Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Es gibt Wunder, die müssen im Dunkeln geschehen.“
Some miracles have to happen in the dark.

- Walter Moers: Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures

I am afraid of the dark.

I mean, who wouldn’t be? Come on, admit it. Think about the last time you had to go out at night and were alone on an empty street. Well? There you go.

Humans are so saturated with light and sunrays that we forget about the night, our old enemy.

It doesn’t matter if you are a simple farmer planting wheat, or a merchant selling apples on the market, or if you are the King himself, sitting in a golden hall full of wealth. I think it’s kinda in our nature. Humanity’s nature. We invented candles and oil lamps to keep the monsters away. And don’t you tell me about those under my bed as a child, I know they weren’t real!

But others are. There are monsters that are as real as you and I.

We need light to live and we depend on the fickle flames of wax-heavy candles to survive whatever lures out there at night, hidden under thick shadows and travelling with the whispering wind that rattles at your room’s window just as the last church bell bellows twelve times.

The darkness is as real as I am, and everything that comes with it is, too.

You never know what hides in the corners of your room, in the silent alleys you pass at night or in the shortcut you take home through the backyards of the slaughterhouses, stepping into lakes of you-don’t-wanna-know that squishes and splashes up your ankles and oh-god-please-no that crunches and whimpers under your footsteps.

You don’t know what will happen when you reach out into the silent black of your wardrobe (what if something reaches back?) or when you step into a murky puddle after it rains and you hope it’s only water, please let it be water - you have to get home quickly before the next downpour, so you run and can’t avoid all of those suspicious puddles on your way and have to jump over reflections of the night sky on your way.

Anything could arise from the water at your feet or the abandoned market stand to your left, where the chilly night air moves the remains of a ragged old curtain back and forth and you shudder when you remember that nobody dares to move the stand away or asks whereto the owner disappeared years ago.

The night will come right at you, it will jump into your neck from behind and insinuate unspoken horrors into your ear and you know that you won’t sleep right for days afterwards.

And if you fall asleep, glad and relieved that the calm of dreams is at least back for you – hah!

Nightmares.

Wild sweaty wake-ups where you jerk up and nearly jump out of your own shivering skin, panting and curling into a tiny ball of helpless hiccupping under your blanket.

So yeah, the dark is fucking scary as hell.

It’s not only the monsters in your fantasies when you are a child.

I’m fucking eighteen years old. I am a grown man.

And I have no problem with jumping into puddles. Also I don’t have a wardrobe; that would be useless because I only own three sets of clothing and a worn silver necklace.

But right now I’ll tell you something else and you better listen carefully, got it?

Because this is where my story begins.

And I will tell it to you if you like it or not. It has to be heard by someone.

I don’t care if you think it’s unrealistic or full of sheer impossibilities or filled to brim with magic and too many damn twinkling stars. I don’t care because fuck, that’s just the way it begins.

That’s also how it ends but we aren’t quite there yet.

And the stars are the best part.

There is just one more thing, a tiny side note I have to tell you before we begin.

I’m an ordinary man and that’s a damn good thing in Shiganshina.

You do your work, get a nice bowl of porridge as dinner when you come home after wrecking your ass at work and sleep in a creaking bed while the horses neigh outside under your window. In the kingdom of Sina and its capital Shiganshina, you can die and live an average civilian’s life.

Maybe a disease will kill you or the fact that you can’t afford expensive medicine from the few good doctors in town.

But hey, nothing’s perfect!

Doctors are only human as well. They are too busy keeping the nobles alive because that’s what brings the money in and so the townspeople, me and all the others somehow try to get along without any grave mistakes or sticking our noses into someone else’s business.

It is fucking impossible to avoid trouble when you were born and raised knowing that you are, in fact, the worst mistake ever.

So here we go, the reason why I am telling you about darkness and all of this.

It’s none of the things above that run shivers down my spine when it gets dark.

It is neither the monsters that could appear and eat me up, nor the creepy noises that somehow appear everywhere as soon as it dawns at the horizon.

I can do anything at night.

I can run around the streets and make fun of the guards who then chase me to the next corner until they are tired. I outrun them every time, they are too fat and stuffed with beer to get me.

I can climb up to the rooftops and sit there, look at the sky and count stars until I get tired.

I have no problem with strange noises and sleep like a rock where other people huddle in a corner and bawl their eyes out about leaves rustling in the wind or owls howling in the distance.

But I can’t leave the fucking town at night.

Because that means walking down the main street and turning to my right.

It means leaving the comfortable warmth of windows flickering with candles behind them where people have dinner in front of a fireplace. It means following the dirty brick road to Shiganshina’s gates where the guards let you pass.

Getting out is no problem, but the way back is far more complicated.

And there it is. The reason why I am stuck here forever and won’t leave this stupid boring place in a million years.

The Forest of Trost.

Don’t fucking laugh! It’s a big forest and believe me, I know best.

I know everything about this place, from its impossibly old trees and the leaves rustling day and night.

It’s like voices whispering in your head - I heard people who once entered it never returned. Not even their skeletons were found.

That was centuries ago, though, and today everything is going its normal way, people walk through the paved paths of the forest without any second thoughts or fear about monsters and the screaming dread inside it.

I believe in the stories more than I believe in God or life or the sun rising in the morning.

I saw it all.

I have been in there once.

And I swore to myself that I would never go back.

I swore it by the blood pumping in my veins, the beating of my anxious heart that keeps me alive.

I swore on everything holy and cursed and on the thick scar tissue that one night left on my body.

I thought I would never return. And just like a stubborn mulish horse that refuses to ever carry a rider on its proud wild back, life threw me off its saddle and chased me, claws out and dripping with blood, back into the Forest from where I once came.

So this is where we start.

The Forest is what started all of this and together with that ugly thing called darkness those two hatched a plan to flip everything upside down in the matter of a sole night.

My name is Jean Kirschstein and I am the only person who returned from the Forest of Trost alive.

I swore to never see the inside again. That worked out really well for more than eight years.

I am alive and I learned my lesson.

I stay away from any trouble with the Forest and all things obscure and strange.

My future life will be peaceful.

