Jaynin
4th Level Red Feather
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- Jul 12, 2003
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Demon Hunter Shuni, Episode 4: Jealousy
Shuni mournfully took stock of her situation the morning after she had been stuck in the cave with the demons. Her circumstances were more severe than she’d allowed in her preparations, and she was starting to run low on crucial items. To be more specific, she’d already lost half of the socks she’d come here with, and with her first pay still some days off it was looking like she might have to go barefoot some days – a thought that now made her shudder.
She was still trying to think of a solution over breakfast, nodding politely and responding to Kazuo to indicate that she was still following him, whatever he was saying, but it was obvious that her thoughts were elsewhere. He usually seemed pretty observant, and probably would have noticed her preoccupation… Then again, perhaps he did know, and was simply tactful enough not to call attention to it and let her mind wander as it would for a solution, which was unfortunately proving no easy task. Then something Kazuo said slid across her mind and brought her line of thought to a sudden stop.
“Tailor?” she repeated blankly, having missed most of what the sentence had been about.
“Yes, I think that stodgy old coot brought on more trouble than he realizes by letting that boy serve under him as an apprentice.” Kazuo chuckled dryly as he popped a pickle into his mouth. “He’ll have all the village girls trying to fabricate excuses to go into the shop today. Ah well, I suppose the boy’s parents are happy. It seemed for a while there that he wanted to do nothing but woo the girls for a living…”
Shuni was able to fill in the gaps with her knowledge, limited as it was, about the villagers. There was one particular boy of a particular family who, to put it bluntly, had the face and features that made girls swoon. He could dance girls on tiptoe by putting a coy finger under their chins, or set hearts aflutter and cheeks aflame with a few whispered words. His parents, quite naturally, disapproved of this, and had been riding him hard to choose a path for his life. Apparently he had chosen to apprentice himself to the village tailor Shuni had dealt with a few days past. Maybe he would be a little more amenable to persuasion…
With that settled, Shuni pulled on one of her two remaining pairs of socks and later that day made her way quietly to the tailor’s house. She had chosen her time with care; at midmorning, all the village girls would still be occupied with typical farm or house chores, and so be unlikely to bother her… Now, the only gamble was whether or not the boy or the tailor answered her call. She’d planned out a thin excuse to give to the tailor if she ran into him, but it would not hold up very well, she knew. So she prayed silently to herself as she rapped gently on the wooden door…
“Please, come in,” a melodious, flowing voice called, pouring like warm honey from around the door, and with a quickening heartbeat Shuni slid the door aside and hastily bowed, feeling a smile form on her face as she gazed upon the boy whose name she did not yet know, but whose ease on her eyes was already remarkable. “Oh, Demon Hunter! It is an honor to see you,” he replied with his own polite bow after she had straightened, causing Shuni to blink. Sometimes she forgot that her standing as a demon hunter did grant her some social deference. She wasn’t yet old enough to automatically command that deference, and sometimes she forgot it was her due. “How may I help you?”
“Well…” Shuni knelt on the offered rug and began to explain her situation to the boy, who nodded and listened attentively. Shuni doubted that her sock size could be a matter of such interest, but it was sweet of him to show that he cared… which was probably the very reason he did it. Still, it did set her at ease, and as she settled back upon finishing her story, he favored her with a smile that threatened to melt her.
“I see your problem,” he said with a sympathetic nod. “Such terrible fortune you’ve suffered, I extend my sympathy to you… I’ll tell you what I can do,” he said with a grin. “I’ll make you another pair of socks on the sly… it’ll be one of the first things I do, so it might not be such great work, but even if the tailor catches me I’ll just tell him I am making a practice piece to hone my skills as his apprentice. He’ll have no choice but to acknowledge my devotion to the tailor’s craft… Does that sound good to you?”
“It does! Thank you so very much!” Shuni said, smiling brightly at him. She had barely even needed to ask, and here he was volunteering his time to help her! No wonder all of the girls in the village wanted to be near him; he had a special knack for making a female feel special. “Is there anything I need to help you with? Measurements, perhaps?”
“Measurements would help,” the boy agreed, getting out the same measurement apparatus Shuni had seen the tailor use before, but looking somewhat uncertain as to how to use it. “Erm… I haven’t been taught how to use this yet. What a predicament,” he mused, looking around and tapping his writing brush against his chin for inspiration. “Ah! I have an idea. Please, remove your socks, Demon Hunter, I have a plan.”
While Shuni removed her socks again, the boy hunted up two pieces of parchment and placed them on the floor. “Please put your feet here, and I’ll trace them,” he said brightly, wiggling the brush around a little bit and pointing to the pieces of parchment. “That way I’ll be able to measure them with a normal straightedge instead of this goofy tool.” Shuni almost let out a little squeak, but… well, what harm was there in the boy knowing? It didn’t have the strange, creepy feel of having the old tailor know, so… she put her feet on the parchment as asked and steeled herself…
“Stay still, I can’t…” the boy muttered as he tried to trace the outline of her feet. “Demon Hunter, please! I can’t… oh! This one’s ruined,” he said with a rueful giggle. “Demon Hunter, you’re very ticklish.” Shuni blushed to the tips of her brown hair and nodded, trying to cover her face with her cheeks, embarrassed both that he’d found out in such a way and that she’d ruined his work. “Oh, please don’t worry! I think it’s cute, Demon Hunter.” Uncovering one eye, Shuni looked down at the boy, who was blushing faintly himself.
That broke the ice and Shuni let out a giggle, managing to flush the worst of her blush from her face. “Yes, I’m extremely ticklish, I guess it’s just something I have to live with, but it can be a pain sometimes, such as now.” Shuni wiggled her other foot and clenched her fists. “Try again; I’ll promise to hold still this time, and the tailor said that my feet were of about the same size.”
“All right, I’ll try again,” the boy said with a smile and a nod, again beginning to trace the outline of Shuni’s feet, trying not to have the brush touch the sides of her feet too much, but a few giggles were inevitable. Still, this attempt went much better, and once it was done, there was a fairly clear outline of Shuni’s foot on the paper. “Excellent! This will do just perfectly,” he said with satisfaction. “Thank you, Demon Hunter.” With a mischievous grin he teased her big toe after cleaning the ink from the brush.
“No! Hee hee hee please don’t!” Shuni squealed, clapping her hands to her mouth and sitting down with a bump, trying to assume a normal kneeling position but needing to try twice before she got it. What she hadn’t counted on was how the position bared her soles when she was barefoot, and the boy was around her in a flash, teasing her arches with the writing brush’s soft bristles.
