“Stupid, Stupid girl.” She said in a voice tight with pain and condemnation the minute she could find enough breath to speak. 

“Stupid, foolish girl. You prove them right at every turn.” 

Oskana Stanislava did not weep, she would not for all that she had never wanted to more than she did then. She did not weep because to weep was to give in fully to the pain. She was stubborn to a fault and never backed down, not even when she was wrong. This pain was not worse than the time she’d fallen out of the tree her Father had told her not to climb. It did not hurt as bad as the broken nose she’d gotten when she’d got into a fight with those three idiot brother’s Vadim, Yefim and Makar when she’d found them cornering Oskar. It did not hurt as badly as Oskar’s words after that had, when he’d called her unnatural and told her she’d shamed him. 

What did he know? He was the unnatural one, so quiet, so secretive and so disinterested in anything interesting. He could go hunting if he wanted, He could learn to shoot. He could go down the mountain with Bogdan if he wanted. He could see some of the world. But no, he stayed where he was, jumping when Papa said to, making pretty things and mooning over books. Did he not realize how easy he had it? But no, he tossed away all the things she wanted and then called her unnatural?! 

She made herself stand and if she had to use the strength of the tree to do so, she did without shame. No one was around to see her weakness, nothing was around to see. She was alone. The Animals that hadn’t hid themselves fast enough were either dead or dying, their cries filling the night with a piteous chorus. The rest were sensible enough to stay hidden. 

Collecting herself she looked down the length of her lean body and surveyed the damage. She’d been lucky she supposed, only the small things had gotten a hold of her. She shuddered to think of the larger, blackened shapes she’d seen moving in the roiling darkness that had passed over her. Small lacerations covered her from head to toe it seemed, they had not been stopped by her stolen clothing. Oskar’s second best coat hadn’t stopped them from slicing into her. Most were not deep, but she could feel a few that were. She could feel the cooling blood running down her flesh, soaking into her borrowed pants, filling her boots one drop at a time. 

A thousand small hurts. Not so different from every day, she chided herself as she forced herself to take one step, then another. What had made her take to the trees, hoping to track the hunters and prove herself to them? What had made her think that this time she would manage it? What made her think that this this time old Pavel would acknowledge her, despite her Father’s orders not too?

“Idiot.” She said and took another step. Each one was an agony but each one was also penance, the sort the crows her brother loved so well spoke of every time they came. She would pay penance well for this foolishness. She wasn’t certain how long her trip took, time seemed to lose importance as she focused on simply getting back to the village. She did not think about what she would find there, she did not think about what she would say or how she would explain. She just had to get there. 

She hung limply against a tree, her arms wrapped around the trunk as she leaned and collected her strength. The village couldn’t be that far now. She heard voices and turned her head towards the sounds. Was that a cluster of men she saw? Catching just a few voices and recognizing them even if she didn’t understand what they said she almost sobbed in relief. She’d tracked them, the hunters. She’d finally managed it. Idiot. 

“Dimitri… Pavel… Petya?” She called. She would not ask for help, but she could not hide the need for it in her voice.