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His eyes close for a beat, as if my honesty lands heavy. When they open again, something in them has changed.
“I left you a stone,” he says.
Warmth unfurls through me so suddenly, I almost lose shape. It ripples from the center of me out towards fingers, face, and spine—a physical thing. I nod once again.
“Did you… like it?” he asks, and the uncertain way he asks is something I dislike.
My little human, who has walked these woods for months knowing every track and weather sign, still asks for reassurance as if I might not have taken his gift into my very marrow.
Through the bond, I send him the instant I heard him talking to me before he placed it on the step. I sent him the satisfaction of placing it in my fist and carrying it to my den.
“Oh,” he says, his pale skin reddening again.
He asks more questions after that, as if now that the door is cracked open, he cannot help himself from leaning his entire weight on it.
Do others know about you? Have you always been near the town? Were the stories true about people disappearing? Can you really look like this outside dreams? Can you come into town? Have you ever—
Too many.
Each question is its own trail splitting off into ten more. I know the shape of many answers, but forcing them through his language is like pulling antlers through a rabbit tunnel. Holding this form is work at the best of times, but it is made worse because I am exhausted.
I did not sleep after my mate refused me—not really. I lay in the pine over his clearing and listened to his heartbeat while I made plans. Then I walked the ridges through every dark hour that followed; too raw to settle, too aware of his absence in the bond.
So, when I took this man-form tonight, I did it on a body already stretched too thin.
The first sign is the ache at the back of my skull, then a pull along my spine where the antlers want their true weight back. The marks under this skin start to itch, not on the surface but where shape and self rub wrong against each other.
Little Ember notices before I choose to tell him. Of course he would notice. He watches land and weather for a living.
“Hey,” he says, stepping a little closer, concern jumping into his scent immediately. “Are you okay?”
The irony of that lands strangely. I am an ancient thing with a skull face and antlers taller than his whole upper body, and still, concern is my human’s first instinct when he sees my shoulders tighten.
Tired, I send, but the word comes out slower.
His eyes narrow, scanning me. “This form is hard for you.”
I shrug one shoulder, which translates badly in this shape. I have not taken this form in five hundred years, I say. And have not slept since you ran.
Guilt blooms in him all at once. It floods his scent so strongly I can almost taste it. “Five hundr… you took this form because of me? After not sleeping for nearly four weeks?”
I dislike that immediately. He is always so ready to put blame on his own shoulders, as if pain in a room must belong to him.
I shake my head. Not your fault, never your fault. I chose a shape that… would be easier for you to accept. My want. My choice. He looks unconvinced, so I use the bond gentler this time. Chose to wait. Chose to not sleep. You staying… worth it all.
That seems to get through to him. I feel the guilt in him soften slightly. “You should’ve slept.”
I could say the same to him for half the season he has been here. Instead, I answer with honesty. Could not.
His throat seems to work as he swallows. “Will I see you again?”
There is no world in which the answer is no. Not now. Not when he has named me and left a stone in apology, even when the apology was not needed. Still, I understand what he is asking.
Come to the forest.
He stares at me. “What?”
Forest is mine. Trails, creeks, old ridge, cedar hollow. I live there. If you want me, come where I am.
