The silence is comforting, though not enough to stop Yue’li from wondering if she’s dead.

That would make sense. I was poisoned, after all.

She turns in the darkness, pressing invisible fingers against the soft walls of her trapped mind. The numbness from the poison has squirmed itself between her ears, wriggling inside her like a fat caterpillar, taking up all the space.

Why hasn’t Zoldan given me the antidote yet?

Yue’li presses harder, trying to feel the world through the veil of unconsciousness, but it’s already taking her body everything just to keep her heart beating, and asking it to do anything more is simply too much, even such a simple thing as remembering.

Am I really… going to die?

There is a dizzying sensation as the world shifts from under Yue’li. She feels a cool softness pressing into her, cushioning her. Then, after a moment of stillness, a pair of warm lips presses against her neck.

Yue’li’s breath flutters in her throat.

Silence. Anticipation. Then, pressure.

A blissful heat floods through Yue’li’s body, and it takes her by surprise. A gasp escapes from her lips, transforming into a small moan as the numbness inside her ebbs away, flushed out by some unseen force that seems to reach all the way into the deepest parts of her.

What’s happening? She wants to ask, but when she opens her mouth, she can only suck in a lungful of fresh air. She tastes the sunlight; feathery, faintly sweet.

Who… is doing this?

The pressure lessens, then builds again, alternating like waves crashing against a shore. Feeling returns to Yue’li’s fingers, then her toes, then the rest of her body as it shudders awake. Something tickles against her eyelids, and Yue’li knows she can open them. But she doesn’t. She doesn’t want this, whatever it is, to stop.

But it does, all too soon.

Breathing hard, Yue’li cracks open an eye to finally see her savior’s face, and she loses her breath all over again when she realizes it is the stranger she had tried, and failed, to save from Zoldan’s gang.

“It’s… you?”

The stranger does not respond, her blue eyes so sharp they cut. Their intensity will have irked Yue’li, if only she isn’t practically curled up in the stranger's lap.

“You saved me…?” The statement comes out more questioning than Yue’li intends, and she tries to correct herself, but the stranger shakes her head.

“Save your strength,” she says, commands. “Sleep.” She then lifts Yue’li into her arms, so easily Yue’li doesn’t realize what’s happening until they’re already heading down the alleyway.

“Which way to your home?” the stranger asks, her voice cool as a winter morning. “I can drop you off at a hospital, oh sorry. I mean Healer Hut, if that’s what you prefer. I can’t guarantee I’ll find either, but it’s better than leaving you here.”

Yue’li stares mesmerized, terrified, but she manages to croak out a reply.

“Westward. Follow the smell... of bread.”

The stranger nods, stepping over a patch of rubble and bringing Yue'li into the sunlight. A lock of silken gold hair falls across Yue’li’s face, tickling her nose, and then she smells it again, that subtle, breezy sweetness.

It wasn’t sunlight Yue'li smelled earlier, but this stranger, this girl.

A flash of heat creeps into Yue’li’s cheeks as she remembers the feeling of the girl's lips on her neck, and she turns away, heart tripping in her chest. That is when she spots it, a body lying in the middle of the street. A small crowd has already gathered around in curiosity, making it difficult to tell who it is on the ground.

But Yue’li knows. She can feel him, still.

“He’ll live,” the girl says, as if hearing Yue’li’s unspoken question. “I made sure not to flick him so hard I gave him a hemorrhage. He’ll recover eventually, if he’s lucky, or stubborn. I can’t promise the same for his allies, though.” She continues onward, past the crowd.

“What…” Yue’li swallows, pulling her gaze away to look at the girl. “Did you do?”

Did you kill them?

More of her memory is returning as her mind clears, and Yue’li recalls the bellowing of wind, the charged air, the feeling of being inside a storm. She did not see anything, but there is no mistaking the sound of snapping bones.

The girl shakes her head, her hair swiping across Yue’li’s face. “No, but I did what people of the past called a Batman.”

Yue’li blinks. “A… what?”

“They’re not dead,” the girl explains, “but will probably wish that they are.” She tilts her head upwards, sniffing. “Hey, I think I smell muffins.”

A shudder runs through Yue’li as the meaning behind the strange girl’s even stranger words becomes clear. She closes her eyes, silently thanking the goddesses that she did not try to rob this girl before Zoldan did.

The familiar aroma of baked bread pulls Yue’li from the thickness of sleep. She opens her eyes to see the crooked sign of the ‘Basilona Bakery’, hanging on rusty chains over the narrow door of her home.

