"Aye, a girl. They gonna name her Ella." The corner of her mouth twitching up. Venla raised her mug at his congratulations. "Thank you.” she said, and knocked back a mouthful of the bitter ale. Venla watched him over the rim of her mug. Auntie, gods that made her feel old...

This place is about as quiet as a cemetery...

The ginger let out a snort. “Well then, I must’ve taken a wrong turn...” She cleared her throat and looked arround. It really was an quiet evening for a tavern.

Her tone was light. “Just trying to get home...” she echoed. Her gaze lingered on the map a moment longer, then drifted back to him when he pulled it close to him. She could sense the half-truth. He had the look of a man with reasons, and she wasn’t the type to go pulling at closed doors. So she didn’t press him further. Venla sat back again, the chair creaking softly.

Did he really plan on sleeping under open sky tonight? "Try not to get eaten then..”
 
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The knight hummed in acknowledgement. 'No promises.' Rolling the map back up, Willard retrieved the waterproof cylinder hanging from the back of his chair. A twist was all it took to remove the cap. 'I doubt you'll be able to make it back to Arrowdale before true dark sets in,' he warned Venla, taking the map and tucking it away inside the cylinder. Another twist as he replaced the cap. 'If you need a place to lay your head, you're welcome to join me in camp. Otherwise, I'd recommend seeking food and lodgings here.'

Pushing back his chair, Willard made to stand. Did that sound like a proposition? He wondered, collecting up his bow stave and pack. The ale he left to Venla, one last act of faux generosity before parting ways.

'It was nice to meet you, Venla.' Smiling, Willard bowed his head, pack and weapons rattling as he straightened up. 'Hopefully we'll meet again under better circumstances.' Or later, thought the dawnling, his mind drifting to the task ahead. He still had a few hours left to kill, and Venla's story needed corroborating.

Best get to it, then.
 
She didn’t rise when he did. Only lifted her green gaze enough to watch him gather his gear, the bow, the pack, the whole self-sufficient ranger act. She squinted at him like she was trying to figure out if he was genuinely daft or just stubborn. “You sure you’re not the one looking for trouble?”

His 'It was nice to meet you, Venla.' earned a raise of her mug. “Likewise.” Eyes drifting to the door he’d passed through. He had gone, and she could go back to doing exactly what she had planned: drink herself stupid and sleep this horrifying night off somewhere dark and unbothered. The nook under the stairs looked good enough.

Only… she didn’t.

An hour or so later, after the barkeep had stopped pretending to clean the same mug for the tenth time. Venla was half-listening to some drunk mutter about haunted goats. Her fingers drummed the wood, restless. Her eyes kept flicking to the door. She wasn’t sure what bothered her more. The idea that he might’ve wandered into that foul creature out there, or the fact that she cared enough to go check.

Stupid man with his stupid map in his stupid gods-damned little scroll tube... She pulled on her cloak, muttering further, and stepped out into the night to go find him.

The pale green haze had begun to seep across the eastern sky. It wasn’t moonlight. She knew that. It wasn't the northern lights. No. It just meant the green fire was still burning in the east. She stepped forward, boots crunching over brittle leaves and wet soil. She could've stayed, any half-sensible woman would, but instead, here she was... walking toward the treeline after some half-mad ranger.

Then came the sound, deep and guttural, rising from the forest’s throat. A wet, grating bray, like a stag. It could have been the call of a deer, the kind you hear in autumn. But this sound was wrong. Slower. Heavier. Coated with a wetness that did not rest in the lungs of anything living.

Venla stepped back, instinct prickling along her arms. She ducked behind the nearest cedar and pressed her back against the trunk, heart hammering so loudly she was afraid it would give her away. She held her breath and her gaze trying to pierce the dark undergrowth, desperate to catch movement. She strained to hear anything. A voice. A grunt. A scream. Even the groan of leather or clink of mail would have been better than this silence.

What if he was dead already?

And what could she even do if he was in trouble? She was half-drunk, the buzz of ale still behind her eyes. She hadn’t thought this through. Gods, she should’ve stolen a blade before stumbling out here... She cursed under her breath, hand tightening around a low hanging branch for balance.
 
The branch snapped, the sound cutting through the air like a knife. The silence that followed was long and heavy with anticipation. Then came the footsteps, and the grating, tortured breathing. A figure loomed in the near distance, so tall and thin it could've passed for a tree, had it not been moving so.

