The Burned Lady

The Burned Lady
It is quiet in the fields of Ay. Snow blankets the former greenery, and light, fluffy flakes are still falling from the darkening sky. The trees are bare, and chattering in the cold breeze. It is bitingly cold; it is impossible to adventure without freezing in the winter air. The quiet is absolute, and the fields are deserted. It will be months before the fields are green again. The fields are the closest to dead they will be all year. They are devoid of all life--almost.

There is a hut on a ridge, far off the roads that are usually tread by adventurers. It is further than even the most adventurous pet might hope to wander. It sits next to a small frozen creek, beneath a skeletal tree. It is not much warmer inside the hut than it is outside. The hut's occupant is wearing every item of clothing she owns, and is surrounded by every one of her possessions. She is still not warm. The fog of her breath rises before her tattooed face, and she pulls her fur cloak tighter around herself, though it does not help. She is not a merchant, yet. She is no one. She is a runaway. She is alone. She thinks she is alone. She is not alone.

There are things in the world of Ay that are strange and insidious. These things are stranger than the gods of Ay, and still darker. There are things more dangerous and mysterious than the monsters that roam the land, things that not even the most high-level pets can hope to challenge. The denizens of Ay do not encounter these beings often, and are often unaware when they do cross paths. A shudder, a wince--a sudden bad mood, a persistent headache--the signs of these creatures seem insignificant and short-lived, inconvenient and mostly harmless. The signs pass as the creatures move. They travel. They watch, and they learn. No one in Ay is truly alone.

The woman is not alone.

Right now she is wishing for warmth. She is wishing she never left her town and her people. The rainforest was warm, even if there was no food. There is not any food here, either. There is only winter and death. She wishes she had not crossed the bridge to this strange foreign place. She wishes there were food, here or at her home anywhere in the land. She wishes for the coin to purchase food. She wishes her family were not starving at home. She wishes her family were not depending on her.

It hears her. It hears her despite the distance between them. Her regrets travel over the snowy landscape as easily and lightly as the snowflakes falling from the sky.

It is there. It does not take time to travel; it is not there one second and the next, it is there. It is in the hut with her. It is drinking up her cold and her wishes and the sadness that leaks from her.

It is small, this creature. She can hardly see it. It is a shadow, small and blurred and yet she feels immediately ill in its presence.

"What are you?" she asks. Her throat is dry and unused, her words rasp out. They feel chalky, as if they may fall apart at any second.

Warmth.

The thing does not answer using any words at all. It simply does. She is warm, and knows that the creature is warmth.

It is saving her, she thinks.

It is not.

Suddenly the warmth is not soothing, it is burning. It is burning her possessions, and her clothing, and then her skin, and her hair. The jewelry she wears, gifts from her family, melts in the heat, dripping from her ears and her neck in lines of molten gold.

The hut burns, and the tree outside of the hut. The frozen creek melts in the heat. The snow disappears from the ground. The fire does not burn the ground underneath the snow, though. The fire leaves green waving grass in its wake as it spreads across the fields. The trees bloom as the fire climbs them. Flowers bloom.

Later, the woman wakes. The creature is gone. Her hut is not the same. It is warm. Her possessions are stacked neatly. There are more items by the door. There are flowers, rocks, and keys. There is food, as well. She reaches for it immediately.

The food turns to fire in her mouth. It is not warmth, it is pain. She does not try to eat any more. Instead, she sits. She waits. She is afraid that the creature will return.

She waits most of the day, but the creature has not returned. As the sun begins to set, the light catches her eye. She looks towards it. It is bright white. And then it is pain. She is burning again. Her possessions are burning. The hut is burning.

The next day, her possessions have returned. The food is there again, the flowers, and the rocks and the keys. Everything is as it was the previous day, unburnt and whole.

She goes outside. The fields are green. There is no sign of the winter. It is warm, and things are coming back to life. Pets and monsters are returning; she can hear the sounds of them in the grass.

She spends the day moving each and every one of her possessions outside of the hut. She moves the food, and the rocks, and the flowers, and the keys. She sits insider her empty hut and watches them as the sun sets. She burns, but they do not.

She wakes the next day to find herself surrounded by her possessions once more. The same possessions sit outside of her hut. There is even more food, more food than she could eat even if it didn't burn her. There are now too many items to fit inside her hut.

Every night, she burns. The items in her hut burn, but the items outside the hut are undamaged.

Winter doesn't come to the fields anymore. No matter the time of year, they remain warm. They flourish. They become a popular adventure destination once more.

And now, as users travel with their pets, they may run across a tattooed woman. She asks them for money. She begins to offer them items, and begins to save her coins. She begs them for food. And every night, she burns.