Among the Bunians

The first thing that she smelled was incense, with a mix of earthy and woody scents, with a slightly bitter aroma that woke her up from her deep sleep. The smell hung in the air, clinging to the back of her throat like a half-spoken whisper. How long has she been asleep? She tried to reach for the light, but it was pitch black. She could feel soft fabric, damp with breath and sweat, pressed around her eyes and wrapped around her head. It was a disorienting experience trying to shake the darkness away. That knowing alone sharpened the edges of every other sense. The earth beneath her felt cold, uneven, and suddenly shifting, while in the distance, she could hear the low rustle of trees moving in the wind. She knew she was not indoors.

She moved to stand up, but her arms resisted. The rough, coarse rope tightened around both wrists and bit into skin that was already rubbed raw. The bindings did not give in. Panic did not rush in, but she grew in awareness, creeping slowly like dawn in forests, that she was not alone, and she was not free. She tried to move to stand up again, but could feel her body freeze. The third time she tried to stand, she staggered to her feet and fell to the ground.

“Oh, would you look at our guest!” A voice laughed, light, lilting, and almost playful, but with a cold undercurrent that made her skin crawl.

“After forty-eight hours of being knocked out!” Another voice jeered, this one deeper and unkind, with a theatrical mockery that set her nerves on edge.

The words dropped like stones in the silence that followed, and she could feel their weight more than hear them. Her mouth was dry, coated in the aftertaste of incense and fear. She tried to lift her head, but the blindfold still held, pressing against her lashes like a second skin.

“W- wh- who are you?” she asked, her voice hoarse and cracking, barely more than a whisper. “What are you trying to do with me?”

There was a pause. Then the sound of leaves being crushed underfoot, soft and deliberate.

“She speaks,” the first voice said, more amused than surprised. “And here I thought the binding spell had frayed too far to hold the tongue.”

“She’s trembling,” the second one observed. “The forest can feel it.”

Something shifted in the air the moment the observation was mentioned. A subtle change in pressure occurred, as if the trees had exhaled in response. She felt it not just on her skin but in her bones.

Her hands remained tied behind her back. Her knees pressed into the forest floor. And all around her, the world held its breath, watching.

A low rustle stirred the silence. It was not leaves, but something softer, deliberate, and circling.

“Stillness suits her,” one said, tone winding like ashes rising from fire. “The forest remembers quiet ones.”

Another laughed, like wind passing hollow bone. “She does not know, does she?”

A sudden warmth licked across her wrists, a tingling sensation just beneath the rope, like something unseen was brushing her skin.

Her breath hitched. “Please,” she begged, “why am I here?”

Silence again, but this time it was full, thick, and eager.

“Why do you ask what is already in you?” one voice whispered close to her ear. “You were never lost. Only returned.”

The words fell through her like pebbles into water. Something stirred in their wake. A distant warmth, a flicker of something. Not quite a memory. Not yet.

“I don’t know this place,” she said, louder this time. “I don’t know you.”

“You do,” murmured the first voice again, and it was neither mocking nor kind. “Because you are one who once walked willingly into the roots and shadows. The pact is not forgotten.”

She shook her head. “What pact?”

A hand that was cool, dry, and impossibly light touched her forehead. Not threatening, but also not human.

“There was a woman, long ago,” the third woman continued. “A mortal who stepped through the veils to find her heart among our kind. In return, she promised a child. One who was born of dusk and dawn. A child to carry both her longing and our blood.”

The hand lifted. Her skin burned where it had touched her. There was a mark of recognition where the skin burned. And surprisingly, it did not cause her any pain at all.

“You lie,” she cried, though the words trembled in her mouth.

The ground shifted beneath her knees. It was not shaking but breathing, as if it were responding to her.

Then something cool brushed against her wrist. She had not heard it being carried. It was smooth and damp. It was a stone, she thought, but not lifeless. It pulsed faintly as it made contact, as though it recognised her. Where the stone touched, a mark began to stir. A faint shimmer appeared beneath the skin of her left wrist. What once appeared to be an old scar, pale and barely noticeable, now floated above her skin, like incense smoke spiralling in shape. Its shape spiralled outward, delicate and deliberate, a sigil etched in flesh by something older than blood.

She gasped.

“The mark of return,” said the voice. “The bride-gift, sealed in you since birth. Hidden until called.”

