1.

The woods were said to be safe and narrow, and that there would be no one to ever enter it without coming out. The only thing I'd brought with me onto this long journey were my father's remains hidden under the casket from the small incensory he'd built it a long time for the sake of his wife. The entire object looked rather handful and heavy-looking, but I carried it since he'd passed away, following into the footsteps of my mother, as they both met in the grey heavens, while I was left with the mission to return him to his hometown.

My mother had passed away at my birth and my father had soon grown weak to raise a child on his own, therefore he placed me under the care of some long-forgotten samurai who believed he should not be given indications as to what a child needs, especially a woman such as myself, who could not be anyone's wife, since I lacked the judgement of a female and did not understand people all the same.

When this samurai too passed away, a few days after he had placed his hand over my shoulder and had told me so of the tragedy himself, I had been reminded of my father's dying wish, to have his ashes scattered across the land of his family once more.

Therefore I decided to pass through the woods alone, unattended and without a map. Someone by the entrance to the woods had been kind enough to explain that once I'd keep a straight line and not stray, I would be able to find out the way without any trouble. But the place itself was crawling with beasts, thieves and all sort of evil of its kind, and that no one would bother befriending me, instead they would look to do evil and destroy me in order to take away any valuable possession I might have.

I assured this person that I had none except for the incensory and the clothes I wore. There would not even be money to steal, for I had none and I made no use of it either.

I enjoyed sinking most of my time. I would spend so much time alone that I would sometimes forget just how strong I sounded whenever I sung. I had discovered this ability during a stormy night when I was almost attacked by thieves and had managed to live to tell the tale to anyone who could ever be interested in.

There were words coming to me like rivers of knowledge, for I came from some other world, I knew it for certain, even the language I'd sometimes sing sounded much more familiar had it came from somewhere else.

It was natural that I kept singing through the woods, as I trespassed without knowledge of what perils laid ahead. This person who had been kind enough to explain to me the sheer stupidity of my entering the forest without company had also drawn his attention against the rather attractive-looking punch which he undoubtedly believed that it would be filled with gold, but it would be with herbs I had gathered from my travels nearby and I had feasted from occasionally, when the hunger became too unbearable to sustain.

The weather looked fine and sunny, with birds chirping nearby through the trees, while the sun often shaded away from the path, while penetrating the leaves in an attempt to lighten my way and comfort me.

I was naturally singing, for I believed no one would hear me and indeed, I couldn't care less if I were to be followed. It was told to me that my father's strength, although reduced to ashes, still lingered on and was supposed to passed down onto his kin once after death. But I was not his kin and neither had my mother been when she had been found wandering through the village some thirty or so years ago. She was but a child then, perhaps of four years of age and no one knew where she would come from or how she came to enter the realm of this empire.

The land was known to her as Kouka and the ruler called Il, yet he was not very greatly regarded, since he preferred the world of peace instead of that of war.

The languages my mother taught me as she spoke to me through the underbelly she carried me for several months were impossible to pronounce and impossible to hear in this realm. She alone would know them and she would ensure that she would pass them onto me, as I would onto the child I would once bear. My father was a strong man, and naturally, I took some of its traits, including the golden sight of his eyes and the dark blackness of his hair. The quietness and the ignorance of my mother was passed down onto me as well. But she had promised to me once, just before the pain of labors began, that she would not stop until she passed down onto me the gift of singing and of speaking into a language belonging to the world she came from, a world living into a different dimension than that of Kouka and a world where evil prevailed no matter the result of its battle against good.

'You should never return there, my child, even if you ever learn the path towards there. It would be a great loss, yet here you could pass onto the languages and the things I've taught you. You may find a hearty man to wed you and to become someone you would respect and look up to, and together, you could build a country of your own, with your children and the knowledge I gave you. You would alone build an empire of your own, you could become a Goddess and a ruler at the same time.'

I soon reached a river floating own against the pathway heading towards the exit – or so I thought – and I took the time to stray and head downward so that I would freshen up. I was still singing, of course, loud so that I would hear myself, and each word I pronounced had a meaning to me, I knew its very core and the letters it was formed from, what the meaning of it was and how many variations of pronunciation there would exist. I built new words, phrases and sentences mentally, against my judgement on singing, even though whatever I sang would never be understood by others.

