was safe to trust her with delicate information.  And who in their right mind would come here to roast marshmallows?

Sappho plucked the marshmallow she’d been roasting off of the rod it had been skewered on and popped it into her mouth.  “Mm, so good,” she gushed through a mouthful of marshmallow mush. “Nothing compares to a perfectly golden-brown marshmallow.”

“I actually like it when they’re burnt,” Cat said before she had even thought better of it.  “I like the way it’s crispy on the outside and melty on the inside.”

Sappho gasped in mock horror.  “Such sacrilege!” Her face softened into a smile.  “I like you. You’re not afraid to be a little outrageous.”

Cat blushed.  “Oh, you know, it’s in my nature to be a little wild.  Just a wild Cat.” Cat shook her head. “That’s my name, by the way.  Cat.”

Sappho bowed her head slightly.  “It’s nice to meet you, Wild Cat,” she said with a wink.

Sappho handed a rod to Cat so that she could roast her own marshmallows.  Cat skewered a marshmallow on it and held it over the flame. “Um, you didn’t happen to see my friends anywhere, did you?  I was traveling with two others.”

“‘Fraid not,” Sappho answered with a shrug.  “You were alone when I found you.”

Cat nodded solemnly.  “That’s probably for the best, actually.  We were attacked by a… wraith, I think it was called?  I let myself fall because there was no way they could help me in time and if I hung on the wraith would have gotten me.”

“Hmm,” mused Sappho.  “You probably did the right thing.  The wraiths exist only to consume. They have hollowed of all sense of self and desperately seek to regain what they’ve lost.  They will consume souls forever if they can.”

“That is awful.  Can nothing be done for them?”

Sappho shrugged and placed another marshmallow on the rod in her hands.  “Nobody knows. It’s a problem that has existed for millennia and has never had a solution.” 

The two of them sat in silence for a moment, Sappho holding her marshmallow gently over the flame, turning it evenly, Cat plunging hers right into the fire, letting it catch, then bringing it up close to her lips and blowing it out.

Sappho finally broke the silence through a mouthful of marshmallow.  “So, youm got amyome special in yourm li’e?”

Cat suddenly felt like she was under a microscope.  “Um, not really?” she said awkwardly.

“‘Zat so?”  Sappho fixed Cat with a discerning look.  “You don’t sound so sure about that.”

Cat flushed.  “It’s… I’m…”

“There’s someone you’re interested in, but she’s not shown any interest in you.”

Cat was floored.  Literally. She was so embarrassed that she simply collapsed onto her back and lay there, flushed as red as a beet.

Sappho smiled.  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”

Cat sat up.  “It’s more complicated than that.  She’s interested in someone else. I even helped her get a date.”

“Oh my, that IS serious,” Sappho said with a raised eyebrow.  “So the question remains: why are you trying so hard to give love away?”

Cat huffed.  “What would you know about it?”

Sappho placed her rod down on the ground beside her and leaned back on her hands.  “Oh, I know all about love. It’s something of a… hobby… for me. In life, I was a poet, you know?  I wrote poetry about love. In death, my fascination with love has only grown.” Sappho’s words had a strange cadence to them, and Cat was beginning to feel as though she was faced with someone far more than a simple poet.  It was the feeling one might expect a mouse to feel when confronted by a hungry tiger.

“I… I just don’t think I deserve her.”  The words came unbidden from Cat’s mouth.  Try as she might to stop herself, she could not still her own tongue.

Sappho scoffed.  “‘Deserve’ her? Who’s to say who ‘deserves’ anyone’s love?  It is not for you to decide whose love you deserve. The heart wants what it wants, and if a heart wants you, it doesn’t truly care if you are deserving.  But the heart is a fickle thing. It will not want to be mistreated. Break a heart, and it will go elsewhere. Do not let your heart’s desire be ignored in favor of another’s.  It is for the one you love to choose whether you are deserving.”

Cat sighed.  “It’s more complicated than that, though.  I already told her once that I wasn’t interested.  But that was before… well, that was before a LOT of stuff, but most importantly, it was before she was even a ‘she.’  I don’t even think she’s fully come to grips with everything that happened, and I’m bisexual. I don’t understand why Crys being a girl would make such a difference.”

Sappho was now wielding two rods, each tipped with a marshmallow, and holding them over the flame.  “People change. She’s a different person now than she was before. Sometimes people ripen into better people.  Experiences change people. Maybe she’s now revealing her true self, or maybe she’s just changed because the world has changed her.  It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that you love her.”

Cat buried her face in her palms, her rod forgotten on the ground beside her.  “Ugh, I’ve really made a mess of things, haven’t I?”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Sappho answered with a shrug.  “Messes can be cleaned up, and make the way for more messes.”

“I don’t even know how to get back to my friends,” Cat said into her knees.

“Well, I know these lands pretty well,” said Sappho.  “Maybe I can help you get to where you were going, and you can find them there?”

Cat’s ears perked up.  “Yeah, that would work!  Do you know how to get to Hel’s palace?”

Sappho laughed.  “Do I? Not only do I know how to get there, I can get you inside!”

****

Cat awakened staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, wrapped cozily in an unfamiliar bed.  She groggily turned on her side only to come face to face with a strange woman whose face was half a pale white and half a dead, blue-gray rot, split perfectly down the middle.

Both screamed.