It had been seven days since the party left Abaskan.

  For every step they traveled north, the snow covering the frozen land melted away and revealed the green grass of a new beginning below them. The trees were showing their true colors of life, and the rustling sounds of animals within the woods were no longer a special occasion that woke Foreigner during the night. A white, dull-looking bird flew across the trees with a worm in its mouth, and Foreigner took a deep breath of the chill yet comfy air into her lungs. The time was colorful with the tranquility hanging on every horizon her eyes laid upon. At least, until Octavia called out to her.

  “Hey, you two. Why don’t you go grab some ingredients from the forest?“ Octavia said to both Foreigner and Pafnuty while skinning some fish she caught, but only Foreigner heard what she had to say.

  “Uhh, I’m a bit too busy here. This fire just keeps dying by itself. I wonder what’s going on?“

  Foreigner quickly took position in front of a campfire burning vigorously, as if a dragon was soaring into the sky. She sat there awkwardly while placing firewood carefully into the inferno, each time falling on her back as the flame erupted out of the earth and seeing Octavia’s weirded-out face on the side.

  “I can go alone! Ah, I already found a good one!“ Foreigner picked up a mushroom on the ground, seducing her to the other side of the world with its rainbow-colored body.

  “Dude, put that down. That’s clearly poisonous.“ As Octavia pinched between her eyes to ease the sudden migraine, she was convinced that Foreigner either went mad or ate something wrong.

  “Look, I know that guy looks untrustworthy. But he’s not that bad.” Octavia pointed at Pafnuty with her thumb, who was frantically digging ground as if he had found a marvelous discovery.

  “Ohhh! Kaentake! How brilliant! Who would believe that this little fella can murder an entire tribe within a night? I wonder why it’s growing in such a location, I thought it only lives on the far western island country of Sen!“

  Octavia smirked and shrugged her shoulders with her arms crossed. “See? Not that bad.“

  Foreigner was convinced that either Octavia went mad or had always been.

  “I, um, I think I have a stomachache. Maybe I should just lie down tod—”

  Foreigner knew that this wouldn’t work as she rubbed her stomach awkwardly, but she still gave it a chance. However, once she saw Octavia patiently waiting for her to finish her opinion with a judgmental frown in her eyes, she knew that this plan was flawed.

  “Actually, I think I’m good. Ahaha. Ha.“

  After a laughter of surrender, she had no choice but to accept her fate.

  The forest was quiet, with the occasional sound of snow falling from the tree branches reverberated through the woods. Foreigner watched her steps cautiously not to slip over the icy leaves on the ground while Pafnuty rummaged through the trunk here and there to look for any early life that sprouted out through the snow. Even though the sun was shining brightly above the sky and the air was lighter than anytime, the atmosphere was as painful as it could get for her to endure through.

  It wasn’t that Foreigner hated Pafnuty in any way; in fact, she relied heavily on his deep knowledge of medicine. Just a few days ago, she caught a bad cold during the harsh night but got recovered within a few hours through Pafnuty’s mysterious medicine. There was a side effect of being extremely itchy for a couple of hours, but the fact that the cure worked still stood true.

  Rather, it was simply because he was way too unpredictable for her. Pafnuty would be excited by something she found creepy, and kept asking her if he could dissect her. One night, she woke up in the middle of the night, only to find Pafnuty staring at her with a scalpel in his hand and clicking his tongue when he got caught. Octavia scolded him heavily and starved him the entire day as a punishment, and while it did not happen ever since, just thinking about it brought shivers derived from fear. He truly was the best doctor anyone could ask for and the worst scientist anyone would avoid.

  Until now, she only spoke to Pafnuty when in need, but the forest was bizarrely silent today. The void of sound became too much for Foreigner to survive, so she decided to be the one to speak up. After all, she wasn’t the lady of silence. One deep breath later, Foreigner decided on the most boring yet cliche topic that could never go wrong to spend time.

  “So, Pafnuty. What’s your favorite food?“

  “Ah, now that’s an interesting question, my foreign patient! But first, we must define the nature of your question. What is food? If food is defined as a substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support, does anything that provides nutrition classify as food? What about this moss? What about this dirt? What about this mushroom that will kill you as soon as you put your tongue on it? Sure, you will die. But your body will get some nutrition out of it before you experience total organ failure. Then the next question would be, what is it to ‘like’ food? Does it mean to feel satiety? Does it mean getting your daily essential nutrients with minimal amounts consumed? Or does it mean to savor the taste? If it is the latter, we must circle back to our first question. If there is a substance that can be consumed with no nutritional benefit but still taste amazing, can it count as ‘favorite food’? Ah, what about the process of preparing food? Does that count as part of ‘food?’ It is a very controversial topic, my friend. Some people consider cooking to be part of food, while others consider it to be a nuisance! Intriguing, isn’t it? Even with such a simple concept, we, the intelligent beings, cannot come to an agreement! Speaking of intelligence—“

  Foreigner was the lady of silence.