I have a good job and soon I will be a blacksmith and marry an averagely pretty woman and have averagely adorable kids. I will have to wipe snot off their noses and teach my sons how to forge a sword. I will die with a loving family around me and a wife crying by my side -

Ha. Yeah, right. Forget the wife and kids shit, nobody would come closer to me than two feet. The have a damn good reason to keep the hell away from me, just like everyone does. You'll see.

This is the story of how my future shattered into millions of tiny pieces.

This is how I found happiness in the darkest of nights.

A story about freckles that are stars and stars that are not freckles but real glowing spots in the sky. About bad poems and bells and velvet, over and over again.

And this is how a shy boy redeemed me from demons of my past and how I hopefully saved and protected him back a little bit.

This is the chapter of my life where I was forced to go back and face everything I fear from the bottom of my scared pounding heart.

The Saturday my life crashes headfirst into chaos already starts out like shit

I wake up from a bucket of ice cold water being poured over me.

“Fuckin’ – ahhh!”

There are nicer ways to get up in the morning, believe me. I jerk up and moments later another load of water drenches me from head to toes. Fuck off, I’m already awake!

As if the first downpour hasn’t already left me gasping for air because my lungs have shrunken into the size of two crumpled walnuts from the shock, thank you very much. And - oh fucking God, what is that gross smell?! Oh no. There’s a woman next to my bed whose grin is a menacing mix of angry and priggish.

“Rise and shine, yer stupid bastard!” May I introduce? Mrs. Dot, my landlady.

“What the actual fuck!” I scream at her, rubbing the water out of my eyes.

It burns like hell and soaks my hair and clothes, instantly sticking all fabric to my skin. Fucking disgusting. As soon as I can properly see again and catch a glimpse of what exactly waterlogs my bed sheets and pajamas, I let out another loud cry that shakes the walls of my small attic room.

“Are you crazy?!”

“What did you just say to me, boy?” Mrs. Dot snaps back and swings the bucket by her side, and that smile on her face is too damn content for my taste.

“You heard me damn well! You… you idiot poured the pig’s water over my bed!”

Pig water is the dirty liquid wobbling in the troughs of horses and cows down in the stables. The water they use to clear the streets of whatever the ox dropped out of their behinds.

I think there are crumbs of earth on my lips when I spit out the mouthful that I nearly swallowed and when I remember what else could be in those puddles of black pooling between my thighs, I gag and quickly throw the blanket aside.

“Get up ya lazy skunk!” Incredible. She’s not even bothered by my now dirty bed.

Croaking like the offspring of an old raven and a castrated rooster, Mrs. Dot goes on rambling. Her fat double chin wobbles dauntingly when she raises her voice to yell at me again.

“Outta the bed, will ya! Ya still owe me money for the month an’ you haven’t paid ‘til now!”

I am going to kill her. The old hag has the long-time memory of the dirty sponge that she cleans her five obnoxious children with. I jump to my feet, the bed frame creaks under the shift of my weight. I stand up and puff myself up to full height. Then I scream back at her, silent time is over.

“What do you think the fuckin’ money was for I gave you yesterday?! That was the payment, you stupid witch! And congratulations for ruining my bed with your dirty shit-ass water!” I snort and spit out another load of dirty water that has collected on my lips.

Mrs. Dot’s mouth falls open and her eyes grow bigger. She looks like some kind of fat frog, staring at me in disbelief. She’s probably trying to put some of her scarce intelligence together to process that I just called her ‘witch’ (worst insult around here).

Then her eyes flick down my body, over to the bed and she begins to quake. Alright, seems that this is my last night at the Dot’s house because now she’ll definitely throw me out.

“Jean Kirschstein, you will clean the mess you made and then get the hell out of my house! I won’t keep an obnoxious brat like you in my warm house!”

That’s fucking enough.

“I won’t clean anything.”

The way Mrs. Dot’s face pales is delicious.

“Then I will make you,” she roars and begins to swing the bucket faster.

“Oh yeah, will you? Then you’ll have to fuckin’ catch me before!”

Before she can beat my ass into hell’s deepest pits, I'm out of the room, snatching my trousers and shoes while ducking under her flailing arm that swings the empty bucket after me. There goes my place to sleep.

I just manage to get a hold of my shirt that I have thrown over a chair last evening and, look at me, I am out of the room and around the next corner.

“Don’t you DARE run away form me!”

Mrs. Dot comes stomping after me, pissing and moaning about what a lazy and ungrateful brat I am.

“Come back, you son of a - !”

“I’ll never come back!” It feels damn good to say those words, and the stomping of fat feet actually stops. My chance.

I make tracks and slither to a stop in front of the bathroom. Safety, thank God. I rip the door open and slam it shut, locking myself in the bath.

I only take a quick break inside, listen if she comes after me (apparently not) and then go over to stripping out of my old clothes and slipping into what I need for work: long pants with thick patches of leather everywhere to protect me from the sparks of smoldering charcoal in the smithy, a shirt that has once been white with a few ribbons dangling in the front, and my plain brown shoes that have long seen better days.

I escape through the bathroom’s small window. It’s only a quick jump down, and the cart full of hay in which I land catches me softly. I’ll never see Mrs. Dot or her stupid children again, and the thought consoles me for the loss of a home.

I reach Reiner’s place just in time, and he luckily doesn’t make a remark about how I am five minutes too late and smell like street dirt.

The best thing about working in a smithy is the fire. The worst thing about working in a smithy is also the fire.

It depends on the season whether I hate or love the fire. When I am sweating my ass off in midsummer, plowing my way through scrap metal next to glowing piles of charcoal and listening to Reiner pounding his hammer down onto a workpiece of a sword so that sparks fly, that is when I curse that damn heat into the deepest pits of hell where it belongs.

But when I sit as close to the oven as possible in winter, rubbing my hands that resemble blocks of ice and simultaneously trying to shield my red frost-bitten ears from the cold wind – that’s when I’m glad as hell about the warmth lazily rolling over my face in licking flames of red.

It’s the last half of August now, though, and that fucking asshole of a season called “midsummer” has decided to slap the whole town with a heat wave that has no equal.

“Jean, get your ass over here and help me with this!”

“One minute, be there in a second!”

I jump up from the chair where I was sorting a bucket full of scrap metal. How intelligent, Jean – couldn’t you think before you jump up like a scared cat and fuck everything up?