Her breath caught as the stone pressed into her wrist, and the mark flared briefly, beautifully, before dimming to a steady glow. Her skin tingled beneath it. A mark of awakening.

She clenched her hand instinctively, but the sensation did not recede. It has always been there, and now it refuses to be forgotten.

“This is madness.”

“No,” the voice said, almost tender. “This is remembrance. The vow calls to you. One of ours waits beyond the veil. It is nearly time.”

She felt the world tilt. The forest floor beneath her knees no longer felt solid, as it seemed to breathe, pulling her downwards, not with force, but with something gentler, older, and inevitable.

The mark on her wrist pulsed again. Once, twice, and in perfect rhythm with her heartbeat. Then it stilled, and for a moment, so did the world. She felt no wind, no forest floor beneath her knees. No birdsong, no incense. Only silence. Then the silence cracked open.

Suddenly, the blindfold melted from her face, not physically, but as if it were no longer needed, as though her sight had shifted inward. What surrounded her was not darkness, but bright light, a rich gold threaded with shadow. She was standing, not kneeling, though her body had not moved. Before her, a river glistened, wide and quiet, its surface glinting with constellations. The air smelled of sandalwood and champak.

Across the water, two figures stood in profile: a woman wrapped in dark, earthen batik, and beside her, a tall, indistinct form woven from light and moss in human form—a Bunian, unmistakably other, yet not unfamiliar. Their hands were joined. Above them, the trees bent inward, forming an arch. Then, from the woman’s lips, a voice echoed:

“I give the child in promise to you; let them walk between breath and roots. Let them bind what I have broken.”

The Bunian raised a stone, the same river stone that had touched her wrist, and pressed it to the woman’s forearm. A mark bloomed there, swirling into the same floating scar now etched into her own skin.

The mark had been passed down, not as punishment, but as a bond.

The vision shifted.

Now she stood in a field of twilight, surrounded by whispering trees. A parade of faceless figures moved past her, silent and slow. Each wore moss-draped robes. Each carried an object: a bowl, a thread, a bone, and a blade.

They stopped before her.

One figure stepped forward, clocked in light so bright it hurt to see. In its hand: the same stone. It did not speak, but as it reached for her wrist, her body surged with memory. It was not her own, but memories inherited, burned into blood.

Then the light shattered like a mirror struck from within, and the forest rushed back in.

She panted.

The blindfold still covered her eyes. The scent of incense still hung around her like a veil. But she knew now that something inside her had been unlocked.

She knew the mark was not a marking but a key.

And behind the veil, something waited to be answered.

The forest shifted again, almost imperceptibly. The ground beneath her knees hummed with a rhythm older than language. A pair of unseen hands guided her upward, not rough, not coercive but welcoming.

"Come," a voice whispered beside her. "It is time."

She stumbled forward, the blindfold still wrapped around her eyes, but now it seemed translucent. Not obstructing, but filtering. She could see faint outlines through it: vines curled into symbols, petals unfolding in breath like pulses. The air grew warmer, tinged with wild jasmine and myrrh. Somewhere nearby, water trickled like soft laughter.

They brought her to a clearing. She felt it more than saw it, a basin in the heart of the forest, rimmed by ancient trees whose roots held old bones and older truths.

A figure stood at the centre, still and luminous. She knew him not by face, but by pull—the Bunian who had appeared in her vision. Cloaked in bark-like robes and light, he radiated something between divinity and ruin.

"You have come," he said. His voice was not deep, nor sharp, but familiar. It folded into her like rain returning to the riverbed.

She stepped forward. No one guided her now. Her feet moved of their own accord.

"I saw her," she murmured. "The woman who made the vow."

He inclined his head. "She gave us a promise. And through you, it is fulfilled."

Words stirred in her mouth. There were protests, doubts and anger, but none took shape. The stone on her wrist pulsed again. The mark hovered faintly above her skin like mist caught in candlelight.

All around her, the Bunians began to sing. It was not a melody, not quite. A layering of voices, like the hum of insects, the crackle of fire, the turning of pages written in root. She understood none of the words and yet felt them settle into her bones.

A small platform of polished wood rose from the ground, braided with ivy and silver-leaf. The Bunian held out his hand.

"Through joining," he said, "you will no longer be divided. Neither world shall break you. You will walk between the veils, as was always meant."

She hesitated only a breath, then placed her hand in his.

Heat rippled through her. It was neither pain nor joy. It was a fusion.

