The path ahead is dry and dusty, worn in by the pounding of countless feet over innumerable decades. People have walked this path since the city’s founding, and likely long before, as well. The forest trees part for us, the grasses and ferns do not hinder us, and not even a low branch slows our way as we, the hunters, rush out toward our prey.

A magical wind pushes at our backs, guiding our feet onward. Those who lead the hunt seem the most invigorated but even at the back of the pack, I can feel its effects drawing me in. Dark shadows linger at the edge of sight, invisible to the reckless hunters drawn deeper into the forest.

Magic draws us in, pulling and pushing us onwards. Does anyone know the reason why? Can we trust in this power that draws us into the forest?

If Fate were with us, she wouldn’t question it. I’m sure the magic would bring a skip to her step. Her silly smile comes to mind as the trees race by, and the birds lilting songs remind me of the lilting songs she sings as she stirs stew over a campfire.

Have I become so affected by her presence?

I race a little faster to keep ahead of the shadows, but a burden heavy on my shoulders would slow me down as solitude brings back thoughts of duty. The one task that I wish to see done before the end of everything.

“What’s the meaning of love?” I ask Sable, as she keeps apace with me. It’s something important to Fate, but I don’t fully understand why.

The long-haired young hunter trips over her own feet as she hears me, and I have to quickly dodge to the side to avoid getting caught up in her stumble. Straightening out her hair, she looks back at me with a tense smile.

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s a distraction, isn’t it?” I say. “People should be out hunting, farming, or making things, not stewing in silly emotions.”

“Well, I’m glad that we still feel love and don’t just live for work,” Sable chuckles to herself. “I think it’s so that we don’t go mad. Wouldn’t life be lonely without someone to love, without family?”

My hand reaches for my bag without any thought of my own. Bones that weigh more for the memories of what couldn’t be.

The sun still beats down on me through the thin canopy above, and sand still manages to hide in the seams of my boots even after this much time away. In many ways, we never actually left the desert.

I just have to find some quiet place to find some rest, that’s my task. It’s my reason to live. I know that I shouldn’t let myself be distracted by silly thoughts and feelings, but Fate has forced her way into my mind.

“It’s thrilling, isn’t it?” Sable says, drifting closer. “You’ve never hunted a boar before, have you?”

“No, what do I need to know?”

“Stay away from its tusks,” she says, nodding seriously as she considers her words.

There’s a cheerfulness to her that reminds me a little of Fate, the wind at her back stirs her long hair as she gazes off into a far distant future that I’m blind to. I’m not sure what to think of her considering it’s a bloody hunt that we’re chasing so cheerfully.

“We’ll surround it and wear it down with spears and arrows.” She says, “If it charges, you get out of the way and don’t try hiding behind trees either, that’ll get you got. Stay with me, and I’ll make sure you’re never in any danger.”

I nod in quiet approval. I know from hunting in the desert that the one thing that will keep you alive is knowing your prey. I’m one of the few people who can hunt in that damned place, but it’s not because I’m special. It’s because I know how the monsters there move, and I know how to hurt them.

I’m unfamiliar with boars, however.

“You’re fit,” Sable says, looking me up and down before focusing on my face.

“I am,” I reply. I don’t really know how I’m supposed to respond to a comment like that, should I return the compliment?

“That’s good,” Sable says, her voice a little weak as she lets the topic die.

By noble standards, I’ve put my foot in my mouth, but then again, those standards would have Sable cut down for impropriety. I’m sure that we’re both glad for a little awkwardness instead.

“Boar! Boar! Ahead!” The shout carries through the hunters ahead of us, and we are ready to face the beast.

~~ Fate

“Is this your order?” I set down the eggs and pork cutlets before the young man.

“Thank you, the extra smile makes it that much sweeter,” he says with a playful smirk, his eyes sparkling bright.

“Well, I hope it goes well with the chilli sauce. Be careful, it’s hotter than most people are prepared for.” I warn him happily, heading back to the kitchen for the next dish.

The people here are largely well behaved and those who take it too far are reined in by the others. Those with the purple eye mark on their clothes take it the most seriously, but unlike the grumpy guards I grew up around, these people do it with enthusiasm.

