The night pressed against the windows of Eoghan's cottage like a living thing. Outside, the trees whispered in the wind, their branches scratching at the glass like long-fingered hands. Inside, the fire's glow was low and hesitant, shadows trembling across the walls as if afraid to stay still in such a fragile moment.
Eoghan lay on the couch, his body still and pale. His eyelids fluttered with exhaustion, and each breath he drew felt labored, as though his lungs were frozen by the cold he had carried from the ritual chamber.
Shanane knelt beside him, her hands gentle and trembling as she dabbed at the blood that stained his skin.
She moved slowly, almost reverently: hesitant to disturb him, uncertain what he would say next. Her chest was tight and hollow, every heartbeat a drum of fear and regret.
The huntsman stirred under her touch. His eyes flew open, glassy with pain. He stared at her for a moment, any thought or warmth gone from his gaze. The silence in the room roared between them like a storm.
His hand clenched suddenly around her wrist. He opened his eyes, and the familiar clarity was gone. His gaze was fierce, haunted, and raw like a storm breaking through calm skies.
__Eoghan: "Why didn't you tell me?"
His voice was low, ragged. It trembled with exhaustion before erupting into accusation.
__Eoghan: "Why did you hide this from me? Why did you come to me with secrets you clearly carried in your veins like poison?"
The words struck her like shards of ice. She flinched, and her cloth slipped, smearing fresh red across his jaw. The stained fabric captured her guilt and magnified it.
__Eoghan: "You led me into this. You brought me into the heart of the storm and never mentioned the curse you carry. How could you, Shanane? How could you stand at my door with that thing breathing down your neck and expect me not to suffer for it?" How could you bring this into my life?"
His voice was low, but every word felt like a blade through her chest. She shuddered at its force.
__Eoghan: " You drugged my mind, and you show up in my home with this… curse."
He continued
__Eoghan: "You never warned me. Did you think I would stand by you when I knew what darkness clung to your blood?"
The young woman's throat clenched. The weight of his accusation struck her harder than any blow.
__Eoghan: "Tell me. How did you even dare to approach me when you knew what you carried?"
His words trembled with pain, not just fury.
He threw the cloth aside, and Shanane watched it drift across the floor, leaving her bare hands trembling. She felt each word in his voice cut deeper than any knife.
__Shanane: "I'm sorry."
Her voice broke, barely a whisper. She crouched there, frozen for a moment before lifting her hands to cup his cheek.
__Shanane: "I'm so sorry. I never meant to drag you into this. You were there to help me bury my grandmother. You had every right not to know. I protected you because I… I care about you too much."
Her apology echoed in the quiet. She felt raw, exposed, unprepared for the torrent of emotion his tone swallowed.
__Eoghan: "You care about me?"
He staggered to sit up, the weight of the moment pushing him upright.
__Shanane: "You care about me so much that you'd subject me to your blood curse? You want me by your side, but you never told me what I was stepping into?"
He grabbed her arm fisted in resignation and hurt, more painful than any wound.
He wanted answers, but he barked accusations instead.
__Eoghan: "How did you even think you could approach me?"
He shook his head, voice rasping.
__Eoghan: "When you knew he would come for me next? When you knew a demon lord would track you?"
He spat the words, but they landed gently, like fractured glass.
__Eoghn: "Do you even realize how much I trusted you?"
Shanane flinched at his tone. The man who usually brought calm to chaos now stood in front of her as a stranger. She felt untethered, adrift in the sea of his rage.
She blinked fast. Her chest heaved. Embarrassed sobs shook her body.
__Shanane: "I never meant to lie. I never meant for you to get hurt. You were always my anchor."
Her voice broke, trailing into sincerity.
__Shanane: "I just...when it began, I didn't know what to do. I thought I could handle it alone...until the demon appeared and I saw what it could do…"
She wrung her hands, trying to find words. They slipped like sand through her fingers.