'Remember how you asked me if I was looking for trouble?' Appearing behind Venla like a ghost, Willard clamped a hand over her mouth before she could even think to scream. 'I'd say it's found us. Or rather you.'

Pulling her backwards through the brush, the ranger went to ground. He had been out here searching long enough for his sight to have adjusted to the lowlight, but even so he was having a hard time picking out the monster through the trees.

Removing his hand from Venla's mouth, the knight eased it gently backwards until he felt the brush of feathers against his fingers. 'Didn't I tell you to wait until morning to travel home?' He asked, his words barely above a whisper. He should have been angry. Hells. Deep down he probably was. But she was out here now, and anger would only leave him blind to the threat lurking in the woods with them.

Though, more likely  around by now.

'Foolish of you to follow me out here when you're the one being stalked,' he frowned, drawing a dagger with his off-hand. 'Doesn't matter now. Take this and get ready to run like buggery. Again.'
 
The moment his hand clamped over her mouth, it was like the ground disappeared beneath her. Her whole body jolted with a flash of fear, heart punching hard into her ribs. She tasted fear first… then the faint scent of leather, of pine, of him. It hit her faster than sense.

She almost bit him. Almost.

Then his voice slid past her ear, low and close. It wasn’t fear that made her shiver this time.

Her boots slid in the moss as he pulled her backward, and she nearly stumbled, forced to match his retreat step by step. Bark scraped the side of her arm. As he guides them to cover, her body was tightly pressed against his. She could feel the rise and fall of his breath.

When he finally let go, she sucked in a sharp breath, turning toward him with narrowed eyes and flushed cheeks. She sucked in a breath. Her voice came out breathless. “Gods below...!"

“I wasn’t heading home" she whispered. “I sat there wondering if you’d gotten your head ripped off, and the longer it was quiet, the more I thought maybe someone should check.” Ungrateful arse. She brushed a twig of her. Doesn’t mean it was smart, but it didn’t feel right doing nothing.

The dagger felt wrong in her hand, it belonged to someone with thick calluses in their hands and a death wish. She had none of that. She clutched it anyway because it was better than empty fingers, but... what was she going to do with it? Throw it and hope? Her fingers twitched around the hilt and she held the dagger up between them. "Let’s be honest.. if I end up using this, it means things have gone very tits-up and I’m probably already bleeding.” The dagger trembled slightly in her hand.

"You are out here alone... I’m drunk. And apparently neither of us makes good decisions. I suggest we stop talking and start sneaking b-.” Then, just past the brush, something creaked. Not a tree. Not wood. A joint, maybe. A body too long and heavy on two legs.

She glanced toward the noise and she saw it. Tall. Towering. Its antlers curled from its skull like blackened roots pulled straight from a pyre, still glowing at the tips with dying green embers. Heat shimmered faintly around its head like an infernal halo.
 
'Venla, I hate to break this to you, but things have already gone tits-up.' Looking around, Willard let his face do the talking. He didn't have it in him to tell her the dagger wasn't for self-defence. If push came to shove, she would find its kiss much more preferable to being torn apart, limb by limb. Better a quick death, he mused, watching the redhead out of the corner of his eye. I only wish she hadn't-

Something moved, so close that Willard smelt it before he saw it.

Leaf rot and sulphur and wet earth. The ranger felt his eyes go wide as the pieces slid together. Leshy! Glowing antlers sprouted from its rams-skull head. At a glance, Willard could understand how Venla had mistaken it for a person. The limbs resembled that of a biped, as did the creature's trunk. Human or devahni or orkin- it made no difference. But the similarities ended there.

Hollow eyes swept the forest floor. Crooked fingers twisted to brush against bough and branch, half-resembling branches themselves. Willard could feel the anger radiating off of it, poisoning the very air they breathed.

Reaching for Venla's arm, Will pulled the redhead gently back, mindful of where he placed his feet.

'We need to get back to the tavern,' he whispered, never taking his eyes off the threat. 'We need fire and axes.' And a half-dozen warriors to wield them, he thought grimly. The forest groaned as a vicious wind stirred the trees to movement. Will narrowed his eyes, fear and concern for Venla the only thing keeping his humours balanced. It was then he noticed the lack of night song, and the emptiness between the trees.

