Dota
Rikimaru
By Aditu
Rikimaru the Stealth Assassin was creeping through the forest while using one of his talents to remain invisible the whole time. He was looking for his target, who had to be somewhere around this place. It should have been an easy job but he was here for almost a week now because he couldn't find the damn thief. The location he had been given had been more than wrong and now he was walking through the whole forest to find him. And it was a big forest. If he had to go through its entirety, he would be here for at least another week.
It wasn't that bad since he liked to walk in the shadows of the trees, liked the smells and the sounds of his surroundings, found enough to eat and to drink and encountered no threads, but it was starting to get on his nerves that he wasn't able to locate the creature he was looking for. There wasn't even the slightest trace of him and though Rikimaru wasn't the best tracker on earth he wasn't that unskilled either.
He walked for several more hours before he decided to rest at the next suitable place. That was when he found a footprint. He knelt down and studied it. It was definitely not from an animal. Rather human or human-like. He would have said that this was what he had been looking for, but it was too small to belong to the man he was out to kill. But since it was the first sign of something that didn't really belong here, he started to follow the trail. It was extremely easy, the creature not bothering to hide the footsteps.
A house appeared between the trees, standing on the side of a clearing. And then the Stealth Assassin could hear it: the soft sound of a melody, drifting through the trees and merging with the song of the birds into some complex composition. Someone was singing and she was really good.
He drew nearer, careful now not to make a sound. He didn't have any business with some singing woman in the woods but he had to admit, he was curious. He couldn't make out the words but the voice of the female creature sounded so beautiful, he felt a little enchanted by it. Aside from the fact that he wanted to know what women lived in the middle of the forest, he wanted to know how a creature with such a clear and melodic voice looked like.
Rikimaru stepped onto the clearing right beside the house and looked around. The grass around the building had been trimmed somehow and it descended to a small lake on the other side of the house with a creek vanishing in the forest behind it. Trees and bushes with all kinds of fruit lined one shore and in a garden, with a fence around probably to keep animals out, vegetables and herbs were growing. It looked all extremely neat and constructed to supply whoever lived here.
The melody had grown louder, the words now discernible but from a language the Assassin wasn't familiar with. He crept closer, his invisibility hiding him. The voice was coming from the orchard and he could make out movement between the trees. He walked up to the lake and found a flat stone to sit on. He wouldn't go into the orchard but would wait here for the woman to come out. He wasn't in a hurry and he would simply listen to her song a little longer. Though he didn't understand the words it sounded like a happy song, like she was enjoying herself. It made Rikimaru smile a little.
He was an assassin but he wasn't bitter or cruel like some others of his profession he knew. He still liked to laugh at times and he even did things for fun. He could be ruthless and he killed without remorse but one didn't affect the other. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was a satyr, a species which liked to have fun and play pranks on others. He didn't do the latter anymore, though, at least not often.
So now he was sitting on this clearing beside a lake, just listening to one of the most beautiful songs he had ever heard. He had been a little on edge after searching this damn forest for a week but now he relaxed. His breathing evened out and he forgot about his job, just being for a few moments. Simply hearing this melody cleared his mind and made his soul sing, as if responding to the voice of a woman he hadn't even seen, yet.
The song ended.
Rikimaru frowned, wanting to hear more. He remained sitting, completely unmoving, and waited. He wasn't disappointed when, only a few moments later, the woman started again. It was the same song, but it didn't matter. He would listen to it a thousand times. The woman laughed, and though it interrupted the song, it was only a change in melody. She said something and then she began with a different song. This was one was a little faster, more bouncy. A fox jumped out of the orchard, running from left to right, followed by a small black cat.
And then, still singing, the woman stepped out of the shadows of the trees.
That is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen, Rikimaru thought. He stared at her for a full minute before his mind started to work again.
She was beautiful but contrary to his earlier thought, this wasn't a woman. It was a girl. Not a kid anymore but definitely not an adult. She wore a long dress but the hem was rolled up and pinned so it wouldn't drag through the dirt. It was dark green, leaving her arms uncovered, as well as her upper chest. She showed the first signs of becoming a woman underneath the cloth but the Assassin wasn't interested in that. She was only a girl after all.
Her face was lovely, big eyes, her nose a little sharp, and a smile on her lips even while singing. Her dark hair was bound into some kind of plait so he couldn't make out how long it was. Her feet were bare and dirty and she was carrying a basket with fruit she must have picked in the orchard.
Now that he thought about it, Rikimaru was sure that she wasn't the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. She was simply a cute little girl. He had to admit, though, that she radiated a sense of joy in life that was unique.
The girl moved over the clearing now, taking different kinds of bowls and sorting the fruit in the basket into them. She kept singing all the time, her movements matching the tact of her song, her hands working with elegance and certainty but without any haste. The fox and the cat kept running around her but they didn't disturb her work.
The words of the song died away but the girl kept humming the melody. And since Rikimaru was sitting rather close to her he could still hear the soft tunes. He watched the girl, fascinated by her, how she moved and how she kept singing and humming all the time, how she smiled and how absolutely content she seemed. He wondered why she lived here like that alone, but he didn't really care.
He spent the rest of the day sitting on the rock, watching and listening, completely relaxed and not bothering to think about anything.
When the sun began to set, the girl gathered her things and headed into the house. The fox and the cat followed and she closed the door behind the three of them. The soft click as the door locked made the Stealth Assassin move for the first time in hours. He sighed. And realized how hungry he was. He walked to the orchard and took two apples and with a last look at the house, he left. The walls of the building dampened the sounds from the inside too much for him to hear anything, so he could as well head on.