__Shanane: "I thought I could walk through this darkness without pulling you in. I was wrong. I see that now…"
Tears streamed suddenly. She covered her mouth to silence them, but crystallized dread remained. She shook her head.
&&Shanane: "I… I can't stay. Not if I'm only going to hurt you more."
She drew back as he stared. The couch sank with the weight of his resignation. His chest curled in pain. She held the silence until the air thickened between them.
He finally spoke. His voice was brittle, not angered, just unconvinced.
__Eoghan: "You're leaving."
She paused, tears pooling at her lashes.
__Shanane: "I need to find a way to stop all of this before I...before I lose you or everyone else. I can't risk that." her voice cracked.
His eyes softened, but only for a heartbeat. Then they cooled like frost settling over flame. He looked away, not in shame, but in finality. Something in him had closed.
__Eoghan: "You're right."
Shanane froze. The words felt like a blade she hadn't seen coming.
__Eoghan: "You shouldn't stay here. Not in this house. Not in this village."
His voice was low now, hollowed out, like the fire inside him had burned too fast and left only smoke.
__Eoghan: "This place can't carry any more death."
She stepped back slightly, searching his face, hoping for a trace of the warmth she once found there. But all that remained was distance.
__Eoghan: "It's not just about me."
He shook his head, his voice tight.
__Eoghan: "There are families here. Children. People who have no idea what lives in the shadows they pass every day. You bring more than grief with you, Shanane. You bring something none of us are prepared to fight."
Her lips parted, but no words came. His words stung deeper than he knew because they weren't screamed. They were said with the quiet certainty of someone already mourning.
__Eoghan: "Maybe this… whatever's tied to you. Maybe it can't be helped. But it doesn't belong here. You don't belong here."
She blinked rapidly, a tear slipping free. Still, he didn't stop.
__Eoghan: "I was foolish to think I could protect you. Or that you needed me."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, not looking at her.
__Eoghan: "You didn't need a partner. You needed a shield."
She moved closer, a breath caught in her chest.
__Shanane: "I never meant to hurt you."
He gave the barest nod, but the space between them had already grown wider than the room itself.
__Eoghan: "I know. But you did." his voice was rough.
The silence afterward was heavier than any argument. He didn't follow her with his eyes when she turned to leave. He didn't move.
__Shanane: "Goodbye, Eoghan." her voice was broken.
But he didn't answer.
She opened the door and outside, the night swallowed her without a sound.
Inside, the huntsman sat alone in the dim light of the lamp, blood still drying on his skin. His hands rested limp in his lap. He didn't reach for the cloth she left behind.
He didn't wipe it away.
________________________________________
∆ ☆ ATHERAMOND ☆ ∆
________________________________________
The night wrapped around Shanane like a shroud as she walked with no direction, her steps hollow and unsteady on the damp earth. Her heart thudded painfully beneath her ribs, each beat louder than the last, as though trying to drown out the silence that now followed her. Eoghan's door had closed behind her not with violence, but with something worse: finality.
She wandered for what felt like hours, though she didn't look at the time. The path beneath her was dim, blurred by tears she no longer tried to hold back. Her breath stuttered with each sob, raw and uneven, and the cold night air stung her throat every time she tried to swallow the ache that built higher in her chest.
Eventually, her legs gave up guiding her. She collapsed under a tree at the edge of the woods, an old oak, bare-limbed and crooked, its roots twisting out like fingers grasping at the ground. She curled her knees to her chest and buried her face in them, her arms wrapping tight around herself as if she could hold herself together through sheer force.
The tears came harder now, broken and voiceless, the kind that clawed from the chest when there were no more words left to say. Her shoulders shook as though her body was fighting against itself. Every sob burned. Every breath felt like glass inside her lungs.
Eoghan was gone.