The Leshy had vanished.

'Run.'
 
"Run"

He did not have to say it twice. She bolted. Venla didn’t dare look back. Looking back meant slowing down, and slowing down meant...

Nope.

“Stupid” she hissed to herself. “Stupid girl, stupid night, stupid man..” She ducked under a low-hanging branch and nearly stumbled, catching herself on a sapling that bent under her weight.

There was a whisper of something strange that drifted past her face. Something that clung to the nostrils and tasted like scorched minerals and corroded copper.

Something struck her. A sweeping limb, gnarled and heavy. It struck her like a falling tree. She didn’t fall. She flew. Her body crashed through shrubbery and hit the trunk of an old weeping willow, bark tearing at her back. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The world had turned sideways and red.

She slid down to the base of the willow, the cold ground soft beneath her hands. Everything reeked of moss, ash, and something older. The dagger was lost to the dark. Green light flickered across her vision. Her ears rang. Her ribs… something was wrong. Venla blinked, dazed, head lolling to one side. Venla tried to move. Pain answered. She pressed a hand to her side, a warm wetness spreading under her fingers.
 
Willard stuck close to Venla as they ran. Weaving this way and that, he hurdled a moss-covered log, wary of the way the moonlight played between the trees. Silver and green and gone. Where are you? Dead leaves crunched underfoot as he ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch. Ahead or behind? Lying in wait or- There was a sound, like axe-rent wood succumbing to the pull of gravity, or else bowing under its own weight. Something blurred towards them.

'Venla! Get-'

Before he could finish shouting, the Leshy struck, hurling Venla from her feet. Willard felt the rush of air behind the blow. Such strength, was all he had time to think as the monster turned to face him, the baleful hollows of its eyes landing on him like a ton of bricks.

Grounding to a halt, the ranger raised his longbow and drew back the string, feeling his muscles tighten at the strain. A hundred and fifty pounds, full draw. A whole lot of force with only one thing to anchor it in place.

The arrow whistled as it took flight. At this range, in this light, with the twin embers atop its antlers acting as a mark for the centerpoint, he had no trouble hitting the target. Even as the first arrow left his string, he was drawing another, a decades' worth of training making the practise second nature to him. This arrow joined the first, driving into the Leshy's eye socket, just below the first.

The harrowing scream that followed left him disoriented and reeling, as the creature's pain became his pain.

Stumbling away, he ran to take a knee at Venla's side. Behind him, the monster writhed, driving finger-like branches into the earth as its feet. 'Venla! Shit! Venla! Come on, now. This ain't no time to be lying around.' Examining the wound in her side, Willard cursed again. Without a moment's hesitation, he slung his longbow across his back, hands taken to the task of lifting the redhead to her feet.
 
The leshen was shadow crowned in antlers that bled green fire. It stabbed its hands into the earth and the forest obeyed. Roots surged from the forest floor, thick and sinuous like tentacles, thrashing through the leaf litter. They twisted hungrily toward her and Willard. Alive with the creature’s fury, stretching to bind, to claim. Hissing through the soil, eager to drag them down. Under, deeper, to where light never touched.

Venla blinked and lifted her bloody hand and looked at it, confused. Blood dripped from her palm, bright against her skin, and pulsed with her heartbeat. When Willard hauled her upright and set her back on her feet, she tasted blood in her mouth. "It hurts... it hurts" Her voice was small, desperate.

The creature screeched behind them, the sound jagged as someone dragging a rusty knife over an even rustier metal plate. Venla caught a glimpse of it over Willard’s shoulder. The leshen, even with arrows jutting from its skull... even in pain, it was unrelenting. The ground shook underfoot, roots splitting the earth.

No time to think.
No time to cry.
Venla couldn’t even scream, the pain stole the sound before it could even rise.

"Alright," she whispered, barely more than a rasp. Venla staggered forward. The smallest movement sent fire up her spine. She half-ran, half-fell through the trees, sucking down air in thin, rattling gasps. The world narrowed to a tunnel of pain and panic. Roots surged up, clinging at her legs. One caught her thigh, another snared her wrist. She twisted, wrenched herself sideways, felt the bark tear against her skin. She ripped free. skin burning. Roots brushing her calves, clutching at her skirts, greedy to pull her down. Only the instinct to push, to survive.
 