Now the bucket falls right off my knees when I jerk up and the content scatters all over the floor.

Fuck!

The smithy is already small enough and me spilling sharp dangerous splinters all over the place doesn’t help the work go faster. Goddammit, where did my thoughts go? Back to the darkness, once again. A thing I can’t forget, carved into the inner walls of my head it glows in big symbols of -

“Jeaaaann!”

“I’m right there Reiner! Fuckin’ shit…!”

I kick the pile of metal aside and stumble to my feet. Maybe, just maybe I am easy to distract. Memories are vicious little things.

Flames dance in the oven, a rectangular mould full of metal on top of them. The two old swords inside have been melting for about half an hour are probably done. The viscous metal glows a beautiful orange colour, and a few sparks sizzle up from the charcoal beneath.

Reiner stands beside the oven, a giant blond man who is all chest and bare arms. He’s also my boss and the most impressive and bulky guy I’ve ever seen, I swear. He doesn’t even wear protection pads over his shoulders anymore, but just beats out any sparks that dare to land on his enormous muscles.

Fucking badass.

I mean, that guy is twice my size both in height and his broad shoulders. Of course, the almost two years I have been working here did quite nice by my body as well. I’m not lanky anymore, not so much. I can lift a hammer.

Life goes a new path.

“You can clean up later. C’mon, gotta get this baby out and make her into a new beauty.”

Reiner grins at me, and I hurry to his side. He is always talking to his works as if they were his lover or wife. Maybe he’s making up for not having a real woman at his side by addressing dead metal with pet names. I won’t judge, Reiner’s the best smith in the whole town and I’m fucking lucky to learn at his place.

That thought gets me off my lazy ass and to his side.

But when I come to a halt next to him, about to apologize again for my daydreaming – huh? Something’s wrong. Reiner doesn’t do anything but avert his glance from me and look back into the flames. I follow his eyes, brows furrowing and –

Wait, the melted swords are still in their mould, in the oven. He hasn’t taken them out.

Does that mean – Reiner will let me do it? Out of the oven and over to the other workpieces where they’ll cool down until Reiner can form them into swords? The step of taking them out of the oven is really fucking important.

If you get the wrong temperature and they aren’t heated all through, the core will stay solid and fuck up your result – but if they’re too hot it wastes time and the charcoal we use to feed the fire. A waste of money and energy.

Either way it’s damn difficult and a delicate thing to do.

“So today you decide if we take it out now or later. You are responsible for this baby, Jean!”, Reiner laughs and his voice booms through the smithy like a thunder rolling. He holds his belly while doing so and grins from ear to ear.

“You’ll forge it and make a brand new sword out of it. Got it?”

This is – oh wow.

“You happy?”

You bet your ass. My face has to be glowing from the grin I throw back at my boss.

Reiner finally lets me help with the workpieces.

After a year of hard labour and memorizing the ways each metal has to be formed and treated, countless hours next to the oven and so many days of watching Reiner beat down his hammer onto singing swords and spears.

It’s dangerous and I could fuck up and that’s got my blood rushing in my veins. Oh man, I’m so freakin’ excited.

My voice is back and it hiccups into unexpected highs when I croak back a poor excuse of a reply.

“Fuck yeah! A’ight, let’s do this”, I beam like an idiot and push the sleeves of my shirt up, thrilled to the core of my fluttering heart.

Together we step closer and Reiner slaps me on the back.

“You’ll do this. ‘s alright if you fuck up, it’s just a commission for a farmer who wants his grandfather’s sword reforged.”

A memento, how fucking great.

I break into a huge sweat and feel the drops stream down my neck and forehead. Now I’m responsible to restore someone’s beloved memory. Reiner isn’t really helping with his broad and smug grin.

“Th-thanks. For lettin’ me do this,” I stutter back and rub the place on my shoulder where he hit me. At least my bolsters – thick leathers pads that protect my shoulders form burns – cushioned the impact.

The area between my thick leather gloved hands and shielded shoulders is naked, though, and that’s why my forearms look as if someone dunked them in acid. The skin is blistered and burnt. Some places are red and others have turned white and padded over time. I’m fucking proud of my scars.

“So, what do you say?”, Reiner asks and crosses his arms, not making any effort to assist me with the melted metal. He’s testing me, trusting me.

I take a deep breath and step closer, propping myself up next to the oven’s hole and taking a peek inside. The mould is smoldering from heat and I nudge it with my gloves to move the metal inside. The liquid stirs and moves up and down the edge.

“Give me a minute,” I say. Reiner just nods curtly.

Fuck. A drop of sweat rolls down my cheek and sizzles into steam when it falls down into the ashes. “It’s good,” I say and swallow down the fat lump in my throat.

Oh God, I hope I did this right. It’s literally everything, I can’t fuck up. This job is my life and all I have. And this seemingly unimportant task can take me to the next level.

I catch Reiner’s glance and focus on his golden eyes, small and wrinkled around the edges. Years of work and dedication to a ruthless task of fire and metal. Reiner stares down at me. The waiting silence stretches over the spitting and crackling sound of fire and my heavy breath. I sway under his gaze like a candle’s flame in the wind. He says nothing.

I swallow again – my throat tightens and the lump swells. I fucked up, didn’t I?

“Damn well you’re right! C’mon, we’ll get that babe out and then you gotta watch over her!”

“Oh my fuckin’ God I hate you!” I scream and punch his shoulder as hard as I can.

Reiner’s laughter blasts through the smithy and he catches my fist with ease, twists it around so I howl in frustration and have to follow the turn of my bones.

“You bastard, you knew all along it was perfect! You knew that I would fucking pass and just tested me!”

“Of course I knew. You gettin’ better each day, boy”, Reiner grins and lets me go.

I whirl around to shout again but his broad smile and a pat on my shoulder bring a beaming grin up my cheeks. I did well, I fucking owned that liquid steaming metal like a real blacksmith.

My stomach feels warm and all golden.

“Alright, let’s take her out then!” I’m catching myself talking just like Reiner, referring to the sword as a woman. Don’t care right now.

