She was walking through forest when she heard someone calling out for help. She went to them and found a man laying on the forest floor bleeding from the several cuts that adorned his body. Her long silver hair was pleated in a braid behind her as she bent to pick him up. His white hair was blood soaked to the point that it almost looked red.
He grunted as he felt himself being jostled and he clenched his teeth trying not to scream. She carried him away from the clearing he was in. She took him to the cave she lived in and walked through the caverns until she came to one in the far recesses of the cave.
In the middle there was a lake of considerable size. She laid the now unconscious man down by the side of the lake and began undressing him carefully, knowing that he might still be able to feel the pain of his wounds. Once she had him fully undressed she once again picked him up and laid him in the water at the edge letting his head rest in her lap, getting the hem of her short kimono wet.
She went to work cleaning the wounds that were predominantly on his chest and them moved to washing him of the dirt he had acquired laying on the ground. She noticed his toned muscles and immediately thought him a warrior.
Her cerulean eyes ran over his body making sure that she had gotten all of the dirt and grime off of the strangely seductive stranger, and she once again picked him up, his wounds closed by the waters of the cave.
Her humming was the only thing that could be heard in the cave as she wrapped him in a blanket and laid him on her cot.
Deep in the recesses of the man's mind he wandered the empty halls of his conscience.
He heard the humming of a distinctly female voice as he wondered why he was stuck here in the captivating rooms that he knew all to well. He knew that he wasn't in any danger, for his body would let him come into consciousness if he were. So he was intent listening to the angelic sound of the voice as he walked through his own memories.
"It's time to wake up."
He didn't know where the voice was coming from, but still he felt the urge to obey and instantly began the familiar event of slowly pulling himself from the deep caverns of his mind, only to find himself in a cavern of another sort.
This time though he saw the origin of the voice in the form of a beautiful, goddess-like woman with dainty fox ears that severely resembled his own. He saw her smile and thought that the Gods must have smiled down upon him and sent him to one of the kinder levels of hell where he would be with this woman for eternity.
He soon found this to be false, for in the afterlife, he was sure that he would not be curse with so much pain whenever he tried to move.
The look on the female's face became worried.
"The waters just closed those wounds, please don't open them again."
He tried to speak, but found his voice horse and had to clear his throat before trying again in nothing more than a whisper.
"Where am I?"
She smiled. "You are in my home, I found you out in the forest and brought you here," she said her smile never leaving her face. "You will need to rest for a while until you are well enough to go back home."
"May I know the name of my savior?" he asked, his voice slowly returning.
The only answer he received was a smile as she stood and checked the temperature of his forehead.
"I think you need to sleep again, please don't go back the hall way of rooms, it was very hard for me to sense your life force while you were in there."
With that she straightened and left the curtained room leaving a small candle flickering to the man's left. He couldn't help but wonder what attracted him so deeply to the woman.
The woman was washing in the waters of her cave when her mind returned to the now resting man that was in her room. His striking golden eyes kept appearing every time she closed her eyes. She couldn't help but wonder where such a man would belong. Obviously he had someone waiting for him at home.
A woman with a few children maybe, or a harem of women. Or maybe even a harem of men. Who knew? She decided that she would never want to know where the man's life had led him, and what choices he lived with. Her mind was all but made up when she felt his energy stir and quickly redressed and hurried back to the curtained room.
The moment she walked in she could see his golden eyes watching her.
"I was hoping you would come," he said in a silky tenor.
She smiled pleasantly giving no leave on her emotions.
"And why would you hope for such a thing?"
"Because I want to propose a little game for you," he said coyly. "If I can guess your name I will tell you mine, but for now, you may refer to me as Haru."
She listened to his proposal and nodded smiling mischievously.
"Alright Haru," she said nodding. "You may call my Maya and begin guessing."
Through the next hour, she sat with 'Haru' and listened to the guesses, each one becoming more and more exotic, but none of them hitting home. Over the next week, Haru kept guessing at random times he would suddenly call out a name and she would reply: "Maybe next time" after turning down the name.
Finally the day came when he would have to leave and go back home because he was completely healed and his body completely back to its former toning.
He walked up to her as she was putting away the herbs that she had brought back earlier that morning. She was kneeled in front of the trunk when she spoke.
"You are perfectly healthy, your body completely rehabilitated. You will be able to go home today," she said not looking away from the trunk.
