In the quaint village of Imore, nestled between mountains and trees, lamps lit as the sun began to set.
Heavenly smells cascading down the mountain had become the nightly norm since the baker began experimenting with sweets. All through the valley the air was filled with scents both savory and sweet.
Korin stood within the heart of the haze. Heat carried up her spine from the ovens, little beads of sweat pilling on the surface of pallid skin. She ran the back of her arm across her forehead with a huff.
A wandering eye drew her attention as it followed her through the doorway leading to the storefront.
Today it was Anise. The brass woman loved to stare, especially at Korin.
A thin eye followed her as she carried trays of knotted buns toward the oven. It didn't stray when she set the tray down to retrieve another and then a third. She did her best to ignore the older woman. Keeping her focus on her tasks while the itch of being looked upon festered on her skin.
It was never a nice look with any of the gawkers. Judgment, malicious curiosity, and skepticism most common in their expressions.
She slid the final tray into the oven and met Anise's stare.
A little sneer pulled at the woman's lip and she took a hesitant step away. Anise didn't live this far up the mountain and was not quite as used to catching glimpses of the baker's assistant.
Korin closed her eyes and gave a tiny bow of her head.
"Anise." The baker called out.
"You make sure you watch that woman, right Etan?" She snapped.
Korin turned, letting the conversation burn away in favor of the crackle of fire within the ovens.
For twelve years she had worked in the back.
Without fail or absence she had gone about her duties in methodical and rhythmic procedure. Measuring flour, kneading dough, manning ovens. Measuring flour, kneading dough, manning ovens.
Collecting stares.
Day in and day out.
She did her best to quell their uncertainty. Etan and her father taught her to be polite and to ignore their antics.
It sort of worked. She would quietly concede, bow over just for the sake of peace. Just as she was taught.
When he first hired her the village practically stormed the bakery. They believed she was cursed, or evil at least- for those who had left behind superstition and myth. They cried of witchcraft and poisonings. Paranoid she would hurt them in some way through the bread.
The council and elders had to arrive to mediate the situation. It was made clear that she would have to serve the community in some way eventually.
The villagers apparently didn't like the concept of her freeloading more than they feared her.
She picked at dried flour beneath her fingernails. It flaked and chipped away, clinging to her apron as it fell.
She'd lived here her whole life. These people knew her and her family. Anise had held her as an infant. And yet, when devastation struck it lingered in their mind and hearts, refusing to fade away. Her father became a servant of the community. Not so outwardly, but an unspoken agreement that he would pay for their fear of her.
And Korin? Nobody wanted to see her at all, but since she wasn't going anywhere, and there was nowhere else she could work, she was shut in the back of the bakery.
A careful balance of pretending she didn't exist mixed with the knowledge that she did, and everyone just sort of uneasily assimilated. Some would stare, others would slink away, hardly no one addressed her directly.
There was a peace to it, if she looked at it a certain way.
A shuffle and a creak came from the front and she had just enough time to see Etan close the door.
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Cautiously the tray was slotted into the cooling rack. It was the last batch of the evening and she ensured that they were safely tucked away. Draped over with a large waxed sheet, they'd be served to the miners in their early morning commute.
"Alright Etan. Everything is finished."
The baker stood over the stove, a small pot with boiling sweet liquid rumbling inside. He was a large man with barrels for arms and legs. Deep brown hair thickly crowned a square head with a sparkling pair of eyes set atop doughy cheeks. A bowl of flour was secured in the crook of one of his arms.
"Good work!" He smiled, voice loud and jovial. It had not always been so. When he had first offered her the job he addressed her with hesitancy. Over the years that had faded.
"I'm going to teach Mikhail the cleanup procedures tonight so don't worry about any messes." He turned back towards his pot of mysterious liquid, his brow furrowing deeply.
The liquid began to steam and rise and right before it broke over the edge he swiftly whisked it from the burner. "Perfect." His face relaxed and he waggled his eyebrows with a grin.
His new obsession had been experimenting with cookies, cakes, and pastries- desserts from the great continent. New treats to the people of the isolated country of Ipahn, whose sweets revolved around fruits, compound syrups, and nuts.
Tomorrow there would be something awaiting a taste test.
Pouring the hot liquid into his floury mixture, he bid Korin a goodnight.
She removed her apron. Hung it on a hook whose finish had worn away from years of use. Grabbed a loaf of bread for her and her father, and stepped out the back door.
The night was quiet, behind the bakery already dim in the shadow of the mountain. She took a moment to stretch in the cooling air. The breeze relieved a bit of the oven fever.
Another day the same as every one before it.
"Already finished?"
She flinched.
Actually, it hadn't been entirely the same for the last week.
Mikhail approached, swing in his hip and a basket of bread in hand.
He was from across the seas. Probably someone of importance with how he carried himself, not that it mattered when in Ipahn.