“Demon Hunter, please try not to be so loud, if the adults hear you we’ll be scolded.” He winked at her and laughed a little at her pout of dismay, dome comically for mirthful effect. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t seem to let them be…” He ran his fingers from her heel to toes on the left foot, making her body quake with laughter as she let out little muffled giggles from behind her hands. “You oughtn’t go barefoot if your feet are so ticklish,” he teased. “What if the village girls find out? They can be quite relentless when they are struck with jealousy.”
Jealousy? Shuni realized with a start that from the outset she had been alone with the boy and the tailor had not even come to check in on what he had been doing. Was he out on an errand? Or was the boy simply teasing her with such a dangerous game? He was getting away with it, too, she realized, she was making no effort to use her superior strength or training to force him to stop, instead… Instead, she was just being a helpless, giggling girl, letting him tease her as he pleased, because… because why? Because he was cute? Certainly he was, but with Shuni’s recent experiences, why was she letting him do this? Maybe it was because he was only a human and doing it for fun?
“Tickle, tickle, Demon Hunter, I’d watch out if I were you, your feet beg me to tickle them! You’re not moving, do you like it, Demon Hunter?” Shuni shook her head, red-faced from the effort to try and let out her giggles at a controlled pace, but the moment she lost control they would flow out in an unbroken torrent… And yet, her face was flushed crimson for another reason, her hands gently pressing at her stomach and fiddling with her obi. She was…? No! No, that couldn’t be, she couldn’t let… something like that… happen now…
But, embarrassing as it was to admit, it was true, Shuni knew she was feeling stirrings of arousal, likely triggered by his charm and looks, compounded by the tickling. It was a miracle the demons hadn’t found out this particular aspect about the girl; done right, tickling was her weakness twice over… Being mercilessly tickled in the rough manner of the demons was not stimulating, no. But the way the boy was doing it… gentle, teasing, consistent… it made her unbearably warm inside.
“Demon Hunter, you do like it, don’t you?” The boy was tickling her soles lightly with two fingers now, but that wasn’t what Shuni realized; it was that her kimono was half-undone, her fingers picking at the knot that held the obi together. She had let her musings carry her so far off that her body had begun acting of its own accord, and now, she’d humiliated herself in front of this boy… There was a twinkle in his eyes when he stopped and came around front to face her again. “Demon Hunter, don’t cry,” he said softly when he saw the beading tears in Shuni’s eyes.
“Please don’t cry, it doesn’t suit you. I’m not upset with you, Demon Hunter, and I don’t think you’re a courtesan either.” He smiled gently and nodded, getting her to look up and into his eyes. That look made her want to… do something… it confused her, tangled her wits and muddled her emotions, until she didn’t know what to do, and that gentle frustration had led to… this. “There, tears don’t befit your face. Please take this,” he said, taking a clean cloth from a nearby table and handing it to her to dab away her tears with. “Demon Hunter, I…”
He was about to go on when a gruff voice could be heard outside, conversing with some villager or another. The words weren’t audible but the voice was recognizable, it was the tailor, and he had returned! If they didn’t do something… “Go, quickly!” he whispered, offering her socks and pointing towards the back. “Use the back exit and slip out into the fields. Make sure no one sees you or they will ask questions. I… I’ll visit you tonight to continue our conversation. Go now!”
Still confused somewhat, but knowing the need for quick action when she saw it, Shuni nodded and swiftly made her way out the back door, closing it just in time for the tailor to return and see nothing amiss. Checking her surroundings quickly, she heard the tailor address the boy in a normal tone of voice, not a suspicious one, and thanking Providence she slipped off back towards Kazuo’s house.
It took some patience and a good deal of skill to return to her room undetected, but finally she had made it, and with a sigh set down everything she had been carrying in a heap. What a fool she had been to let herself go that way, despite the boy’s words he either thought she was forward anyway or… maybe he planned to use the encounter to extort something from her! The thought hit Shuni across the face like an icy-cold cloth, and dread filled her mind as she washed away the evidence of tears and straightened herself up so that all evidence that something had been amiss was eliminated.
For the rest of that day Shuni was consumed by that inner dread that something was about to go terribly wrong. She moped around, not able to concentrate on the plans she had been going to lay out for the next few days, not able to think about anything much really except what the boy had said to her as she had been leaving, visiting and re-visiting the words, trying to wring the true meaning out of them. But she could not, there was little she could possibly do about it, and there was nothing left to do but wait.
As Kazuo had predicted earlier that day, as soon as the girls of the village were freed from their chores for a few minutes at a time they would try to get into the tailor’s shop and spend a little bit of time with the boy. But their luck was not as good as Shuni’s had been and more often than not they were chucked out on their tails after a few minutes inside the shop. This, however, did not deter any of them, and the silly parade continued as the sun marched across the sky.
Shuni finally went back to the house and ate the dinner that Kazuo had prepared, barely tasting the food despite the quality of the cooking that was usual, somewhat surprising for an old man living by himself, but it was certainly… Shuni’s mind wandered, bouncing from this to that and trying now not to think at all about the night’s upcoming ordeal. Again Kazuo simply did not bring up the subject, just chatting about this and that and allowing her half-hearted responses to pass without question. Shuni went into her room as the sun was setting, but could bring herself to do nothing but wait with mounting dread.
Just as the sun was starting to disappear, there was a quiet, surreptitious knock on Shuni’s door. She was on her feet and opening the door before she had even stopped to think, but what was behind the door surprised her even beyond what she had been expecting. The face of a village girl smiled at her, not even noticing her bewildered expression. “Demon Hunter Shuni, may I enter?”
“Ahh, y-yes, you may.” Shuni shook herself and nodded, opening the door fully and kneeling on a mat before indicating her visitor should do the same. What an anticlimactic moment… “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes there is as a matter of fact,” she replied smartly. “I heard that you spent an entire half-hour alone with the tailor’s apprentice this morning. Furthermore, one of the girls working in the fields at that time saw you sneaking out the back when the tailor returned. What were you doing in there?” The no-nonsense tone and manner in which the girl conducted herself bordered on outright suspicion. Shuni found herself taken aback, then recalled the boy’s words from that morning… This girl is jealous, Shuni realized.
