“Yes, but…I’ve answered so many of your questions. I even told you about the stupid Nightshade thing…It’ll drive me mad if you don’t tell me.”
“Wonder what that must feel like.”
“You know what? Fine.” He hauls me back on the saddle. “That’s fine,” he reiterates.
He mounts behind me, and we both sit in a long stubborn silence as Epona carries us back to Samore. My eyes flicker down over the symbols across his hands again. I grab his hand and bring it up to study it closer, tracing a finger across the black lines. It’s not until he swallows behind me that I realize what it is I’m doing. Touching him so freely. His lack of personal space is rubbing off on me! I quickly drop his hand. “What do those symbols mean?”
“They…pass.”
“Pass?” I ask incredulously.
“Yes,” he says curtly. “Pass.”
I heave a breath, and we lapse back into a tense quiet. I soon grow bored. “Which Wood is this?” I ask as we near a new tree line.
“Pass.”
“You’re not even going to tell me where we are?”
“Pass.”
“You’re not going to answer a single more question, are you?”
“Pass.”
I let out a low growl, flinging my hands up in defeat. “Fine if you really want to know my hair changed.”
There’s a tug at the back of my head as he pulls the braid out from the confines of my cloak. “Your hair changed,” he repeats in awe. “You weren’t born like this?”
“No.”
“Did something cause it to change?”
“I…” I hesitate, debating how much I should say. “I had a near-death experience, and it started growing in like this afterward.”
“Near death experience,” he repeats. “Not your first time, then?”
I laugh softly. “No.”
“What happened?”
“I fell from a great height,” I say with a heavy exhale. “Everyone said I shouldn’t have survived. That it was amiracle from God.” I strive to keep my voice void of emotion yet it ends up coming out bitter.
“Youfell…”
“Yes,” I say curtly, my body tensing as I anticipate further questions into the one subject I want to avoid the most.
Maybe he senses my unease and takes mercy on me because he only murmurs out a “Special.”
I snort. “Hardly. Unless you mean especially unlucky.”
“No, special.” He gives my braid a tug. “Like a mystical unicorn from beyond the Wall,” he teases. “No, actually, it reminds me of an epimelead.”
“I’m kind of scared to ask what that is.”
He laughs. “It’s a dryad. Spirit of the trees. Epimelides have white hair just like this. They’re very shy and can be quite hostile. So very fitting for you, I think.”
I snort again. “There it is.”