  The sun tilted slightly since Foreigner initiated the conversation. She deeply regretted her action of starting a small talk as Pafnuty was still rambling about, a curtain. How does a question about a favorite food turn into the history of a curtain? At a certain point, his voice turned into white noise, and Foreigner was amused at the amazing defensive mechanism her body could come up with.

  She picked some mushrooms up while Pafnuty kept talking about something she wasn’t paying attention to. But that routine suddenly got broken when he grabbed her hand and stopped her forcefully, enough to scare Foreigner and get her ready to punch him away.

  “Dear, oh, dear. You almost made a crime scene there.“

  Pafnuty said in a light tone, but Foreigner knew he meant it sincerely. She focused on his words, but kept her fist up out of his vision.

  “This little fella you almost touched looks very similar to an edible mushroom that you’ve been collecting. But it contains a poison that causes your body to rot from the inside when consumed. Just imagine what would have happened if we had put that in a soup. There won’t be anyone to bury us on such an outskirt!“

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  A sudden chill spread through Foreigner's veins in the form of looming death. It was true that if something had happened to them, no one was coming for help. They will be lost and forgotten, a death so lonely that not even stars would notice. With quivering hands, Foreigner clenched her arms tightly, but it wasn’t enough to stop her trembling.

  “Ah, over there! Come, my foreign patient. We must move quickly!“

  Pafnuty soon lost interest in their conversation and hurried Foreigner to a giant tree that appeared to be dead. What he found was a yellow moss growing on the side of the tree with no sunlight, and his eyes were glittering brighter than ever before.

  “These, my friend, are nature’s gifts. You boil them for eight hours, dry them until all moisture is gone, grind them to get a fine powder, then consume it! It will soothe all pain in your body and, what’s more, stimulate the regeneration of internal organs! We should gather all there is. Quick! Help me get them out!“

  He hopped around as his breath became faster and deeper. The three pairs of arms of his moved swiftly in a synchronized movement to scrape yellow moss from the tree bark as Foreigner stood next to him with the bag wide open.

  “Ohhh, where is this, the land of miracle?”

  As soon as he was done with gathering the moss, Pafnuty rushed to a different point enthusiastically.

  “Marvelous! Witness this beauty, my foreign patient! If there is magic, this flower would be one! You simply chew its petals and voila! Your stomach relaxes, and the pain is no more. There is even an experiment stating that it can be used for gastrointestinal perforation, but it is still a hypothesis yet, needing further research. Here, try it!“

  Pafnuty took two petals out of the flower and then shoved them into Foreigner’s mouth. They were extremely sour and had a disgusting texture.

  “Annnnnd?”

  As he waited for a reaction of some kind, Foreigner barely chewed and swallowed a gross sustenance against her uvula.

  “I—It’s great. I feel good inside.“

  Foreigner spoke with an uncertain voice while enduring the strong bitter taste lingering in her mouth. But, perhaps thanks to that bitterness, a realization passed through her mind and she felt her head becoming numb in an instant.

  “Doctor, were you looking for medicines because I said I have a stomachache ?“

  It was a lie. She lied to stay away from Pafnuty.

  “Why, of course.“

  It was the truth. He went out of his way to find medicines for Foreigner.

  Foreigner couldn’t look Pafnuty in the eyes as shame swirled in her. She thought of him as a weirdo, a mad scientist, and an immoral. He thought of her as a specimen, a lab rat, and a patient. But he still cared about her as part of the team going through a journey towards the unknown. She understood why she felt uncomfortable near Pafnuty. It was because she was embarrassed. Of herself for judging him without knowing him.

  Without a word, Pafnuty handed a gold-colored liquid in a flask to Foreigner. At first, she hesitated and was wary of a sudden gift, but she decided to trust and drank it in a single gulp. It was sweet and comfortable, warming her body with a soft sensation as it passed through her throat.

  “What is this?” Foreigner licked her lips to take every drop left on them.

  “A honey tea! You seem stressed; it will help you get rid of meaningless worries out of your head.”

  Pafnuty took the flask back from Foreigner and then placed it in his bag. Right after that, he continued his search for the ingredients, both for food and his medicine.

  The more he offered, the more Foreigner crumbled. She dropped her head to the ground, with guilt pressuring her soul behind her neck. She was no longer sure which face she was making right now, but regardless of any, she had no courage to see Pafnuty’s mask and speak another word from her vulgar mouth. And her doing was not a secret to Pafnuty, as he went back to his duty while shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry,“ Foreigner spoke in a quaking voice on the verge of collapsing.