“I spoke with him about the possibility of getting myself new socks,” Shuni replied honestly. “As you can see, such a matter is unfortunately one that requires a fair degree of custom work in my case, and the tailor’s apprentice was unfortunately inexperienced enough that he had some difficulty in obtaining the necessary measurements.” Well, it wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a lie either. Just a little choice bits of omission…
“Lies!” the girl hissed, looking around and modulating her voice lower before continuing: “One of the girls spoke with the tailor’s apprentice after you had visited, and in the course of their conversation he mentioned that you, like she, was extremely ticklish. How did he come across that information if you were simply speaking to him about new socks?”
“Because he had to take measurements of my feet, and it’s my feet where I’m most ticklish,” Shuni replied, blushing. She quickly forced herself to assume a neutral mien and posture; blushing would not be a good idea around her. Clearly, this girl was so jealous that she was not thinking clearly. “I did not do anything improper while I was there, it simply happened that… because I was so ticklish, I had a hard time keeping still for him to take the measurements. That, combined with his inexperience, caused the long visit.”
“So why did you escape out the back door then? As soon as the tailor came back no less! If you really needed better measurements you would have stayed for him to take them!” The village girl grinned as Shuni flinched guiltily. She’d forgotten about that, and there was no good explanation for it at all. Shuni floundered for an explanation that would appease the girl, but… “I knew it! Something did happen, you brazen…!”
“Hold your tongue!” Shuni commanded, drawing on her size and authority to silence the girl with a stern remark. The quick reversal of initiative put Shuni back on the offensive, and she took a quick breath before going onward; “I understand that the tailor’s apprentice is a very handsome boy who has the eyes of every girl in the village, and that you must be jealous because I spent time with him. Still, it does not excuse you from making insolent remarks towards others, and –“
“So high and mighty!” said a snickering voice from behind Shuni, but it wasn’t the words that cut off Shuni’s tirade so much as the action, a gentle swipe of a finger along the arch of her socked sole. “Come off of that high horse, demon hunter girl, assuming airs is an even worse offense than insolence, and you know that!”
“I was not assuming airs!” Shuni said indignantly, spinning around and standing up to put her feet firmly on the ground, also letting her look down on the crouching girl, who had a black cloth tied around her head as a mask. “And I would not lecture others on propriety, you who skulk about in darkness behind a mask. I demand that you leave my bedchambers before I bring the matter before the village chieftain.” Shuni paused for a moment, considering another angle. “Are you the girl who spoke with the tailor’s apprentice after I left?”
“I am,” she said defiantly, also pulling herself up to her full height, which brought the top of her head to Shuni’s shoulders, and her eyes square on the larger girl’s chest. This did little to improve her mood, as her hands subconsciously went to her own chest. “So what of it? Are you accusing me of impropriety towards the tailor’s apprentice?”
“I said nothing of the sort,” Shuni snarled. “Be that as it may, I am asking both of you to leave my room this instant. Please do so before I evict you personally.”
“You’re not evicting anyone, demon hunter girl,” the unmasked girl said with a smirk, before suddenly reaching up to deftly remove Shuni’s white necklace and turning to run. “Come and get this if you can!”
“You…! Return that at once!” Shuni commanded. The necklace, along with her earrings, maintained the kimono’s protective effect over her head. Without the necklace, there would be a gap in the barrier, and worse, Shuni would not know where the gap was. “Thieving wench! Return my necklace or face the consequences!” Shuni had to give chase, once again cursing her physique for making her slow. Still, the necklace glowed with a faint light, so once the girl was out in the dark fields, tracking it was fairly simple. She bobbed and ducked and weaved among the crops, but Shuni was doggedly persistent.
“Have you come to your senses?” Shuni demanded when she finally saw the necklace stop moving, coming to a stop a few feet in front of her. “Return my necklace and I promise not to speak a word of this incident.”
“Well…” The unmasked girl’s voice wavered, and Shuni hoped the hot head that had ruled her actions to this point was starting to cool, reminding her of the penalties for doing what she was. Then, unexpectedly, she smirked. “You won’t speak a word of this incident anyway, once we’re done with you.”
It took Shuni a moment to realize that those last words had come from behind her, not in front of her, and only another moment to spin around to face the masked girl, who had followed her outside when she had given chase. “Now!” And with the shout, she pushed Shuni with all of her might.
The shove shouldn’t have done anything. In fact, it did little other than make Shuni backpedal a few steps. But there was a low rise of earth just behind where Shuni now stood, making her trip backwards and, arms flailing, fall flat on her behind on the ground. And then she fell again, the thin covering of grass and soil giving way to the hole that had been dug a few feet into the ground.
Shuni ended up with her rear end below the rest of her body, effectively causing her to be stuck in the ground. However, she felt the ground giving way beneath her back, rich soil easily crumbling. Soon she would be laying on her back with her legs in the air, rather than doubled up with her rear at the bottom of a hole. But how long it would take was indeed the question; the night air filled with rustling and quiet snickering, and a larger group of village girls was gathered around Shuni.
“Now, Demon Hunter,” one of them said, “you’ll tell us explicitly what happened when you visited the tailor’s this morning, and also speak no word of this encounter to anyone, else we will find you and do worse than we plan to do tonight.” She snapped her fingers and quickly Shuni’s two socks flew off, exposing her bare soles to the six girls above. “Get to it, girls. Her feet are so big, there’s room for everyone.”
“No, wait – mmaahahhaahaha ahhaHAAHAHahahah mmmmMMMMPHHH!!!” The unmasked girl who had stolen her necklace tied a strip of cloth around Shuni’s mouth. “We know you’ll laugh like a desperate maiden, so this will allow us to perform our work in peace. I hope you forgive the rudeness.” With that, she snickered, and joined her fellows at Shuni’s feet, tickling with her short nails against the soft, sensitive skin of her heels.
The only consolation was that they were tickle torturing, and that Shuni’s hands were pinned so they could not wander even if they wanted to. Otherwise Shuni might have fallen into the same embarrassment she’d suffered earlier this day, and in that case she would be truly doomed. Her giggling, quickly ramped up by the six pairs of hands that tickled on her soles, was mostly muffled by the gag and the rest of it dissipated into the night air, distance insulating the town from the sound. Her toes tried to wiggle, but two hands caught and carefully held them. Her ankles turned and flexed, but several hands teamed up to force her feet into motionlessness.