My lungs did not hurt from the singing. I knelt down beside the river, while singing and I cupped up my hands to soak my face in water and to have a few drops from it atop of my tongue. I let my hand slip under the water while I concentrated on the song and on the words. The lyrics slipped through my head like this water through my fingers and the words came in so naturally, I almost assumed my mother for once had descended from the skies in order to steal away my body and sing with my voice. I tried to intone one phrase and linger on the words as long and as loud as I possibly could, just to see how far I would be able to sing.

When I ended it, I played with water, but I barely noticed someone had come beside me, only a few feet away. When I looked to my right, there she was. A small, frail-looking young woman, very much my age, with a bundle of short red hair, which reminded me of rubies and of the sun at dawn. Her bright violet eyes stared straight at me, as if she had gotten lost wandering through the forest in search of – undoubtedly – the source of the singing voice, and when she finally gotten to the bottom of it, she felt relieved, but more importantly overwhelmed at the thought that it might have been yet another girl producing it.

There was much difference between me and this young woman. I could not give her more than sixteen years of age, and while I was soon to be seventeen, I looked much stronger than she, although there was a bow in her hand and a bundle of arrows behind her, as she carried them. I believed they were not so overwhelming if her frailty was enough to carry them, but in truth, she looked like no ordinary huntress.

'A-ano… gomen' she spoke when she finally realized we both stared at each other strangely. 'I didn't mean to stare.'

I straightened up and brushed against my black cloak. She too had one over her dark purple dress, but it looked light yellow and much more feminine than mine. 'It's alright.'

'I'm sorry to disturb. But you… you were the one singing, where you not?'

'I guess I was.'

'It was very beautiful.'

I nodded and then I came down from the river bank, and headed onto the main road, without saying another word. So the kind helper by the entrance to the forest not only had eyed my pouch, but he had also sought to lie about the presence of other travelers into the woods, so as to scare me off.

Before this girl said anything, some other male voice called up the word "Yona" and to it, the girl startled. She turned around and a pack of males surrounded her quickly.

'Yona! Where have you wondered off too? We thought you'd gotten lost or something.'

'Yun… it's alright. I'm sorry to have worried you, I… I heard this girl's voice singing and I just couldn't… couldn't help. Oh!'

'Girl?'

There was a stop of conversation, before I reached the main road and headed straight for the path returning back onto the journey of my own. 'A-ano… gomen nasai…!'

I stopped, while I heard the girl's voice again. I turned around and a loud gurgle came out form my stomach, while I now could see the bunch of male friends she hid behind her, as she quickly stared at me confused, before smiling. 'Are you hungry?'

'Ah, Yona should not invite strangers to dine with us so easily', one of the boys said, as he looked slightly to our age, a light shade of pink hair and a heavy-looking bag settled against his shoulder onto the opposite hip. He'd caught his hair to one side and he looked slightly feminine. From the voice, I could tell he was a young male of sixteen or so, but the bright blue eyes and the femininity of the facial features fooled me into believing he might be a girl after all. Another blonde long-haired boy looked about the same age as he and his stomach roared louder than mine. Next to them, a year-older young male stood, with white hair and white clothing. While the one who spoke, looked at me suspiciously, the blonde one grinned at me welcomingly, while the white haired one stare at me surprised and when I eyed him back, he blushed.

The strangest from the lot was a mark-wearing person. The mask itself had a large blanket of fur against the person's head and he carried a small light-orange coloured squirrel which squealed lightly, before it jumped from its master's shoulder and onto the ground, towards me. It seemed fearless, passing by the red-haired girl, as she smiled. She seemed to follow the instinct of the animal, as it fearlessly headed towards me and climbed up the dark crimson dress and onto the leather belt. It hit against the small incensory and jumped over the ground startling, squealing, as it quickly ran back to the red-haired girl's shoulder.

'Ao? What's wrong?'

'Sorry, it might be because of this', I said, as I hid away the burner into the inner side from my cloak.

