Harvest 11, 855
Buu did not like the moaning wind that gave the Aching Wood its name. He found it eerie, and it made the hairs on his arms stand up whenever the weather blustered . He had never heard total silence in that place of life and movement before.
Standing alone between the still trees, he studied the strange red light staining the familiar white birches crimson. The forest grew soft at the edges, as if it only extended a few dozen feet from where he stood. He couldn’t hear the bustle of the lumber mill or see any hills he could try and climb to get a better idea of his surroundings. He called out once, as loudly as he could, hoping his little voice would shatter through the oppressive stillness and bring back the sounds of his home. “HELLO?!” he hollered, spinning slowly on his heel.
“Hello, Buu.”
Buu whipped around to survey the trees he had studied a moment before. A woman stood there now, close and calm, smiling sweetly at him. Dressed in a strange mix of hides and silks, she loomed taller than any woman Buu had ever seen. His uncle had taught him not to stare, but he couldn’t seem to remember his manners as he gaped openly at the woman’s head, and the faces that stared out from each side.
“… Hi,” he squeaked, trying to tear his eyes away but struggling to do so. “…Um…. Who are you?” he didn’t know what else to say.
The face on the front of the woman’s head, where a face should be, smiled wider. A good-natured smile with just a hint of knowing around the edges. Buu did his best to focus on that face, trying to ignore the others. The face on the woman’s right wept quietly, making the task difficult.
“Who am I?” she repeated, placing a polished, delicate hand on her chest, “I am a friend and I come to you with an offer.”
Buu bit his lip, thinking hard. He had heard something about a many-faced woman recently. Didn’t the headmaster say something…
“You’re the Thiab goddess? The one that controls the grimm?”
The woman — goddess — nodded solemnly, her dominant face falling into a gentle, serious frown. “I am. My people call me Sister Moon, but I’m afraid I no longer have authority over Tuag — the creature you know as the grimm. I did, but I can’t control him without the help of my Chosen. The beast is too powerful.”
“Your Chosen? Oh, General Ido…” Buu scratched the back of his head, staring at his feet but seeing the goddess nod from the corner of his eye. “Sorry about that.”
“It is okay, little one — you didn’t know what you were doing. Besides, you have the opportunity to set this right.” The goddess stepped closer, her voice softening. “You are young, but powerful. You can protect whoever you like from the grimm, you might be the only person who can.”
“How?” Buu asked, meeting her compassionate gaze.
Hearing that — finally — an adult knew how to deal with the situation, that there was a solution that he could be a part of, felt like a weight beginning to lift from Buu’s shoulders. He stepped closer, smelling the sickly, sweet odour of decay that sat around the goddess like a perfume, both repulsive and intoxicating.
“You need to become my new Chosen. You need to step into the role the general filled and help me hold onto Tuag’s leash.” The goddesses voice dropped into conspiratorial tones, her brow raising as she continued. “You would have powers beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. You could use the grimm how you please. Turn him on your enemies. You would be the most powerful man in the entire Thaven empire.”
Buu’s face scrunched up in confusion. He tilted his head, trying to process Sister Moon’s words. Surely he had misunderstood?
“But… can’t we get rid of the grimm? You bought him here, right? Just send him back. You’re a goddess — you don’t need my help.” Buu spoke with the slow, deliberate tones of someone trying to find the answer to a riddle, belatedly adding, “I’m nine.” In case the goddess really hadn’t noticed that she had offered death incarnate to a child.
Sister Moon offered a helpless shrug. “Making Tuag a physical body was an… experiment of sorts. A trial run, if you will. It’s the first time anyone in the Family has attempted anything like it, and while Tuag’s body is a wild success in many ways, I cannot control or unmake it. The same way I cannot force you to do what’s right, I can only ask and hope you see sense.”
Buu began to pace, his body not seeming to mind the activity in this weird version of the world. He swung his arms around too, just for the pleasure of it. As he thought, he tried not to look at the goddess’ alternate faces, glaring or weeping depending what side he was on.
The weight of Sister Moon’s words sat over him like a heavy wool blanket, itching at his brain and making it difficult to think. She watched him earnestly, dark eyes sympathetic. She smiled a thin smile.
He wished he could have met Anaya in this place of goddesses. She would have used her sword of flame to end the grimm or told Buu how to send it away. This heathen goddess sounded as strange as she looked, but Anaya had always been just a person, like him. She would have known to talk to an adult about this and leave Buu out of it.
“What does it mean to become your Chosen?” Buu asked after a long while.
The goddess came to stand before Buu, kneeling and looking up into his eyes, resting her delicate hands on his shoulders. The wool of her words seemed to work its way between his ears as she spoke.
“It is simple, though not easy. You need to trust me, to give yourself to me completely. To open your mind and allow me to flow through you.” She rested one finger against Buu’s chest, over his heart. “We become linked, forever, and are bound to help each other when the other is in need.”
