Jine's Village

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Snowflakes drifted slowly from the darkening sky, fluttering gently in the chilly breeze. The crunch of frost underfoot was the only sound reverberating through the still forest. The tracks of small creatures dotted the snow-blanketed ground just ahead of him. At last, his prey was close by. Jine readied his bow and arrow, careful not to disturb a single twig or leaf.

Dropping to his knees, he peered through the undergrowth, catching sight of a rabbit scuffling among the bushes. The young boy took his aim, drawing the bowstring tight. The rabbit looked up, nose twitching as it seemed to sense the danger lying in waiting. Before it made up its mind to flee, Jine released his arrow. It cut through the undergrowth in an explosion of rustling leaves, finding its mark through the rabbit’s leg. The rabbit squealed in pain as its hind limb was impaled to the ground, its body twisting in a futile struggle. Jine rushed forward and made quick work of his prey, slitting its throat with his carving knife.

“Sorry little guy,” Jine mumbled, picking up the dead rabbit by its ears. “My brother and sisters need to eat.”

The rabbit was tied to a pole, from which two more of its fallen brethren hung. Satisfied with his catch for the day, Jine headed back to the village.

---

Kizen Village was situated in a valley, where approximately ten families made their homes among a grove of trees. The valley was sheltered from the harsh weather atop the mountains and was lush and green during the warm seasons. At this time of the year, however, most of the trees had already shed their leaves. The air was dry and stifling as if heralding the start of a storm.

Beyond the mountains to the north was where trouble lay. Where one of the great fortresses of the Rhyll stood, proud and strong. Jine's sister, Ansei, had often warned him about the Rhyll. She said that the Rhyll had branded them as traitors, and would kill them on sight if they were to even step foot onto their land.

Soon, Jine arrived back at the village entrance, which was marked by an earthen path, half-concealed under a blanket of snow. The path led to a small clearing, encircled by a ring of wooden huts. It didn’t seem like much, but it was the centre of activity of the village during the warm seasons, where they would light great bonfires to cook up a feast. In the frost season, on the other hand, families barely had enough for themselves, let alone a feast. No one was in a mood for celebration either while they were on the brink of starvation, so villagers largely remained cooped up at home, waiting out the cold weather. For now, the clearing remained eerily silent and void of life.

Trees towered high above the clearing, their trunks thick and sturdy, and their branches tightly interwoven. Between the trees, wooden platforms had been constructed, and atop these platforms were more huts that served as homes for most of Kizen Village’s residents.

As Jine started to climb the stepladder leading up to his hut, a lone figure emerged from between the trees. 

“Hey, Jine.” The speaker was a small girl, about Jine’s age. Her black hair was messily cropped short and tipped with white. Her cheeks were red from the cold, and frost hung from her eyelashes, as well as the two fluffy canine ears atop her head. Jine recognised her as Kiye, the eldest daughter of their village chief.

“Kiye,” Jine greeted her nonchalantly. "What do you want?”

The girl shrugged, not meeting Jine’s gaze. She pulled her tattered fur-lined shawl tighter around herself. “How was your hunt today?”

“Three rabbits,” Jine presented his pole to her. “Not a bad haul.”

Kiye’s eyes grew wide. “Y-you wouldn’t happen to be able to spare one for my family, would you?”

Jine raised an eyebrow. “That depends. What do you want to trade for it?”

“W-we don’t have anything!” Kiye spluttered, extremely flustered all of a sudden. "You know how poor our harvest was this year! A-and my brother, he's fallen sick. Please, he just needs something to eat…"

Jine did remember how the crops of most of the farming families had withered at the end of the warm seasons, even though it had not affected him much, coming from a hunting family. It had been the same last year, albeit only half of the crops had died back then. They suspected pests or a plague of some sort, but no one was able to discover the real cause of the calamity. He remembered how Kiye's mother had cried and pronounced that they were doomed for turning their backs on the will of the Great One, Yion, and how she had thrown herself into the river the following week.

But, in the end, Jine had his own family to think about. "I'm sorry, but my siblings are hungry too."

"Please!" Fresh tears spilt down Kiye's cheeks. "Our father…he went to look for food, but he hasn't been back for a week!"

Taken aback by the desperation in Kiye's pleas, Jine swallowed nervously, knowing that she had managed to sway his heart. While he wasn't particularly close to Kiye or her brother, he couldn't stand to see them, or anyone, suffer like this. 

"Here," he hastily removed a rabbit from the pole and tossed it to her. "Just don’t cry anymore, okay?"