'It's alright', the girl called Yona smiled to me kindly. 'Are you traveling on your own?'

I nodded and then she said: 'May I ask your name? I am called Yo… Rina!'

She lied too, in order to protect her identity for some reason, but I couldn't care less for her reasons. Generally, I did not enjoy the company of liars, but she did not seem to do it out of fear for me, but rather out of prudence.

'Yoko.'

Later, she presented her friends to me. The rather suspicious kid was called Yun, while the blonde haired one was called Zeno, and the white-haired Kija. There were two more male friends, one looking around eighteen years old, whom Yona referred to as Hak, while the other looked older and womanizer-like, with a dark green pony-tail and oriental clothing, called Jaeha.

Lastly, the masked person was a man as well and he was called Sinha. The small squirrel too had a name and it was called Ao. It belonged to the masked boy, although it often found its shelter in the red-haired girl's hands.

Yun cooked a nice meal for us all, and even though I was not entirely welcomed, it was understood that I would not be left behind. 'We should be reaching the mountains very soon', Yun said as he passed the bowls of food to the others. 'But at the same time, I think we should rest for the day, so the moment we exit the forest, we should head for the closest town and do some shopping before we head back onto the road.'

I was sitting by the blonde-haired boy who could not stop eating, as his stomach continued on gurgling. 'Aren't you through?' I asked him, and he grinned at me.

'Sorry, I seem to have an unstoppable will of eating.'

'Yoko-san?' I startled at my mother's name and then I looked at the red-haired girl. 'How is the food?'

'Oh, it's very good.'

'Yun is a very good cook, isn't he?'

I nodded almost complacently. The girl smiled to me and then she looked down onto the camp fire the boys built in soon after we gathered around. 'We've travelled a long way and under our own company. Yun might look like he is very suspicious. But he's a kind person who only does it out of care for his friends. I hope you did not take offense.'

I pressed my lips together and shook my head.

She smiled. 'You sing very nice. But I could not understand the words. May I assume Yoko-chan is not from here?'

'I'm not. But my family was.'

'Why is a beautiful girl such as yourself travelling all alone through the forest?' the green-haired man said in a slow soothing voice, as he leaned against a tree, with his bowl of dinner finished and placed onto the ground. He must have looked very cool and calmly on that position, yet there were a few drops from the warm broth Yun had cooked for us dripping from the side of his sleeve, so the man looked funny.

'Oh, Jaeha-kun enjoyed Yun-kun's dinner very much since he dripped it all over his clothing', Sinha said whispering seriously behind him. The man startled and make a squeaking sound.

'N-Nah… Sinha-kun, you should stop sneaking up on people like that…'

'Does Yoko-san know the area well?' Yun asked, as he frowned at me, placing his arms over his hips.

I shook my head. 'Not really. But I've met a man by the entrance to the woods and he gave me indications as to where I should head through if I wished to come out alive and well.'

I looked down at my legs and rubbed them. 'He also stared at my pouch and told me that there would not be any other I should meet through the woods for the rest of my journey, but since Rina-san and her friends are here, obviously he was lying.'

'Where is Yoko-san heading?'

'In a far-off town from the Sei area.'

There was a small pause in between the people around me, and only Ao and its master made no attempt at showing interest for what I had said.

'Sei kingdom, is it?' Hak said frowning.

'Yoko-san is born in Sei?'

'W-well. I guess I am. The truth is that I remember my mother giving birth to me in a small village in the Kouka kingdom. But my father is from Sei, and now that he's gone, I am to bring his remains to his home town.'

'And Yoko-san travels alone? That is very brave of you', Yona said smiling encouragingly.

I stared at her confused, frowning a little. 'W-well, it's not like I have a choice. I mean, if he asked me before he died, what could I have said or do?'

There was another pause before Ao jumped from its master's shoulder and onto the ground. It squealed as it made its way towards me once more and this time, since I was sitting down, he jumped across my legs and into my shoulder. It smoldered its cheek against mine, giggling and Yona smiled. 'It seems Ao likes Yoko-san very much.'

I stared at her confused and nodded. 'I suppose so.'