'I know, friend, I know! But we have to move!' To stay was to die. I can't fight it. Not here, not now- not ever. His arrows hadn't done much to slow the creature down. If anything, it had grown angrier in the moments since, its bestial growls full of rage and want. If we stay, it'll kill us. If we go, I might be able get Venla to safety. A slim hope, Willard realised, but hope nonetheless.

Moving, the dawnling helped Venla to walk, one foot in front of the next.

So slow, he grimaced, taking more of her weight upon himself. Too slow. It wasn't Venla's fault. Wounded, disorientated, the redhead chose to persevere, even as roots sprung from the earth to catch and bind.

Willard felt something wrap around his right leg. Thorny, vice-like, it constricted and scratched in equal measure. Blood wetted the quilted fabric of his hose as he tore the limb free. Yet more followed, snatching at his arms, legs and feet. Then, he saw it - a glimmer of firelight amongst the trees. The tavern. 'We're nearly there!' He shouted to be heard over his own heartbeat. 'A little further, Venla, just a little-'

Something hit him square between the shoulder blades, propelling him out into the open before the tavern. Willard's whole world span, then disappeared in a welter of pain and noise.

Motionless in the grass, his last conscious thought was of the woman he had failed to save.
 
Only the instinct to push, to survive.

And then something pushed back...

It erupted from her like a dam breaking.
It was not a spell. It was not a prayer. It was a rupture.

She screamed, but not from fear, more from something rising in her. Light bent into colors the eye wasn’t meant to see. Leshen slowed mid-charge, its limbs jerking, spasming. Under it's belly lay Willard, knocked out. Venla raised a trembling hand without any thought. Blood dripping from her fingertips.... and the Leshen’s body jerked back several feet, tackled by the unseen force. And it came apart. Unmade.

Not like flesh, not like wood... like itself had decided it was tired of obeying the natural rules.

It wasn’t will, and it wasn’t strength.
It was chaos, clawing its way from the marrow of her bones.

Magic had laws and rules. Mages was the weavers at their loom. Magic was a thread in the weave. Chaos was the thread in the warp that snapped without warning, unraveling part of the weave. Yet from its ruin and its frayed edges, something new was made. Chaos was the moth that chewed holes in the fabric. Chaos was that knot in the werf that seemed to only get bigger and harder the more you pulled at it. It was both destruction and creation.

The creature’s ribs unspooled like wet rope. Its skull cracked open, splitting into segments like a peeled fruit. Limbs detached from odd angles. Parts of the leshen floated in the air instead of falling, spinning lazily in the air. Its flesh split apart, fiber by fiber, with a soft, wet tearing sound. The roots that had once dragged at them now fell still to the ground.

With a wrenching, impossible lurch, the remains of the Leshen were puzzled back together again... but wrong. Horribly, terribly wrong. A new shape rose from the ground like a totem pole, an altar to the impossible. Twisted bones lashed with sinew, eyes still blinking from half-crushed sockets.

Venla dropped to her knees, gasping. The last dregs of magic leaked from her mouth like a dying breath.

From the shoulders of the monstrosity, the Leshen’s antlers spiraled upward, gnarled and blackened and between the tines, like some blasphemous crown, its heart. The heart pulsed weakly, suspended in a cradle of bone and green, but dying embers. Each beat sprayed thin red mist into the night air, a mist that smelled of ancient forests long dead. The totem leered, as if mocking the life it once had.

Behind her, the tavern lights flickered and faded. Ahead of her, just a few in front of the fleshy totem pole, Willard lay sprawled in the grass, unmoving. No. No, no, no. Tears blurred her vision. Sobbing, she crawled over to his body. Her trembling fingers searching his throat for a flicker of life. There, a beat, a stubborn heart.

Leave him, the voice inside her whispered.
Run. Save yourself. When they see what you've done, they will burn you at the stake.

If she stayed, if they found her crouched beside the lifeless Willard and remains of the Leshen, they would not care about reasons. They would see only the horror, the madness.

And her.

"I’m sorry," she whispered to Willard, voice breaking. She pushed herself up on her feet and fled into the dark.
 
I'm sorry, said the Ghost, her voice a spear of light in the impenetrable black.

Me, too, thought the Knight, drawn to the light like a moth carried upon clipped wings. More than you'll ever know.