What remained was tickling torment of the first degree, worse than anything the demons had attempted so far, and the real danger was that with so many fingers skating about on her feet, one of them would stumble onto a sweet spot and so seal Shuni’s doom. They did not make demands, did not ask any questions beyond the one already asked, and simply went about their devilish work with intense precision. Oh, to be sure, they cackled and giggled and teased Shuni to her wit’s end, but at least they were human…
“Oh! Look here!” One of the girls tickled Shuni’s foot in a particular way, and the big girl exploded into unbelievable hysterics, expelling the air from her lungs in a massive blast of laughing. “I think she’s really bad here! Keep getting the rest of her feet, and I’ll get this spot!” The girl laid her fingers into scritching the sensitive spot, and so conspired to drive Shuni into the arms of laughter’s madness.
Shuni’s eyes were squeezed shut in a reflex action even as her mind’s focus was shattered into a million tiny pieces, floating about in a sea of uncontrolled laughter. She tried to kick her feet and wiggle her body to hasten the collapse of the quickly dug pit, but she was only a little bit unfolded, and still laying right on her hands. She tried to distract herself, to think of anything besides the tickling, but it drew her mind like a moth to a flame.
Eventually it stopped. It had to stop sometime, yet it was odd, for even though Shuni’s torment had lasted but for a brief period of time, she had almost forgotten what it was like to not be tickled. Still, it took her a bit of time to calm down, and this was stretched a little, as Shuni still acted caught in the throes of giggling to extend the respite they had given her. It would be brief, or it could be; though they did not move, there were still fingers resting on that particular spot, ready again to tickle her mind into oblivion if she did not…
“Now, I’ll ask again,” the girl’s voice commanded. “Tell us exactly what transpired this morning between yourself and the tailor’s apprentice… if you still refuse, we’ll carry on for five minutes longer, for a total of ten minutes.” Shuni blinked. They had only tickled her for five minutes? It had seemed like a lifetime, yet somehow gone in a blink at the same time… but now was not the time for idle philosophical consideration. Her mind raced; if she told, she would be the laughingstock of the village girls and probably soon most of the village as well. If she did not, she’d be brought low yet again… what to do? Shuni wiggled her back against the slowly caving wall, feeling it giving way little by little, almost enough for her hands to wriggle free…
“If I do tell, whom would you share the information with?” Shuni asked, stalling but also trying to determine her best course of action. If they kept it simply to themselves, then maybe divulging the information would not be too bad… especially if she could not get her hands free. They were maddeningly close to escaping, yet so far… “I’ll not tell you so I can be made a fool of before the entire village. No torment is worth that.”
“Very perceptive, demon hunter girl,” another one of the girls chuckled. It sounded like the girl who was wearing the mask, and perhaps she was the one with her fingers there, because as she spoke those words, the fingers twitched… Shuni’s back arched and it was all she could do to stifle a burst of giggles behind her lips. “We’ll only keep this information between us, of course. We’re not so juvenile that we’d take it to the village council or the mayor, or even our parents. We’ll even keep your little secret, Shuni.” The snickering that burst forth among those girls indicated that the ‘secret’ was either Shuni’s extreme ticklishness or that one particular spot, she wasn’t sure which, but…
“Shh! Listen!” one of the others hissed, and the mood changed among the group of girls instantly. Instead of triumphantly gloating over their captured prey, they suddenly became tense, senses alert for signs of danger… “Someone’s coming! Quickly, run away!”
“What about her?” one of them asked urgently.
“Leave her here,” another urged. “We can deal with her another time; but if we’re caught, there’ll be strict punishment enforced! Everyone, scatter and spread out! We’ll just get caught if we all run together.” And so, the group took off in different directions, all of them away from where whoever it was came from… but, the girl wearing the mask was still holding Shuni’s necklace, the iridescent white necklace that marked her like a beacon. Struggling mightily, Shuni finally popped her hands free and quickly scampered out of the hole with some contortions and twisting. Squinting as she scanned the darkness, Shuni looked for telltale white spots…
There was something right nearby… her socks! Those were of great value to her as well, right now. Shuni snatched them up and spotted the necklace, but it wasn’t moving, as if held by someone running. No, it was… staying still. What was she…? The sound of voices floating past Shuni’s ears answered her question. She’d been caught, and the thought filled Shuni’s mind with satisfaction. She was about to go over and add a piece of her mind to the discussion when she thought better of it… Rather than admit she’d been led out on a chase, why not return to her room and pretend she’d been stolen from while sleeping? It was a much better idea…
Quickly, Shuni disrobed. It made her wince to do so, and to be caught now would be rather humiliating, but if her necklace stood out like a beacon, then her kimono was as a brightly lit torch illuminating pitch-blackness. There was little choice in the matter; staying low and moving quickly, Shuni headed back for the house, her room, and safety.
Getting there proved to be much easier than she’d imagined, and Kazuo was apparently asleep… Shuni took some time to bathe herself in a tub of water, standing in it and using spare ladlefuls to rinse herself, but when she was finished the dirt that had gotten in her hair and skin while stuck in the hole was washed out, and once again she felt clean and refreshed. Now just to get back in bed before anyone came back… with her kimono tucked under her arm, Shuni breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the door behind her.
It was the work of but a few minutes to straighten and fold her kimono; Shuni was too tired to do much else, and fell onto her bedroll clad only in her undergarments. With the blanket over top of her, she would still be decent to anyone who happened to peek inside. With every angle covered, all Shuni had to do was feign sleep. How long would it take for the villager to finish lecturing the girl? And then realize whose necklace she held?
Shuni decided he would not come back until the next morning, so as to properly speak with her about what had happened… it made sense, and in any case Shuni was indeed tired from her exertions and earlier ordeal. It would do her no harm to get some sleep a little bit earlier than normal, and if she awoke early in the morning, perhaps she could plan another excursion into the demons’ forest…
The door opened and closed, softly. Shuni didn’t react, outwardly, although inside she was surprised. She had not expected the villager to risk intruding on a lady’s bedroom at this time of night, nor enter without even knocking… Perhaps he had thought not to wake her and to simply replace the necklace where she had left it, then to explain in the morning. Yes, he probably thought that to awaken without her necklace nearby would be a shock to her, one that could be avoided with ease.
But what did happen next was a shock that she had allowed herself to forget. “Demon Hunter,” called a voice, a soft, sweet, flowing voice. “Are you really asleep already? I’d thought to speak with you more, but… I guess it shall wait until tomorrow night if you are tired…”
“No, I’m awake,” she said softly in reply, sitting up before realizing that she wasn’t decent and clutching the covers to herself, blushing at her haste. “I hadn’t forgotten… I simply wanted to make sure I’d have no one else in here, so I feigned sleep.” Shuni whispered even more softly, although no one was around:
“What did you want to talk about…?”
