Disclaimer: The characters in this story are from Tales of Vesperia and do not belong to me.
Although the moon was only the barest sliver of a smile in the sky, the stars were bright enough to light Flynn's way out of town. He walked to the very edge of the surrounding forest, feeling the tickle of grass against his bare feet and ankles. The night smelled of earth and sweet grass and the faint, sharp chill off the mountains. Crickets sang from their hiding places, and Flynn heard the quiet rustling of unseen nocturnal creatures. Something flew past overhead, its shape lost against the darkness between the stars.
Even with only a small knife, Flynn was unafraid to wander out of sight of Aurnion. Over the past four years, his odd best friend had shown him secrets about the forest and the beasts that inhabited it that no one else knew. He never felt unsafe in the woods, wild though they were.
That night, Flynn's goal wasn't the tangled playground of the forest. He stopped just shy of the shadows gathering beneath the trees at its edge, and fell backward onto the ground. The thick grass cushioned him, tall stalks surrounding him and tickling exposed skin as he stared up at the stars. The hugeness of the night sky was dizzying, and he entertained the giddy notion that he wasn't looking up, but down into an abyss that he could fall into forever.
"You look at them, too?"
Flynn sat up, yanked out of his thoughts. Next to him, the soft grass was parting around a boy with night-dark hair that had never been so much as trimmed, and inquisitive gray eyes that would flit birdlike onto anything that caught his interest. Yuri, Flynn's closest friend and the source of slightly more laughter than fits of temper, tucked his hands behind his head. He was stretched out on his back as if he'd been there the entire time, but Flynn could see the earth shrinking away from him. It had left its mark, just like the forest always did when Yuri stepped out of a piece of it. Grasses were woven through the tangles of his hair, wheat-berries and seeds nestled amid the strands along with hunks of mica like cracked, smoky mirrors. Burrs decorated the hems of his clothing, and two lines of ants marched up the center of his shirt and around the collar like living embroidery. A field mouse crawled out from beneath a lock of Yuri's hair onto his shoulder and then into his shirt. Flynn watched the little lump move around until its feet became too ticklish and Yuri had to fish it out. He sent the creature on its way through the grass and turned to beam at Flynn.
"They're incredible, aren't they? I never get tired of them." He relaxed back into the grass, eyes taking in the star-strewn heavens. "I'd love to meet them, someday."
"Meet them?" The idea was strange enough to draw Flynn's gaze away from his friend and up to the sky. "But they aren't places. They're just little lights up in the sky."
"No. They're places." Yuri's eyes slid shut, and his voice grew soft. "I can almost hear them. They're vast, Flynn, and so old." His eyes flew open again, taking in the stars and reflecting their light with barely subdued excitement. "They're mighty."
Flynn looked back and forth, uncertainly. Yuri sounded like he knew what he was talking about, but...they were only lights, weren't they?
"We have stories about them," he offered.
Yuri's face lit up, making Flynn's heart beat a little faster. "Tell me!"
"All right." He leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows so that he could see the sky and still catch glimpses of Yuri's face. Reaching out, he pointed up at the brightest star in the sky. "That one is called Brave Vesperia. Him and his sister once saved the world..."
The wind blew cool across them, rusting the leaves of the trees, but Flynn could feel Yuri's warmth along his side. His heart calmed as he told the story. Before meeting Yuri, he'd never been so aware of the rhythms of his heartbeat. It made him smile to think that maybe that was one more thing they had in common.
Flynn had never been entirely sure what Yuri was. Although he could pass for human when he tried, Yuri was as much a human boy as Flynn was a bird. He lived in the woods surrounding Aurnion, and never went more than a few paces beyond the edge of the forest. Flynn believed him when Yuri said that it was because he physically couldn't. No one that adventurous would have voluntarily curbed his own explorations. Aside from that, there was the inexplicable habit Yuri had of stepping out of trees—not the trees as in 'the forest', but actual, individual trees—which made it pretty obvious that Flynn had made friends with a being that wore humanity like a veil.
The first time Flynn had met Yuri had been a memorable experience. At seven, Flynn wasn't afraid of anything in the woods; not the deep, shadowed gulleys or the trails that sometimes seemed to take a different path through the trees, nor the bears that roamed the densest areas of the wood or the wolves that occasionally showed themselves along the outskirts of the town. All his life, he had listened to the talk of hunters and woodsmen, and had learned to respect the forest rather than fear it. With that frame of mind, it made the most exciting playground.
One bright, summer morning, Flynn had ventured alone into the woods. He'd rambled along the path, planning on taking a swim in the river. The forest had been feeling mischievous that morning, however, and soon Flynn noticed that the path was trying to lead him around in a circle rather than straight to the river the way it usually lay.
He'd left the path without a thought. It was common knowledge in the town that the paths didn't always stay still, but most people wouldn't step off them for any enticement, particularly when they began twisting themselves around. Leaving the path was what got you lost. For all its tricks, the forest always made sure to return people to the town so long as they remained on the path.
Flynn hadn't been interested in returning to the town just yet, and he was confident enough in himself to try to make his way to the river and back without the path. He kept his eyes on the trees as he hiked, scrambling up boulders and over gnarled roots that hid nooks full of mushrooms or little pillows of thick moss. The river was nothing but the occasional whiff of chill water, barely discernible over the heady scents of earth and loam, and the bright, sweet smells of flowers and berries. Birds sang in the trees and flashed their colors as they flew through the scattered columns of sunlight that pierced the canopy. Squirrels darted up the trunks of trees, scolding him from the safety of high branches as he passed. Something big crashed through the bushes not too far from him. Flynn didn't catch a glimpse, but whatever it was hadn't had any interest in encountering a human. He pressed on, unconcerned.
