Chapter Text
When Jin Takaar is seven years old, the Fae take a boy from the nearby village. He knows it is the Fae, because when he asks about a funeral his mother pales and pulls Kyrah closer to her chest.
“You know the rules,” his father says sharply. “The Western Forest-“
“-is for the Fae,” Jin parrots back, a lesson repeated so often it has become rote. Both of his parents taste of sticky, sour fear, the feeling he has come to learn means trouble.
The next morning, he waits until his father has departed for the day and his mother is busy with the baby, then slips outside and across the fields. No matter what his father says, the Western Forest has always felt like it belonged to Jin.
The Forest is wild and overgrown, the only path through thin and crowded with underbrush. The plants drag at his ankles, almost urging him to turn around and go home. Instead he pushes forward, searching for whatever the Forest is trying to show him.
He’d tried to explain to his mother that the Forest had feelings like a person, and to enter and exit safely you merely had to time is right. Instead of applauding his discovery, his mother had been horrified and kept him inside for a week. Jin had learned to be sneakier about his trips to the Forest after that.
“Hello?” He calls out, hears the word echo back between the trees. He waits another few minutes, eyes scanning the foliage. Just when Jin has given up on discovering what the Forest is trying to tell him, there is a flash of gold among the leaves, a burst of emotion from an unseen person. Without thinking, he chases it.
Again, a flash of gold, almost out of sight. A flare of emotion that’s so tangled Jin doesn’t have time to parse it. This time he chases and trips over a root he’s certain sprouted just to hinder him. The air rushes from his lungs in a gasp, dirt and dried leaves filling his mouth. There is one final shimmer in the distance before the presence is gone.
Jin spits leaf matter onto the ground, brushing the dirt from his clothes as he stands. There is a direct, clear path leading out of the Forest, and his heart sinks. He has failed somehow, answered this test wrong. But there is no arguing with the Forest, and so he trudges back out into the fields.
Emerging into the sunlight, he squints back into the trees. Even though no sounds emerges from the Forest, Jin knows exactly what it is saying.
Wait, little mortal. All you can do now is wait.