Shuni mournfully took stock of her situation the morning after she had been stuck in the cave with the demons. Her circumstances were more severe than she’d allowed in her preparations, and she was starting to run low on crucial items. To be more specific, she’d already lost half of the socks she’d come here with, and with her first pay still some days off it was looking like she might have to go barefoot some days – a thought that now made her shudder.
She was still trying to think of a solution over breakfast, nodding politely and responding to Kazuo to indicate that she was still following him, whatever he was saying, but it was obvious that her thoughts were elsewhere. He usually seemed pretty observant, and probably would have noticed her preoccupation… Then again, perhaps he did know, and was simply tactful enough not to call attention to it and let her mind wander as it would for a solution, which was unfortunately proving no easy task. Then something Kazuo said slid across her mind and brought her line of thought to a sudden stop.
“Tailor?” she repeated blankly, having missed most of what the sentence had been about.
“Yes, I think that stodgy old coot brought on more trouble than he realizes by letting that boy serve under him as an apprentice.” Kazuo chuckled dryly as he popped a pickle into his mouth. “He’ll have all the village girls trying to fabricate excuses to go into the shop today. Ah well, I suppose the boy’s parents are happy. It seemed for a while there that he wanted to do nothing but woo the girls for a living…”
Shuni was able to fill in the gaps with her knowledge, limited as it was, about the villagers. There was one particular boy of a particular family who, to put it bluntly, had the face and features that made girls swoon. He could dance girls on tiptoe by putting a coy finger under their chins, or set hearts aflutter and cheeks aflame with a few whispered words. His parents, quite naturally, disapproved of this, and had been riding him hard to choose a path for his life. Apparently he had chosen to apprentice himself to the village tailor Shuni had dealt with a few days past. Maybe he would be a little more amenable to persuasion…
With that settled, Shuni pulled on one of her two remaining pairs of socks and later that day made her way quietly to the tailor’s house. She had chosen her time with care; at midmorning, all the village girls would still be occupied with typical farm or house chores, and so be unlikely to bother her… Now, the only gamble was whether or not the boy or the tailor answered her call. She’d planned out a thin excuse to give to the tailor if she ran into him, but it would not hold up very well, she knew. So she prayed silently to herself as she rapped gently on the wooden door…
“Please, come in,” a melodious, flowing voice called, pouring like warm honey from around the door, and with a quickening heartbeat Shuni slid the door aside and hastily bowed, feeling a smile form on her face as she gazed upon the boy whose name she did not yet know, but whose ease on her eyes was already remarkable. “Oh, Demon Hunter! It is an honor to see you,” he replied with his own polite bow after she had straightened, causing Shuni to blink. Sometimes she forgot that her standing as a demon hunter did grant her some social deference. She wasn’t yet old enough to automatically command that deference, and sometimes she forgot it was her due. “How may I help you?”
“Well…” Shuni knelt on the offered rug and began to explain her situation to the boy, who nodded and listened attentively. Shuni doubted that her sock size could be a matter of such interest, but it was sweet of him to show that he cared… which was probably the very reason he did it. Still, it did set her at ease, and as she settled back upon finishing her story, he favored her with a smile that threatened to melt her.
“I see your problem,” he said with a sympathetic nod. “Such terrible fortune you’ve suffered, I extend my sympathy to you… I’ll tell you what I can do,” he said with a grin. “I’ll make you another pair of socks on the sly… it’ll be one of the first things I do, so it might not be such great work, but even if the tailor catches me I’ll just tell him I am making a practice piece to hone my skills as his apprentice. He’ll have no choice but to acknowledge my devotion to the tailor’s craft… Does that sound good to you?”
“It does! Thank you so very much!” Shuni said, smiling brightly at him. She had barely even needed to ask, and here he was volunteering his time to help her! No wonder all of the girls in the village wanted to be near him; he had a special knack for making a female feel special. “Is there anything I need to help you with? Measurements, perhaps?”
“Measurements would help,” the boy agreed, getting out the same measurement apparatus Shuni had seen the tailor use before, but looking somewhat uncertain as to how to use it. “Erm… I haven’t been taught how to use this yet. What a predicament,” he mused, looking around and tapping his writing brush against his chin for inspiration. “Ah! I have an idea. Please, remove your socks, Demon Hunter, I have a plan.”
While Shuni removed her socks again, the boy hunted up two pieces of parchment and placed them on the floor. “Please put your feet here, and I’ll trace them,” he said brightly, wiggling the brush around a little bit and pointing to the pieces of parchment. “That way I’ll be able to measure them with a normal straightedge instead of this goofy tool.” Shuni almost let out a little squeak, but… well, what harm was there in the boy knowing? It didn’t have the strange, creepy feel of having the old tailor know, so… she put her feet on the parchment as asked and steeled herself…
“Stay still, I can’t…” the boy muttered as he tried to trace the outline of her feet. “Demon Hunter, please! I can’t… oh! This one’s ruined,” he said with a rueful giggle. “Demon Hunter, you’re very ticklish.” Shuni blushed to the tips of her brown hair and nodded, trying to cover her face with her cheeks, embarrassed both that he’d found out in such a way and that she’d ruined his work. “Oh, please don’t worry! I think it’s cute, Demon Hunter.” Uncovering one eye, Shuni looked down at the boy, who was blushing faintly himself.
That broke the ice and Shuni let out a giggle, managing to flush the worst of her blush from her face. “Yes, I’m extremely ticklish, I guess it’s just something I have to live with, but it can be a pain sometimes, such as now.” Shuni wiggled her other foot and clenched her fists. “Try again; I’ll promise to hold still this time, and the tailor said that my feet were of about the same size.”
“All right, I’ll try again,” the boy said with a smile and a nod, again beginning to trace the outline of Shuni’s feet, trying not to have the brush touch the sides of her feet too much, but a few giggles were inevitable. Still, this attempt went much better, and once it was done, there was a fairly clear outline of Shuni’s foot on the paper. “Excellent! This will do just perfectly,” he said with satisfaction. “Thank you, Demon Hunter.” With a mischievous grin he teased her big toe after cleaning the ink from the brush.
“No! Hee hee hee please don’t!” Shuni squealed, clapping her hands to her mouth and sitting down with a bump, trying to assume a normal kneeling position but needing to try twice before she got it. What she hadn’t counted on was how the position bared her soles when she was barefoot, and the boy was around her in a flash, teasing her arches with the writing brush’s soft bristles.