Together we slide two bars with flat metal tiles at the ends under the mould. We sweat together and huff air in and out as the stone lifts off its red-glowing holder and slides onto our bars. Reiner makes a move backwards and I follow. We move like one, I step a bit to the right and force the mould around the oven’s corner and over to the laydown area.

“Got it!”

“Well done,” Reiner says and we set our bars down simultaneously.

“That was an asshole move you pulled,” I pout and nudge my elbow into his ribs. “But now I’m good enough to forge my first sword, right? You serious about that?”

Reiner shrugs and snatches a cloth from one of the tables to dry off the sweat from his forehead.

“I guess so, yeah. I think y’are a capable guy.”

“That means I can – “

“But!” Doubt in his voice.

“Fuck Reiner, don’t ‘but’ me! What’s the matter?”

I glare up at him angrily and stuff both hands into my pocket, my feet digging into the ground as I curl all ten toes in my shoes. He’ll say no.

Of course I can’t forge my own sword now. There’s always something my bosses have up their sleeve to keep me from finishing anything great in my life. The anticipation falls off my face like a mask and crumbles somewhere down on the floor.

Reiner sighs, deep and apologetic.

“Hey, ‘m sorry Jean. I’ve got a ton of other stuff to do.”

“Yeah, right. Forget it.”

“Jean.” His voice jerks me up. I have already turned away, done with the same words over and over again, the same “I’m sorry” echoing in my head. Once, twice, four and five times.

“It’s fine, didn’t you hear? I said – “

Reiner blinks and then his face lightens up.

“You think I’m talkin’ shit, don’t ya? Hell Jean, I’m serious. You just gotta watch yer work alone.”

I don’t trust my ears. What did he just say?

“I’ve got a commission for the King’s guard again. Two swords for ceremonies, big deal.” Reiner sighs and his voice tremors at the last words, and he speaks to me as if I was a little child.

“I ain’t throwin’ you out or makin’ fun of ya. Just can’t watch you an’ help you. You make this one alone and show me when it’s done.”

Relief crashes down like a thunderstorm.

I float, figuratively. He’s keeping me around. He isn’t firing me and I won’t have to look for a new work again. Reiner puts a hand on my shoulder and turns me around. He doesn’t even have to because I’m wax in his grip. My legs spin all by themselves and my body follows.

“I’m gettin’ to work right now!” I grin and bounce up and down on my toes.

I hear my own blood rushing, heart jumping and pounding with the speed of an arrow swishing from the bowstring.

Reiner knows and chuckles at my broad grin. His large thumb rubs a short soothing circle on my shoulder.

“Kid, you are a’ight. Won’t let you flee me smithy so easily.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m stuck here then.” I don’t even attempt to sound regretful.

Reiner nods, then his fist finds my scalp and squeezes down until I yelp in surprise.

“Now get ya lazy ass back to work! That sword ain’t gonna get forged on its own.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” I scoff back at him and just barely escape the hit my boss throws after me. “And don’t stress your old bones too much!” I add before Reiner groans and shakes his fist and I quickly scram into the far back of the smithy. I slump down on one of the chairs there and stare down onto the cooling mould where liquid metal softly sizzles and waits for me to force a new beauty out of old iron bones.

I smirk and resist the urge to bash my fist into the air. Of course Reiner won’t drop me. He doesn’t care about the whispering people do behind my back, thinking that turning away shuts my ears down from the sneaky words falling of their pretentious lips. Yeah, look at me, look at me long and in all the detail your greedy eyes desire.

I’m sinking into my task and begin to work.
As soon as I have the mysteriously sizzling mould filled with cooling thick metal in front of me, everything else fades.

It’s hours later when Reiner’s voice wakes me. I jerk up from my trance and stare at his face. It hovers over me, staring down with furrowed brows.

“We have a problem.”

I scowl. If Reiner says that something’s wrong it has to be a catastrophe. Nothing in the world throws him off.

I set down the hammer and wipe the thin layer of sweat off my forehead. My shirt is soaked and dirty from tiny splinters of iron, chafed off from the work I did on my first sword. I’m nearly don. The blade shines bright and clean under the light of a torch that hangs over my workplace.

My back hurts from leaning down. I have swung the hammer more than a hundred times in the past hours, might as well be two hundred. My fingers are all blistered and raw and I bit my lip into blood.

I’m so damn proud. This is the first time I actually finished something real, something good and useful.

Reiner looms over me and his eyes are all worry and dark around the edges. No time to look at my work. I slide my fingers over the anvil and find a slender edge to wrap them around. The air begins to sizzle.

“What happened? You fucked up the workpieces?”

Reiner gives me a murderous glance, his mouth twitching. I raise both hands in defense.

“A’ight, sorry. Wasn’t serious you know. So honestly, what went wrong?”

Reiner slumps down on a chair next to my anvil. He doesn’t even take a look on my sword and that sinks my heart into the depths of my ribcage.

The tiny bell in the back of my mind begins to ring. I lick salty sweat off my lips. What… what’s wrong?

Something stirs inside me. It’s like the awakening of an old memory, a roaring beast claiming escape from my mind to ramp and rage through my consciousness all over again. This isn’t good.

The air is thick and warm and presses me down to the ground. It’s not the heat for once but by God, I wish it was. I sit next to Reiner on my own chair and worry my lip again until it tastes raw and slick from spit and more salt.

Reiner breathes out and wipes his hands on the legs of his pants. His eyes are squinted, almost shut when he looks up at me.

“We’re out of turf. I can’t finish the commission, you can’t polish your sword blank in the fire. It’ll go out in a few hours.”

My mind races, numbers and seconds pass in front of my inner eye. I can’t read a word or write a single letter, but I can count to a million, and that’s more than enough for the hilarious calculus my brain finally spits out.

“No.”

“Jean, I know I shouldn’t even think of asking this – “

“Then don’t.”

I’m shaking.

Don’t make me do this. You know I can’t say know when it’s about my job. It’s all I have, and with my own commission done I automatically become his apprentice.

But people are already talking. About Reiner, how he’s letting me work here and that he’s protecting me from their greedy glances and snide gestures. If he loses the order – my world spins. I grab my chest and dig nails into my skin as if it would help.

Reiner’s eyes wear sadness all over them.