“I followed the smell like you said,” the girl says, squinting at the sign. “But, either you really love your work, or I’ve made a mistake.”

“This is the right place,” Yue’li assures the girl, signaling to be let down. “It's a two-story building, though you can't tell from the front.”

The girl lowers Yue’li onto her feet, and it takes only three shaky steps before she pitches forward, face-first. The girl catches her before she hits the ground.

“I’ll carry you inside.”

Yue’li feels her cheeks heat up. “This was not how I imagined this day would turn out.”

The girl starts saying something, but her words are covered by a rumbling growl, coming in the direction of her stomach.

Yue’li glances over to see the strange girl practically drooling at the loaves of bread displayed behind the bakery’s windows, almost like she wants to burn a hole through the walls with her eyes.

“Would you… like to come in for some bread?” Yue’li offers. “They’re not very good, but it’s all fresh.”

The girl’s eyes light up. “Yes, please!” she answers, and scoops Yue’li up so quickly the world blurs.

The door of the bakery creaks open, a cheery-sounding bell chiming their entrance. No matter how wonderful the smell of fresh baked goods is, though, the emptiness of the store always brings a bitter taste to Yue’li’s mouth. She spots her foster mother, Abetah, in her usual rocking chair in the corner of the store, a copy of the daily paper in her flour-stained hands.

From the girl's arms, Yue’li calls out weakly, “Beth, I’m home…”

Abetah glances up from the paper she’s reading. “Welcome home, Yue- by the goddess!” Her face drops when she sees the duo. “Yue’ling!” She springs out of her chair, tossing the paper aside.

Yue’li has not seen her foster mother move so quickly in a long time, and tears springs to her eyes as she watches the woman hobble around the tables and chairs.

“Yue’ling, child, what has happened to you?” Abetah exclaims when she finally reaches them. She runs her powdery hands over Yue’li, leaving patches of flour everywhere. “Are you hurt?”

“Beth, calm down. I’m fine.” Yue’li tries to twist away from Abetah’s smothering, embarrassment out-weighing her guilt.

“She was poisoned,” the girl answers for Yue’li. “It was a simple mix, though, and easily cleared. But she is still going to need time to rest and recover. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

Yue’li doesn’t remember bleeding so much from Zoldan’s knife. She looks up at the girl, who is glancing around the shop, taking in the empty furniture, the simple kitchen behind the counter, the display shelves behind the floor-to-ceiling windows, loaded with bread. Yue’li thinks she sees something akin to desire in those blue eyes, but before she can ask Abetah to fetch one of the loaves, the woman pulls off her apron and tosses it onto a nearby table, saying,

“Her room is upstairs. Please, if you can, bring her there.” She points. “The stairs are behind the counter, through the kitchen, to the right. Do you need anything? Bandages? Water?”

“Your presence will be better than any medication,” the girl answers smoothly.

When they pass the counter and start heading into the kitchen, Abetah has to stop. Leaning heavily onto the wooden counter, she says breathlessly to the girl, “Please, go ahead first. The years are catching up to me, and my leg makes it all the more difficult to climb stairs.” She motions towards her right leg. The floor-length dress she’s wearing covers any trace of the fake limb, but the girl seems to understand regardless, and carries Yue’li past the oven and up the staircase that’s almost hidden among the shelves.

The second floor consists of four rooms, joined by a hallway so narrow Yue’li feels her horns scrape against the wall as she is carried to her room. Her eyes are swimming, and her body aches all over, but it’s her pride that hurts the most.

“We’re here,” Yue’li mumbles when they get to the last door. Her head has ended up nestled against the girl's chest, to stop the walls from being shredded, and an annoying voice inside her wonders if she’ll ever be carried like this by anyone again.

As they enter into the small bedroom, Yue’li hears the girl let out a tiny, “Oh,” and it immediately sends her into a panic trying to remember if she left anything unspeakable lying around. She twists to look, almost tumbling out from the girl's arms. She groans.

“Oh, no.”

Her bedroom is a mess of fabrics, books and clothes and trash and gear. Fluffy dolls line the surface of her bed, their hand-sewn quality making them look cheap, perhaps even creepy. Her floor and desk are layered with leftover materials, scraps, and whatever Yue’li manages to dig up at the bargain sections of the market. The frilly curtains and rugs, together with the pastel pink walls, give off the distinct air of a child’s room, even if one corner is piled high with daggers and belts and various other tools.

