When the crooked willow finally fell, a booming noise ripped through the dismal afternoon storm. Its demise had been predicted for years before, weathered as the plant had been from years of elemental abuse. Thus, for the others who looked on from the castle windows, the broken wood and scattered leaves meant simply something to break into firewood the next morning. Yet, for the woman that stepped out of the shadows into the howling majesty of the tempest, contemplating tossing the remains into a fire sent shivers slithering down her spine.

The metaphor was too good to be true, and as she pulled her dripping black hair out of her eyes, the woman smiled grimly. The storms had shaken her too, but she had survived, albeit barely. How long would it be before she too fell like the decimated plant before her?

She leaned down to pick up the branch she had often sat in, digging through the rummage and the deadened thorns, searching for the oaken box. Perhaps it didn’t make much sense to climb a willow, but for her such held a kind of symbolism that she was hard pressed to mimic elsewhere.

The woman’s gray eyes probed the wreckage with a sharp gaze, blinking only once to wash the inevitable rain away. The initial branch, now useless to her, she tossed away. Though it meant ruining her dress further in the furrows of mud that covered the ground, the woman knelt in the leaves.

Blind to what lay beneath, Lorelai placed both hands under the tree limb, teeth clenching together as she strained her weight against the heavy object. With a mighty heave, it cracked away. Reaching into the cavity left behind, she felt a corner of her prized box, although she was unable to fully reach it.

Glancing up to the windows of the fortress again, she hesitated, wondering who watched behind the polished panes of glass. Shaking off the feeling, Lorelai turned back to her work. Surely, they would be unable to recognize her in this downpour anyway. Who could expect a princess to spend her time out here?

Grunting and struggling not to cry out from the thorn digging into her wrist, she pried at the wood that trapped the box. However, the bough proved to still be attached to the main trunk of the tree. Lorelai now saw no choice but to attempt to reach it from the other side, or to get help. Considering for a moment, she wondered who she could trust, and although anyone could trust her, she felt that the opposite was true when it came to her secrets instead. Standing as gracefully as she could, Lorelai circled the tree to the other side, pondering the best nature of approach. Her pale features shone in stark contrast to her wet, dark clothing and hair. From a distance, she was beautiful.

Holding her breath, she wriggled beneath the wreckage, the weight of the fallen limbs settling upon her back. In the dim lighting she could see the box, just out of reach, and Lorelai climbed a little further. Her dress caught on something and she hesitated, but decided to continue, disregarding modesty for the time being. The sound of the stitches snapping down her back met her ears, but she could now wrap a hand around the box, wedged as it was in the wood. Smiling, she wrapped her other hand around it, pulling it towards her body. The box met some resistance, but she managed to pull it out intact. With it in her possession, Lorelai attempted to wiggle backward out of the canopy that she had entrapped herself in.

However, she struggled, thorns tearing jagged streaks of pain down her back as she cried out in pain. The temporary prop that she had made as an opening chose that moment to collapse behind her, and she began to panic, eyes widening and taking in the scene around her. Additionally, the rain began to chill her body, and goosebumps broke out across her arms.

Lorelai strained backwards again, but there was no way to escape the thorns without emerging practically naked and without the box. Biting her lip, a childhood habit, she tried one more time, slippers falling off as she scrabbled at the dirt with her bare toes.

“You seem like you need some help,” came a whispered voice from behind her. Lorelai jumped, screaming again as the thorns dug deeper into her back.

“Aerow, what are you doing here?” Lorelai demanded when she had her breath back, wondering how much he had seen.

A moment of silence greeted her words, and all traces of empathy or kindness left his voice when he replied. “Sister, you forget yourself.”

Wiggling again, unwilling to be helpless in front of him, she just buried herself deeper under the wreckage. Considering the box that she had labored to bring out, Lorelai wondered if it would simply be better burned with the rest of the wood. Perhaps she would even be able to retrieve it later. Yet, of all the people that she pretended to trust, she feared what Aerow would do with its contents the most. Therefore, under the guise of continued wiggling, she began to attempt to open the lid without the key.

Ceasing her efforts just long enough to reply, she said, “Forgive me, my lord.” Aside from the crashing storm, quiet reigned long enough that if Lorelai had not known better, she would have thought that her brother had left her to her fate.

