Chapter 11- A Report, Foreign Trees

The princess and her fantasmin dined on old stew in their customary, eccentric silence, and finished the last of the old stew. The mismatched tastes had dulled after a day in the pot, rendering the dish more appetising, but the loaf had gone hard in the cold, and was left largely to disintegrate at the edges of their bowls until it was soft enough to swallow. When the meal was done with, Uraraka collected their bowls and after washing them left them out to dry, then fetched and lit a lantern at the hearth. Once she was satisfied that the flame would not die in the night, she turned back to the fantasmin, which had settled to warm itself near the grate.

"Come on then, it's high time we were 'abed."

It shuffled, and cocked its head in confusion. With a sigh, she began to mime.

"'A-bed," she said slowly, putting a hand by her head like a pillow "to sleep, see?" she closed her eyes. When she blinked them back open, the ugly creature had already waddled halfway out of the kitchen.

She chuckled a little, and followed.

They passed, as usual, through the winding corridors and past countless lacquered doors as they made their way to the tower. Outside, night had fallen with the departure of the second sun, painting the halls in scratchy blackness that retreated from the princess' lantern with each step. In the dark everything that the feeble light touched seemed for an instant to jump out at them, shiny and alive, before falling back into the slumber of the old castle. Even the dust hummed quietly as they stamped new footprints into it, and the empty candle-brackets on the wall shivered and glinted.

Just as they came to the curling tower staircase, a single faint knock echoed through the halls. Uraraka stopped, turning to listen. She glanced at the fantasmin and put a finger to her lips.

Three slow, deliberate knocks reverberated through the twisting passages to ring in their ears.

"Izuku." she said, to no one in particular. And then, as if to emphasise, she said it once more, a little louder. "Izuku!"

The hand that was not holding her lantern travelled to hitch up her long skirts, and she took off back the way she had come at a flying pace. With a sigh, the fantasmin wheezed and hopped after her, its golden beak projecting strange patterns of light on the stone as it hastened to catch her.

The coloured-glass windows flashed and poured into one as she ran, illuminating and awakening for the briefest of moments before falling back asleep, and the twinkling golden hinges of the doors creaked and sang in her twinkling lantern-light. The grand doors to the Hall of Stars let off a burst of copper-blue smoke, and the woven leaves on the carpet beneath their feet rustled.

They arrived at the main door, slightly out of breath, with all of the ancient eyes in the castle upon them. If they had been listening very closely, they might have heard the stones in the wall giggling.

The princess opened the door, and there, in the freeze and murk of the night, stood sir Izuku. The snow had stopped not that long ago, and the air was finally clear, but there were still a few soft snowflakes in his curly green hair, and the top of his lantern was wet with melt. He smiled tiredly, and Uraraka could not help but smile back.

"Good evening." He said, polite as ever.

"Good evening," she replied "would you like to come in?"

XXX

They sat on the floor before the kitchen fire, with the fantasmin huddled away in a corner, and after they had laughed together about the snowstorm Midoriya finally began to talk about his patrols. He had taken the scabbard off of his belt to sit down, and turned it over nervously as he spoke.

"All in all, eleven are dead." He said "Two this morning, died of frost overnight, two in the snowstorm, three when we were patrolling the blacksmiths' quarter."

Uraraka sat silent, biting her lip and looking up at him. So Awase had died too.

"Seven in one day is a lot," he continued. "far more than I can honestly say I expected. I think even the spirits stopped being hungry after the fifth one or so; they started getting careless, leaving the ears and toes uneaten."

His hands trembled slightly around his sword. Gently, she reached out to hold them, and his field-green eyes widened.

"It's just a lot," he said, and his voice strained "I never expected this. And it's not your fault, it's no one's fault, but I never thought that this what knights did. I never- and their faces; their faces, Ochaco! How could I have known?"

She squeezed his fingers, still warm through his kidskin gloves, and tucked a strand of hair behind his ears.