The gold has gone dull and the flames lick over his cheekbones. He looks old and guilty and for a flying second I hate that he gave me work and hope and now all of the glorious shit will drown me once again.

“I need you to get a new cart of turf. I can’t leave here now, I got work.”

My fingers twitch as if they are trying to protect me, wanting to shield me from every new word rolling of Reiner’s lips. My mouth is full of salt and blood. A piece of wood cracks in the fire.

“You have to go. Please. The way is safe and illum’nated – “

I jump up and the sword clatters down on the floor, metal singing with a high soprano of heat and solid iron. Sparks fly.

My hands clench into fists. The last time was enough for a whole life and now Reiner asks me to return.

“I’ll give you the big oil lamp. And Bertl will meet ya halfway.”

That’s still another mile that I have to walk alone. The way to Berthold’s turbary is broad and full of light and I can’t, can’t, can’t. By god and everything sacred in this shitty bottomless pit of a world, don’t –

“Jean,” Reiner says, and now he’s up on his feet and holding my shoulders. “This depends on you. If we lose their order or ain’t be delivering on the spot tomorrow mornin’ – “

I have no choice.

“Please. I’m so sorry.”

Reiner’s head slumps down between his shoulders and he looks as small and frightened as I feel. I stare into the oven’s fire and their flickering chases a hoard of shadows cackling over my face. Minutes pass by in a thick stream of charcoal gleaming in the flames, sparks flying up and vanishing into steam and warmth.

An eight-year old freezing cold returns and conquers my bones with a lightness that chokes all breath out of my lungs.

“Jean?”

I sink into the chair and try to vanish. Reiner huffs and pats my shoulder.

He knows my answer, and he’s sorry, and that gives me absolutely nothing the second my mind flies off and bursts through the smithy’s roof and hovers over town like a goddamn shadow. I twists and spasm inside and my knuckles whiten around the chair’s armrests.

“I’ll get the cart ready. You gonna do well, believe me. Gotta face your monsters to fight ‘em.”

“Okay.”

I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to be brave or a hero or a goddamn warrior with an emblem on his chest and jewels in his pockets.

Over the fire’s quiet crackling there is a howl from far in the distance. Without turning my ears I know where the noise comes from. It is a night bird, maybe an owl. Or something much bigger, stronger and more threatening than any scar on my quivering forearms I bury my face in.

The Forest calls.

Being the well known abomination of Shiganshina has its benefits.

A group of playing children stare at me while I make my path along the main street. A streak of daylight is left on the horizon where clouds tint red and violet. I could make it without meeting darkness. I could. In fucking theory.

If I didn’t have to pull a heavy-as-fuck carriage for the turf behind me, with wheels as loud as a fucking army.

That thing attracts more attention than a signal horn. Usually I can slip through the crowd unnoticed, but the cart lights me up for everyone to see. Also, I’ll have to drag it back when it’s fully loaded with a fuckton of turf. My arms won’t live through the night.

The atrocious brats yell after me, their voices croaking high-pitched and vibrating with excited fear.

“There’s the bastard!”, one says and then they begin to chant fervently “monster, monster, turn around”.

I’d love to rip their throats out and feed them to the pigs.

But I do what I learned and don’t reply, ignore them, bar the hostile glances out of my mind. Works sometimes, yet not today. A few pebbles come flying from behind and jump off from the cart’s wheels, dropping down uselessly.

For once those hussies missed my shins or head. They usually aim better, a row of bruises along my neck and legs proves it without doubt.

“Freak!”

I don’t do anything. It’s no use when the world is against you. You can’t fight a hurricane.

Most of the kids turn away after a few seconds, disappointed how normal I seem. They expect fire and flames spilling from my mouth. Big fucking lie, I’m not a demon. Nothing like the stories their parents tell.

I’m just – just Jean.

Jean Kirschstein, homeless, trying to live in peace with what’s left of my sane mind.

I cross the marketplace as fast as I can with that stupid heavy carriage behind me.

The cheerful bargaining stops abruptly.

It’s even worse here; the main street is at least full of exhausted hurry and oh-god-I-hope-I’m-not-late wavering in the air. Too busy to notice me.

But the market is pure fucking serenity. Time loops around the plaza, from the fruit farmers to the jewelers in the back. People step idly and halt to chat and laugh.

My outrageously noisy cart pulls invisible strings, and just like puppets in a children’s theatre their heads flick around and they stare.

Everything around me stills for the time of a few deep breaths. I focus on the grubby cobblestone pavement, count my steps in pairs of two, the cart rattling obnoxiously loud behind my back. I grit my teeth and avoid their glances, the disgust reflecting in those hollow caricatures of eyes.

“The bastard.” – “Don’t look, you know what happened to the baker who was nice to him…!” – “Damn, I hope the plague gets him.”

They haven’t killed me yet because they fear I might come back and take revenge.

The drawbar’s cushion crumbles apart under my fingers and after just fifteen minutes of pulling the damn thing I already have wooden splinters piercing my palms. I stop to shake out my hands and pick the pieces out of my skin. The merchants close to me jerk up from their stools behind the stands when I halt. Thinking I might steal something or set their junk on fire.

“Back off!” I duck from a stick thrown after me and quickly continue my rattling path.

A few years ago, I was just bad luck. Now I’m the embodiment of purgatory’s worst scum on earth. The crowd parts before me and they let me through without any complications. Most people don’t dare to attack – as I said, fear of revenge. But it’s a good day. Wanna know why? I call a day good when I don’t get beaten up. That says a whole fucking lot about me.

I wish I had never been born. The world is better off without me.

I rattle past the bakery and a few market stands apart from the main plaza. Here’s where the more exclusive items are sold, and I catch a short glimpse of precious panels spread out on the tables. Scratchy lamb’s wool dyed in purple and red, silk from foreign countries in a multitude of colours shining in the sun’s light that’s now descendent and dim. Golden bracelets, studded with diamonds and jewels.

I bite my lip and worry it until I taste blood again. Bad quirk. Repays with my mouth looking like a damn battlefield all the time. A small sacrifice a calm mind.

I take the next turn, and the darker alley I enter shields me from happy laughter and boastful merchants praising their goods to customers.