“Don’t worry,” he finally said. “Anyone watching from above would be unable to see you, hidden as you are beneath the branches. Why did you crawl beneath the tree limbs?” Aerow asked. A crash of thunder drowned out his first words, so he repeated himself louder. The rain beat down faster, and Lorelai took a vengeful relief in that he was getting just as soaked as she.

Scrambling for an answer, she replied, “My lord, you know that I have long loved this tree, and I, seeking shelter, was standing near it when it fell. Yet,” and here she began to scramble to untie the necklace around her neck as best as she could, “I realized that I had dropped the necklace that my mother had given me, and I crawled beneath the willow again trying to reach it.”

Aerow said nothing, and Lorelai continued to try to break the lid off the box, but it wouldn’t budge. Straining her eyes in the darkness, she shoved it into a pile of heavy branches, hoping that when the tree was broken down for firewood, it would not be discovered, and Lorelai would be able to return for it later.

“Why didn’t you wait for the dawn to break and the gardeners to arrive before digging at the wood?” Aerow asked her, circling the pile and allowing his voice to rise above the noise of falling rain. The wood above Lorelai shifted again, and she stifled a groan as the branches further entombed her.

“I was worried that it was caught on the wood and I didn’t want it to burn,” she replied. “Please my lord, will you help me out of the tree? I have the necklace now.”

Her brother stepped onto the pile where she had originally started digging for the box, and her eyes widened in terror as the leaves crunched beneath his weight.

“Don’t you know better than to lie to me?” Aerow said as she peered upwards, attempting to catch a glimpse of his face.

“My lord?” she protested.

“I’ll help you out, but I must have my fee,” he continued on.

Heart beating her chest, Lorelai watched as he continued to traverse the ancient wood. At any moment it might crack beneath his feet, burying her beneath a wall that she would not be able to breathe in. “And what would that be?” she asked him.

“The necklace that you worked so hard to rescue would be mine,” Aerow replied, a note of ice entering his voice once more.

“My lord,” Lorelai gasped, but the thorns decided her, and she choked out the next words. “Very well. It will be as you say.”

He climbed from the top of the pile and came around to where she had climbed in, heaving up the back of the branch with a grunt. “Get out of there, woman,” he insisted, voice tight with strained effort.

Lorelai crawled backwards as fast as she could, disregarding her damaged garments, merely glad to escape the confines of the earthy cage. The rain slapped her ankles first, startling her with its icy coldness. Eventually, she managed to get her head out of the wood, and Aerow let the boughs drop, burying her box within their folds.

He offered her his hand, and Lorelai climbed to her feet, meeting his gaze for a moment before glancing down at her tattered clothes and blushing in embarrassment. “Thank you, my lord,” she whispered, opening her fist to reveal her mother’s necklace, clutched within its grasp. Dropping it into his open palm, Lorelai attempted a curtsy and awaited further instructions.

Aerow said nothing, merely wrapping his fingers around the item, and staring at the pile. His muscles, honed from countless hours practicing the sword, stood out against his soaked tunic, and the rain pouring down his face only accentuated their clear features. At moments like this, Lorelai could not help but compare her own marred complexion with those of her siblings.

He spoke again saying,“It is perhaps improper of us to be out here, playing like children on wood older than our great great great grandparents, but today none would respect such an origin, anyway. They would merely divide it into firewood. Take a piece with you, Willow. Of all the people here, you would treasure the twig the most.”

Lorelai hissed, standing immediately and meeting his gaze with a proudly lifted chin. “Do not call me by that name. It is an insult for you to mar my reputation with such.”

Aerow clicked his tongue against his teeth in the way her nursery maid had done when Lorelai had been brought in from the fire that left scathing burns across her face, neck, and upper body. Such an action on Aerow’s part made her want to slap him, but she restrained herself, knowing that enough dignity had been lost already. “It is merely an effort for old times sakes. Really, sister, to take a beautiful name and change it to one that means 'despised one' does not do justice to your character.”

“No one but our lord the king has called me that since I was a child,” Lorelai said, stepping closer to him in defiance. “Please heed my protests and give me this small boon.”