Staring at the rabbit, Kiye let out one last sniffle. "Oh thank you! Thank you!" She threw her arms around Jine and kissed him on the cheek.

"Ugh, d-don't be so dramatic," Jine grumbled, pushing her away. Kiye flashed him a shaky grin as she wiped away a streak of tears. She waved goodbye and scrambled off to her residence, the largest wooden hut by the village clearing.

Jine was greeted by the enticing aroma of food as he stepped into his house. His stomach growled in anticipation for his only meal of the day. Their supplies were meagre, but his sister always knew how to make the most of what they had. Kicking off his boots, he darted into the kitchen and was not disappointed by the sight of his favourite stuffed meat buns laid out on the dining table.

Ansei was stirring a pot of stew over their makeshift wooden stove. She looked up as soon as Jine ran in, a radiant smile spreading across her face. It was a sight that Jine wished he could preserve in his mind forever.

Appearance-wise, Jine greatly resembled his elder sister. They both had the same tanned skin and short white-blond hair. The only difference was the long cruel scar that marred the right side of his sister's face. Ansei told him that the Rhyll had given her that scar as punishment for their parents' treason.

"Good work on the hunt today," Ansei ruffled Jine's hair. "Two rabbits will be enough to last us until the end of this week. Then we can go hunting for some big game together."

"I actually caught three rabbits today," Jine blurted out pridefully before he could stop himself. "But Kiye said her father was gone and her brother was sick, so I gave one to her."

At that remark, Ansei stiffened visibly. "Her father is…gone? Where did he go?"

Jine shrugged. "I dunno. Kiye said he went looking for food but hasn't been back for days."

"That's not good," Ansei muttered, half to herself.

Abruptly, she cursed. "That fool! He probably went to steal from them again! He'll doom us all at this rate." All traces of warmth were gone from her expression, now twisted into a mask of distress.

"It can't be all that bad," Jine soothed her hastily, anxious to ease her worries. "He did the same last year and it turned out fine. We even got some extra bread on top of it. Chief Kuwei is strong, he won't be caught by the Rhyll that easily!"

Yet, Ansei continued to shake her head, seemingly lost in her own world. "I told him not to go the first time. I told him not to get involved with them again. He got lucky once but he won't get lucky twice. They don't show any mercy to thieves. He'll lead them straight to us, and we'll all be slaughtered. Maybe it's time for us to leave…”

"But we can't leave! It’s the middle of frost season!” Jine exclaimed, exasperated. "This is our home!"

Ansei said nothing in response. She simply sank onto the kitchen floor and gazed blankly into the distance, mumbling wordlessly to herself. Jine hated it when she was lost in one of these trances, but there was nothing more he could do to calm her.  He could only help by taking charge of the household.

He stirred the stew on the stove once or twice, before taking it off the heat. Then, he climbed up another stepladder to the loft of the hut, which served as a bedroom for his younger twin siblings.

"Anya, Mitze, time for dinner,"  he called. The two puppies stirred from their nap, rubbing sleep from their eyes as they obediently trailed after him to the dining room. Jine was glad to see that Ansei had composed herself again by the time they arrived.  She served them each a bowl of stew, smiling gently and petting their soft floppy ears as she did so. 

The family ate in silence. The buns had become cold from how long they had been laid out, although Jine stuffed his face with them anyway.

Yet, he did not enjoy them as much as usual, for he could still feel the tension hanging in the air after his conversation with Ansei. Even though he knew his sister's paranoia was most likely unfounded, a small part of him could not help but dread for the worst.

"This isn't right!" Jine stood up abruptly, sending his spoon clattering to the ground. Three pairs of eyes turned on him. A frown creased Ansei's brow as she held a spoonful of stew halfway to her mouth. "I-is the stew not to your liking?"

"No, that's not what I mean!" Jine made a noise of frustration. "I don't understand! Why do we have to live in fear of the Rhyll all the time? What right do they have to chase us from our own homes?”

Ansei had grown very pale and still. "Jine, please, not now," she begged, her voice barely above a whisper. She cast a desperate glance at Anya and Mitze. The pups were still staring at Jine in confusion.

"Why are you so scared of them?" Jine shot back at her, his voice raised in a challenge. 

“Jine! That’s enough! You have no idea what they are capable of!”

Ansei set her spoon down with a bang and stood up as well, tears welling up in her golden eyes.

