Page 184 of A Soul to Touch

Not another word was uttered to her until they were leaving, but she didn’t respond to their attempts to change her mind – no matter how much all three of them begged.

By that point, she was too busy carefully trying to pour gold onto Faunus’ skull without ruining it. She couldn’t listen to a conversation that was unimportant in comparison to the task she was completing.

Things can be broken, Mayumi,the memory of her father echoed.You can’t apologise to a cup and have it fix itself, but you can work hard and pour value into it, making it better, stronger. It depends on what you’ve broken is worth to you.

Resting on the smithing table was the teacup her grandfather had reworked after her father had broken it as a child. That same lesson had been instilled in Mayumi as a way to teach her the value of finding beauty in one’s flaws. To celebrate missteps rather than disguising them.

The art of kintsugi had come from her family’s homeland, and she had never been more thankful for her bloodline than in that moment.

She wouldn’t have known what else to do.

However... she didn’t have the specialised tree resin required. What her family had was nothing more than mixed resin they’d acquired from the tree sap they’d bought in their travels. She also didn’t have golden dust – at least, if she did, she wouldn’t know where to find it in the mess of her storage room.

These two ingredients combined were kintsugi, or golden joinery.

She was bastardising the art now in a desperate attempt to return something that was lost. An attempt that could see all of what she had left disintegrating in black charcoal.

Human bone could only survive certain heats before it oxidised into charred powder. However, the bone she was working with was from a magical creature who was strongerthan anything else in existence, one that should not exist but did. That had survived strikes to the face by swords and claws.

That was all she needed to have hope.

When it had cooled and was threatening to harden, Mayumi smeared a small droplet of molten gold against the top of the crack on one side just to make sure it didn’t damage it. The remaining gold was put back in the furnace as she waited.

When the bone didn’t splinter or begin to change in shape or colour, her heart swelled with hope.

She stuck Faunus’ skull back together with molten gold by smearing it along the edge of the smaller piece she had. Then she strapped it together with leather. Once she was done, she watched the hot ore cooling against the bone.

The heat felt like it was burning her flesh. Sweat dripped down her arms, neck, and face as the glow of it reddened her.

It looked bumpy and ugly, she wasn’t the greatest at fine arts, and she’d been shaking the entire time, but if this worked, she’d kiss every inch of that metal in appreciation.

Please... please come back.

Mayumi spent one of the longest and most gruelling nights of her life holding Faunus’ skull in her arms. Hiding behind the walls of her home and every incense canister she had available, she’d listened to the sounds of Demons entering her surrounding yard.

They were too distracted by the overwhelming scent of human blood and bodies to even think she was alive within her cottage.

She stayed quiet and barely moved as she waited for the sun to rise and scare them off.

Many would linger in the forest, not so close as her family had thinned the trees here to make it sunny in parts, but she was sure they’d be able to watch her from a distance.

Her body was alert, the back of her neck prickling in awareness of at least one set of red eyes on her when she placed Faunus’ skull in the snow of her clearing.

Mayumi was geared up from head to toe with everything from her bow, to a whip,and a coil of rope. She wasn’t going to take any chances with the vermin outside, but she couldn’t have Faunus come back to life in her home.

She didn’t know what would happen, but noon had come justlike it had the day before, and it was now quickly descending into late afternoon.It’s almost time.

She stood there staring down at it, waiting.

“Come on,” she whispered, bouncing on her legs in anxiety. “Come on. Start working.”

The sun was warm on her back, winter finally beginning to change as the shortest days of the year were growing longer. Human towns would soon begin celebrating that light.

Mayumi cared little for it. She’d always preferred the night. It’s where her enemy lived, and it was when she felt as though she thrived. Would that change now?

She’d finally found a creature to hide and fight with her in the darkness. She didn’t want that to end when it’d only just begun.

Her fingertips twitched when she thought she saw something glittering beneath the base of the skull. It was slow at first, but a swirling flurry of black, goopy sand began to form.

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