Van—Yuna

Van and Yuna’s relationship begins in the salt mine as a decision made amid death: Van finds the little girl hidden in an oven beside her mother’s body, discovers that she bears a bite like his own, and chooses to take her with him. Their first bond is not built through conversation or shared history, but through rescue and care; the sleeping child in his arms gives Van a moment of peace in a room otherwise filled with corpses.

Identity and Introduction

Yuna is introduced as a small child whom Van finds alive in the Aquafa salt mine after its inhabitants have succumbed. Her mother, a young woman, had apparently resisted fever and hallucinations while trying to guard the oven in which Yuna was concealed. When Van moves the woman’s body away from the oven opening, the child’s crying becomes clear: Yuna is inside, wide-eyed and clutching a crust of fahmu.

Van has already escaped his restraints, but his survival has not yet become a shared journey. Returning to the kitchen with clothing, money, weapons, a bow, and arrows, he finds Yuna still curled in the oven, sucking her thumb and watching him. He understands that taking a child makes flight more dangerous, yet cannot persuade himself to leave her behind. His decision changes the meaning of his escape: he is no longer acting only to get himself out of the mine.

Rescue and the Choice to Stay Together

Van’s choice is sharpened by what he sees in Yuna and by the future he fears for her. Her mother was dark-skinned, like people from the Yukata Plains, while the child is fair and has eyes that remind Van of the Zolians. He cannot know who her father was, but the circumstances of her birth suggest to him a source of exploitation. In the mine, enslaved people are treated like livestock and may be slaughtered if they become troublesome; leaving Yuna there would expose her to the same cruelty that had taken her mother, or worse.

Rather than seize her abruptly, Van reaches out and lets the child respond. After watching his arm for a few moments, Yuna reaches toward him with her own small hands. He lifts her from the oven and sets her on the ground, where she wobbles but does not fall. Her first word is “Mauma.” She reaches toward her mother’s body, and Van steadies her so that she can bury her face against her mother’s breast. The encounter establishes the relationship through both rescue and recognition: Van takes responsibility for Yuna without trying to erase her attachment to the person she has lost.

Care in the Room of the Dead

Yuna sobs inconsolably, seemingly unable to understand why her mother will not wake and hold her. Van lets her cry for a long time before drawing her away. When she struggles and flails at him, he holds her securely in the crook of one arm and prepares water, then removes her clothes and sponges her clean. His care is physical and immediate, shaped by what the child needs rather than by any claim that he can comfort her grief.

While washing her, Van notices a long, thin scabbed scratch beneath her left ankle. He recognizes it as a fang graze, just as he has a scab on his own arm. The discovery links the two survivors by circumstance: among the dozens of people in the mine, only Van and Yuna have lived, and both have been bitten. The text does not make this resemblance a reason for Van’s decision to save her; it becomes another startling fact he observes after he has already chosen to care for her.

A First Experience of Attachment

Once wrapped in a soft cloth, Yuna falls asleep still sucking her thumb. The weight of the sleeping child in Van’s arms brings him peace, even though he stands among bodies in the dim kitchen. In the fading light, the dead woman is reduced to a gray shape, while warmth and the child’s breathing presence distinguish the living from the surrounding darkness. Yuna’s vulnerability does not merely add another burden to Van’s escape; her presence alters how he experiences the place and the moment.

When Van lays her in a makeshift bed, Yuna briefly wakes and whimpers, as though something of her loss returns to her, but soon falls asleep again. The temperature has dropped with the sun, and Van recognizes that she must have endured the cold the previous night as well. He lights a fire in one of the ovens to keep them warm, then watches her until sleep overtakes him. Their relationship at this point remains newly formed and without a stated future, but its defining pattern is already clear: Yuna reaches toward care in gestures a child can make, and Van answers by staying, holding, washing, warming, and protecting her.