---​
He awoke to pain and torchlight. Strewn on his back, face to the stars, Willard let comprehension return to him at its own steady pace. The pitter-patter of fleeing feet drew him into the waking world, more and more, until he found the strength to raise his head. They faded fast. Fresh voices filled the silence that followed, wary and afraid. Men, women, old and young - they lacked the familiar tone he had been hoping to hear.

Sitting up, his ribs grating, Willard cast around for the body of Venla. Something dripped onto the ground nearby, pooling in the furrows to be lapped up by the earth. He did not want to look for fear of what he might see there. Please, please, please don't be her, he begged, turning his head to the side.

Revelation brought with it relief, and a renewed sense of fear.

Ahyiid ward me, even in death it remains undiminished. The Leshy was not how he remembered it. Reformed, reworked into a bloody spiral of mismatched organ and bone, it appeared more menhir than monster.

Old magicks seeped from the totem, polluting the air around it. The feeling made Willard's skin crawl. Then, a shadow fell across him from behind, cast by the light of the tavern.

'You should burn it.' Looking up into the tavernkeep's eyes, Willard nodded towards the totem. 'Burn it, then gather up the ashes. Find a box and bury it, preferably somewhere stony.' The tavernkeep continued to stare at him like he was mad. Perhaps he was. 'What in the shrivelling hells is that thing?!' He asked, eyes wide and raised. The tension in his limbs was shared amongst the other patrons milling about the tavern entrance. Nobody dared stray closer.

'Dead,' Willard reassured him, lips drawn back in a grimace as he tended to his injured leg. 'It can wait until the sun is up, if you prefer. Mind you, I doubt anyone'll be sleeping well tonight.' The man's rugged features creased. A nod.

'Aye, I-I s'pose yer right.'
'Will you do what I asked?'
'Oh, a-aye, yes,' the tavernkeep bobbed his head. 'I'll have some o' the village lads deal with it come the morn. Though, I'm guessin' daylight won't improve the view much?'

Willard smiled, then. Made to stand. 'Probably not,' he agreed, turning to hobble towards the tavern. The keeper went with him. The guests hurried back inside. 'Don't imagine you have a healer stopping over for the night?' Will asked. 'I've wounds need tending to, before I leave.'

'Leave?!' The big-bellied tavernkeep span around at the news. 'Leave where?'

Willard stopped walking.

'Why, to find the woman who slew it.'
 
Venla ran. Behind her lay the wreckage of everything she had known... her home, her people, her life.

Across the open fields, mud sucking at her heels. Every breath was a dagger twisting inside her. The fields gave way to a grove, young oaks clawing toward the night sky with their mighty crowns. She stumbled into the thicket, snagged by branches, thorns raking her arms, but she forced her way through with sobs rising in her throat.

The ground sloped upward. Her side wet and sticky with blood. Shapes moved at the edges of her vision, half-seen things, but she knew better than to look too closely now. Past the grove, she found a stable, low and leaning, tucked at the edge of a lonely road. Lantern light seeped from the main house nearby, but the stable itself was dark and quiet.

Venla staggered inside, the scent of hay and horse filling her nose. Warmth, real warmth. Some horse shifted uneasily, sensing the wrongness clinging to her. She slid down the wall of an empty stall, clutching her side. Trembling, heart hammering hard against her chest. Minutes passed before she could move again. Her mind reeled with what she had done.

Her life was over. Whatever she had been... daughter, friend, tavern wench, had bled out in the dirt under the fleshy totem pole too. Venla curled tighter into herself. She buried her face in her arms, willing herself not to cry again. Later. Tend the wounds. Think later.

Slowly, wincing with every movement, Venla pulled loose the tattered laces of her bodice and lifted her shirt. Cold air kissed her battered skin, raising gooseflesh. Livid bruises that blossomed across her ribs. Blood had dried in dark, stiff patches along her hip. Her petticoat... She tore at it with shaking hands, ripping long strips of fabric free. At the far end of the stall, a water bucket leaned in the shadows. Venla crawled to it on her hands and knees. She dipped her cupped hand into the freezing water, then she cleaned away the blood as best she could. The torn strips of petticoat became makeshift bandages, wound tight around her ribs, knotted at her side with trembling fingers. Another bound her hip, pressing the torn skin closed.