“Demon Hunter, please try not to be so loud, if the adults hear you we’ll be scolded.” He winked at her and laughed a little at her pout of dismay, dome comically for mirthful effect. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t seem to let them be…” He ran his fingers from her heel to toes on the left foot, making her body quake with laughter as she let out little muffled giggles from behind her hands. “You oughtn’t go barefoot if your feet are so ticklish,” he teased. “What if the village girls find out? They can be quite relentless when they are struck with jealousy.”
Jealousy? Shuni realized with a start that from the outset she had been alone with the boy and the tailor had not even come to check in on what he had been doing. Was he out on an errand? Or was the boy simply teasing her with such a dangerous game? He was getting away with it, too, she realized, she was making no effort to use her superior strength or training to force him to stop, instead… Instead, she was just being a helpless, giggling girl, letting him tease her as he pleased, because… because why? Because he was cute? Certainly he was, but with Shuni’s recent experiences, why was she letting him do this? Maybe it was because he was only a human and doing it for fun?
“Tickle, tickle, Demon Hunter, I’d watch out if I were you, your feet beg me to tickle them! You’re not moving, do you like it, Demon Hunter?” Shuni shook her head, red-faced from the effort to try and let out her giggles at a controlled pace, but the moment she lost control they would flow out in an unbroken torrent… And yet, her face was flushed crimson for another reason, her hands gently pressing at her stomach and fiddling with her obi. She was…? No! No, that couldn’t be, she couldn’t let… something like that… happen now…
But, embarrassing as it was to admit, it was true, Shuni knew she was feeling stirrings of arousal, likely triggered by his charm and looks, compounded by the tickling. It was a miracle the demons hadn’t found out this particular aspect about the girl; done right, tickling was her weakness twice over… Being mercilessly tickled in the rough manner of the demons was not stimulating, no. But the way the boy was doing it… gentle, teasing, consistent… it made her unbearably warm inside.
“Demon Hunter, you do like it, don’t you?” The boy was tickling her soles lightly with two fingers now, but that wasn’t what Shuni realized; it was that her kimono was half-undone, her fingers picking at the knot that held the obi together. She had let her musings carry her so far off that her body had begun acting of its own accord, and now, she’d humiliated herself in front of this boy… There was a twinkle in his eyes when he stopped and came around front to face her again. “Demon Hunter, don’t cry,” he said softly when he saw the beading tears in Shuni’s eyes.
“Please don’t cry, it doesn’t suit you. I’m not upset with you, Demon Hunter, and I don’t think you’re a courtesan either.” He smiled gently and nodded, getting her to look up and into his eyes. That look made her want to… do something… it confused her, tangled her wits and muddled her emotions, until she didn’t know what to do, and that gentle frustration had led to… this. “There, tears don’t befit your face. Please take this,” he said, taking a clean cloth from a nearby table and handing it to her to dab away her tears with. “Demon Hunter, I…”
He was about to go on when a gruff voice could be heard outside, conversing with some villager or another. The words weren’t audible but the voice was recognizable, it was the tailor, and he had returned! If they didn’t do something… “Go, quickly!” he whispered, offering her socks and pointing towards the back. “Use the back exit and slip out into the fields. Make sure no one sees you or they will ask questions. I… I’ll visit you tonight to continue our conversation. Go now!”
Still confused somewhat, but knowing the need for quick action when she saw it, Shuni nodded and swiftly made her way out the back door, closing it just in time for the tailor to return and see nothing amiss. Checking her surroundings quickly, she heard the tailor address the boy in a normal tone of voice, not a suspicious one, and thanking Providence she slipped off back towards Kazuo’s house.
It took some patience and a good deal of skill to return to her room undetected, but finally she had made it, and with a sigh set down everything she had been carrying in a heap. What a fool she had been to let herself go that way, despite the boy’s words he either thought she was forward anyway or… maybe he planned to use the encounter to extort something from her! The thought hit Shuni across the face like an icy-cold cloth, and dread filled her mind as she washed away the evidence of tears and straightened herself up so that all evidence that something had been amiss was eliminated.
For the rest of that day Shuni was consumed by that inner dread that something was about to go terribly wrong. She moped around, not able to concentrate on the plans she had been going to lay out for the next few days, not able to think about anything much really except what the boy had said to her as she had been leaving, visiting and re-visiting the words, trying to wring the true meaning out of them. But she could not, there was little she could possibly do about it, and there was nothing left to do but wait.
As Kazuo had predicted earlier that day, as soon as the girls of the village were freed from their chores for a few minutes at a time they would try to get into the tailor’s shop and spend a little bit of time with the boy. But their luck was not as good as Shuni’s had been and more often than not they were chucked out on their tails after a few minutes inside the shop. This, however, did not deter any of them, and the silly parade continued as the sun marched across the sky.
Shuni finally went back to the house and ate the dinner that Kazuo had prepared, barely tasting the food despite the quality of the cooking that was usual, somewhat surprising for an old man living by himself, but it was certainly… Shuni’s mind wandered, bouncing from this to that and trying now not to think at all about the night’s upcoming ordeal. Again Kazuo simply did not bring up the subject, just chatting about this and that and allowing her half-hearted responses to pass without question. Shuni went into her room as the sun was setting, but could bring herself to do nothing but wait with mounting dread.
Just as the sun was starting to disappear, there was a quiet, surreptitious knock on Shuni’s door. She was on her feet and opening the door before she had even stopped to think, but what was behind the door surprised her even beyond what she had been expecting. The face of a village girl smiled at her, not even noticing her bewildered expression. “Demon Hunter Shuni, may I enter?”
“Ahh, y-yes, you may.” Shuni shook herself and nodded, opening the door fully and kneeling on a mat before indicating her visitor should do the same. What an anticlimactic moment… “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes there is as a matter of fact,” she replied smartly. “I heard that you spent an entire half-hour alone with the tailor’s apprentice this morning. Furthermore, one of the girls working in the fields at that time saw you sneaking out the back when the tailor returned. What were you doing in there?” The no-nonsense tone and manner in which the girl conducted herself bordered on outright suspicion. Shuni found herself taken aback, then recalled the boy’s words from that morning… This girl is jealous, Shuni realized.
