Life inside the forest was boring. Her life in that cabin rarely went beyond housework or preparing special meals for events of the year. For Idda, this day was another of many housework days since she had lived there.

Now she was home, with a terrified, crying child on the edge of her table, and neither she nor he knew why he was there. The boy could hardly put words in her mouth; fear had silenced him, and while she did a couple of small tasks at home, like putting the dishes in their place or putting away clean clothes in the room she shared with her husband.

Her life was as ordinary as that of the rest of the wives of the logging settlements. Still, it was something that she had come to accept because, thanks to her husband, she could eat every day or be safe behind four walls.

After returning from the bedroom, sleeves rolled up from the warmth of her first nerves over the kid's arrival, and now her daily chores, she made sure the kid was where she was supposed to have left him.

Indeed, the boy remained seated where she left him, head down, shoulders slumped, hands under the table. Idda was letting her guard down as this kid didn't seem to pose a threat.

Perhaps she had paid more attention to the boy because the most unusual details were the ones she least noticed.

The color of his skin and eyes was strange in those parts. Idda had never met someone with such dark skin, a color that didn't seem like that because of the constant sunbathing during workdays. The boy was unusual in her eyes, but she quickly thought that the kid must be a foreigner from distant lands that she didn't know and that perhaps she never would.

Unlike him, she was pale, like her father and mother, and had the reddish hair and the greenish eyes of the latter. Her husband had brown eyes and hair that was equally brown and straight but darker. His skin quit being white because so many years under the sun cutting down trees gave him an almost constant tan.

She felt fear grow as she checked the boiling cauldron in the fireplace where the food was prepared. Idda soon thought that perhaps it was all a trap.

She knew that could be true. Her husband was out with the rest of the loggers; the boy was perhaps part of a group of bandits who had sent him to explore the cabins.

Idda turned to look at the young boy. He was there, trembling with eyes swollen from crying, staring into the void.

After what had been an eternity, the kid ceased his crying. Yet, despite that frail, broken appearance, she still doubted him.

She approached him cautiously, "My boy..."

She talked soft and cautious as she approached the table. Then, she put a drinking mug on the table next to the guy.

The girl asked, "What happened? Do you want to tell me?"

The boy stared into space, prey to his thoughts, and tried to articulate his words. He parted his lips a few times, but only a few weak sobs came out as he tried to find the right words. Finally, his lips seemed to exclaim words without a voice as he couldn't explain what had happened.

The boy's eyes widened in shock, and he hugged himself, embracing his rags.

Nothing made sense; from that morning, from coming out of a cave, the hill, and its paths, until the girl pointed an arrow at him.

"I-I don't know," he exclaimed in a brittle voice. "I-I don't know what happened."

Idda soon understood that the guy could have been through something traumatic. The woman saw him again to see those signs; he was paralyzed in place with his eye and arms down. Then, she took a peek and looked out the window again, perhaps expecting that some thief was spying on the place or trying to break in.

Nothing, there was nothing.

Each time she felt more confident that she had a lost and traumatized child in front of her instead of a threat.

"Don't worry, you're safe here," said the woman in an attempt to relieve the pressure that boy had on her chest. She tried to extend a merciful hand to that child just as she had been taught.

On the wall was a symbol of Lithal, the matron of light. She, like everyone else, was taught to try to care for and help others as if they were your brother, your son, or your grandson.

So Idda went to one of the shelves in the hut for a jar.

Cooking candies and cookies were expensive, but she knew that a bite of something sweet would cheer up even the most fretful person.

Idda left a couple of these on the table, and the guy's look soon went to it. After this, his swollen eyes went up to the woman's face. Her face was small and round, she was still in the peak of her youth, and on her face, she wore a broad, pink-lipped smile and large, vibrant green eyes.

"Come on, eat," she said, trying to encourage the boy. "These are delicious, I assure you."

The kid, trembling, grabbed the first cookie with his right hand and took the first bite.

"Delicious?" she asked.

The boy gently sketched a smile and nodded. A sweet taste that seemed to make him briefly forget everything.

"Good," Idda smiled at that. "By the way, my name is Idda,"

The guy remained silent, and when she turned to keep on with her chores, she waited for an answer, "And you?"

"Huh?" exclaimed the boy confusedly, embarrassed, and with a mouth full of crumbs.

"Your name," she said, "You have one, don't you?"

The confused kid took the mug she had poured him with water with his right hand. "His name" wasn't something he remembered, nor did he feel he could think of a name.

How do you think of a name out of air? Sometimes you need help.

Then he said with an atonic voice, "I don't remember my name."

In silence, he was trying to put some memories in his mind. Memories before the forest, before he met with that girl. Before the cave.

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

The kid opened his lips, trying to continue his words, "I feel like I have no memories. I don't remember anything except everything that happened this day."

Idda didn't see the signs. Perhaps her laborious day kept her oblivious to the true meaning of those words.

She approached him, and after wiping her hands on her apron, she put her hand on his forehead.

"Hm, you have no fever," she remarked curiously. "Have you thought it might be due to something, child?"

"L-like what?" asked the boy. Then he raised his hazel eyes to look at that woman, looking for an answer.

"I don't know, my boy. Maybe a hit on your head," she indicated smilingly, "Like bard stories, sometimes a bump on the head makes you forget who you are for some hours or days."

"W-Well... I was inside a cave," he remarked, bringing a hand to the back of his neck as if he felt that scene formulating in his head.

He imagined himself in the cave, and suddenly, a stone fell on his head. He remembered coming out of the cave but not getting up from the ground because of a hit.

Idda clearly didn't see the signs. Ignorance or innocence.

"Something tells me that maybe you are a traveler who had an accident," the woman reasoned after that statement from the kid.