Haru was speechless at the cheerfulness in her voice. Though he couldn't see her face, he was almost positive that she would be smiling from the tone of her voice. The only thing that would come out of his mouth was a wordless affirmative noise.
Maya stayed kneeling over the chest hiding her eyes from the man behind her. No matter what she wanted, she would let him go back home to whomever was waiting. She knew they would most likely be worried by now at the fact that he hadn't come home in weeks, but he had assured her in earlier days that it was common for him to be absent from the house for days, even weeks on end, so no one would miss him that much. She also knew that he had only been gone for three days when she had found him.
Most of all, she knew that her wish for him to stay with her was irrational and improbable, but she still wanted it. She knew that there were things that would never happen, but she couldn't help her own wishful thinking.
The silence stretched out as Maya finished putting the herbs in their respective places. She stayed in the crouching position with her head bowed and listened to the sound of Haru's breathing and the sound of his feel shuffling on the stone floor of the cave.
"Um, would you like me to help you get home? You haven't been out of the cave since you got here, and you passed out the second I touched you to bring you here," she said finally standing up and facing the man standing behind her.
"Y-yeah…I would like that. I might get lost out there," he said chuckling softly.
Maya nodded and gave him a small smile of her own.
The two departed into the foggy forest only an hour later. They both talked like they had been for the past few weeks with Haru occasionally trying to guess Maya's name.
"Um…hmmm…is it western?" he asked trying to narrow down the choices once again.
"You know I wont tell you that," she said smiling.
"It was worth a try," he said. "How about Isis, or Neferet, or even Alexandria. I hear they're really popular names for females."
Maya laughed and shook her head. "No such luck! Maybe next time."
Haru looked at her wondering what name could have been so obscure that he wouldn't know it.
"Well, don't you want to know my name?" he asked trying to get her to give in.
"Only if you can guess mine," she said smiling patiently and watching him mirthfully out of the corner of her eye.
"It's not Rumpelstiltskin is it?" he asked naming one of the most recent of a flood of human fairy tales.
Maya laughed once again and Haru basked in the wondrously melodic sound of it.
"N-no, my name is definitely not Rumpelstiltskin," she said and continued to laugh quietly.
Haru sighed and joined her laughter with a soft chuckle of his own. When the two finally stopped laughing they slipped into one of the many comfortable silences that Haru had never known he could handle with someone other than the rambunctious mismatched group of people that he lived with.
After a few more minutes, Haru began to recognize the pattern of the trees. He vaguely remembered that moss growth and this boulder.
Maya continued to walk through the forest with unmatched ease and confidence in where she was going. Soon the two reached the edge of the forest and heard voices in the distance. Something about splitting up into four different groups to search for…someone.
Maya saw Haru's ears perk at the sound of the voices and his pace picked up.
Maya followed easily over the semi flat ground and through the few trees that had started to grow outside of the forest line, trying to naturally expand the area that the forest already occupied. She knew that in a few centuries, that the forest would be at least twice the size that it was now, and that it would continue to grow and grow until something held it back.
She was snapped out of her thoughts as she saw a large group of people visibly separating under the order of a tall man with long ebony hair.
"Kuronue!"
Maya stopped and watched as Haru sped up, running to the large group.
She watched as he was embraced and cries of joy were made. In the time she watched, she learned that Haru's name was actually Yoko. And the family he had mentioned was actually a band of thieves. She also couldn't help but notice that almost half of the thieves were woman of considerable beauty. She felt a knot form in the pits of her stomach and a lump closing off her throat to any sound that she might have made in attempt to say goodbye.
She found it simpler to disappear from the happy reunion. And that is exactly what she did.
She melted away into the beautiful scenery that was the misty forest behind her and left Yoko with his comrades. There wasn't anything that she could do for him, but she left one last whisper in his mind.
"It was Nyoko."
Yoko turned around, thinking that Maya had spoken, but she wasn't there anymore. His heart fell into his stomach as he scanned the tree line and still he didn't see her. Then the words that were whispered into his mind struck home.
"Nyoko."
"What was that, Yoko?" Kuronue said, standing next to him.
"Wha--oh, nothing," he said turning back to his family.
Yoko couldn't forget the sadness that rang through in her last words to him. He hoped beyond hope that she was only gone for a small while collecting herbs again, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew this was not so. He knew that he may very well not ever see his Nyoko again.
His heart shattered and he struggled not to let it show in his eyes.