The closer he got to the river, the easier it was to stay on the right track. He could hear the rush of the water and practically feel it in the air. The forest continued playing its games with him, moving around just out of sight so that he had to stop and change direction several times when he realized the river was no longer somewhere ahead of him. It began to get irksome, in the way that facing a decent challenge did. When Flynn finally broke free of the trees to find himself at the riverbank, it was with a sense of self-satisfaction. He'd won against the forest.
His victory was short-lived. Directly across the narrow river was a mother bear and her cub. She lifted her head away from the water and studied Flynn warily, trying to determine if he was a threat. Flynn stood very still. With the river between them, he hoped the bear wouldn't trouble herself with him, particularly if he didn't make any sudden moves. That voice of reason in his mind ran and hid as the mother bear reared up on her hind legs. Flynn still didn't move, but now it was because he couldn't. His legs shook but wouldn't carry him slowly backward into the forest no matter how hard he willed them to move. Eyes locked on the bear's head, Flynn didn't notice the arm reaching up out of the river until the bear dropped back down onto all four feet and stretched out her muzzle to sniff it.
Flynn's heart missed a beat. He thought for a moment that the thin, pale arm was that of someone who had fallen into the river and been swept downstream. Amazed, he watched as the bear tilted its head in order to be scratched behind the ear like a huge dog. When the hand dipped back below the surface, the bear ambled off with its cub, hardly affording Flynn a single glance.
"You're really stubborn."
The unexpected voice startled a yelp out of Flynn, and he stumbled as he whipped around. A boy Flynn's age was standing naked in the shallows only a few paces away. He cocked his head to the side, apparently curious about Flynn's small fright. Although Flynn had no idea where the boy had come from, his appearance was strange enough to put off that question.
Shoulder-length black hair thick with water was slicked to the boy's pale skin. Water flowed freely from it, running over his shoulders and cascading over his body as if he stood beneath a waterfall rather than at the edge of a river. Tiny, quicksilver fish and shadowy tadpoles rushed past within the impossible stream. The sunlight that fell through the break in the trees over the river reflected mirror-bright off the water sluicing over him and collected in patchy shadows on his shoulders and along his cheekbones and jaw. It wasn't until the boy took a step closer that Flynn could see that those odd shadows were river pebbles embedded in his skin as if they'd grown there.
"I was trying to let them finish drinking before you got here," the boy said.
He sloshed up onto the riverbank. The flow of water that had been running down his body trickled away to nothing as he came up onto dry land. The stones dropped free in ones and twos, pattering against the smooth rocks and pebbles that lined the river. By the time the boy was close enough for Flynn to get a good look at the thunderhead gray of his eyes, his shoulders and face were left only with a grainy coating of damp sand. Flynn shook his head, thinking he must have been confused earlier about the stones. He must have been too far away and still startled by the bear and the boy's sudden appearance. The boy must have fallen just before calling out and gotten the stones and sand stuck to his skin. They'd fallen loose as he had walked forward. That must have been it.
He studied Flynn with curiosity plain in his eyes. "How come you didn't stay on the path? Everyone else does."
"Because." Flynn almost left it at that, but the elderly couple that raised him had always taught him that 'because' was not a complete answer. "I wanted to come to the river."
The explanation seemed to excite the boy. He pressed closer, grinning. "You knew I was leading you in circles?"
"No." Flynn eyed him warily. How could the boy have been leading him when they'd never met? "I didn't even see you."
"That's 'cause I didn't want you to," he boasted.
Flynn crossed his arms. "But now you do?" This kid was weird.
"You seem like fun." He offered his hand and a huge smile. "Come play with me!"
Yuri was the forest. At least, that was how he tried to explain it to Flynn. He and the forest were one and the same. Although he couldn't travel beyond the stretch of the longest root or branch, within his domain he was practically a god. No one set foot in the forest without him knowing about it, and he had ways of bending the space among the trees to guide travelers away from some of the forest's more dangerous residents—as he had tried to do for Flynn on the morning they had met—or simply to return them to the town if he was feeling mischievous.
Flynn learned very quickly that Yuri had a great many strange ideas about any number of things. For instance, he regarded clothing as something that happened only to human people and put up the biggest fight against wearing the hand-me-downs Flynn brought for him. He only gave in when Flynn threatened to stop coming out to play if he didn't learn to go properly dressed. While Yuri was more slender, they were both the same height. It meant that the old clothes Flynn brought him were never quite long enough, but if Yuri noticed, he didn't care. He wore the clothes to make Flynn happy. Beyond that, they were of no use to him. He actively detested shoes and refused to so much as try them on.
Space was another concept that Yuri had a hard time getting along with properly, though Flynn had a great deal more fun with that quirk. Because Yuri and the forest were one and the same, he was always everywhere. It meant that, if Yuri wanted to be someplace else in the forest, then he simply was without all the troublesome moving around in-between. It also meant that being in a tree took on a whole new meaning when Yuri did it. Having a friend who could literally sink himself into any tree or rock or even the earth of the forest floor made for some interesting games of hide and seek.
As the months passed, Flynn lost less and less until Yuri could no more hide from him in the forest than Flynn could hide from Yuri. Somehow, he could always sense where Yuri was hiding, in much the same way that he could sense when the forest had changed around just out of sight. Flynn never got lost in the forest. He was the only person that Yuri had ever revealed his presence to, the only person that could keep up with him. That knowledge gave him a warm sense of pride. He spent nearly all of his free time in the forest. It was a second home to him.
Yuri never seemed to grow tired of their games of hide and seek. Gradually, he stopped appearing the moment Flynn entered the forest. It was up to Flynn to find him before they could go swimming together or exploring or even greet each other. Flynn was nine and feeling quite wise for his age when it finally occurred to him to ask why he had such an innate sense for the forest and Yuri's place in it.
