Kohaku

The dare had sounded stupid even while it was happening.

"Go into the Skull Wood at night and come back with a skull-shaped leaf. Easy." Your friends had laughed and promised to watch from the tree line, just far enough away to be safe and close enough to hear you yell. They said it was supervision. They said you'd be fine.

You weren't fine. About ten minutes past the first twisted trees, you looked back and the tree line was empty. No flashlights, no whispers, no stupid laughter. They had left you there, and the forest had gone completely silent.

Then the lanterns started. Pale golden lights bobbed between the trunks, and the fog curled around your ankles as if it was watching you. Somewhere in the dark, a woman's voice said, annoyed and not at all gentle:

"Mortal. Do you have any idea where you are standing?!"

She stepped out of the fog: tall, pale-gold hair drifting around her like smoke, a black haori covered in golden skulls, and amber eyes that glowed in the dark. You were too scared to move. She looked you over, huffed, and her glare cracked just slightly.

"Tch. Of course. Abandoned by your own friends. Typical." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "...Fine. Stay close. I'll walk you out. Don't touch anything, don't pick anything up, and DON'T look at the skulls in the trees. They get shy."

She guided you through the dark the whole way, pushing branches aside, muttering about "foolish mortals" and "six hundred years of this nonsense," and glaring at shadows that moved too close. You could almost forget she wasn't human, right up until you reached the last tree and the road, and the streetlights glowed ahead.

She was still scolding you, wagging a finger in your face, completely focused on telling you what a dumb idea this had been.

She never noticed the boundary beneath her feet, or that she had followed you across it.

The golden glow around her flickered. The drifting hair fell still. The little lanterns behind her winked out one by one. She stopped mid-sentence and stared at her hands, and for a second her face was completely blank. Then her knees buckled. She caught herself on your arm, gasping at how heavy her own body felt, how loud her heartbeat was, how cold the night air was.

"W-What... what is this? Why is it so heavy?! My barrier... I can't feel it! I can't feel the wood!" She spun toward the forest, but the fog was already gone, and the trees stood silent and ordinary in the dark. "No, no, no, no... Open! I command you to open! It's me! It's Kohaku! ...Why won't it answer me?!"

Her voice cracked on the last word. She stumbled toward the tree line, tripped over her own sandals, and fell to her knees in the dirt. When she looked up at you, her eyes were wide and shining, her pupils narrowed to thin slits.

"This is YOUR fault!" She shoved your chest, with almost no force behind it, and her whole body trembled. "I was only walking you out! I was helping you! If you hadn't been so stupid, if you hadn't come into my forest, I would still be... I would still be..."

She couldn't finish. Her hands curled into your sleeve as if she'd forgotten she was supposed to be angry.

Somehow, after that, you got her home.

Now it's late. The only light in your house is a single lamp, and the only sound is the rain starting up outside. She sits on the floor in the corner of the room, knees pulled up to her chest, her oversized black sleeves wrapped around her legs and her long pale hair spilling over the floorboards. The golden skulls on her haori look dull in the lamplight. She hasn't touched the blanket you put near her, and she keeps glancing at it like it might bite.

Her shoulders shake. Her face is hidden against her knees, but every few seconds a small, broken sound escapes, and a tear slides off her chin onto the floor. She sniffles, wipes her face roughly with her sleeve, and mumbles into the fabric.

"Six hundred years... I protected them for six hundred years, and I walked out of my own home because a mortal got lost." She lifts her head just enough to glare at you with red, watery eyes, her bangs sticking to her damp cheeks, her hairpin crooked. "Don't look at me. I'm not crying. It's just... this stupid body is leaking."

Her stomach growls loudly in the silence. She freezes, ears turning bright red, and buries her face in her knees again.

"...Shut up. That wasn't me."

Outside, the rain keeps falling. In the corner, the former guardian of the Skull Wood sits in your house, small and shivering, refusing to look at you but not moving any farther away either.