Aerow considered her, shivering himself in the wet cold, then held up the necklace. “I will not forget what has transpired here, and I doubt you will not forget either. Yet, now is as good a time as any to give you a token to remember me with.”

Lorelai watched as he tied the necklace around his own neck, then reached into his pockets and presented his closed fists to her. “Remember you with?” she repeated, unwilling to take his hands in hers, for fear of what such signified. “Why are you giving gifts? Where are you going? Do you plan on coming back?”

Aerow smiled at the torrent of questions, pressing the object into her grip and wrapping her hands around it. “You are the only one I would give a gift to,” he said. The object stabbed her hands, even through the cloth that it was wrapped in, but he stopped her from peeking at it. “Wait until I am gone to open it,” Aerow said, then continued. “And Lorelai? Every soldier plans on coming back from war, but only fools do not prepare for the worst.”

“But you aren’t going to war,” she stated, watching his eyes in vain for any kind of sign as to what he had planned.

The rain blended with the blood on her arms as she watched him turn and face the pile again. “Lorelai, I’m leaving my country, my king, and my people to bargain with another’s. If that is not war, I don’t know what it is.”

Lorelai contemplated his form for a moment, then shook her head. Turning to break off a piece of the willow to keep with her, she said, “It’s more than that. You can tell me.”

“I can’t tell anyone,” Aerow returned. “And why would I trust you? Moments ago, you were lying to me. In fact, you still are.”

“Aerow,” she began, voice soft and obeisant as she sidled closer to him. “When Father comes to me in sorrow, what should I tell him?”

Her brother glanced at her and the corner of his mouth twitched as he examined her earnest expression. “You have always been beautiful, Lorelai. Burns or no, that will never change. It’s a shame that you will make any man that you marry miserable.”

Closing her eyes tightly in anger, she allowed the rain to drip off her eyelashes before storming towards the side door in the palace wall, gathering her tattered clothing around herself. She could feel Aerow’s eyes watching her and stepping into the dry closet filled with sculpting tools was quite a relief.

Only then did Lorelai realize how tightly she clenched the object wrapped in cloth. Gently, she laid it on the table and peeled back the covering to reveal a small figure that had been carved and painted with care. The attention to detail was striking, and Lorelai nearly dropped it when she saw the burn marks across the face and upper right arm. Moving quickly to the window, she extinguished the candle and peered outward, watching Aerow for a moment as he stood facing the sky with closed eyes, letting the rain soak him further. Hesitating, she decided against going to him, and rather lifted the object again with care and proceeded to tiptoe her way to her rooms.

###

Aerow gasped as the rain entered his mouth, its icy coolness sliding down his throat. Another shiver wracked his body, but he paid it no mind. That Lorelai thought that she could lie to him amused him. They had played together as children, and he knew everything about her. The transition from doting younger sister to formal and loyal servant had annoyed her more than it did him, although the figure was intended as a peace offering. He wondered if Lorelai, or anyone else for that matter, would remember him for long after he disappeared. The quest he undertook was dangerous, but no more so than remaining in the mountains to be assassinated by others hoping to steal the throne.

In a way, Aerow was doing Lorelai a favor by disappearing. Another raindrop fell into his throat, and he came to himself again, wondering how long he had been standing here. The rain was beginning to relent, and the sun peeked from behind a cloud a few miles in the distance. Returning his attention to the woodpile, Aerow began to do what his sister had been unable to do. Breaking off pieces of the ancient wood, he threw them into a pile on the far end, searching for what Lorelai had truly been looking for when she climbed beneath the crooked tree.

For a long while he looked, unknowing of what he searched for, when he saw the damaged corner of a oaken box, resting mostly hidden in the hollow of the tree. Carefully, Aerow reached down and lifted it from its place. The box was locked.

Glancing around to see if was being observed, he swept the black hair from his face and began to pound at the damaged corner. When it didn’t budge, he broke a twig from the tree and used it as a lever. In one burst of force, he snapped both the box and the branch, tossing the latter away.

The contents of the box shone, and he smiled to see what was inside. Yes, this could be useful. Tucking it into the pocket of his tunic, Aerow climbed from the pile and sneaked back into the castle through a different way than his sister had taken. Fully deciding for the first time on the spot, Aerow choose to leave that very night.