It was a late spring day, misty with drizzle as the sun fought to shine down on the forest. Already the narrow spaces between the trees were muggy with heat and the leftover damp of a predawn storm. The moss beneath Flynn's feet squelched as he delved into the deep wood, the heart of the young forest where the trees were the oldest and furred with soft, green moss and patches of bright lichen. The light was watery and thick, alive with tiny insects that sparkled within the hazy beams where it fell brightest through the trees. In the heart of the forest, sunlight could filter in, but it rarely reached all the way to the ground. There was always a certain dimness to the forest in the deep wood, but it was the place where the forest felt most alive. Flynn could practically sense its slow rhythms of growth, decay, and the passing of seasons. More importantly on that day, he could tell that Yuri had chosen the deep wood as his hiding place.
Scrabbling over gnarled roots and half-buried boulders made slippery by their thin coating of dew and mossy growth, Flynn made his way into the deepest part of the woods. He knew without understanding how he knew it that Yuri was close. It was easier to find him elsewhere in the forest where the ground was flatter and there weren't so many obstacles to climb over or skirt around, but he knew when to pause and how to concentrate in order to find his way again. Soon enough, he found himself standing before what had to be the biggest tree in the forest. Its roots surrounded him, some of them reaching as high as his shoulder. He gazed up at the tree, grinning.
"Found you!"
"I didn't think it would be so easy here."
Though Yuri was still nowhere in sight, his voice sounded close by. A moment later, his hands appeared, stretching up straight out of one of the thickest roots near the bend where it joined the tree. Flynn watched as Yuri found purchase against root and trunk and levered himself up out of the tree. His hair was draped with a veil of tangled, curly moss. Feathers were bright spots of color and pattern, and branches stuck out at odd angles, jeweled with seeds or trailing leaves like tiny banners. Lichen fans sprouted from his wrists like lacy cuffs and tendrils of ivy hung over his chest. Birds swooped down from the trees to trill at him. A few landed on his shoulders or upon his crown, only to take flight again when Yuri jumped down off the root.
"Come on. I've got something to show you!" He grabbed Flynn's hand, only to be pulled up short when Flynn didn't move to follow. Looking back over his shoulder, Yuri cocked his head to the side quizzically.
"How come you didn't think I could find you here?" Flynn asked.
"'Cause this is the very first tree of the forest. It's where me and the rest of the trees started from."
Flynn craned his neck back to look up at the tree once more. Hand in hand with Yuri, he had an even stronger sense of its age and the life that swelled within it. That didn't exactly answer his question, however.
"But why would this make it hard to find you? I can find you everywhere else." He looked over to see Yuri regarding him with a crooked smile.
"You can find me because I have a piece of your heart. This is my heart, though." He indicated the tree. "I thought maybe if I was here, it would be harder. You know, make the game more fun."
"What do you mean you have a piece of my heart?"
"It's something Duke told me about. It means we're connected." Certainty returned to his smile and he squeezed Flynn's hand.
"Who's Duke? And how are we connected?"
"Duke's the mountains." He pointed in the direction where the forest began climbing the steep sides of the cliffs that rose up on the eastern edge of the valley. "He'd explain it better than I can, but I don't know if he'll come out if you're there. He doesn't like people."
"Why not?"
Yuri shrugged. "Don't know. He never said." He thought for a minute, frowning, then said: "He's cold."
Flynn thought of the mountains' snow-capped peaks and how Yuri's appearance changed depending on what part of the forest they were exploring. "Cold like ice?" he ventured.
"Like that, too," Yuri said. "Maybe it's because of him being mountains. I don't know. I don't have much to do with rocks." He looked troubled as he mused, then shook off the thought. "It doesn't matter. When you're in my forest, I can find you, and as long as I have part of your heart, you can find me. We're connected."
He grinned, satisfied with the confusing, bare-bones explanation, and insisted again that he had something for Flynn to see. For the time being, Flynn let it go. The idea of following Yuri on an adventure trumped his curiosity.
It wouldn't be until much later in his life that he would encounter Duke.
Flynn had a talent for drawing. He first began sketching with thin, charcoal twigs on whatever paper he could get his hands on. When he and Yuri weren't exploring the forest or chasing each other through the trees or swimming in the river, Flynn would pull out the ugly little sketchbook he'd bound together from bark and mismatched scraps of paper and draw. He sketched the trees with all their uniquely-shaped leaves, the flowers that grew along the trail or in hidden glens, the bushes offering up shining berries. He drew birds and squirrels, foxes and pheasants, lumbering badgers and nervous deer. Sometimes, Yuri would help him find animals to draw, creatures like wolves and wild cats that would normally avoid him. He was even eventually able to draw the same bear cub—almost fully grown and much larger—that he had seen on the day he had met Yuri for the first time.
He was meticulous when he drew, and did his best to learn from his mistakes. He studied details to better capture all the complexities of forest life. When the town's midwife saw his sketches, she commissioned him to illustrate an herbal which she could fill in with the healing properties of the local plants. She paid him in paper and fine charcoal pencils and an old pen and inkwell which Flynn treasured. Better still, she taught him how to mix pigments so that he could color his work. Yuri complained about the project and Flynn's new fascination with paints taking up too much of his time and attention, but he always helped find the particular plants needed for the dyes.
The only subject that Flynn had any trouble capturing on paper was Yuri. It wasn't only that his friend would almost never sit still—although that did more to teach Flynn about capturing form quickly than any of his wildlife studies ever had. It was more that Yuri possessed some quality to him that could not be sustained in charcoal or ink. No matter if Flynn drew him hanging from a tree or emerging from one, crouched unmoving over the river as he waited to catch a fish or trying to ride a wild boar, swimming, leaping, laughing, or chatting with the birds—none of the sketches of him that slowly filled Flynn's books ever came close to really capturing his spirit. Flynn wondered if that was because trying to draw Yuri would require the same effort and detail as drawing the entire forest. He had no sure answer and wasn't about to ask Yuri, so he simply kept trying, outlining features more familiar to him than his own on creamy paper and wondering what was missing.