“Do you think they’re safe?” I ask Lucette the moment business slows down a bit. A young woman plays the harmonica on a stage that’s still being set up, serving as entertainment for everyone gathering at the tables.

“They’re fine,” Lucette says. “I’d trust Sable more than anyone alive. Your pretty little lover will come back to us safe and sound. Maybe you should be more worried that she’ll be charmed by one of our fine hunters?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I say chuckling to myself as I think of her. She’s so stuck in her own mind sometimes that she just doesn’t notice the intents of those around her. She’s guarded against ill intentions but doesn’t seem interested in anything else.

“You’re too confident in yourself,” Lucette says. “It would help to be a little more worried about her.”

“I am worried about her,” I say. “I know that she hunts beasts in the desert, and I’ve seen her fighting bandits before, but I’m still worried that she might get hurt. That she might…”

“What’s that?”

“I’m worried that she might find somewhere beautiful without me,” I say.

“That’s a strange thing to worry about.”

“It’s nothing, just forget about it.”

“Still, it sounds like Sable really does have a habit of crushing on the wrong girls,” Lucette says.

“You think Sable will try going for her?”

“Don’t worry, he’s a gentleman. He’ll try to charm her, but he won’t take things too far or anything.”

“Sorry, ‘he’?” I ask.

“Ah, yeah.” She chuckles to herself. “He’s got more feminine charm than most women, right?”

“You’re not joking, right? Are you sure she’s a ‘he’?” I ask. “Like, sure, sure?”

“Ah, that’s why we usually avoid the topic,” Lucette says, with a difficult expression passing over her face. “He doesn’t really like talking about it, and it seems rude to talk about it behind his back. That said, he is definitely a guy.”

“But he’s…” Everything about Sable makes him seem like a girl, but now that I think about it, his chest is rather flat. Still…

“No one really knows why he’s like that. It could be magic, a curse, or his mother’s blood could just be really strong. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Sable is Sable.”

“I guess so.”

I’m not all that interested in whispering about people behind their backs, and I’ve no interest in the content of Sable’s pants one way or the other. I don’t think it’ll affect Hopes feelings either way.

It shouldn’t.

I doubt anything would happen on this hunt to change their relationship.

Lucette rushes off with an order, laughing at some awkward joke from a group of young men. The way she handles it and plays along so easily speaks of her experience as a waitress, she really does enjoy this.

“Lucette, how would you make someone fall in love with you?” I ask.

“Excuse me?” She asks, raising a brow.

“Hope, I have less than a year to make her fall in love, otherwise…” I shake the very idea from my head. “Let’s just say that I’m selfish and want her to love me. What can I do?”

“She hasn’t already fallen for you? From what you’ve said, you’ve gone a few steps past that.”

“There’s a difference between this and that,” I say. “A distance between us, even when… you know. We’re travel companions playing at love. I want us to be more than that.”

“It sounds to me like you’re gloating,” Lucette laughs at me. “If you want to plan a date and get the attention of your lover, then you don’t need to worry too much.”

Her smirk tells me that she already has something in mind.

“Why’s that?”

“This festival, well every festival, has a love test, or trial, or game, or something to weasel the coins from the lovestruck couples. You didn’t have that back where you’re from?”

“Ah, that could be fun.”

“Good, because you’re participating.” Lucette’s smile proves that she’s hiding something from me, but it seems to me like it might be better if I don’t press on the details. I doubt she’d do anything dangerous.

“What should I do?” I ask.

“When they come back with the boar and we get it cooking, you’ll have to challenge Hope to the trial of the moons,” she says. “I’ll get everything ready, just make the announcement nice and loud for me.”

“Now I’m getting excited wondering what sort of game this is,” I say, smiling at the thought. I haven’t done anything like this since I was a kid, and I’ve missed the fun of it.

“Hope will like it, won’t she?” I wonder, thinking of the girl. If she comes back wounded, I’ll have to take good care of her until she’s better again.

To distract myself, I turn back to the ancient script I’ve been working through translating. I haven’t found anything useful yet, but I already know where we’re going next. I’m sure they had a way to save us from the end of the world.