It’s not far anymore until I reach the town’s border.
The main street shrinks into a slender path that meanders gracefully up a small hill and straight into the Forest of Trost.

It’s wide enough for a carriage to rattle over, up up up the knoll, disappearing into the densely huddling trees. The guards haven’t closed the gate yet and just wave me through – to my fucking fortune they don’t check my face thoroughly, and I make an effort to keep my gaze down to the ground. Blend in. Don’t shine out. They heard about me, about what I accidentally do, of course – but they don’t know my face.

I stroll past them and hurry to get up the hill. But instead of focusing on my job, I lose myself to the ocean of worries floating in my head.

A mile until Berthold and I meet. Torches along the way, Reiner said. The turbary is two miles into the Forest. I haven’t left the town in eight years. Ever since I came to Shiganshina I have stayed inside it.

“Fuckin’ shit.” I curse a lot when I’m scared. “Dumbass stupid turf.”

My lip tastes metallic and red. I kick a rock out of my way, listen to it tumbling off to the side and down the hill overgrown with grass and patches of dark green moss.

Reiner has indeed given me the biggest oil lamp he has, how fucking useful. Sarcasm strong today. I can light it up any time he said, when I’m scared, and I shook him off and silently chucked the fucking lamp into the cart. As if a beacon of light could protect me from anything behind those trees.

Reiner looked so overall guilty and sad when he watched me leave.

My fingers wrap around the drawbacks once again and I pull, nearly rip the cart forward. Get your shit together, Jean. I swallow down the thick lump in my throat, force it back into my stomach that twists and writhes with each step I take forward, verging on the Forest. It takes a sharp pain in my lip to hurry my feet up.

The Forest’s shore is a black gaping abyss. A howl rustles through the tree’s giant crowns, sending shivers down my spine. The wind picks up.

Puddles of mud whisper and burble under my steps, crumbs bounce off to the sides where the cart’s wheels dig a pathway into the dirt. I aim for the old wooded trail that slithers up the hill, a black cobra baring its fangs in a hiss.

Darkness comes.

I breathe, once, twice.

“Shit,” I say and it is to pump some courage back into my heart. Doesn’t work.

The townspeople’s voices echo in my head – ‘Monster’, ‘Freak’. I’ll show them and become a blacksmith.

I dive into the opening between massive trunks of ancient trees and the town closes from behind me. I’m in. All I have to do is follow. Reiner didn’t explain the way, he just said “go with the path and Berthold will see you”.

The “path” is a dirty grey smear on the ground under the wobbling of my oil lamp’s light hanging on the side of my cart, easy to see. At least I won’t get lost. It makes everything quicker.

The minutes pass while I walk and breathing becomes harder.

My mind, fuck, everything just blurs and fades at the edges of my vision and just like thin threads of metal snatching under pressure I stamp with galvanic motions.

If you ever thought that a forest is silent by night you have obviously never been in one. The noises, sounds of animals howling – owls screeching, a wolf whimpering in the distance. I try to keep my eyes on the ground and the cart as close to my back as possible. Dawn is crawling up the horizon, a slumbering beast that lurks from the abyss and brings chill and the renowned shudder of night. Giant trees, grown dense and solid, suck in all the light.

I duck down from a few rustling leaves that caress my neck when the wind blows all of a sudden and whirls through the Forest.

A few drops of rain fall into my collar and run down my spine; I shiver. Goddammit, I almost screamed, the Forest is seriously fucking with me. It’s as if it lives, as if the howling wind is its lungs gasping for air, the ground all flesh and oh God, the trees. The damn trees will come down at me, the sky will fall and swallow me down and I’ll be digested by this fucking nightmare and spit out pleaseleavemealone.

I stop and stare into emptiness, trying to calm my thundering heart and the frightening tightness in my ribcage.

And then the lamp throws brightness against the trunk of a tree, just to my right. Wait, the path is broad as hell, there’s enough space for a horse carriage. There aren’t supposed to be any trees so close to me. I just followed the path, what the hell -

“You can’t be serious.”

Five minutes in and I managed to lose the way. I’m standing in front of a group of trees, trunks old and crumbling under decay, and with panic overthrowing my mind and conquering what’s left of my shivering courage, I didn’t notice the ground changing, from pebbly road to soft wilderness, and took a wrong turn. Wrong direction.

Suddenly, the world stills.

“Fuck. Berthold? Fuckin’ shit!”

I’m alone, not close enough for him to hear me.

I hang between my home and the horror and wait, I anticipate with sweating palms around the drawbars. My skin is just a cold layer of sweat against the miserable whimpers of the wind rushing over me. Run, run away and flee and hide, my mind screams. The sinister crowns of giants loom above, trees seem to lean down and theywillsuffocateme –

“Berthold! A-are you here, somewhere? Please! Berthold!”

My words dither and gurgle up my throat and spill down my lips, running over my chin like stinking bile. Oh God, please answer me, I can’t -

A warm beacon fires up in the periphery of my eyes.

The torches! The way. It’s to my left, maybe a dozen feet apart from my position.

My heart does a high jump and I grab the tree, somehow dig my fingers into the bark and suppress a miserable sob while I watch the torches burn and oh, I have never seen something as fucking beautiful. The flames dance nervously in the wind’s angry breeze and still they are my guidance, the bonfire that brings me closer to Berthold. And it’s only a damn mile.

“’s okay. You… you aren’t lost.”

I speak to myself because hey, for years that was the only other voice I would hear. It still is today, sometimes, when there have been too many… incidents with me. It works to calm my rioting blood that fulminates and hisses too fucking much.

“I’m fine.”

The cart creaks unwillingly when I turn it around. My mouth can’t stay still now and continues to mumble panicked fractions of syllables, to break the storm of fear in my mind down into something smaller, more bearable.

“Berthold will wait. G-gotta hurry.”

I go on, somehow, with wood splinters in my palms and darkness soaking my bones.

I haven’t got the slightest clue on how I made it to the meeting point.

But I remember that my feet stomped the grey path with a panicked determination and that cold sweat had long gone soaked my back with sticky saltiness. That I only followed the torches, dragged the rattling cart behind me and whimpered with every noise, with every rustling in the undergrowth surrounding my way. I didn’t dare to look right or left.