It was Yuri who first put the idea of leaving into Flynn's mind. A golden, autumn afternoon found them climbing trees to get to the little clusters of ripe nuts that hadn't yet been plundered by squirrels. Tattered leaves in yellows, oranges, and browns were caught up in Yuri's hair along with the dangling pods of lantern plants. He fed the squirrels and alternately encouraged branches to dip closer to Flynn or teased him by urging them just out of reach. The shells of the nuts Flynn did manage to grab split open easily between his fingers—more of Yuri's magic—and he snacked gratefully.
They were close enough to the edge of the forest to look out across the golden plain and watch the sun set over the hills in the distance. As night fell, the lantern plants hanging in Yuri's hair caught the last rays of the sun and glowed with a warm, coppery light. Flynn had seen him beckon spirits out of the pods before, tiny motes of amber that flitted around his fingers and laughed like the susurrus of wind through tall grass.
That evening, Yuri let the spirits lie. He stared out across the plain, no longer even stirring the branches since Flynn had long ago filled his pockets. Tucked up against the trunk of the next tree over from Flynn's, Yuri's attention was fixed far from their home. When he spoke, his voice was so quiet that Flynn almost missed the question.
"What's beyond the forest?"
"Huh?"
"Out there." Yuri jerked his chin, indicating the plain and the hills and beyond. "Traders come through sometimes. What do they say about the places out there?"
The quiet sounds of twilight filled the space between them as Flynn thought back. The traders were of two types when it came to talking about the world outside the forest. Either they had no time for Flynn and his curiosity, or they grinned and talked to him like a child, telling him stories about cities bigger than the mountains with more people than the forest had leaves on its trees. Some of their tales were so fantastic that Flynn couldn't help but think he was being lied to. Others, however—stories about knights and monsters and magic, ruins as old as the world, oceans that filled the horizons—those stories stuck in his mind, given uncertain form by drawings and maps. Those were the stories that came back to him with Yuri's question, and he tried to patch together all the details he'd heard over the years from the various traders who had sought out the isolated town of Aurnion.
Yuri listened quietly and without comment. For him, it must have been like listening to someone describe a place they'd been to in a dream. Yuri was the forest, and forests didn't travel. He would never be able to see any more of the world than the tiny bit of it that he already knew by heart. He would never be able to leave.
He wouldn't...but Flynn could.
When Flynn was seventeen, he made the decision to leave Aurnion. It wasn't something that he discussed with Yuri beforehand. Doing so only seemed like it would have been cruel. Yuri had almost never spoken about the world beyond his forest, but every now and again Flynn would catch him gazing at it, or even staring past Flynn's shoulder at the lights of the town as he returned home in the evening. There was something achingly lonely in Yuri's eyes in moments like that, and his longing to see what else the world had to offer had taken root in Flynn.
It hadn't been an easy decision to come to. First and foremost, it felt like a betrayal of Yuri and the friendship they shared. Once the idea had been planted in Flynn's mind, however, it had grown too large a desire to contain. He needed to see the world and, as much as he hated that Yuri couldn't go with him, he had to face the fact that the difference between his human life and Yuri's existence wasn't fair to begin with. He promised himself that he would return one day with sketches and stories to share with his friend, but Flynn was resolved that he wouldn't spend the entirety of his life having seen nothing beyond the boundary of the forest around his home.
Yuri didn't take the news well.
He had never outgrown their childhood hide and seek ritual. Flynn found him hiding near the part of the wood that came up against the base of the mountains. There were caves in that area where wolves and bears made their dens, and Flynn was careful to follow his instincts past those larger openings in the rock. At last, he came to a tiny crevasse. Nothing bigger than a squirrel should have been able to fit inside, but Flynn had seen Yuri emerge from far more impossible hiding places.
"Found you." He felt a warm rush of joy that faded just as quickly as it had swelled as he watched for the first sign of Yuri's presence.
The darkness inside the crevasse shifted, and all of a sudden, Yuri was pulling himself out of a gap barely as wide as his thigh. "Would it kill you to let me win for once?"
"No, but I think it might damage your pride."
His smile was wan, but Yuri didn't seem to notice. He flowed out of the rock, hair gray with what Flynn at first mistook for dust before he realized it was actually layers of moths. They clung to two thick locks that hung down over Yuri's chest, little gray and brown wings quivering with each motion. Pale roots threaded through Yuri's hair. Glittering mica coated his cheekbones and arms, and mushrooms sprouted from his shoulders where the shadows beneath his hair changed to rich, dark earth. He grinned at Flynn as he finally stepped free and stood straight.
Over the years, Yuri had gained a certain elegance in the way the forest left its mark on him. His hair was still thick and longer than any man's Flynn had ever seen, but gone were the rats' nests of childhood. The old mischief still shone from his eyes, but he had calmed, somewhat. He had grown along with Flynn, keeping to the same height, but never quite building the broad shoulders or thicker muscles earned through hours spent tilling fields and harvesting crops. Dark and earthy, he was a magpie to Flynn's goldfinch, and he flitted across the distance between them, eyes bright as he circled Flynn.
"Where were you today? The sun's already going down."
"I had some things to attend to." Flynn took a deep breath and sighed. Best to get it out and over with. "There's something I need to tell you."
Yuri smile faltered at his tone, but he forced it back into place. "What, are they finally kicking you out of town for snoring too loud? Don't worry, Flynn. I know a nice cave you can live in. We'll just roll a boulder in front of the entrance at night so you don't scare away the bears next door." He grinned, encouraging Flynn to share the joke.
"Yuri...I'm going to leave Aurnion. I'm not sure when I'll be back."
"What do you mean, 'leave'?" He reached out to settle a hand on Flynn's shoulder, fingers curling to grip his sleeve. "This is your home."
Flynn bit his lip and nodded. It was harder to meet Yuri's eyes than it should have been, but he made himself do it. He would have felt even more the traitor if he hadn't.
"Yes, it is. But it isn't all there is to the world. I...I want to see what's out there."
"So do I, but...!" Yuri's gaze searched his. It was clear that he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Flynn...I can't go with you out there."
