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The day I fell, she found me.

It was odd at first, opening my eyes after being dazed, looking around and seeing nothing outside of the inky shadow - and then she stepped forward into the pillar of light shining down from the hole through which I'd fallen. She startled me at first with her size and appearance, but after hearing her voice, after seeing her smile... that fear started to melt away, and then disappeared entirely when she took my hand and led me to the end of the hall.

She brought me through the front areas of the place and showed me how to work the odd puzzles and evade the traps, giving me small words of encouragement when I was scared or of praise when I did something right. She introduced herself as the Guardian of the Ruins, but quickly she became the guardian of me, too, for she seemed to genuinely care about me.

Something called her away, and she gave me a cell phone to in turn call her if I ever needed - and as I first walked the hallways of the ruins on my own, she called often to make sure I was okay and to keep me updated.

"Do you like cinnamon?" she asked, "or butterscotch?"

There were things in the halls, too, smallish belligerent things that nipped at my feet and threw things at me. She told me to try not to hurt them, to spare them if I could. I wanted to make her proud - like when she asked me to walk a long hallway on my own; "I shouldn't have left you alone like that. I'm sorry. I'm so proud of you." - but sometimes they were too fierce and I had to strike out. I always tried to let them go, but sometimes I'd hit a little too hard and they'd fall down at my feet and then wouldn't get back up... it felt bad when that happened, so I tried to avoid it.

Then she brought me to her house, a happy little place nestled in the far reaches of the ruins. It was warm inside; it was colorful, it smelled sweet and felt like a home. She led me by hand to a room set up especially for me, with a soft bed in one corner and a lamp in the other, and told me that if I ever needed her, her bedroom was right next door. "I have another surprise for you, but it's not ready yet. You should take a nap," she said, so I did - and then woke up to a slice of cinnamon-butterscotch pie, still warm and steaming, set next to my bed. It was wonderful.

I stayed for a while, either exploring the ruins outside or sitting down by her and the fire while she read from one of her several books, gentle voice like wind murmuring through tree branches, floating over to me like the scent of lavender on a spring morning. Some of the subjects I couldn't care less about, but just hearing her voice, seeing her smile... she enjoyed reading to me, and I enjoyed how she enjoyed it. At the end of the day she would ask what I would like to eat and cook it especially for me, and then she'd sit across the table and ask about my day - and even though I had nothing really new to say, she never showed any waning interest or enthusiasm.

"Did you have a good day?" she'd ask. I thought about it: that day I had woken up from her gently tapping on the threshold of the door to tell me she was going out for a while; then I'd come out after she got back and ask her to read to me; and then we'd sat in that same room and she'd teach me a little about something that couldn't be found in any of the books she had, like how to sew or how to cook; and then she carried me on her shoulders on a little adventure out into the ruins so I could see more... "Yes," I answered. "I had a good day."_Then she would smile and say _"good", and I couldn't tell whether it was the food that made me feel warm on the inside or her voice.

One time when I was out in the ruins she called to tell me to come home - home, she said. "But Mom..."_was my reply, more of a jest than anything, but... calling her that made something flutter in my heart, and right after, she gave a light laugh - "did... you just call me 'mom'? Would you like that? 'Mother'..." That night after dinner, I was in my room reading and I heard her call from down the hall - _"Come help your momma with the gingerbread cookies..." She had a lot of cookie cutters: flowers, trees, monsters, people. We'd spend more time arranging them in little pictures than we did eating them.

I'd never been downstairs. She told me not to go down there after I had almost wandered down once, and it didn't feel right to disobey, so of course I stayed away. However, when I came up to her one morning and asked when I could go home, she... swallowed, let this odd look come over her face, and then said "I have to do something." and disappeared down the stairs. Home wasn't the right word: here, with her, I felt more at home than I ever had before I'd fallen. "Momma," I called, "where are you going?" but she didn't respond.

So I followed her. She told me to go upstairs. I didn't obey. She asked that I please go to my room. Still I persisted. Finally she told me that she was going to destroy the exit of the ruins, which lay beneath her house down the stairs - "it's too dangerous out there. I've seen it before. Someone arrives, they want to leave, I let them, they die."

I didn't doubt that she knew best. I never doubted that. "Do you really want to leave that bad? Fine. Show me you are strong enough, then." And she raised her hands to attack me.

At first, I panicked. I struck back; she didn't flinch; she hit me; startled, I backed off and fled. "That's right," she called after me; "Go to your room."

I felt... something. A whole lot of something. During the day I went out and fought the creatures in the ruins to prepare myself, but hurting them and killing them still felt wrong - so when I returned to her, I kept my arms down and my eyes on her face.

"I don't want to fight you," I told her. She shot a barrage of magical fire at me; I dodged some of it, but then some scraped along my flesh, burnt my clothes. It hurt. I had to bite my lip, but still she went on, firing at me again and again, until the pain took over and I fell over - I hoped that she'd stop when she saw I was seriously wounded.

I'd hoped. Attacking me clearly hurt her as well as I maintained my stoic silence: her eyes changed from bearing the fire of anger to the cold shimmer of worry, while I still watched her, skin charred, hair singed, hurting all over. I wanted to make her proud.

"Why are you making this so difficult?" she asked; the next barrage of fire arced entirely around me. "I want what's best for you. Why are you making this so difficult?"

"Why are you making this so difficult?"

She let me go. The door closed behind me; there was silence, as neither of us wanted to walk away to increase that distance between us. I didn't want to leave anymore, but she'd told me not to return. I called her cell phone; a muted ringing carried over on the cold air from the other side of the door; and then it was silenced. I don't know what seemed to bite more: the cold snow falling from the sky and settling on my bare skin, or the rift in my heart that seemed to begin right then and there.