I remember whispering Berthold’s name like a mantra, a spell to keep evil away. Reiner thinks I can overcome my fears by going into the Forest once. He might be a genius with his hammer and anvil, but put him in front of remotely related to emotion and he transforms into an awkward mumbling mountain of “uhm well”.

I remember the whimpers falling off my mouth that’s covered in chunks of blood, the iron buzzing on my raw flesh.

It’s silent except for the night’s usual voices. Another bird’s chirping, a big animal rustling somewhere behind me in the bushes. Don’t listen, focus. Your mission. Soon it’s all over.

And so I just stop at the only torch that is surrounded by two others on the right side of the path and doesn’t stand alone. I set down the cart and grunt loudly. My back and arms hurt and I rub my biceps with shaky hands, fingers cold as ice and numb from gripping too tightly. Shouldn’t Berthold be here? Insecurity begins to gnaw at my guts and fucking cackles, echoes in my brain like waves on a ragged shore.

Alright, breathe. ‘s okay. I am – I have to be fine.

I take a curt look at the torches again by going down into squatting.

How much time has even passed? Did I get lost?

Red flames flicker over my hands and lick at the scars on my forearms when I touch the middle torch, looking for some kind of clue. The usual pattern of the signal fires is one at each side of the path. Here they are huddled in a group, and I find a blue stripe of colour painted under the holder of the middle one as I trace my finger along it. This place has to be where Reiner usually meets Berthold. I lift myself up again, shift from one foot to another.

“Shit. Come on.”

I bite my tongue on instinct, let it stick out between my clattering teeth. Nights are cold in town already. But here, in between looming darkness of the trees and the rioting wind catching between branchwood, I am shivering from head to toes. And the world is still in a blur. Please. Get me out of here.

“Jean? What are you doing here?” says someone.

“Berthold,” I croak out and whirl around to the voice.

He stumbles out from the bushes, a tall man with big gentle eyes and clumsy fingers fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. He’s the opposite of Reiner, lanky and shy in his movements and the wave of his hand when he greets me. Did he hide behind a tree? Why would he do that? I furrow my brows and look up and down on him, then shrug. Whatever. The relief washing over me rinses the thick lump out of my throat, and I can speak without feeling bile coating my tongue.

“Uh yeah, Reiner sent me. He can’t come tonight.” I clear my throat and make a useless nod, quickly pocket my hands that just swing around awkwardly otherwise. “He’s busy with an order for the King’s guard. Big thing.”

“Oh.” Berthold sounds so disappointed (almost devastated?) that I immediately feel guilty.

“Sorry. I know you two have this thing with meeting here, Reiner told me you’d be – “

“What?” Berthold jerks up from staring into the cart. He kicks a pebble around with the tip of his shoe, arms flapping by his sides like some newly born bird. Uncomfortable, that’s what they all are with me. But Berthold’s okay. He has a problem with people in general.

I open my mouth to repeat myself but Berthold interrupts with a hasty churning of his hands in front of his chest.

“O-oh no, it’s… it’s fine. I, uh.” I wait because he also has problems with speaking. Berthold seems to appreciate that, and his lips curl into the memory of a smile under the fire’s warm light.

“So you need t-turf, yes?” I nod, and he hums. “Let’s go then. Wait – weren’t you afraid of – “

“Don’t mention it. Just don’t.” I pick up the cart’s drawbars again. Berthold’s mouth falls shut with a soft sound and he just shrugs. “’kay. I got Reiner’s turf ready, e-enough for a week.”

Walking with Berthold is okay, even though it’s quiet as well.

We don’t talk much after he asks if I want to take the whole load of turf. Berthold looms by my side. He doesn’t have to lead the way with torches surrounding us and somehow that relaxes his hunched shoulders a bit. I don’t try to start a conversation because he already looks nervous and sweaty enough.

Five minutes later my arms are sore from pulling and I can’t stand the silence anymore. Berthold stubbornly stalks forward and I have problems to keep his pace. Fuck his ultra long legs. At least we get to the turbary faster. The torches appear in shorter gaps and their flames shiver and crackle cryptically whenever the wind howls through the Forest.

“Hey,” I say over the soft sound and crane my neck to look at Berthold. Damn, he’s tall.

“Shh.”

I blink and dig my heels into the earth to stop the cart when Berthold halts. What the – did he just shut me up? Seriously? Anger boils in my stomach and I slam the cart down by the drawbars, my palms screaming in protest.

“Berthold, what the fuck – “

“Jean, please be still. I think I heard something.”

Berthold’s changed within seconds. His hunched body straightens and he rises in a wave. His neck tenses, muscles spring up from under the skin. And now my danger sense tingles as I hear it, too. Fuck, oh fuck. He’s right.

There is something.

“What…” Berthold chokes on his words and we stare at the black velvet sky, together, unbelieving. It can’t be, it’s impossible. Berthold coughs and clasps a hand over his mouth. I can’t speak at all, only hear the faint echo of his voice when everything starts to spin and my vision spirals into a gaping abyss. The same alarm that tingles before what people call monster about me bursts out – it screeches high-pitched and fucking savagely behind my eyes.

“What on earth,” Berthold whispers.

Not earth, not on the ground. We don’t direct our eyes at the woods surrounding us. Berthold whimpers, a helpless small thing from his chest and I, I have no choice but to drill my teeth into the flesh of my mouth and taste the blood because that keeps me from falling unconscious in fear.

I have never heard anything like it.

It’s a noise, a sound as wild as thunder, broad and buzzing and slowly swelling in the distance, and when I locate its source my heart lumps into stone.

Something is coming down from the sky.

And it’s falling.

It’s falling down on us and it’s fast – sound cracks and crescendos as it nears. And, just when a thin thread of silver snaps in my mind and the old-known feeling of catastrophe roars up in me, I see the glow in the night’s firmament.

Berthold screams in sheer panic as I turn and run for my life.

Adrenaline floods my veins and pumps with the frightened beating of my heart. I jump and stumble into the wild herd of trees, away from the path and this thing – fuck. The noise gets louder, I swear, it fucking grows. It gets bigger behind me and isn’t roaring anymore but there is a faint sound of a voice in it, it speaks and whimpers -

A root hooks over my foot and the sharp jolt holds me back - “God – no!” I scream as well, don’t even feel my knees hit the ground and how my trousers rip and blood spurts from my shins.