"I know." He saw the hurt flash across Yuri's expression, could feel it in his own heart. "I'm sorry."
"You know?" The moths in his hair trembled uneasily. "Yeah, I guess you would. Stupid me, thinking maybe you'd forgotten. But, hey, at least you remembered to tell me before running off."
"Yuri—"
When Yuri's anger came to the surface, it masked the hurt. If Flynn hadn't still felt the ache of it deep inside, he wouldn't have known it lingered. The moths erupted from their perches, dragging strands of Yuri's hair into chaotic disarray as they flew at Flynn, forcing him back a step and momentarily hiding Yuri from sight.
"What the hell are you thinking? You won't last a week out there! You don't know about how the world works or about other forests or anything!"
"Neither do you, but you'd go in a heartbeat!"
"Sure, if I had someone to watch my back! But you're just gonna take off, all alone, the mighty Flynn against the world—"
"It isn't going to be like that!"
"How do you know?"
"How do you?"
They glared at each other, seething, teeth bared. Yuri didn't look quite so human anymore, somehow. There was a wildness to his expression that reminded Flynn that his friend wasn't what he appeared, that he never had been. There was lightning in his eyes, bolts to strike up forest fires to rage and lay waste to everything in their path. The forest seemed to stir uneasily. The wind-tossed leaves sounded like cries.
Flynn drew a deep breath and tried to carry the conversation back to safer ground. "I'll be fine when I leave. You've taught me enough to manage on my own."
It was the wrong thing to say. He almost flinched at his own words as he felt how they wounded Yuri. The sensation left him off balance and wanting to retreat. He couldn't understand how it was that Yuri's emotions could pierce him as directly as his own.
"This isn't going to be as simple as you think," Yuri practically spat the words at him. "I listen to the travelers that pass through here, Flynn. That world out there doesn't sound like such a nice place. Why take such a stupid risk?"
"You're only saying it's stupid because you're stuck here. It isn't fair for you to try to make me apologize for that!"
He had to stop again in order to calm himself down. Sorting out his own feelings from Yuri's wasn't easy. It was making a hard task more difficult, and Flynn was certain he'd have done a poor enough job of it even without having to fight Yuri's anger and sense of betrayal on two fronts. He tried to offer a compromise of sorts, even knowing that it wouldn't come anywhere near to satisfying Yuri.
"Would you prefer it if I waited and left with the next trader who comes through? Someone who knows what it's like out there?"
"I'd prefer it if you didn't go!"
There was a tightness to Yuri's voice that hadn't been there a moment ago. Something was rising in Flynn's throat, something more than the hurt and the anger. He studied Yuri, seeing all the signs indicating the full extent of the turmoil in his heart: his wide eyes and the sweat that dampened his brow, the way his arms shook and how he held his fists clenched at his sides, the slight hunch of his shoulders, the way he had taken a step back. If Flynn hadn't been experiencing it himself, he never would have believed it. He had never known Yuri to feel fear.
Reaching out, Flynn took a small step forward. "What are you afraid of?"
Yuri vanished.
Flynn had never seen him disappear like that before. He had sunk into the earth, stepped behind a tree, leapt into the river, but never simply disappeared from plain sight. Try as he might to get a sense for where Yuri had gone, Flynn couldn't so much as pick a direction while still reeling from Yuri's reaction.
"Yuri? Come back! Let me explain!"
The woods were silent except for the sound of the wind through the leaves. Flynn couldn't even hear any animals moving around near him. For the first time ever, the forest seemed eerie.
He started on his way back down the path toward Aurnion, shoulders slumped and feet dragging over the dirt. That had gone about as terribly as possible. He'd expected Yuri to be upset, but not like that, definitely not to the point of being able to project his emotions the way he had. Flynn wondered how he had been able to feel what Yuri had in the first place. That had never happened before...had it? But there had been that sudden joy when Yuri had greeted him. And the loneliness he would feel when returning to Aurnion each evening. Was it possible that he had simply never noticed?
The trees thinned out and fell away from the grassy field surrounding Aurnion. Flynn stopped at the very edge of the forest and laid a hand against the rough bark of the nearest tree as he stared at his home. There was still plenty left that he needed to do before he could leave, but he couldn't bring himself to go back just yet. Instead, he turned around and headed for the heart of Yuri's forest.
Yuri didn't use any of his tricks to keep Flynn away, and Flynn didn't speculate as to why. He made his way through the deepening shadows as the sun set until he came to the forest's first tree. There, he sat down between two of the roots and made himself as comfortable as he could manage. There still hadn't been any sign of Yuri returning, but Flynn knew that if he spoke, Yuri would hear.
"Maybe it's not fair of me to want to go when you can't, but are you going to deny me the chance to see more of the world while I have the time? I'm only human, Yuri. I'm not the same as you. I won't be around to see acorns turn into hundred year oaks. I want to have an adventure. I want to do just a little something with my life before I spend it all tilling fields. I want to see what else is out there. I don't...I don't think that's wrong of me."
He fell silent, waiting for an answer that never came.
At some point, long after the stars had come out to peer like curious children down through the leaves, Flynn drifted off. He woke shortly before dawn, cold and stiff and damp with dew. There was no sign of Yuri as he made his way home, though Flynn thought he could feel him close by. Yuri's presence was a melancholy ghost that filled the forest. Flynn's only consolation was that he felt calmer than he had last night.
"I'm going back to Aurnion to pack my things," Flynn said. He spoke clearly, knowing there was no need to shout. "I would like to be able to say good bye to you properly before I leave, but even if you don't show yourself my mind is made up. I am going on this journey, Yuri."
He received no answer as he rejoined the trail that would take him back to Aurnion, but at least the animals were no longer avoiding him. He took that to be a good sign as he continued on out of the woods. Perhaps by the time he came back through, Yuri would be ready to face him and say good bye.