  Pafnuty froze for two seconds when he heard those words. Suddenly, he turned his back and brought his face up close to Foreigner’s while straightening three of his fingers.

  “Third!“ Pafnuty shouted right into Foreigner’s surprised face.

  “This is the third time someone apologized to me after I cured them! Oh, how sweet this sensation is! The thrill flows through my nerves and gives me goosebumps! Thank you, my foreign friend, for delivering me this feeling once more!“

  As Pafnuty yelled while dancing around goofily, Foreigner regained consciousness after losing it for a fraction of a second.

  “W—What do you mean?“

  “Oh, I mean just it!“ Pafnuty stopped the dance and brought his face up close once again, pressuring Foreigner’s nose with his mask.

  “Ever since the day I lived within Tribe Of Harvest, people looked at me like a foul omen! They threw rocks and trash at me and pointed fingers while clicking their tongues. I slept under the dumpster and ate out of the garbage. On a lucky day, kids would throw their leftovers at me, and on those days I slept with a stomach not growling the entire night. But then! I manifested my destiny as the inner genius woke up! I started to act as the doctor of the village, and people came to me when in need. And they would leave a food or two, and I was a happy Aranaim ever since! And mind you, this was before I entered adolescence!“

  Pafnuty waved his six hands all over the place, then stopped them at once when he paused briefly to take a breather.

  “But those eyes never left them. Those eyes that were cold and dark. Those eyes that had no choice but to borrow the very hands that they wished never existed. And those hands were mine. Yes, I knew it. Who wouldn’t.“

  Pafnuty stared at his own hand and clenched a light fist. Foreigner hesitated before opening her mouth to say something, but got interrupted by Pafnuty clapping his hand out of the blue.

  “However! There have been three people who apologized to me instead of giving me those eyes. The third is you, my foreign friend. You apologized because you thought of me as an unpleasant weirdo but felt bad for getting help. Am I right?“

  Foreigner felt her throat collapsing. She could have made an excuse to save herself, but she couldn’t exhale any air out of her lungs. She saw Pafnuty’s eyes through the mask, staring at her in a straight line. On the contrary, her eyes were trembling frantically, still looking for a way to prove that she was different from those people in Pafnuty’s story. But she couldn’t. Because she was.

  “I’m the worst,“ Foreigner chuckled at herself with her left eye with a splintered pupil darkening with void.

  “I’m a nobody with nothing. I don’t even know my own name. Yet, look at me. Thinking I’m better than you, when you have a lot. Your skill, knowledge, and enthusiasm — everything exceeds me. Pathetic, I know.“

  Foreigner felt her eyelids heavy. Alongside the wind blowing, the desire to give up and take a nap submerged her into her mind. Everything around her, even the light shining from above her head, felt like an irritation, and she wished for all to disappear.

  “And I accept!“

  As Pafnuty yelled once again with every bit of air in his lungs, Foreigner felt colors coming back to her vision.

  “The first person was a girl who scraped her knee. The second person was a Demerii dying under the snow with blood rupturing from her head. And those were the people who showed me a path that was differ from how I envisioned what a life must be. Do you truly think you are the worst, my foreign friend? If so, what have I become, for following you to show me the path that I never imagined before?“

  Pafnuty forcefully opened Foreigner’s eyes with his fingers as he observed them closely. Foreigner felt the chill air knocking at her corneas, but stayed still until Pafnuty stopped doing whatever he was. Eventually, he stepped backwards while chuckling, and Foreigner rubbed her eyes to ease the pain.

  “Shall we move forward, my friend?“

  Nothing had changed since they entered the forest or since they first met. But everything was different at the same time. Foreigner slapped her both of her own cheeks strongly to create a sounding echo throughout the woods. She felt the tingling in her face, but her mind was clearer than ever.

  “Let’s go forward. Together. To the destiny that awaits us.“

  From the east, a powerful gust blew. It was cold and loud, and Foreigner raised her voice to pierce through the harsh sound with a smile on her face.

  “I’m glad you are with us, Pafnuty!“

  What followed the gust was a gentle breeze. On top of a tree branch above Foreigner, a white, dull-looking bird was taking a nap by itself. Then, a flapping of the wings brought two more birds to its side, and sandwiched a white bird between them. Soon, the white bird woke up from the sweet dream, and the three of them flew away into the mist as a flock. Beneath the three birds flapping their wings into the world beyond imagination was Pafnuty, raising his finger to point behind Foreigner.

  “No, I meant my forward. We need to get back to the camp before the sun goes down.“

  On their way back, Foreigner was the lady of silence.