"A traveler..." repeated the boy, trying to remember something, like roads or something like that.

"Oh boy, I'm so sorry for not being of much help to you," she apologized while returning to her chores.

The boy smiled warmly, shaking his head at those words,

"D-Don't say that. You opened your door and offered me to drink and eat. That's very helpful. Thank you."

Idda turned and gave the gentle guy a smile.

Soon, the kid returned to silence, finally remembering his aggressor. Then, his nerves colder, he realized the mistake he had made.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"The girl!" he shouted. "There was a girl. A girl. In the woods, she pointed a bow at me. She thought I was after her, that I planned to hurt her."

"Oh, dear," she exclaimed in surprise, holding a hand to her mouth.

She knew something that boy didn't know.

Then the girl explained, "A few nights ago, our neighbors saw a girl sneak into their home and escape back into the woods."

"She snuck into their home?" he asked.

Idda nodded, "She was a thief. Our neighbors said she stole some food, clothes, and even weapons."

"A bow?" the guy asked again.

"Y-Yes, exactly," Idda nodded.

Confused and trying to connect ends, he soon concluded, "She was confused too; she didn't know who was or where she was either..."

In her innocence, Idda still suspected nothing.

The woman turned to him, this time, with concern, "Oh dear, the poor girl must have been confused and didn't know what she was doing. Poor girl, I hope she was able to run away."

"Are they planning to do something to her?" questioned the confused boy.

Guilt was beginning to well up in him. He could have helped that girl, but he just ran away. Now he cursed himself for not having tried to remain with her.

"Our neighbor, Friedel, is very jealous of his things," Idda commented with concern.

However, when she saw that put a guilty grimace on the kid's face, she tried to heal the moment.

Then she said, "But Friedel is a man who can barely run in a straight line for any time; I'm sure she could have escaped."

The moment's pressure undoubtedly took its toll on the boy, but it also took on Idda. If he was there, her husband, Friedel's best friend, wouldn't wish him home either.

Nevertheless, the woman didn't hesitate and soon began gathering various things for that kid.

"Idda, what's wrong?" she asked.

"You have to go, my boy," she said, with a worried look on her round face.

She soon went to a pile of rags she had to darn and pulled from among these a coarse cloth.

"My husband will want explanations from you, and if you have no idea even of your own name, he will think you lie," she said quickly. "I know him well. So he will want to get an answer out of you."

The kid got up from the table in a hurry, taking a fierce bite of that piece of sweet dough to finish his last cookie before he had to run away again. Apparently, the answers were still to wait.

"B-But where should I go?"

Idda sighed as devising what that kid could do, "Well, if you head back the way you came, you might make it to Windcall. It's a mining town and..."

Quickly, the woman stuffed the rest of the cookies into the bag. She was fast since she wanted that boy out there after her husband appeared.

She soon reacted to her words, "No, nonsense, it would take you many days to get there on foot, and the road is not as safe as it used to be..."

Idda had many things on her mind; the chores of the day, what lies she would use with her husband, and how to help this boy.

Why was she helping him? The simple precept of Lithal, the deity she was raised with all her life, was clear. The boy was her equal, and she was going to help him.

"Will I find help in Windcall?" the boy asked.

"Oh no, only trouble and drunken miners," she flatly denied, leaning out of her cabin window.

The boy soon followed her.

She continued, "If you follow the road outside my home and turn right, you'll come to Eastfront. If you do it on foot, it might take five or more days to get there. There's also Sunhold, but you'd have to add another two days to your journey."

Idda gave a deep sigh; ideas were running away from her, even looking at the stable, she thought about what she could give him, a horse. Lithal always says to help anyone who has a long journey. However, Idda wasn't foolish either. The loss of a horse was a troublesome reason for her husband and coworkers. If only she could tell her husband about that boy...

"Idda," the boy caught the woman's eye. Then, embarrassed, he smiled at her. "Really, thank you for all this."

The girl smiled back and held out the cloth bag with the meager supplies for their journey, "You don't have to thank me, any good person would do the same as me."

The confused boy smiled at the young girl and took the bag in his left hand.

Idda watched as he did so, and her eyes went wide.

The girl felt her lip tremble, and her eyes riveted on the boy's hand.

"That mark..." said with a trembling voice.

He lowered his gaze in confusion. Then, he remembered what was on the back of his hand.

"Ah, this. I don't know what this is." The boy exclaimed unconcerned. At the time, he thought maybe it was just something he had been branded with.

However, the boy heard a clatter of pots and utensils, and now Idda was several steps away from him, pointing a knife at him.

"Hey, what's wrong?" the boy asked, startled.

"S-Stay away!" She screamed as she tried to keep her hand from shaking so badly.

At that moment, Idda saw the signs. The lack of memory, the rags, the mark. It was all there.

The boy, confused, tried to appease Idda's fear.

"C-Calm down; it's only a draw-"

"D-Don't fool me, Marked!" she said, tremblingly, before blaming the young man. "T-This was your plan? Come into my house with a fake show, and eat my food. W-Were you planning to then attack me when my back was turned!?"

"What, no!" exclaimed the scarred boy.

"Don't lie to me!" she shouted.

The boy raised his hands in the air, attempting to look non-threatening, with his hands exposed to her.

"Idda, please, I have no intention of hurting you," the boy explained in a soft, trembling voice." Y-You were kind to me. You gave me a drink and food. I have no wish to hurt someone as kind as you..."

Idda's guard was waning; the boy didn't seem like a threat, but he must have been. She tried to hold the knife up, but as she did, she saw that scarred boy's glassy, adorable eyes. In that instant, nothing made sense to Idda.

Still, she didn't have to decide since the door opened at a moment's notice.

Idda's husband was there. Agitated, sweating, and bloody.