Although he had decided to tell only a few people about his plans, it still took Flynn longer than he had expected to say his good byes and pack the rest of his belongings. He tried to keep his satchel filled only with essentials, but along with clean clothes, food, and what little money he had, he also brought along his pencils, a new sketchbook, and his old sketchbook. The latter was thick, having been rebound multiple times to accommodate drawings as he made them. He had almost left it behind because of its weight. In the end, however, he hadn't been able to bring himself to walk out the door without that book of memories. He might be leaving, but he would carry some of his home—and some of Yuri and the forest—with him.
The forest felt no different from usual as he set out to pass through it. He had half expected Yuri to move it around and try to send him back to the town or keep him from leaving. When nothing of the sort happened, he felt ashamed for having thought so little of his friend. He knew this was hard on Yuri. He still wasn't entirely certain it was fair, but then it wasn't fair either that they hadn't been born the same.
On the other side of the forest, Flynn stopped just beneath the familiar shade of the trees. The sun was high overhead, shining down on the grass of the bordering plain that seemed to stretch much further off than Flynn remembered. The hills were a distant landmark that he would be lucky to make by nightfall. The world beyond was a mystery cloaked in a patchwork of stories from dozens of traders.
Flynn's heart hammered in his chest. He had a chance to see amazing things, but he already felt uncomfortably alone. He licked his lips and put off the moment when he would leave his current life behind.
"Yuri? I'm leaving."
Silence was his answer. For all that he'd tried to prepare himself for that response, it still stung. He turned back to the forest, searching the greens of moss and leaves, the shadows between bush and tree trunk. He had hoped that Yuri would have at least decided to see him off, but Flynn still couldn't get a sense of precisely where his friend was.
"I know you can hear me. Are you really going to keep hiding until I'm gone? I'm still your friend, Yuri. Don't I at least deserve a proper good bye?"
Nothing. The forest paid as much attention to him as Aurnion's fields or the mountain trails. Flynn waited a few, long minutes, but eventually had to accept that Yuri had made himself quite clear. The bright spring day no longer seemed quite so promising. Turning away from the forest he had grown up in, Flynn stepped out into the sunlight.
"Don't die."
The sound of Yuri's voice jerked him right back around, just in time for something to smack him in the face. Flynn made a clumsy grab for it, missed, and had to bend down to pick it up. It was a lantern plant, ripe with the spring. The berry inside the lacy, desiccated casing was a vivid orange-red. Flynn looked up, searching the forest once more for a glimpse of Yuri, but he might as well have been alone. Still, a strange send off was better than none.
"I won't," he answered. "Look after the town."
"You don't have to tell me that!"
Though snappish, Yuri's tone brought a small smile to Flynn's face. It was lacking the bitter anger of last night's argument. Flynn raised a hand to wave, started to say 'Good bye,' then thought the better of it.
"I'll come back," he promised. "When I do, I'll have drawings to show you, and stories of what the world is really like."
"You'd better. I'll find you if you don't, even if I have to cover the whole world."
"I won't make you wait that long." Finally, his eyes caught a shadow halfway up a tree that seemed just a little too dark, a bit too hard-edged. He couldn't be certain, but he smiled up at it, anyway.
"Take care of yourself, Yuri."
"I should be saying that to you. Hurry up and leave. The sooner you go, the sooner you'll be back."
Flynn nodded. The only words left were 'good bye' but it was obvious Yuri didn't want to hear that. Flynn kept his farewell to himself as he turned once more and left the forest behind.
The mountains behind Aurnion were harsh year-round, but completely unforgiving in winter, so Flynn was relieved that his journey had brought him home in mid-autumn when they would still be passable. Going around would have taken him an extra two weeks. Perhaps it wasn't all that long compared to the three and a half years he'd been gone, but he had begun feeling the days ever more keenly the closer he got to home. His eagerness to be back grew with every glimpse of the stunning autumn colors of his home valley afforded to him by the twisting path over the mountain. When he finally came to an overlook that showed him the whole of the valley containing Aurnion and Yuri's forest, Flynn's breath caught in his throat.
He hurried to the edge, gazing down over familiar places made strange by distance and perspective. There were new houses in Aurnion. Yuri's forest had been pushed back to make room for another field, but Flynn could see saplings expanding the border toward the plain and the hills on the distant horizon. He drank in the view, letting it fill him with a relief that he hadn't felt in all his time away. The world was truly an amazing place, but he was overjoyed to be home.
Wondering if Yuri could see him, if he could tell how close Flynn was, he took one more step toward the very edge of the cliff. He wasn't prepared for the grating noise of rock crumbling away or the shift of the ground underfoot. For a sickening moment, he was falling, pitching forward toward the amber valley below. His heart seized painfully in his chest.
Flynn was saved from toppling headfirst into the valley by a painfully solid grip on his arm. He was hauled back, and then that support was gone, leaving him to stumble and drop to his knees a safe distance away from the edge and its perilous drop. His heart was thundering furiously against his ribs, and he shivered as the sweat that had broken out across his skin was cooled by the autumn breeze. His legs trembled faintly as the last of his fright subsided, and he took a look at his rescuer as he picked himself up.
The man's hair was easily his most striking feature. White as the snowy peaks of the mountains, it hung in waves to his knees. His clothes had once been fine, but they were now old and faded with time, if not wear. His eyes had a reddish tint to them, and Flynn couldn't tell if that was due to the setting sun, or if it was their natural color. Although he was watching Flynn, his expression was so coldly impassive that he seemed to exude a deeper chill than the constant breeze. Something prickled in the back of Flynn's mind.
"Thank you for saving me. I'm lucky you happened to come along."
"You were foolish." The stranger's voice was much deeper than Flynn had expected. It was too old for his apparent age.
"I didn't expect the edge to give out like that. I was just—"
"You don't belong in my mountains. Go back to the forest."
"How did you know I—? Your mountains?"
A memory came to Flynn's mind: Yuri frowning over a concept he couldn't communicate.