He was tall, lean, and sun kissed with illustrious pale hair that curled down his back. Soft facial features were only offset by thick eyebrows that, in contrast to his hair, were a deep brown. It was masculine beauty that lacked the rough edges of heroes, reserved for courtesans and muses captured in marble by their lovers.
He was pretty and his charismatic nature put Korin ill at ease. She'd done her best to avoid the new delivery man. This was the first time he'd caught her off guard.
She nodded. "I am."
"You live up the mountain, right? I have a delivery to make at the tavern. Let's go together!" His grin was open and easily gave, pearly squares packed around slightly pointed canines.
So far he reminded her of a dog. One with silky golden hair and hints of pedigree and pampered lineages. Deceptively not eager to please or well trained, but the kind of dog that would chew up your favorite shoes and drag you around on walks, doing whatever the hell it wanted. Spoiled rotten. What a shepherd or a farmer would consider a 'bad dog'.
She watched Etan train him on the most mundane of tasks. And he'd make an inevitable mistake and he'd grin and apologize and bow his head through it all. A momentary shamed pup with the gal to smile about his messes.
But even dogs avoided her and she found him weird.
"Oh, O-"-
"Perfect! Just let me grab the last basket." He cut her off, and before she knew it he was shoving the basket he held into her.
He scrambled inside to get the last one before something out with a breathless smile. "Alright. Let's go get Elly harnessed."
She was going to say no. A silent sigh and Korin followed awkwardly as he charged ahead.
.
The creature to be harnessed was some mix between a lizard and a wolf. With pale brown scales and slickened black hair that decorated its nape and paws. The beast's back stood well above her waist, with legs almost comical in length. Balancing on large and heavy paws, its toes tipped in thick black claws. An animal from the great continent which he called a waterwolf. An aquatic species endemic to the marshes of the provinces. It stood perfectly still, allowing itself to be strapped in.
He affectionately pat its head before catching sight of Korin and waving her closer. "This is Elly." He introduced the woman to his pet.
With the sound of her name, a long tail boasting a tuft of blackened fur on its tip, spun wildly. "Whhiiiooop, wo-wo-whhioop!," funny chirps sung praises from its gullet.
"Good girl," he cooed at the creature. "Do you want to pet her?"
She shared a moment of eye contact with the animal, whose large yellow eyes were only a shade darker than her own. They observed her with quiet caution, a manic worry slowly filling their depths. Korin dropped her gaze.
Animals had never been particularly partial to her.
She slowly shook her head, an uncomfortable pressure settling in her solar plexus.
The man's smile didn't falter, he only replied in good spirits, "That's okay! Waterwolves can be quite frightening to those who've never interacted with them before."
His words were kind and his smile was standard but his eyes lingered, rims tightening caught in beams of afternoon sun..
This was the first she felt indirect suspicion, a little feeling of unknown origins, a tick, a wheel turning. It all started with a strange discomfort.
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The two walked in an awkward silence. The rhythmic rattle of the cart accompanied by the occasional chirping of birds and then Elly; who seemed to reply to their tweets.
Korin fidgeted with the hem of her shirt and thought of whether she should say something or not. The woman had had no practice in starting conversations. It was strange enough that he wanted to be around her and it had odd sparks of heat filling her throat. She coughed into her hand to attempt to rid herself of the feeling.
" How…" She finally broke the silence. " How are you fairing with your work?" Her voice was stiff. Her limbs glued to her sides, leaning just a little away, keeping a distance not to close or too far.
"I find that I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit!" He did a little skip, his limbs carrying him forward with a swaying grace as they went along.
"Mm. That's good to hear." Korin replied.
"I must admit, I've never done this kind of work before."
There had been no need for his admission, it was incredibly apparent.
"I'm still adjusting to the Ipahnish way of life. But the customers seem to be happy with my delivery efforts." His pretty smile tightened. "At first everyone was a bit chatty but that's fading now."
.
"Ah, I see." She wore her typical stony expression, and made no further comment for a moment.
He had heard quite a bit about Korin in his first weeks in the village. Unusually gossipy citizens held the story at the tip of every tongue. And when he started working with her at the bakery, anyone who knew had questions. Mikhails' approachable personality attracted the interrogators. It had been tedious and he had shrugged off questions and gossip with some ease, citing her as simply introverted. Then he'd quickly move the conversation away from such matters.
He truly didn't know much of her. She was always fluttering around. Had habits of running off or turning just slightly away from her viewer. Walking with her now Mikhail saw her close and steady for the first time.
The last rays of the setting sun were absorbed by tar colored hair that sucked up the light. She possessed an unmistakably Ipahnish face decorated in little moles, the darkest sitting above a pair of impassive lips. There was something dreary about the way Korin looked. Like she was caught at the scene of her crime, unblinkingly calm about her transgression. It was an uncanny and feral rawness that oozed from large eyes the color of yellow moons. She reminded him of an owl; direct, commanding, hypnotic with ill omens laced in her feathers.
"I'm sure they were very curious about me. I'm sorry if it's been a bother." What he left unspoken did not slip past her notice.
