Firefly Ravine 彡(-_-;)彡

As the wind rushed by outside, he drifted off to sleep.

Darkness filled the space around him, creating a void into which he saw naught. It was cold—it was always so cold—and he curled himself even tighter yet, becoming little more than a small mound of coal mixed into the dirt. The wind shifted and he felt it creeping in through the mouth of the den, reaching out to him in an effort to slice the boy right through to his core—and then it was gone.

He could still hear how it rustled the leaves outside those walls, how it threw them this way and that, but there was something new to keep it from reaching him. Slowly, he opened his eyes to gaze out, yet what he was met with was a mass even darker than his own—and far larger. His immediate response was to flinch back, an action that was regarded with low laughter.

Why...?

Again, Kubo glanced at the other as she approached him, seemingly emerging from the shadows themselves. There was something familiar about her, something that made him relax, though he could not recognise her—especially not those eyes. They met his own and it seemed almost as if he was looking into the sun itself. “Who... who are you...?” he asked—but no name was given. There was a smile, one that he knew not how to respond to, but no words until—

“Wake up, boy.”

Kubo’s eyes snapped open and he rushed up to his feet before scurrying back. The dark woman was gone and with her the warmth had gone, too, leaving behind someone new.

Someone new.

“I... I don’t...” he struggled to make his tongue cooperate, grasping for words that wished to remain unspoken. “I’m lost.” Lost and alone, knowing not where he was or how to get back home. “Do you know where home is...?” Did she know what home was?