He's cold.
Duke's the mountains.
The strange sensation that had started with the man's presence suddenly made sense. It was similar to what it felt like to be in the woods with Yuri.
"Duke."
"I see he's spoken about me." There was no indication whether he approved or disapproved or if he even cared at all.
Flynn had never met another being like Yuri. He had expected the same hallmarks of the domain to be present, but Duke had none of Yuri's wildness. He could have easily blended into just about any one of the cities Flynn had visited on his travels. While there was a sense of power about Duke, it was hard and contained, a core of ice beneath the surface. Flynn wondered if that coldness was a reflection of the mountains, a lack of fondness for dealing with a human...or if it was disapproval because Flynn had upset Yuri by leaving.
"How is he?" He couldn't keep his gaze from straying to the edge and the view of the forest below. "I mean, I'll be down to see him myself soon, but..." Glancing back to Duke, the lack of empathy sent a shiver up his spine.
"Return to the forest," Duke said. "And this time, be careful where you step. I intervened once as a courtesy to him. Should you be so foolish again, he will learn much sooner than anticipated what it means for his heart to stop."
If it was meant as a warning, it still came out sounding uncomfortably like a threat. Flynn felt his blood run cold both at the implications and the calm, matter-of-fact tone of Duke's voice.
"What do you mean?"
"Are you not aware of it?"
In one long stride, Duke moved to stand right in front of Flynn. Whereas Yuri had always been warm, standing so close to Duke was like standing next to a snowdrift. Flynn leaned back, but not before Duke raised an arm and touched the tip of a finger to his shirt directly over his heart. It felt like being poked by an icicle.
"You hold his heart. When you die, it will stop...and so will he."
With that, Duke was gone, vanishing just as abruptly as Yuri had the last time Flynn had seen him. The sense of unease he'd brought with him remained. For several minutes, Flynn stood and stared thoughtfully down at Yuri's forest, one hand pressed over his heart.
It was well past dark by the time Flynn made it down into the valley. Tired as he was, he passed by Aurnion and made his way toward the forest. More than finding a soft, warm bed for the night, he wanted to see Yuri again. All throughout his journey, he had found himself thinking of his friend: about how much Yuri would have loved rambling through unfamiliar countryside, how he would have marveled at some of the sights Flynn had seen and reveled in the adventure. Flynn had filled several sketchbooks, enough that they weighed him down uncomfortably toward the end of his journey. He had never considered leaving any of them behind, however, and had taken more care to protect them from the elements than he had for himself. Those sketchbooks, along with the stories saved in his mind, were the world he'd seen during his three and a half years away from home. He had been determined to bring all of it back for Yuri.
After so long away, slipping into the shadows beneath the trees of Yuri's forest felt like diving into an oasis in the middle of a desert. Flynn stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes. His shoulders sagged, and he very nearly let his pack fall so he could drop to the ground where he stood.
Home.
He hadn't truly understood the meaning of the word until he'd returned to it.
The forest leaned in around him, watching. Flynn could feel its attention focused on him, and he breathed in deep, glad beyond words to be back where he belonged. He walked forward, slowly, until he stood beneath a chestnut tree, its yellow leaves dim in the moonlight. Reaching out, he pressed a hand against the bark.
"Yuri?"
Glee spilled into his heart, leaving him dizzy for a moment. The feel of Yuri's presence fled, seeking out a new hiding place for their game. Suddenly no longer exhausted, Flynn dashed after him, trusting his feet to carry him safely through the forest even as his pack rocked and bounced erratically against his back. He chased Yuri through the forest, though he knew precisely where this game of hide and seek would take them.
Flynn's intuition was exactly correct. In what seemed like no time at all, he found himself out of breath and grinning as he stood beneath the first tree of Yuri's forest. He looked high up into its branches and called out: "Found you!"
"And here I was afraid you'd have grown too big for this game!"
Yuri's face appeared amid a cluster of coppery leaves. Grinning, he gathered himself from the tree, slipping free like a clinging drop of water before lowering himself to the next branch down where he sat and studied Flynn. The forest had dressed him in autumn blooms, and an otherworldly phosphorescence hung about the flowers garlanding Yuri's hair. A crown of white dahlias, almost ghostly in their translucence, sat heavily on Yuri's head, picked out with blue and violet anemones and silver-edged ferns. Reddish branches bearing small, white berries thrust up as the spines of the crown. A few of the berry branches had become tangled in Yuri's hair and winked like stars from the darkness.
"Come down," Flynn called.
"You come up here."
He held out his hands, smiling helplessly. "Please?"
Yuri didn't wait to be asked again. He slid off the branch and fell to earth, landing neatly in a crouch. He barely had time to straighten up before Flynn barreled into him, catching him up in a hug so fierce that they stumbled back against the trunk of the tree. He had caught Yuri off guard, and felt a moment of uncertainty before Yuri hugged him back just as tightly.
"It's about time you got back," Yuri mumbled.
"I'm home," Flynn said softly. He turned his head to bury his face against Yuri's hair, and breathed deeply. The scent of the forest filled him with a warm nostalgia, and he relaxed in Yuri's arms even as he clung to him.
The sound of rain pattering lightly against leaf and stone drew Flynn gently back to the waking world. He groaned softly, stiff from having spent the night huddled next to Yuri in one of the forest's empty caves. They were side by side, wrapped in a blanket from Flynn's pack. He had fallen asleep leaning against Yuri after the two of them had talked long into the night. Flynn felt like a boy again, camping out in the forest with his best friend, not a care in the world and no responsibilities to call him away. He sighed happily and resettled his cheek on Yuri's shoulder.
The crackle of brittle paper caught Flynn's attention before he could drift off again. Opening one eye to peek, he saw that Yuri had gotten into his things and was going through the sketchbooks. He smiled. He'd meant for the two of them to go through the books together, but Yuri always had been impatient. He'd have left it at that and waited to go through the books together later, but Yuri spoke up.