“Why don’t you tell me exactly what they’re capable of then?” It jarred Jine to see his sister like this, but he was growing frustrated with her terror of the Rhyll.

“They killed our parents!” Ansei slammed her hands down on the table, her body trembling. “Is that not enough for you?”

Before Jine could think of a proper response, Anya burst into tears. The small puppy’s wails echoed throughout the house as her arguing older siblings lapsed into silence. In the next moment, Ansei was by her side, cradling the child in her arms.

“Shhh, it’s okay, everything’s going to be okay,” she cooed. “Did big sister scare you? I’m so sorry, I won’t do it again.”

She pulled a frightened Mitze into her arms too, covering the two little ones with kisses and gentle reassurances.

Suddenly, guilt weighed down on Jine like a heavy stone in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t believe he had acted out like that towards Ansei, who had been shouldering the responsibility of the entire household all on her own and had been nothing less than the best elder sister he could ask for. He didn’t deserve her love; he didn’t even deserve to be part of this family.

Choking back his tears, Jine ran for the doorway. He dimly heard Ansei call out to him, but he ignored her and fled from the house.

It was freezing outside, away from the warmth of the hearth in his home. Jine ran out in such a haste that he was only clad in a thin tunic. Wracked by violent shivers, he looked around the village for any sort of shelter where he could feel miserable in peace. Noticing the soft glow of firelight through the windows of Kiye's hut, he found himself making his way over almost unwittingly, drawn to the warmth like a moth to candlelight.

He knocked on the door once, hearing a series of faint coughs from within the house, followed by footsteps thundering down the stairs. The door flew open to reveal Kiye, her face lit up and her eyes shining. "Father-"

Upon recognizing the true identity of her visitor, her face fell a little. "Oh, it's you."

She tipped her head to one side, a mischievous smile playing on her lips. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

"I had a fight with my sister," Jine shrugged, keeping his response brusque.

"Aand let me guess, you need somewhere to stay because you're too much of a wimp to go apologise to her like a normal person." Kiye placed her hands over her hips. Jine avoided her gaze with a grimace.

"Well, come on in," Kiye gestured. "Consider this repayment for the rabbit earlier."

That was not a very fair deal in Jine's opinion, but he wasn't about to start arguing with Kiye as well. Inside Kiye's hut, a sole figure was huddled before a large fireplace, swathed in blankets and thick furs.

"Hello, Jine," the figure, Kiye's twin brother, greeted as Jine entered. He was gnawing on a blackened and shrivelled rabbit leg, occasionally letting out a cough that rattled his small frame. His face held an unnatural sickly pallor, and a trail of blood was dribbling from his lips.

A sharp intake of breath came from Jine at the sorry sight of the sick boy. "Lyen…I didn't know you were so ill."

Lyen smiled at him weakly, before another cough shook his frail body, causing him to spit out blood. Kiye sighed and hurried over, wiping the blood away from his mouth with a dirty rag.

"I-I'm used to it," Lyen finally managed to wheeze out. "The cold weather doesn't ---" Cough. "---suit me." Cough.

"This frost season has been the worst." He finished his lament with a breathy sigh, burying his face in the blankets. "My body is weak, so I'm always causing trouble for Father and Kiye."

"Don't say such stupid things," Kiye huffed, pulling at her brother's ear. "Just focus on getting better, okay?"

Jine settled down before the fireplace as well, reaching out towards the flames for warmth. He exchanged a little more small talk with Kiye and Lyen, but soon three of them simply fell into a comfortable silence. Not before long, Lyen finished his rabbit leg and drifted off into a fitful sleep, sporadically coughing or wheezing.

Jine felt his eyelids begin to droop. He was too fatigued to feel miserable or angry any longer. He ought to return home, make amends with Ansei, and then curl up in his bed and forget about the day's troubles.

"Jine," a soft voice broke through his hazy state of mind. Kiye was staring into the fireplace, her expression distant. "My father isn't coming home this time, is he?"

Jine was at a loss for a response.

He spoke after a long hesitation. "He'll be back, I'm sure of it. He wouldn't abandon you and Lyen."

He chose his words not to comfort Kiye (for he really wasn't any good at that) but simply out of a desire for optimism in this cold, dreary night.

Kiye drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms and tail around herself.  "No, perhaps this is what we deserve."

"What are you talking about?" Jine frowned, bewildered by her abrupt statement.

"My mother, before she…" Kiye trailed off for a moment, a glint of tears in her eyes. "She said that our suffering is punishment for defying Yion's will, for betraying and leaving the Rhyll."