Buu’s mind ticked away automatically, doing what it had always done — self-diagnose: lightheaded, clouded thoughts, tunnel vision. These observations alarmed Buu, but in a distant way, as if they affected somebody else. He considered Sister Moon’s words, biting his lower lip to better concentrate.
The goddess seemed nice, and with her help he could control the grimm, stop it from hurting anyone. He could keep all the villagers and students safe — even the soldiers. For once, he could protect others the way he always needed protection. Maybe together, they could even find a way to send it away for good.
He inhaled, getting ready to agree, when Sister Moon continued, voice soft and gaze coy. “I could help you to unlock your own abilities… make them stronger. You and the grimm would be unstoppable together. You could hunt and destroy whatever or whoever you wished. Topple cities, even. All with the excuse of my name. Isn’t that what you’ve really always wanted?”
When Buu’s muffled mind caught up to the words, Buu stared at Sister Moon wide-eyed. Slow as tree sap, he felt his mouth fall open to gape at her in horror. The red-stained trees surrounding them seemed to hold their breath.
How could she think he wanted to hurt people? What had he ever done to give her the idea that toppling cities had ever even crossed his mind, or that it would please him now? He had never even been hunting with his uncle, and now this goddess served bloody sport to him with the flourish of a long-awaited reward.
Rapid heart rate, clouded thoughts, rapid heart rate, clouded thoughts, rapid heart rate... The back of his mind offered, struggling past the mental haze as best it could.
“It’s the grimm,” he whispered, thinking aloud as there was no free room inside for it. “You think I’m like the grimm. You don’t know why it’s following me either. You think I want what it wants…” Buu turned away, breaking eye contact as the goddess’ face dropped into a frown, not wanting to break this tenuous thread of understanding.
“I heard stories of it killing and hunting long before the general died. Either it wasn’t fully under control, or you and the general wanted it to be hunting and killing. You were never trying to stop the grimm, only direct it at the people on the other side. You wanted—”
Buu turned back to Sister Moon to point an accusing finger in her face, only to find a different face from what he had expected. Her head had rotated soundlessly, body still pointing towards him, to reveal the same features as before, contorted into terrible rage. Buu stumbled back, tripping on his own feet and landing heavily on the forest floor, trying to get away from the bared teeth and horrid, cutting eyes.
The forest grew dark around Sister Moon as she stood, trees growing and looming over their clearing like the closing fingers on a hand, caging him in with the goddess. She seemed to grow too, towering above Buu as he crawled away from her, unable to take his eyes away from the pure wrath on display.
“Of course it is what you want. It is what all mortals want. It is why I exist.” Her voice had transformed with her face: kind , gentle tones replaced with ragged shouts. She took one earth-shattering step towards him, eating up all the distance he had gained with his awkward shuffling. “Tuag would only respect you if you held the same insatiable hunger as him. The same potential for death and destruction. And if you won’t bring that part of you to the surface, I will find it for you, and you will serve ME!”
The goddess grabbed Buu’s shoulder with one hand, holding him painfully tight. She curled the fingers of her other hand into claws, winding back as if to punch him, and he knew with terrible certainty that her blow would not be physical. She would reach those questing, gnarled fingers into his heart and pull out all of the unworthy thoughts he had ever had. She would find his resentment, his anger, his fear, and make it his whole being. She would make him like her.
Buu struggled, kicking and shouting, pawing at the hand holding him still as animal panic rose in his chest. His throat burned with primal fear, tasting of sour bile. All thought — woolly or otherwise — flew from his mind, replaced with the single, burning desire to continue being who he was.
When Sister Moon brought her hand down, the impact knocked the wind from his lungs. The forest spun around him, darkening completely, and the low growl coming from the goddess as she leaned over him reverberated through his bones. Her meaty breath stank, hot and wet against his face.
Buu screwed his eyes shut, waiting to be unmade and turned into something that wasn’t him, panting with fear and clammy with sweat. He couldn’t breath e against the heavy weight of her on his chest. She hit him again in the same place, snarling.
But he didn’t stop thinking his thoughts. No desire for bloodshed washed over him. No urge to sink his teeth into something fleshy and yielding overcame him. He certainly hadn’t got any braver.
Slowly, he peeked an eye open.
Instead of bloody birch trees, he opened his eyes to the upright wooden slats of his new university room. Inches from his face, the grimm’s teeth shone wetly, catching the moonlight streaming in from the open shutters. He held one paw on Buu’s chest, right where the goddess had hit him, and a bruising ache radiated from the skin underneath.
When Buu looked up into the grimm’s glowing ember eyes, it released him, sitting by Buu’s feet on the bed, watching him warily. Buu sat up, rubbing his new bruise, and coughed himself back into breathing normally. As he stared back at the grimm, he wondered if the fear in the creature’s eyes had been a trick of the moonlight.
It must have known, Buu realized. It knew he had spoken to its old mistress and could probably guess at what they had discussed. It wanted its freedom just as much as any living thing.
“Thank you…” Buu offered, when the silence grew heavy. After a moment’s consideration he added, “Tuag.”