It was hard trudging through the snow with my wounds, but bearable. Eventually a small town came into view, and from there, my adventure really began. I knew I had something to do. I didn't necessarily want to do it, but it seemed there was something leading me on that path, and to disobey would only delay the completion of that fate.

To disobey. "Go to your room." "Please go upstairs." It hurt to disobey.

Sometimes along the way I'd fish that phone out of my pocket, look at the number, see the contact name; my thumb would hover over the 'call' button, and sometimes, it'd fall and press it. Ring... ... Nobody picked up. Every single time. I wondered: if I ever called two or three times in succession, would she pick up, thinking something was wrong? Did my calls sometimes wake her up, or jar her out of reading a book? Did she look over, see my name on the screen, and then have to silence the phone or throw it across the room to resist picking up?

Did she miss me as much as I missed her?

One day, I was wounded again, deeply hurt by a hideous fish-goblin hunter who wanted to track me down for my soul. Now I really know why that thing wanted my soul, but when it happened, I thought she saw me as some... beast, some demon. It was hard to pull my phone out of my pocket, hard to dial the number and put it to my ear, and then even harder to hold back the tears when nobody picked up. All I wanted to ask was "Am I a bad person?"

She was proud of me once. Was she still?

I thought I wouldn't make it. I called, again and again, trying to reach out and see if I could finally make contact again, through that solid stone door in the snow. Maybe, I figured, when this is all over, I can go back and really make her proud. I found my determination and went on, again trying to hold back tears brought on by something more than physical pain.

In truth my journey was a short one, but it felt so, so long. Near the end of it I sat down at a restaurant to speak with a friend who told me a story of a tall, strange door a little bit of a ways past that town nestled in the snow, and how that door was excellent for practicing knock-knock jokes - and how he would practice jokes with a female voice behind the door who enjoyed them. They would do that for hours. And, then, just before I left, my friend said to me:

"She asked me to promise that if anyone came through here, I was to watch over them and keep them safe."

He fell quiet for a moment.

"Take care of yourself, kid. 'Cause someone really cares about you."

He left. I had to stay behind for a while, napkin clutched to my mouth, eyes squeezed shut, trying so hard not to cry in front of all the other patrons of the place. I failed.

After that, the big moment finally came; the end of my journey. The gatekeeper to my future, the king, had white fur, ears, and a soft smile that seemed strangely familiar to me. He seemed not to want to leave as much as I. When he asked if I had anything else to take care of, I thought for a moment; I felt the weight of my phone in my pocket; and I said, yes, I do.

"I will wait," he told me.

The trek back was not so hard. Along the way things had been rearranged and fixed: the original path from the town nestled in the snow to the capital should never have been as long and complicated as it was. Because of this, I made it back to that town in a fair amount of time, briefly stopped at the inn to recuperate, and then went on.

There was a big stone door, crusted over in places with slick ice, sealed shut. There was no way to open it from this side.

I knocked on it.

"Who's there?"

That was the voice that I'd longed to hear for so long, since this door had first closed behind me. The pain of that day came back in full force - not the pain of burns lacing across my body, not the pain of cuts and gashes, but the pain of leaving. I swallowed, licked my cold lips, breathed out a shuddering sigh, and said:

"I miss you."

Maybe there was a sharp but quiet intake of breath, but otherwise, silence reigned. I was stronger now - how hard could it be to wedge my fingers into the gap of the door, pull it open, and then step inside, just for one last goodbye hug like what she'd given me when I first stepped out?

I told her I wanted to go home, and here at this door in the snow I was closer to it than I'd been back at the capital looking at that barrier. Home was a sweet voice, a slice of cinnamon-butterscotch pie, monster cookie cutters; home was books about snails, a favorite bug hunting spot, learning how to speak to avoid hostility; home was just past this door; home was just out of my reach.

Maybe she didn't speak to me because I'd slipped up in my journey. A few times I had tried to rough up a rather belligerent creature that got in my way, and - and I guess I swung a little too hard, or aimed just right, because... well. Those things didn't get out of my way, but they certainly didn't get back up. Even remembering those times made my hands shake, made me want to tug my phone out of my pocket and dial her number for encouragement and comfort, even though no comfort ever came from the empty ringing and then silence following.

Standing there in the snow, I dialed that number once more. Just like on the first day, an accompanying phone rang out behind the door, then was quickly silenced. I'd never felt the cold of the snow quite as sharply as I did then.

"I miss you," I tried to say again, but my voice caught in my throat halfway through and instead what came out was a light sob. I was so strong now, and yet even her memory could slip under all my defenses and drive the point of a blade right into my heart - and I let her. I rested my forehead against the cold ice keeping the door sealed, trying no longer to keep the tears from coming. They dripped down my cheeks; they fell into the snow below; they dug little holes there and then dissipated.

I liked to think that, sometimes, the sobs I heard there weren't my own. I liked to think that she wanted to open this door as much as I did. Maybe if I had been a little better in my journey, she would have done so.

When I first stepped out of that door with wounds crisscrossing my body, that hadn't hurt so bad. When the fish-goblin pierced my body again and again with sharp spears, that didn't hurt, either. When an axe just barely failed to miss me; when I thought I'd dodged out of the way of hot lasers; when blood dripped from wounds like tears - well. That hadn't hurt so bad.

When the King finally struck me down, that didn't hurt as bad as realizing that day in the snow that I'd disappointed her. She wanted me to succeed without violence, and I didn't see that until it was too late.

I had disappointed her.

Always had I said that disobeying her hurt me.