When it was done, Venla slumped back against a wall. Pain was like a second heartbeat inside her. She tipped her head back, staring up into the broken beams of the roof. Venla sat there, hands heavy in her lap, skin slick with cold sweat. Her body sagged against the stable wall, slipping down inch by inch.

She thought dimly of the way Willard had shouted her name.
Of the smell of magic burning.
Of the thing she had made without meaning to.

Venla slumped sideways, her cheek pressing against the hay on the clay floor.
No dreams came.
Only the deep, black tide of exhaustion.
 
Morning found him on the road. Mounted, and nursing fresh bruises, Willard kept his eyes on the stables ahead. 'Are you sure this is wise, Syr?' The tavernkeep's words repeated in his mind, a warning of things yet to come. 'You are hurt, and that creature-' The leshen hadn't come back to life overnight, thank the Eight. Dead as dead could be, Will had told the man as much, though he wasn't sure if his words had any effect.

Little comfort to be found in the words of stranger. Still, he had tried. Men from the nearest village had arrived shortly thereafter, baring axes, shovels and more than a handful of talismans. To see the monster, he assumed, and the knight what slew it.

Only it wasn't me, was it? Willard's thoughts were dark and laden with worry. Dead as dead can be. Is that what you are, Venla?

He had found no body, only blood, and a fragment of her dress caught on a thornbush, several steps into the woods. The muddy footprints brought some relief, though, her fate remained unknown. Can't have made it far, he recalled thinking, events from the night before playing across his mind's eye, like a nightmare witnessed in real time. He had followed the tracks, then, leading his horse by the reins.

Through the woods, past groves and thickets, on the trail of a ghost. Or perhaps... another monster.

The main house was abuzz with activity and clutter as he approached. Smoke circled lazily from the chimney as stablehands gathered in the yard outside. There were children among them - running, playing, tripping over themselves. Laughter and conversation filled the air. A dog started barking. Heads turned to the gate. The children, oblivious to the tension in the air, kept running about until a figure appeared in the house's doorway.

Quiet descended like a shroud, smothering all present. Willard raised a hand in greeting.

'Good morning,' he addressed all present, eyes watchful as he studied the faces regarding him. 'Sorry to bother you all before breakfast, but I was wondering if you could help me? I'm looking for someone. A young woman with fire-kissed hair. Likely hurt. I picked up her trail by the tavern, along where the road branches off toward Arrowdale and Drachenberg, and it led me here.'

The stablehands shared a glance as the figure in the doorway stepped outside.
 
One of the stablehands was a lanky man in his early twenties, with straw in his hair and gap-toothed mouth. The stablehand didn’t blink. Didn’t nod. “Could be, Syr,” he said, the man was guarded despite the grin. “We got someone like that."

"Found her curled up like a kicked dog in the straw, sometime after dawn. Gave us a right start, she did.” He gestured toward the stable with a tilt of his chin. "We let her be. Thought it kinder to let her sleep it off.” He started walking, motioning for Willard to follow.

They reached the stall. The blonde man slowed. “She’s in there.” The young man stepped aside. There, in the straw, was Venla. Curled against the wall, like a wounded fox. Knees drawn up, cradling in her own arms. Her skin marred with bruises and cuts, and flushed with fever. Lips slightly parted as she breathed in shallow, rattling gasps. She drifted in a fevered murk, not quite dreaming, not quite gone. Beside her, nestled like some guardian, lay a big black goat. The animal lay with its head tucked close to her side, eyes half-lidded. Its glassy eyes fixed on Willard and the stablehand like twin shards of obsidian.

The stablehand shifted, uneasy. “You know her then, Syr?" He studied Willard for a long moment. As if he couldn't decide whether this stranger was the one the woman had run away from or not. “Don't know what passed between you two,” the stablehand added, just a shade louder. “But if yer the reason she’s like this, I’ll warn ye now, got an axe behind that door. An' the goat bites.”

Venla stirred beneath the tattered horse blanket someone had thrown over her. Her fingers twitched beneath the heavy wool. Her body feeling like it belonged to someone else. The soft shuffle of boots on straw. Voices. Who’s there? Her eyes fluttered open, the world was in a haze of half-formed thoughts and dull aches. Movement near the opening caught her attention. She turned her head slowly. Her vision blurry and unfocused. Consciousness pressed in from all sides. He had come looking for her. That could mean safety. That could mean fire and rope.
 
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