"Oh, Izuku," she said, soft as her touch "You are already the best knight I could have asked for. Please, don't patrol for suitors if you don't want to. I really do appreciate all that you've done for me, but if it's too much, that's alright. You've done far too much in my service already."

Midoriya gulped. His look changed, resolute.

"How could I? You're one of my most precious friends, Ochaco; I care about you. I couldn't live if you were married miserably and I had done nothing to stop it."

"But none of this is your fault," she said "you shouldn't have to be responsible for any of this. And I care about you too, enough to wish that you did not subject yourself to such troubles."

"And why should you suffer them either?"

He freed a hand from hers and tucked one of her bangs behind her ear, returning the simple gesture.

"You talk as though your cheek isn't bruised purple, as if I wasn't there to listen to them jeer when they proposed."

"I know," she mumbled "I know, but what can I do? I do not want to marry them but I cannot kill them by my own hand!"

He placed a hand on her shoulder, steady, and looked her in the eyes.

"Iida and I will help you, no matter what."

She peered down at the hand on her shoulder and carefully prised it off. It was scarred and calloused from his days with the sword, and as she looked it over her touch seemed to say what she could not aloud: why? Why do you sacrifice yourself so? Why will you not live for yourself?

"I want to be a good knight, a hero," He said "and that means saving people. What good would I be if I could not even save my friends? If I left you with Shindo?"

"He was not… so bad."

"He was a monster." He stroked her wood-brown hair, tantalisingly gentle. "He threatened you."

And I kissed him.

The thought made her mouth fill with salt.

I kissed him, because he looked like you.

The fire crackled and cast a golden shine across his jade-coloured curls, the meadow of freckles across his nose. He saw the transformation of her gaze, and leaned close to wrap her in a hug. For a split second all that she could see was Shindo.

His back was broad and strong. He smelled of dried herbs and iron. The curls of his hair brushed her cheek so softly, so maddeningly softly. She tried to tighten her hands in his cloak, but her tongue was awash with salt like the rock of the mountain, and though her feet were grounded her stomach was starting to float inside her. Her head was spinning and her vision was blurring.

"Izuku," she mumbled "Izuku, I'm sorry, I don't feel very well."

He folded his arms back at his sides and peered at her, worried. All that she could see was the green of his eyes. Such a beautiful green.

The ground rushed up at her, and she was caught up in his arms.

"Ochako? Is everything alright?"

She laughed as a swell of nausea caught in her throat.

"I think I ate some bad skirret," she choked "I think I'm going to…"

Midoriya pulled her to lean on his shoulder and stood her up, delicately walking her to the sink where she promptly vomited. As the bitter root tumbled out of her peeling lips and her teeth twinged with acid, and her rotten, guilty insides churned, still he kept his eyes steady on hers, and that warm hand on her back, and that infuriatingly kind smile on his lips.

Gods, how she had wanted to kiss them.

Finally she was able to gulp down a cup of ice cold water and steady herself.

"Are you feeling up to scratch again?"

"Just about," she laughed, and she tried her best to cement the lie "gosh, I should really watch how I cook my stews."

They chuckled together. Midoriya took his hand from her back and used it to nervously rub his neck.

"Try to make sure you buy skirret fresh next time. I know that its flavour can really enhance what would otherwise be a mediocre stew, but the risk trade-off with your potential unwellness after eating it is significant. Perhaps you should…" he stopped, having caught himself rambling. "Sorry, well, um, I think I should be heading off now. The night's getting on a bit. Will you be fine on your own?"

"Yes, and thank you for thinking of me… But listen, I never finished my point from earlier. Please don't run away before I can finish. I know that you want to be a hero, and I admire it, more than you can possibly imagine, but you can't simply put your feelings aside to pursue that aim. If being a hero is about saving people, then you must first save yourself. I'm so grateful that you've helped me all this time, but I would give it up in an instant if I knew that it hurt you. Please, promise me that you'll take care of yourself."