"Isn't that just a bedtime story for small puppies?" Jine scoffed. "I don't believe in deities and all that nonsense."

"My mother believed in them!" Kiye snapped, her tone curt. She glared at Jine, her tear-filled eyes burning with indignation. Suddenly, Jine regretted speaking very much, realizing how insensitive he must have sounded. "I didn't mean to-"

"And it's true, isn't it?" Kiye cut him off sharply. "If we had never left the Rhyll, we won't be left out in the cold, starving to death! Why do we have to be the ones paying for our parents’ mistakes!?” Kiye’s voice had practically risen to a wail, and Jine had to hush her to avoid waking Lyen.

“Because it wasn’t a mistake. It was the right thing to do.” That was what Ansei had always told him.

“Was it, really? When Uncle Kizen turned on the Rhyll, what good did it do? It only got him and everyone under him killed, while the rest of us are forced into hiding!”

“We’re not hiding,” Jine insisted. “We’re free from the Rhyll. We don’t have to be scared of them. We can do what we want. That’s what my parents and your uncle sacrificed themselves for. Our freedom.”

“And yet we’re still living like prey waiting to be hunted down… How can you call that freedom? Besides, is freedom really worth starving to death for?”

Jine reached out to take her hand in his own, earning himself a startled glance. “We’ve made it through eight frost seasons and we’ll make it through this one.” He met Kiye’s gaze seriously.

The expression Kiye returned was searching. Finally, she sighed and turned away. “That’s rich of you to say, with a big sister taking care of you. If my father doesn’t return, Lyen and I will only have each other left.”

“We’ll help you,” Jine promised without even thinking. “Starting from now I’ll hunt for you too.”

A brief look of surprise flashed across Kiye’s face before she wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes and laughed. “Jine, you really are something else. What happened to Mr ‘I-only-care-about-me-and-my-family’ from this evening?”

“I—well,” Jine flushed and mumbled begrudgingly. “If you really were starving to death, I won’t just sit by and watch.”

Kiye chuckled again, but warmth filled her gaze. “Let’s promise to look after each other from now on.”

---

The light within their treehouse was still glowing dimly by the time Jine returned.

Ansei sat in a creaky rocking chair by the woodstove. As soon as Jine approached, she lifted her finger in a hushing gesture, indicating the slumbering forms of Anya and Mitze in the loft.

“I’m sorry about earlier…” Jine began awkwardly, his voice lowered to a whisper.

Ansei shook her head and gently ruffled his hair. “No, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

For the umpteenth time, Jine felt incredibly lucky that he had such a wonderful big sister to take care of him, while poor Kiye and Lyen were all on their own. He made up his mind that he would never upset Ansei again.

“And… you were right,” Ansei continued after a moment of hesitation. “There’s no reason for us to cower and hide here any longer. I’ve made up my mind. Tomorrow, we’ll pack our things and leave. We’ll go far, far away, and then we’ll be safe from them.”

“What?!” The loud exclamation burst out before he could stop himself. Jine quickly lowered his voice and amended. “But we can’t just leave our home. Where are we supposed to go?”

And he had just promised Kiye that they would look after each other…

“Isn’t that what you want?” Ansei’s face was stricken. “I thought you never liked living in this village, constantly in fear of them. The only way for us to continue to live free is to go far, far away.”

Jine shook his head numbly. “What about the rest of the families?”

Ansei’s voice was cold. “They can fend for themselves.”

“Jine…I’m sorry… I know there’s no way I can compare to Father and Mother… but please believe me when I say that all I want is for you and Anya and Mitze to be safe and happy. Our parents gave up everything so we can live free of their tyranny. I couldn’t live with myself if you were to lose that freedom.”

As Ansei brushed away her tears, Jine pulled her into a tight hug. “Don’t say that! You are the best sister anyone could ask for!”

“Thank you, my dear,” Ansei pressed a kiss to the crown of Jine’s head.

“And you don’t have to be afraid anymore.” Jine gazed at her earnestly. “If the Rhyll ever come for us, I’ll protect you!”

Ansei only smiled sadly. “Jine…you’re still young. There are many things you don’t understand.”

Just as Jine was about to protest, Ansei placed a finger on his lips. “But that’s for another day, my dear. It’s getting awfully late and you should get some rest. We have a long way to go tomorrow.”

With a resigned sigh, Jine slunk off to bed. He wondered if this was the last night he would ever spend in what had been their home for as long as he could remember.