But the coup de grace will have to be the pair of white undergarments, draped languidly across the back of her chair, welcoming all those who enter.

The girl averts her eyes, but the damage has already been done.

Yue’li groans again. “Just put me down anywhere,” she says. “Or better yet, roll me under the bed because that’s where I plan on staying until my death.”

“It’s cute,” the girl says. “The room I mean. Not the, anyway…” She carries Yue’li over to the bed, gently sweeping a few dolls aside to make room. Then she begins talking.

“I think I had a room once, a little similar to this.” The girl picks up a doll of an owl and turns it around in her hands. “The walls were this dreary, depressing grey color, and I always wanted to paint over it.” She supports the owl’s wings with her fingers, making them flap. “It’s so strange. It should’ve been all a dream; it doesn’t make sense for it not to be. But sometimes it feels so real, like it really, truly happened.”

The girl sets the owl down beside Yue’li, giving it a little pat on the head. There’s a hint of sadness in her voice that Yue’li doesn’t pick up right away, and when she does, the girl is talking again.

“Anyway, a few months ago, I met a man in a village on the other side of the mountain ranges, you call them the Silver Ranges, I think." Her eyes aren't just blue, Yue'li realizes, but layered with silver and gold, like the night sky. She listens to the girl's voice, noticing intonations in the strangest of places, as if she's just learned how to speak the common tongue not long ago.

"One of the last things he said to me before I left was how I was just a doppelganger of his wife," the girl says, her expression cryptic, "and even though I remind him of her, I was not her. He made that point very clear, but there was so much pain in his eyes when he said it, and I never understood why.”

She turns to Yue’li and smiles. Tries to smile. “But today, when I saw you and thought I saw someone else, I think I’m beginning to understand.” She comes over to sit on the bed, scooping up a slime plushie Yue’li made years ago, out of an old tunic and some straw.

“I remind you of someone?” Yue’li asks.

The girl is quiet for a second. “Sorry,” she says, hugging the lumpy slime to her chest. “I realize how that might all sound. I had hoped telling you that story might clear up any fears you might have about me saving you. I don’t have any ulterior motives or anything.”

The sound of Abetah’s wooden leg knocking against the stairs echoes down the hall.

“Thank you?” Yue’li says, unsure. “Whatever your reason is, I owe you my life.”

The poison, and the shock, have started to wear off, and it feels to Yue’li like she’s just woken up from a nightmare. She closes her eyes for a moment, until the twisted face of the man she once trusted with her heart, sinks back into the darkness.

The door opens then, and Abetah hobbles in, worry deepening the wrinkles around her brow, making her seem so much older than she is. Yue’li wants to slap herself for causing that look on the woman’s face.

Abetah nearly trips on the rug as she hurries over to the bed, but the girl is quick to help her.

“It was a crude neurotoxin,” the girl explains as she drags the only chair in the room over for the woman to sit. "The effects of which..." Yue’li watches in embarrassed horror as her underwear flutters to the ground like a broken leaf. She almost doesn’t hear the girl instructing Abetah about keeping activities to a minimum, and not having anything too heavy to eat for the rest of the day.

“Thank the goddesses,” says Abetah, breathing a sigh of relief. She presses her dry hands against Yue’li’s forehead, her cheeks, her face. When she sees the cut on Yue’li’s neck, she clasps a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob.

“No arteries were harmed,” the girl says quickly, “just keep the wound clean and dry, and it will heal without needing any other treatment. If you want to use any non-adhesive dressings on it, though, that’s fine too.”

Abetah looks up at the girl with grateful eyes. “Are you a healer?”

The girl shakes her head. “I know a bit, but I can’t do any... um, spells or anything. I’m sorry I can’t do more.”

“No, no. Do not apologize,” Abetah says, struggling to rise from the chair. The girl reaches out to help her, and Abetah grasps onto her hands. “You’ve done so much for us, sweet, kind child.” She grabs onto the girl’s shoulders and kisses her loudly on both cheeks. “Thank you. Thank you. Please, take anything you want downstairs. It’s all freshly made.”

The girl nods stiffly, a little dazed. “There’s really… no need to thank me,” she says, touching a finger to her now blushing face. “I was just doing what any hero would’ve done, and perhaps not as well as most of them would.” She turns towards the door. “I’ll leave you two be, then.”

From her bed, Yue’li calls out, “Wait, I don’t know your name!”

But the girl is already gone.