He smiled, soft and weary.

"Thank you, I will."

He turned to walk to the door, and she accompanied him. Just as she handed him his lantern, and opened the door to let him out, a thought popped into her head.

"Have you talked to Shoto yet today?"

"No." There was a sickening sweetness to the twist of his eyebrows "Why?"

"He had the dream last night. I think you should go to him."

He wrapped his cloak tight and waved her goodbye, just a little too quickly, a little too excitedly.

"I will, then. Goodnight!"

Uraraka watched the glow of his lantern disappear into the night with a sigh. Absent-mindedly, a hand travelled to her stomach, and she felt how empty it was.

It was what she deserved. The heart inside her was as a rotting pear, blackened and crumbling, disgusting even to herself. How could she dare to be jealous, possessive? He had been nothing but kind and forgiving and she had had the gall to think he had caused her to kiss a stranger. No, all of it had been her fault, and now Shindo lay dead, and Midoriya was walking into somebody else's embrace.

She shivered and shut the door.

XXX

Uraraka lay in the centre of her circular room, all curled up on the carpet, and stared at the ceiling. Though the lantern sat on the floor by her head, spilling orange light on her scattered acorn hair, the whole place still felt all full up of cold and of dark. She could feel the stone beneath her back soak up her heat, and all around her the furniture was leaving elongated, unfamiliar shadows, and for one reason or another, she did not feel at home.

She rolled over with a sigh, noticing after a moment that the fantasmin was watching her from its usual spot behind the wardrobe. Its ruby red stare was as untraceable as always, and left a little knot of inexplicable guilt at the bottom of her empty stomach. It was judging her. She rolled over again to escape its eyes, and unfurled a little.

She needed to weave. She had known it all day, and all of yesterday, and perhaps, just a little, even the day before. If she did not weave, then she would have nothing to sell. If she had nothing to sell, she would have no money, and if she had no money, she would starve. But inspiration was not coming to her as fast as she would like.

She could not make a large tapestry as she had last time, because she didn't have enough of any one colour of thread, and besides, who would buy such an extravagant thing right after a famine? She could not weave finely enough to make a pair of gloves, nor intricately enough for flags. What was left? Her area of expertise lay in repeating patterns, but how could she show her true skills on such a small scale?

She felt lazily around her head for the spools of thread that she had taken from the loom, and with a minute burst of magic sent each one floating just above her head. She stared up at them, hoping that the sight would spark some sort of idea.

What could she make? With a wave of her fingers, she set the bobbins rotating about each other, spinning off until they formed a wobbly circle. Her eyes roamed over their colours, a juddering gradient from chestnut brown to sapphire blue by way of kumquat orange and egg yolk yellow, and squinted. She cocked her head, thinking, then pushed herself to sit up.

"Did your master ever…" she turned to the fantasmin, and then back to the floating string "No, of course, he's from Abrassa." The princess had come upon an idea.

Yaoyorozu and Todoroki had come up the mountain, two years ago, in the middle of sleepy autumn. It was quite a shock to them to see how different the seasons were in Lasandu, and even with the business of building their house and setting up their store, Yaoyorozu had found the time to confide in Uraraka about her homesickness and anxieties.

What she had missed the most at the time were the Onirian trees. The princess could not understand it at first, and did not even pretend to, but to the tall black-haired girl they were what made her new home unbearable. In Onirus, she had explained, the trees were short and twisted, their bark curving like the meanders of a river, and their branches boughed warmly over you as you passed by. Their leaves were flat and wide, sometimes shaped like a hand, or a bell, or any number of sun-dappled shapes, and each had their own ancient name: ging-ko, sho-fu. Each tree had its own spirit, and was venerated in its own right; if you placed your palm upon its trunk you might ask for advice or say a prayer.

