"Ow!!"
Esther snapped to attention, rubbing the side of her head.
"Who threw that? Take off your mask, you little cunt!"
A stone tumbled at her feet.
Val, sixteen, grinning stupidly, flinging open both arms from the edge of the crowd, where goat-cheese-thieving eighteen-year-old cock-wits belong.
"Why don't you quit lying to those kids, you old hag?" he called, tongue out. "Stories about whispers trees make and god-bits in the soil? Bleah!"
He made a rude noise and turned to run but WHUMP— he collided chest-first against a wall of muscle named Don.
"Oh, look what the spirits dragged in," Don grumbled, his meaty grip enveloping Val's collar like he was plucking a chicken.
Val squirmed. "Let go, Don! Gimme a break man — I was just telling the truth. She's feeding them nonsense! Nobody even knows what went on back then!"
"If you'd sit still more than four seconds to hear," Don muttered, hauling at Val back to where Esther was, "you might just learn something that wasn't worth making fun of."
Esther walked over, hand still pressing at her side. "Thank you, Don. I'll see to it that he gets what's coming to him."
Val's eyes widened. "Oh no. Not again."
"Oh yes," Esther said in honeyed tones, twisting his ear as she were tuning a broken fiddle. "You're going to do your village proud today — as entertainment."
Don dumped a creaky clank of wrecked armor on the ground in front of Val. It reminded me of something you'd find if someone crushed a forge and called it a suit. He was thrust inside it before Val could even blink.
"Kids!" Esther called, both hands raised like a priestess when she entered for sacrifice. "You know what to do!"
"YEAHHHH!!"
The children surged forward in a stampede, ricocheting around Val as he staggered and clattered, each step a pot-and-pan armageddon.
The parade began.
🎵
"Clang clang clank goes the marionette fool of wax,
He blasphemed against God and fled!"
🎵
Val, red-faced, stomped her way forward like a knight made of kettles.
"I… laughed at the legends!" he shouted.
"I mocked the forest!"
"I said the tales were lies! I was wrong!"
The children screeched with laughter as they flung feathers, dry bread and exactly one suspiciously ripe tomato.
Val ripped off the helmet and stormed out, pieces of armor clinking behind him like a haunted kitchen.
"Stupid kids. Stupid Madame Esther. Stupid Don." He crunched through the underbrush in the direction of his hideout, a hovel scarcely deserving of the name. "Someday I will prove them wrong. Their tales are nothing but bedtime fuel."
He flung himself onto his cot and buried his face in his pillow, his cheeks still flaming.
There was a soft chuckle from the door.
"I see they got you," David said, resting on the post. "Again."
Val grunted.
"You're getting good at it," David teased. "You had rhythm this time. Almost musical."
"Shut up, David," Val muttered his face still buried. "What do you know?"
"Not much. Just some dusty old man who feeds you, clothes you and lets you sleep on his shack. Not your dad, I know." He walked in slowly. "But perhaps it's time you left the forest bear alone?
Val sat up. "Stopped what? Telling the truth?"
"No one knows what's really in there," David said, in a softer voice. "And maybe that's the point. Perhaps not knowing is what allows us to live."
"There've been famines, David. Times we were starving. But no one dares to step a single toe beyond the tree line. All on account of some ghost stories and fairy dust."
David sighed. "I know what losing your parents did to you, Val. But you can't just keep throwing rocks at ghosts and have them explain themselves."
"Please," his voice softened. Val "I hope you don't hold that against me I just need some time and space."
David paused. "Alright Roger" he replied as he started to smirk joke around with him. "I'll just watch the new episodes of Seven Deadly Saints without you. Might even delete them once I'm done."
Val's head shot up. "Wait. No! You wouldn't."
David shrugged theatrically. "Guess you'll never know."
Val rolled her eyes, pulling on her boots. "You're the worst. And that's why you're my favorite."