Miserable and panicked, that’s how I sound when a low sob breaks from my lips and I rip my ankle brutally away from the root. Woods creaks and splinters but -

“C-come on!”

A wave of pain crashes over my foot, something twists inside and it hurts so fucking much, but I have to run and the pain drives me forward, the glow brightening behind my back and that horrible noise stinging inside my flesh and bones. I can’t care about anything but the old fear from eight years ago and even though it’s a light that hunts me now, everything else is still the same.

Hunted. Chased. Into the Forest until the realm of darkness engulfs you.

I disappear between the bushes, branches slam into my face and scratch painfully over my cheeks and nose – a thorn rips my neck open. More blood, it splatters over my shirt and soaks my sweaty skin, iron and salt lingering in my mouth.

I run runrun, faster, I have to, need to survive, don’t want to die. Just need to get away from the storm rioting above my head. I’m leaving Berthold, I am the worst trash, I want to live, abandon him. Everybody’s on his own now. I don’t want to die when a fucking – the thought is too scary and huge for my head but I think it anyways – when a fucking star is falling down from the sky and the world ends in the Forest of Trost.

I slither across a pile of leaves, and the wetness of yesterday’s rainy night catches under my soles. Fuckin’ shit! No. God, no, please. I stumble and fall, the slippery ground clings to my feet and pulls me down. My arms fly up – I try to regain my balance because that thing is still plummeting from the vast heavens and will crush me under fire and stardust if I don’t escape, and I will die in the ruins of the universe’s filth.

Then I am face down in the mud, all my desperate tries to stay on both feet gone to waste. And it’s dark, so dark I can’t see, squidgy moss under my struggling body and I just flip myself over and crawl backwards, and I search for the thing that will probably strike close to me. It was headed at the turbary, close to where Berthold and I stood, so I should be far away by now, enough to survive the impact if I cower myself down and be very small –

I see it again when a massive tree trunk collides with my back and cuts off any escape paths. I’m trapped, it’s too dark to see anything but the light and what it does lets me blink. My chest tightens, my breath catches.

This – this is impossible.

I sit, pressed into the tree that will be my graveyard, and the fucking glow is right above me.

And before I can think about anything – why the loud roaring noise is gone, why it is far smaller than I thought, just about my body’s size – a shivering cold grips my heart.

The fallen star followed me.

It is alive.

It isn’t a meteor or some comet crashing down from the universe, a lost piece of stardust pressed into a rock’s flesh. The rain-soaked leaves drench my clothes with dirty water. My face is covered in blood, it stings everywhere, I’m chafed from falling and fleeing and I can’t do anything but press into the tree and sob out a heavy panic attack clotting in my stomach.

It was going to end like this. They told me, whenever I got stones against my head and the treatment of the filthiest trash on earth.

“You are cursed.” – “You bring sickness and let our children die.” – “You are an abomination.”

So here we are. Death. Sitting between ancient trees, left and alone in the forest, killed by a something that has followed me all the way here. It’s impossible. It’s – it has to be magic. But there is no such thing in the world, no explanation for why the light quivers softly and shifts, and then it dims with a faint hum.

It has come for me. I clench my fists at my chest, everything is too narrow for me to breathe, I choke. The world, the night sky above me come to a halt and there’s only this vivid light right before me.

It sinks down, I see through the tears trailing down my face and the blood drying in my mouth, salt and iron hovering in the air me. What is this… thing? My hands fall limp, my strength fades and I give in to the fear.

“Rrriiihh.”

You’ll think I’m crazy. But the silhouette of light just tingled.

The Forest is in complete silence and I can’t do anything but watch with a mix of awe and seething panic when the glow whitens out. The contours blur at first, then its brightness vanishes more and more. That thing tingles again and I swear to fucking God, I have never heard anything like it. It’s so surreal, to die from a being that’s so lucid and blazing. Up close, and that’s a clear sign of pre-death insanity to me, I think it’s kind of beautiful –

“Stjarnamir…”

It speaks, and I am definitely going insane. The globe of light isn’t round anymore, it has morphed almost languorously and now hovers as a myriad of tiny sparkling stars right before my eyes. The word it says tinkles and echoes in the silence, and it almost sounds as if the light was singing to me.

“Hilfsra!”

“What?,” I instinctively ask back and I wish I didn’t. That third – noise, whatever this is – is different. It’s a lower tone and if I didn’t know better then it almost sounded like utter desperation, as if the glow was in pain. And then something odd happens, as if the night isn’t crazy enough and my mind isn’t fucked up for years, dying at any second now.

The gleaming sparks aren’t a silhouette and they aren’t shapeless. I stare and can’t keep a surprised scream from fleeing my lips when I see vaguely how it moves closer, hear the sound of skin and a frightening sound of – no, that can’t be. The sound of a bird wanting to fly –

The star opens his eyes.

And now I see the contours of his arms in the air, legs hanging down from where he soars above me and the spots scattering him like the galaxies and planets up in the night sky. He’s – alive. Breathing, raggedly even. I can’t do anything but stare dumbfounded. Impossible. He looks so human.

A thick drop of liquid falls onto my cheek. I smell blood.

“Stjarnamir.”

And his eyes hold me right where I am, the galaxy of an arm wrapping around my shoulder as the star comes down to me and we see each other. I only see his eyes. They don’t have pupils. Just a warm radiance of silver and gold flickering and fucking sparking where his iris should be and I think I forget how to breathe.

With a violent jolt, the world starts its eternal spinning again.

Another warm bloody droplet grazes my cheek and it feels like the creature follows it. An exhausted sigh rings through the air, and the shimmer of two eyes goes out in an instant. It all darkens, the sparks on the weird star’s body dimming and the sound of wings vanishes.

I have no time to think. A large body crashes and crumbles down on me, sucks all air from my ragged lungs. The creature coils into my lap, wetness presses into my shoulder, it stinks from iron and salt and blood soaks my shirt.

A last soft tingling, a weary something grabbing my collar and holding onto it, and then I am left with a pounding heart full of fright and a fallen star in my arms.

I am not dead yet, I think before everything blacks out.