But in Lasandu, trees had no such significance. The top of the mountain was bare, and it was only in the valley that they grew, closed-packed and disarrayed. They were the homes of wolves and wood-peckers, growing tall and straight as if to smother the sun, unloved and untouched by human hands. They had not leaves, but needles, that poked and prodded as you walked, and they were as dark and as green as a stagnant lily pond. No one knew the names of the trees, no one prayed to them or left them little gifts. There was nothing sacred in a pine. A tree was a tree, and perhaps a source of wood, but its importance stopped there.

What she missed dearly, she had sobbed, was not the spirituality of the trees, or their gentle aged gnarls, but their colour. In Onirus the leaves turned for autumn, morphing into the colour of sunset as if the gods had set them ablaze, and the whole world seemed to spin into a warm swirl of gold and red. At the end of the season, the leaves would fall, dry and crisp, and once they had been swept away and the branches like primeval fingers lay bare, you knew that winter was coming. The spectacular show of the trees was as a final farewell to summer.

In Lasandu, winter creeped in without warning. The spiked trees were ivy green all year around, watched the seasons pass with disdain. Had the divine touch of the gods never reached this land? What act of hubris had the trees committed to bring such a terrible fate upon themselves?

And Uraraka had patted her on the back, and reassured her that in time she would come to see the trees as another insignificant feature of the land, but the image of the trees with leaves like fire stayed firm at the back of her mind. Sometimes, to amuse herself, she would picture the valley turning golden for a day, or fantasise about running her fingers through the ridges of the tree bark.

Now, she held the picture firmly in her mind as she tied the threads together in a knot and set about weaving. With another pale burst of magic, she sent them dancing around each other in circles, forming a small, round disk of colour before weaving in the pattern of swaying trees. She picked up pace with each newly rendered leaf as the circle expanded outwards, and the bobbins in the air before her blurred through the cold. Finally, she had a circular mat about the size of her head that depicted three Onirian trees (or her presumption of their appearance); one green, one yellow, and one red.

She huffed with satisfaction. She could sell it as a pot-rest, for a reasonable price, and buy herself at least a few more days of living. It was the kind of thing that everyone needed, and that she imagined would be far easier to sell than a tapestry. Besides, they were easy to make, and they could use up the meagre remains of her thread.

She gleefully fetched the other near-finished stubs of thread. She called out to the fantasmin in its corner, which had taken an interest in her artistic workings.

"Won't you please sing me something nice as I work? It will go faster with a little entertainment, and then you can sleep in peace."

It wiggled out of its crook and clicked its neck from side to side, warming up. It had that odd, jerking mannerism common to birds, in which there appears to be no transition between poses, only a quick flickering of small adjustments in one muscle or another. For a moment, despite its hulking size, its hunch, the manginess of its sparse feathers, the princess saw what could have made it fetching.

It creaked open its great beak, and began to whistle. Uraraka recognised the tune immediately.

'Earth Mother, he loves another,

Whatever shall I do?

Come summertime, the sun shall shine,

And I shall love anew'

"So you remember it." She said, with a smile. "How terribly fitting. Summertime couldn't come too soon."

It whistled on, transitioning to the song that Mina had been singing at the washer's well. She resumed her weaving, creating a miniature, circular forest until all of her thread was gone. When she was done, she piled the pot-rests on top of each other by the loom and stood, stretching.

The fantasmin took this as a sign that it could stop, and shuffled back to its resting place. It folded even smaller into itself and closed its eyes. Uraraka watched it with a smile.

"Goodnight," she whispered "sweet dreams."

She clicked over to her wardrobe and quietly hop-step-jumped into her nightdress, put the weighty door bolt in place, and pulled her curtains closed. The covers lay pleasantly heavy over her chest, and the pillow beneath her head was impossibly soft. She slipped without resistance into sleep.

XXX

In the dead of night, with the lantern light bathing the sheets in orange, Uraraka's eyes opened. There was a boy's head on the pillow across from her. A boy with spiky blonde hair and piercing red eyes.