"I remember that!"
The sketch that had caught Yuri's attention was one of himself from years ago. Flynn had still been learning to catch details between one instant and the next back then, but this was one pose that Yuri had actually held long enough for him to get a decent start. Ancient lines of charcoal ran back and forth over themselves, building up into a suggestion of the shape of Yuri's face and the size of his grin before outlining the curve of his back and the angles of his thin arms. He was holding a flower crown that sat atop his hair, but this one hadn't been a whim of the forest.
Yuri looked up from the page, grinning the same delighted grin he'd worn back when Flynn had sketched him.
"You made me that crown. It was all flowers from the town that had come from seeds and bulbs that traders brought in—flowers that don't grow in the woods. I'd never seen flowers like those before."
He looked back down at the sketch, fingertips barely resting on the paper beside the lines of his back. Flynn had tried to finish the drawing later on but, as usual, he hadn't been able to capture Yuri accurately on paper. The flowers were bright points of color on an otherwise black and white sketch. Yuri was still studying the drawing when he said, quietly: "You drew a lot of pictures of me."
"That's my old sketchbook," Flynn said. "It was a piece of home that I took with me when I left."
Leaning heavily against Yuri's shoulder, Flynn watched as he turned the pages. More often than not, there was at least one drawing of Yuri amid the nature studies that Flynn had trained his skills with. He smiled down at the old drawings of his friend, wondering how he could have missed all the love paid to them. Going back through that old book on nights away from home—nights when he'd celebrated with new friends, nights when he'd felt utterly alone—Flynn had come to understand a little better what Yuri had meant all those years ago when he'd said that Flynn had given him a piece of his heart. He pressed a hand over his chest, feeling the steady beating, and thought that he had surely given Yuri more than just a piece.
"What happens to your kind if you give away your heart?" he asked softly.
For just a moment, Yuri stiffened beside him. He relaxed again soon enough and continued flipping through the sketchbook.
"You finally caught on?"
"I ran into Duke on my way home."
"Nosy old mountain goat," Yuri muttered without rancor. "What did he tell you?"
"He said..." Flynn hesitated, suddenly afraid to speak the thought and make it true. He rested his hand over Yuri's where he held the sketchbook open. "He said that, when I die, your heart will stop too."
"Probably." Yuri said it too casually. Flynn watched his face, but Yuri wasn't giving anything away. His eyes were glued to pencil and ink memories. "But that doesn't work the same for us as it does for humans. Even when my heart stops, the rest of me will keep going. I just...won't feel anything."
"That's—!"
"If you say anything about taking it back, I'll punch you."
"I..." He wasn't sure what else to say, and so settled for wrapping his arms around Yuri's shoulders in an awkward hug. "Why does it happen like that?"
Yuri shrugged. "Got me. Our hearts aren't really meant to beat, I think. We have our own rhythms to grow by. That's why it's so unusual for us to speak with humans. Or, at least that's what Duke told me. I talk with him, sometimes," he admitted. "Maybe it's my imagination, but he doesn't seem quite as cold as he used to."
"I didn't understand what you meant when we were children. When I met him in the mountains, though, that's what I remembered: you telling me he was cold."
"It happened to him when Elucifer was killed. Duke's been around a long time. He knows a lot, but...when his heart stopped he froze over. I think the only reason he explained it all to me is because he just doesn't care. He says he thinks maybe we freeze over so that we don't have to carry the pain."
Flynn squeezed him a little tighter. "What do you think about it?"
"I think next time I see Duke I'm going to teach him a lesson about running his mouth, the hypocrite. He's been going on about how I shouldn't associate with humans for as long as I've known him, and he just stops you for a chat?"
"Yuri. He saved my life."
"Then I'll make it a quick lesson." Yuri heaved a sigh and leaned back, letting his head fall to the side to rest against the top of Flynn's. "I didn't want you to know about all that. Partly because I don't think it'll be like Duke says. I think my kind can heal from that if we choose to. But also because I don't want you dwelling on it. What good will it do?"
"You knew all this before I left, didn't you? That's why you were so afraid for me."
Very carefully, Yuri closed the sketchbook and set it aside. Once it was safely out of the way, he lunged against Flynn, pinching wherever he could reach.
"I was afraid—"
"Hey! Yuri!"
"—because I didn't want you—"
"Cut it out!"
"—getting hurt! You idiot!"
He gave up his assault and sat up with a huff. Slowly, Flynn followed suit, straightening his clothes where Yuri had yanked them askew. He sat against the wall beside Yuri, leaving space between them, but only barely.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
Yuri nodded. "We've got two choices: make the best of what time we've got, or waste it worrying about what's going to happen when one of us is gone."
"If you'd spoken up three years ago—"
"If you aren't allowed to worry about it, I'm not allowed to hold it against you." He glanced at Flynn, and said: "I don't, you know. Hold it against you, I mean. Or regret it, or anything like that. My heart beats because of you. I've felt so much excitement, so many things that Duke closed himself off from." He leaned his head back against the stone, smiling as he revisited memories. "My heart started beating in time with yours when we were little. It hasn't stopped yet, and I hope it doesn't—not until the very end. I want to live in the same world as you. I want to experience everything I can."
Flynn studied Yuri carefully, trying to fix in memory the exact shade of his eyes, the tiny smile on his lips, the earnestness of his voice. When he finally looked away, it was to reach out for one of his sketchbooks, the ones he had filled in while thinking of Yuri and home. He had brought the world back because he'd wanted to share it with Yuri. It was one more thing they had in common.
"Would you like me to tell you about my trip?"
Yuri fixed him with a lopsided smile. "What do you think?"
They made themselves as comfortable as possible in the small cave as the rain came down harder outside. Yuri settled himself between Flynn's legs and held the sketchbook as Flynn tugged the blanket close around them. As Yuri opened to the first page of sketches, Flynn gently kissed his hair and began telling stories.