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Vit’enka...

A name with sharp consonants that had hurt as his parents had left, a name sharp in rebuke when Yakov had questioned him. His memories felt like pins, each one pricking against his loneliness as he bedded down into the furs that made up his bed.

Vit’enka…

It hadn’t felt like a barb when it had dripped from Yuuri’s lips though. It hadn’t sounded harsh to his ears. It had been whispered like a secret pulled from the depths of Yuuri’s heart, something precious and beautiful when it had been laid forth between them, their palms clasped tightly as Vitya had sung the hunter back from his fear.

Yuuri’s fear had been as barbed and brutal as Vitya’s memories felt, dark and growing things that had dragged against Vitya’s senses as he pulled Yuuri back from them.

It had all happened so quickly. Makka choking, Yuuri responding in seconds to the threat to Makka’s life and freeing her of the choking pit, and then Yuuri being pulled away from him, dragged deep by his fear. Vitya had acted on instinct, trying his best to bring Yuuri back from his nightmares and into the light again. He hadn’t thought about the vulnerability of his song, nor that Yuuri could possibly recognise it. He’d only done what he’d done a thousand times before when his mood had darkened or Makka had been scared by a thunderstorm, and sang.

It was his song, the song of his heart and soul that he sang only when things seemed at their most helpless. The last time he had sang it…

The last time he had sang was the last day. A day of pain and hurt when he'd sang from desperation and sadness. He'd sang to himself, alone and wandering as he cried.

How Yuuri could have recognised it was beyond him…

Memories and curiosities made him restless and he tossed and turned, ruminating on the mystery of Yuuri and the loss of his family. He gave up on the thought of sleep, throwing off his cover and considering his options. Makka was sleeping heavily, curled into the knot of the home tree she’d hollowed and claimed, padding it out with soft mosses for ultimate comfort. Vitya was alone, again.

He hummed the notes to himself, letting the familiar sound ground him for a moment, only to be interrupted by the shadow of a song in reply. It came up through the root of his home tree, welcoming and warm.

The Heart Tree was singing for him.

Vitya found himself on his feet and out of his home tree in seconds, his heart leaping in his chest, pounding so loudly he had to focus to try and hear the song over the beat of his pulse in his ears.

The bridges that spanned between his home tree and the Heart Tree were well walked, the route as familiar to him as the sound of his heart song. He hurried over the wound branches lightly, the crisscrossed tree limbs strong still, even as the forest around them receded into itself. The song was faint, but there as he sped toward the Heart Tree, still straining to catch the meaning of the song that had woken the Heart from its slumber.

The bridges do not connect to the Heart Tree, they span outward from the trees closest to the Heart and link every mature tree in the forest. Vitya has to dismount the closest tree and approach on shaky legs, made weak from the multitude of shocks throughout the day. He fumbles his landing, stumbling to the trunk of the Heart of the Nyéraldë and laying shaking fingers to her trunk.

“I’m here…” He doesn’t need to say it, she knows it as she knows all things in the forest, but the words comfort him in the sudden silence that had fallen the moment his feet had hit the ground.

The boughs above him sigh.

“Your song was beautiful, Nyéraldë.” Vityas fingers are warm against her bark and he hears the lilt of her song, a whisper on the wind again. It lasts a minute, maybe less, but it fills Vitya with such hope and love that he settles at her roots. He picks up the strains of the song, singing the sound of the love he bears for his forest, for his home, alone in the darkening of the spring.

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