“I spoke with him about the possibility of getting myself new socks,” Shuni replied honestly. “As you can see, such a matter is unfortunately one that requires a fair degree of custom work in my case, and the tailor’s apprentice was unfortunately inexperienced enough that he had some difficulty in obtaining the necessary measurements.” Well, it wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a lie either. Just a little choice bits of omission…
“Lies!” the girl hissed, looking around and modulating her voice lower before continuing: “One of the girls spoke with the tailor’s apprentice after you had visited, and in the course of their conversation he mentioned that you, like she, was extremely ticklish. How did he come across that information if you were simply speaking to him about new socks?”
“Because he had to take measurements of my feet, and it’s my feet where I’m most ticklish,” Shuni replied, blushing. She quickly forced herself to assume a neutral mien and posture; blushing would not be a good idea around her. Clearly, this girl was so jealous that she was not thinking clearly. “I did not do anything improper while I was there, it simply happened that… because I was so ticklish, I had a hard time keeping still for him to take the measurements. That, combined with his inexperience, caused the long visit.”
“So why did you escape out the back door then? As soon as the tailor came back no less! If you really needed better measurements you would have stayed for him to take them!” The village girl grinned as Shuni flinched guiltily. She’d forgotten about that, and there was no good explanation for it at all. Shuni floundered for an explanation that would appease the girl, but… “I knew it! Something did happen, you brazen…!”
“Hold your tongue!” Shuni commanded, drawing on her size and authority to silence the girl with a stern remark. The quick reversal of initiative put Shuni back on the offensive, and she took a quick breath before going onward; “I understand that the tailor’s apprentice is a very handsome boy who has the eyes of every girl in the village, and that you must be jealous because I spent time with him. Still, it does not excuse you from making insolent remarks towards others, and –“
“So high and mighty!” said a snickering voice from behind Shuni, but it wasn’t the words that cut off Shuni’s tirade so much as the action, a gentle swipe of a finger along the arch of her socked sole. “Come off of that high horse, demon hunter girl, assuming airs is an even worse offense than insolence, and you know that!”
“I was not assuming airs!” Shuni said indignantly, spinning around and standing up to put her feet firmly on the ground, also letting her look down on the crouching girl, who had a black cloth tied around her head as a mask. “And I would not lecture others on propriety, you who skulk about in darkness behind a mask. I demand that you leave my bedchambers before I bring the matter before the village chieftain.” Shuni paused for a moment, considering another angle. “Are you the girl who spoke with the tailor’s apprentice after I left?”
“I am,” she said defiantly, also pulling herself up to her full height, which brought the top of her head to Shuni’s shoulders, and her eyes square on the larger girl’s chest. This did little to improve her mood, as her hands subconsciously went to her own chest. “So what of it? Are you accusing me of impropriety towards the tailor’s apprentice?”
“I said nothing of the sort,” Shuni snarled. “Be that as it may, I am asking both of you to leave my room this instant. Please do so before I evict you personally.”
“You’re not evicting anyone, demon hunter girl,” the unmasked girl said with a smirk, before suddenly reaching up to deftly remove Shuni’s white necklace and turning to run. “Come and get this if you can!”
“You…! Return that at once!” Shuni commanded. The necklace, along with her earrings, maintained the kimono’s protective effect over her head. Without the necklace, there would be a gap in the barrier, and worse, Shuni would not know where the gap was. “Thieving wench! Return my necklace or face the consequences!” Shuni had to give chase, once again cursing her physique for making her slow. Still, the necklace glowed with a faint light, so once the girl was out in the dark fields, tracking it was fairly simple. She bobbed and ducked and weaved among the crops, but Shuni was doggedly persistent.
“Have you come to your senses?” Shuni demanded when she finally saw the necklace stop moving, coming to a stop a few feet in front of her. “Return my necklace and I promise not to speak a word of this incident.”
“Well…” The unmasked girl’s voice wavered, and Shuni hoped the hot head that had ruled her actions to this point was starting to cool, reminding her of the penalties for doing what she was. Then, unexpectedly, she smirked. “You won’t speak a word of this incident anyway, once we’re done with you.”
It took Shuni a moment to realize that those last words had come from behind her, not in front of her, and only another moment to spin around to face the masked girl, who had followed her outside when she had given chase. “Now!” And with the shout, she pushed Shuni with all of her might.
The shove shouldn’t have done anything. In fact, it did little other than make Shuni backpedal a few steps. But there was a low rise of earth just behind where Shuni now stood, making her trip backwards and, arms flailing, fall flat on her behind on the ground. And then she fell again, the thin covering of grass and soil giving way to the hole that had been dug a few feet into the ground.
Shuni ended up with her rear end below the rest of her body, effectively causing her to be stuck in the ground. However, she felt the ground giving way beneath her back, rich soil easily crumbling. Soon she would be laying on her back with her legs in the air, rather than doubled up with her rear at the bottom of a hole. But how long it would take was indeed the question; the night air filled with rustling and quiet snickering, and a larger group of village girls was gathered around Shuni.
“Now, Demon Hunter,” one of them said, “you’ll tell us explicitly what happened when you visited the tailor’s this morning, and also speak no word of this encounter to anyone, else we will find you and do worse than we plan to do tonight.” She snapped her fingers and quickly Shuni’s two socks flew off, exposing her bare soles to the six girls above. “Get to it, girls. Her feet are so big, there’s room for everyone.”
“No, wait – mmaahahhaahaha ahhaHAAHAHahahah mmmmMMMMPHHH!!!” The unmasked girl who had stolen her necklace tied a strip of cloth around Shuni’s mouth. “We know you’ll laugh like a desperate maiden, so this will allow us to perform our work in peace. I hope you forgive the rudeness.” With that, she snickered, and joined her fellows at Shuni’s feet, tickling with her short nails against the soft, sensitive skin of her heels.
The only consolation was that they were tickle torturing, and that Shuni’s hands were pinned so they could not wander even if they wanted to. Otherwise Shuni might have fallen into the same embarrassment she’d suffered earlier this day, and in that case she would be truly doomed. Her giggling, quickly ramped up by the six pairs of hands that tickled on her soles, was mostly muffled by the gag and the rest of it dissipated into the night air, distance insulating the town from the sound. Her toes tried to wiggle, but two hands caught and carefully held them. Her ankles turned and flexed, but several hands teamed up to force her feet into motionlessness.