~~ Hope

The boar trembles in rage, enough bloodied spears and arrows sticking out from its thick hide that it looks like a massive hedgehog, but for the terrible tusks that grow from its face.

It snorts loud as it charges a young man, kicking up chunks of dirt and tearing through the small gap between trees. The hunter runs into a thicker part of the forest, barely escaping the massive tusks that are pulled up and around the nearest tree, tearing it down and onto the boy.

Spears thrust into the beast’s side before it pulls back, trying to catch the hunters with its savage tusks. It’s slowed down since the fight began, its breathing has become heavy as foam spills from its lips.

It struggles to live, even as the world would tear it down to the ground, but it will lose. Old scars tell the story of a dozen fights that this tremendous creature has survived, but this time is different. It will fall and die, no matter how hard it fights.

It’s the same for us.

I meet the boar’s wild eyes and it huffs a desperate breath. We stand frozen in the moment, and slowly realization takes the beast. It sees its own end.

It gives in.

The hunt continues, but the beast’s movements are nothing more than dying instincts. Responses that it’s trained into its flesh over years, now pointless.

Sable looses the last shot, piercing the beast’s thick hide with an arrow the length of a short spear. The shot must hit the boar’s heart because it finally falls dead, the empty eyes becoming still.

The pain is gone.

All worries, gone.

By the side of a gurgling creek, the giant boar comes to rest.

I retreat as the others remove the spears and arrows from the corpse and get ready to move it. It’s too big to be carried, but we have donkeys and a large wagon that barely manages to fit between trees. Lifting it to the wagon, and then getting the overburdened wagon free of the forest will be a challenge just as nasty as the hunt itself.

Sable is leading the effort with some of her friends, even the injured young man, nearly crushed by a tree, joins in the cheerful efforts. Is this what a successful hunt is supposed to be like? Happy? Cheerful?

The quiet bubbling of the stream takes me away as the dappled sunlight shines through the silent forest. There are rocks strewn throughout the bottom of the creek, and a few small fish, about the size of a fingernail, swimming against the current.

Fallen leaves drift atop the water before drifting ashore or getting stuck on rocks that pierce the surface of the flowing water.

There was a spot like this just behind the castle I grew up in. My sister and I would frequently hide away back there, though I haven’t thought of it in a long, long time. We could talk there free of any servants and their curious ears, it was an important place to us.

The cool waters of the stream wash down from the mountains, it stains red with blood where the hunters clean their spears and arrows.

“Is this place good enough?” I ask, pressing my fingers into the soil and reaching for the bag at my side. “Is it okay if… If I give up, too?”

I move to unstrap the bag, but for some reason, the knot won’t come loose. When I force the string loose it whips around snapping at my fingers.

I clutch the bag to my chest as I look down at the flowing waters. There’s no point to fighting on, why shouldn’t I just give up and let it all end here?

“Hope, there you are!” Sable says, jumping close to my side. “We’re leaving, are you ready to come with us?”

This isn’t the place I remember, and it wouldn’t be a proper place to bury her. We didn’t cross the desert just to long for the home we left behind, the home that was burnt down behind us.

“This isn’t it either,” I say, standing and following Sable.

She tries to talk to me, but I can’t find the spirit to hold up my half of the conversation. The other hunters struggle with the donkeys and the wagon, and it takes much longer on our return journey than it took to get out here.

As the day drifts away, the shadows lengthen. A trail of dripped blood marks our path as we leave behind the wilds for the open roads to the city.

The city has been transformed in the short time we’ve been away, lights and lanterns fill the streets, and for a moment they banish the darkness of the world. The Madhouse is twice as done up as any of the other shops, with a massive oven ready for the pig.

There is fate, her glasses reflecting the bright lights around her, while her long blonde hair bounces with her every skipping step. Her smile welcomes me back, as she notices me.

“Hope, there you are!” she says.

She trips over a fallen chair, and I rush in to catch her before she falls. She’s covered in sweat from working all day long, she relaxes in my arms as I lift her to her feet.

“Thanks,” she says, smiling bright. “Come on, it’ll be starting soon.”