The platform glowed beneath them, and the voices rose. Vines snaked up her ankles, not to bind, but to anchor. The air tightened, and her vision flickered, showing her roots spreading from her feet into the soil, her veins branching into the trees, her blood singing the same song.

Then something changed.

The Bunian's hand grew colder. Her wrist throbbed. The mark flared, then darkened, the glow sinking into her skin like a brand.

The vines coiled tighter.

"You are ready," he said, but the voice had changed. Hollow now. Mechanical.

"You were always meant for this," another voice added from the trees. "A vessel carved in prophecy. Blood pledged, body offered."

She opened her mouth, but it was dry. Around her, the platform darkened, wood turning to stone. The scent of incense soured. The song twisted.

"You said union," she whispered. "You said joining."

"A vessel must be joined before it is filled," the Bunian said, gaze empty now. "The pact was never for a bride. It was for a gate."

The vines surged, wrapping her wrists and chest. The platform cracked open at the centre, revealing a pit of living roots, pulsing with a molten light. It radiated hunger.

She screamed, but no sound escaped.

The Bunians chanted faster now, their tones sharpening like blades. The Bunian beside her raised the river stone. Light shot from its core and struck her wrist. Her mark flared painfully now, searing her to the bone.

But in that agony, something opened.

A whisper, not from the Bunians, nor from the forest, but from within. A voice she had never heard but somehow always known.

“Child of dusk and dawn. Remember the third name.”

A memory struck her, her grandmother humming a strange lullaby, fingers tracing a spiral on her wrist, the final word always swallowed by the wind.

Now, she heard it clearly: "Antarvahini.”

The vines recoiled. The stone in Bunian's hand shattered.

She raised her arms, and the forest gasped.

Words rose from her throat. It was not English, not Bunian, but a language she knew deeply—the language of the root worker, of boundary and breakage.

"Sandeha-dvāri tiṣṭhāmi. Na pratijñātā. I am the threshold. I am the one unpromised."

The chanting around her faltered. The platform trembled.

She stepped forward, pulling the vines from her body. Her mark blazed into brilliant white, cutting through the enchantment like moonlight through mist.

The pit beneath her roared. A final voice that is ancient and desperate screeched from below.

"You are ours! You were given!"

She raised her wrist above the opening.

"No," she said. "I was named, not owned."

With one final incantation, she flung her voice into the roots.

"Saṅdhimocaya. Let the vow unbind."

The forest exploded with sound. Roots shattered, vines shrivelled to ash. The pit convulsed, then collapsed inward, taking the ritual site with it. The ground surged and threw her backwards.

When she landed, the world was still again.

She lay gasping in the clearing. The mark on her wrist had faded to a faint outline, quiet and dormant.

All around her, the Bunians were silent.

Some had vanished. Others stood still but translucent now, as if dimmed. Even the one who had stood beside her was no longer whole but just light and shadow, unravelling at the edges.

"You broke it," he said softly. There was no anger but only a mournful awe.

"No," she replied, rising shakily to her feet. "I simply change my fate."

The trees above her bent slightly, not in warning, but in respect.

She turned from the fractured platform. Its roots were still warm, alive with the quiet tremor of broken vows. The forest had gone still, not in anger or sorrow, but in something older. Watchfulness. Waiting.

Between the ancient trees, a shimmer moved through the air like heat above stone.

A seam of light unfolded, humming softly, parting like mist. On the other side, she saw the contours of the human world: a slope of mossy ground, the soft bend of a mountain trail. Shapes she once knew. A world that had almost forgotten her. She stepped forward. Her foot touched the earth, and something beneath it stirred, as if the land itself remembered her weight.

Behind her, the grove remained unchanged. The portal stayed open.

She turned once more. The Bunian forms stood motionless, the circle unbroken. Some watched with quiet resentment, others with something close to respect, but none came after her. None called her back.

The mark on her wrist pulsed softly. Not with urgency or heat, but with quiet direction, like the settling of a needle pointing true.

She understood now.

She was not what they had tried to make her. Not a captive. Not a bride. Not a sacrifice. She was the edge where one world met the next. The breath that moved between word and silence.

She stepped into her world completely, and the air behind her shifted. The veil did not close. It paused.

Beneath the familiar trees, she walked forward, not as she had before, but as someone newly woven from all that had nearly claimed her. And far behind her, deep within the stillness of the grove, something ancient gave its assent—not in speech, but in the quiet turning of the world when a story has begun to rewrite itself.