He hummed, cart clicking over stone and a soft wind swirled through the trees. He found that the most bizarre aspect of her character wasn't her owlish appearance or her eerie calm, but an undeniable ominous feeling that stickily clung to the air around her. It only further amplified her already odd appearance.
He watched as the people who strayed too close stole looks, grasping at their arms and awkwardly shuffling. Their eyes rolling about, looking for an escape. And not just people, but the very world she walked in seemed to hush in her presence and scramble out of the way. He felt it now- a permeating anxiety that sunk into the bones; an unidentifiable and unreachable itch.
He was honestly surprised Elly had reacted so calmly.
She continued to look up at him, a mystery of emotion beneath the surface of her eyes and then they left him to focus ahead. No longer offering hints. He parted and closed his lips a few times wondering where to continue. "Can I ask," he continued softly, "if perhaps you'd share?"
.
A question out of line. She was thinking of the naughty dog again, doing what it wanted and tearing things up. He'd heard this story before but he was asking for it from the source. He was smashing apart the pre established social etiquette and hierarchy of the village.
He steadily watched until she finally let out a long breath.
A slim hand lifted to her head, taking strands of black hair between her fingers, she began to rub and twirl them together in a mindless rhythm.
"As a child I got lost in the forest one day...suffered some from some kind of head injury that put me in a coma and gave me amnesia… I don't really remember anything from before or during that time." She continued looking ahead, her steady pace never faltering. "The effects of the injury have been longstanding and the amnesia remains to this day."
She was vaguely aware that she had been a happy and healthy child. There were the faded memories of her parents lovingly embracing one another, the smells and warmth of a house that sheltered a family, the brisk air of the morning, small white flowers clutched in her tiny first, and sounds of a lazy creek she'd always splash through.
But that was it. Her next earliest memory was opening crusted and dry eyes. Everything looked washed out and she was alone. The warmth of the home she could barely recall was gone and there was no one there to greet her. She'd laid in bed for a long time before her mother came and found her staring at nothing.
"You got lost in the forest?" Mikhail interrupted her momentary reminiscing, prompting her to continue.
"Yeah." She confirmed. "A couple days later a search party found me unconscious four mountains over. I didn't wake up for three moons. But eventually when I did, everyone thought I had been cursed by the forest." It was always a little odd to recount for her. The memories were so few and the details so vague that it was unfulfilling to the listener. People brave enough to ask wanted a story that she just couldn't deliver.
"Cursed?"
"Yes, because my body appeared in fine health despite my coma." Korin nodded, still fidgeting with her hair. She was not oblivious enough to not see the effect she had on her community. Her every action hinged on the fact that she was very aware.
She did not feel cursed. Perhaps sometimes awkward, yet the people around her always reacted in the same uncomfortable manner. "Despite the lack of religious practices, remnants of old belief systems still remain. The Ipahnish, especially in these rural parts, can be a superstitious people. We have various myths and legends surrounding trees and forests. It is believed that children who get lost in the forest are kidnapped, possessed, or even traded with evil entities that reside in them. Gods of plants and mushrooms.
"There were no signs of injury, some of the villagers found my healthy state suspicious and demanded answers and action."
"Since it had caused enough of a disturbance of peace, I was banned from entering the valley." Mikhail looked down at her quizzically so she added, "They quelled the superstitious by having me remain higher up on the mountain so my spirit is closer to the great cosmos. That way I will remain as unsullied as possible by the evils of mortal existence." She took a moment to wave her hand, as if brushing away something before continuing to twirl her hair. "It isn't too bad though. I like the mountain."
.
Mikhail had heard this story in gossip from more mouths than he could count on his fingers and yet her own retelling was the most disembodied.
The villagers told it like some superstitious myth, bedazzled and embellished for effect. Korin told it flat and straightforward, like it was just some fact and she didn't even care that it was happening to her.
She wrapped up her explanation, no sadness or resentment toward her fellow community members.
Mikhail wondered if her odd monotony was a product of protecting herself from their judgment and fear.
One full mooned look, pupils pin thin, and he was reminded that an owl was a bird of prey. And for the briefest moment, wine swirled in her irises, aglow in the orange setting sun.
Perhaps it was an unconscious mechanism of whatever horrible thing gave way to the uncomfortable aura that shrouded her. That itch.
Mikhail let out a silent sigh and a smile easily spread across his face. "Well you seem pretty normal to me." He playfully nudged her with his shoulder, causing her to stumble before quickly righting herself.
She gave him a look and Mikhail was quickly catching onto just how much the stoic woman could communicate in her eyes alone. A mystery in her swimming irises partially deciphered by the snaps and clicks of where and how her gaze settled.
Mikhail continued to wear his smile as the two carried on, the waterwolf pulling the softly clanking bread cart behind them. They settled into an unexpectedly more comfortable silence, each unknowingly sharing similar puzzled thoughts of the other.