What remained was tickling torment of the first degree, worse than anything the demons had attempted so far, and the real danger was that with so many fingers skating about on her feet, one of them would stumble onto a sweet spot and so seal Shuni’s doom. They did not make demands, did not ask any questions beyond the one already asked, and simply went about their devilish work with intense precision. Oh, to be sure, they cackled and giggled and teased Shuni to her wit’s end, but at least they were human…
“Oh! Look here!” One of the girls tickled Shuni’s foot in a particular way, and the big girl exploded into unbelievable hysterics, expelling the air from her lungs in a massive blast of laughing. “I think she’s really bad here! Keep getting the rest of her feet, and I’ll get this spot!” The girl laid her fingers into scritching the sensitive spot, and so conspired to drive Shuni into the arms of laughter’s madness.
Shuni’s eyes were squeezed shut in a reflex action even as her mind’s focus was shattered into a million tiny pieces, floating about in a sea of uncontrolled laughter. She tried to kick her feet and wiggle her body to hasten the collapse of the quickly dug pit, but she was only a little bit unfolded, and still laying right on her hands. She tried to distract herself, to think of anything besides the tickling, but it drew her mind like a moth to a flame.
Eventually it stopped. It had to stop sometime, yet it was odd, for even though Shuni’s torment had lasted but for a brief period of time, she had almost forgotten what it was like to not be tickled. Still, it took her a bit of time to calm down, and this was stretched a little, as Shuni still acted caught in the throes of giggling to extend the respite they had given her. It would be brief, or it could be; though they did not move, there were still fingers resting on that particular spot, ready again to tickle her mind into oblivion if she did not…
“Now, I’ll ask again,” the girl’s voice commanded. “Tell us exactly what transpired this morning between yourself and the tailor’s apprentice… if you still refuse, we’ll carry on for five minutes longer, for a total of ten minutes.” Shuni blinked. They had only tickled her for five minutes? It had seemed like a lifetime, yet somehow gone in a blink at the same time… but now was not the time for idle philosophical consideration. Her mind raced; if she told, she would be the laughingstock of the village girls and probably soon most of the village as well. If she did not, she’d be brought low yet again… what to do? Shuni wiggled her back against the slowly caving wall, feeling it giving way little by little, almost enough for her hands to wriggle free…
“If I do tell, whom would you share the information with?” Shuni asked, stalling but also trying to determine her best course of action. If they kept it simply to themselves, then maybe divulging the information would not be too bad… especially if she could not get her hands free. They were maddeningly close to escaping, yet so far… “I’ll not tell you so I can be made a fool of before the entire village. No torment is worth that.”
“Very perceptive, demon hunter girl,” another one of the girls chuckled. It sounded like the girl who was wearing the mask, and perhaps she was the one with her fingers there, because as she spoke those words, the fingers twitched… Shuni’s back arched and it was all she could do to stifle a burst of giggles behind her lips. “We’ll only keep this information between us, of course. We’re not so juvenile that we’d take it to the village council or the mayor, or even our parents. We’ll even keep your little secret, Shuni.” The snickering that burst forth among those girls indicated that the ‘secret’ was either Shuni’s extreme ticklishness or that one particular spot, she wasn’t sure which, but…
“Shh! Listen!” one of the others hissed, and the mood changed among the group of girls instantly. Instead of triumphantly gloating over their captured prey, they suddenly became tense, senses alert for signs of danger… “Someone’s coming! Quickly, run away!”
“What about her?” one of them asked urgently.
“Leave her here,” another urged. “We can deal with her another time; but if we’re caught, there’ll be strict punishment enforced! Everyone, scatter and spread out! We’ll just get caught if we all run together.” And so, the group took off in different directions, all of them away from where whoever it was came from… but, the girl wearing the mask was still holding Shuni’s necklace, the iridescent white necklace that marked her like a beacon. Struggling mightily, Shuni finally popped her hands free and quickly scampered out of the hole with some contortions and twisting. Squinting as she scanned the darkness, Shuni looked for telltale white spots…
There was something right nearby… her socks! Those were of great value to her as well, right now. Shuni snatched them up and spotted the necklace, but it wasn’t moving, as if held by someone running. No, it was… staying still. What was she…? The sound of voices floating past Shuni’s ears answered her question. She’d been caught, and the thought filled Shuni’s mind with satisfaction. She was about to go over and add a piece of her mind to the discussion when she thought better of it… Rather than admit she’d been led out on a chase, why not return to her room and pretend she’d been stolen from while sleeping? It was a much better idea…
Quickly, Shuni disrobed. It made her wince to do so, and to be caught now would be rather humiliating, but if her necklace stood out like a beacon, then her kimono was as a brightly lit torch illuminating pitch-blackness. There was little choice in the matter; staying low and moving quickly, Shuni headed back for the house, her room, and safety.
Getting there proved to be much easier than she’d imagined, and Kazuo was apparently asleep… Shuni took some time to bathe herself in a tub of water, standing in it and using spare ladlefuls to rinse herself, but when she was finished the dirt that had gotten in her hair and skin while stuck in the hole was washed out, and once again she felt clean and refreshed. Now just to get back in bed before anyone came back… with her kimono tucked under her arm, Shuni breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the door behind her.
It was the work of but a few minutes to straighten and fold her kimono; Shuni was too tired to do much else, and fell onto her bedroll clad only in her undergarments. With the blanket over top of her, she would still be decent to anyone who happened to peek inside. With every angle covered, all Shuni had to do was feign sleep. How long would it take for the villager to finish lecturing the girl? And then realize whose necklace she held?
Shuni decided he would not come back until the next morning, so as to properly speak with her about what had happened… it made sense, and in any case Shuni was indeed tired from her exertions and earlier ordeal. It would do her no harm to get some sleep a little bit earlier than normal, and if she awoke early in the morning, perhaps she could plan another excursion into the demons’ forest…
The door opened and closed, softly. Shuni didn’t react, outwardly, although inside she was surprised. She had not expected the villager to risk intruding on a lady’s bedroom at this time of night, nor enter without even knocking… Perhaps he had thought not to wake her and to simply replace the necklace where she had left it, then to explain in the morning. Yes, he probably thought that to awaken without her necklace nearby would be a shock to her, one that could be avoided with ease.
But what did happen next was a shock that she had allowed herself to forget. “Demon Hunter,” called a voice, a soft, sweet, flowing voice. “Are you really asleep already? I’d thought to speak with you more, but… I guess it shall wait until tomorrow night if you are tired…”
“No, I’m awake,” she said softly in reply, sitting up before realizing that she wasn’t decent and clutching the covers to herself, blushing at her haste. “I hadn’t forgotten… I simply wanted to make sure I’d have no one else in here, so I feigned sleep.” Shuni whispered even more softly, although no one was around:
“What did you want to talk about…?”