He had turned away, not with hatred, not even with cruelty but with cold certainty. That hurt more than if he had screamed. More than if he had cursed her. He had let her go, and in doing so, told her what he believed that she was too dangerous to be loved. That her presence brought ruin. That she should leave not because he hated her but because she no longer belonged anywhere near what was human, or good.
Her fingers dug into the fabric of her coat, as though she could pull herself tighter, smaller, invisible. But there was no one left to hide from. The only person who had stood beside her when everything fell apart had walked away.
Now, she was alone. Completely alone. And she didn't know where to go next.
She stayed under the tree for hours.
The cold seeped into her bones, but she didn't move. She sat hunched beneath the gnarled branches, her arms wrapped around her legs, her forehead resting on her knees. Her eyes had gone dry, but the ache in her chest refused to ease. Her fingers were numb. Her thoughts blurred into one long spiral of hopelessness.
She had stopped listening to the wind, stopped watching the stars, stopped caring who she was anymore.
Until the sound came. It was footsteps: slow, heavy and seady.
At first, she didn't register them. Then her head jerked up, heart slamming against her ribs. Her breath caught in her throat.
Her mind screamed one word before she could stop it: "Atheramond."
She scrambled to her feet, stumbling backward, hands shaking, chest tightening with panic. Her gaze scanned the darkness, desperate for movement, for a shape in the shadows. The air felt wrong, colder and thicker.
Then the figure stepped into view.
It was Eoghan.
The moonlight caught his blond hair, the worry written across his face, the hesitance in his stride. He looked like he hadn't spoken a word since she left, like regret had rooted itself in his chest the moment the door closed behind her.
She froze, unable to move.
He didn't speak at first. He just stood there, looking at her like he didn't know if he had the right to come closer.
Then, quietly, his voice reached her.
__Eoghan: "I'm sorry."
It broke something in her. The words weren't loud. They didn't carry force. But they were real.
She stared at him, speechless, tears already welling again. Her throat closed up, her legs trembling from standing too quickly, from everything.
He took a step forward, then another.
__Eoghan: "I didn't mean what I said. Not like that. I was angry...no, I was scared."
She bit her lip, hard, trying not to let the hope show on her face.
__Eoghan: "You didn't deserve that. You've been carrying all of this alone. And instead of helping you… I pushed you out."
He stopped in front of her. The silence was thick. Neither of them moved for a moment. Then, slowly, he opened his arms. She stepped into them without thinking.
His arms closed around her like warmth after a long winter. Her face pressed into his shoulder, and the sob that broke from her lips was sudden and sharp, raw with everything she had tried to hold in. He held her tighter.
__Eoghan: "You're not alone in this. Not anymore."
Her hands clung to his coat, her tears soaking into the fabric.
__Eoghan: "Come back with me. Please."
His voice was rough, thick with emotion.
__Eoghan: "We'll face this together. I don't care what's coming. I'm not going to let you go through it alone."
Her fingers tightened against his back.
He pulled away just enough to see her face, to brush his thumb gently beneath her eyes.
__Eoghan: "I won't let you down again."
She nodded, unable to form words, but her eyes said everything.
He lifted her gently from the ground, his hands warm against her trembling back. She buried her face deeper into his coat, drawing the familiar scent of him into her lungs as if it were fresh air. She pulled back just enough to look into his eyes, her own swirling with emotions she could no longer hide.
__Shanane: "I swear I never wanted to trapped you in this."
Her voice was raw and rough, edged with regret.
__Shanane: "I was terrified that if you stayed, you'd be next. I… I couldn't bear the thought of dragging you down."
He brushed a damp strand of hair from her tear-streaked face. His touch was light, careful, like it might break her.
__Eoghan: "You were protecting me. I was just angry because I… because I felt helpless." his voice cracked with relief.
Shanane reached up to cup his cheek. Her thumb brushed against the dried blood still staining his skin. She flinched at the reminder.
__Shanane: "I'm sorry… for everything. For lying. For hurting you. For being the kind of person who brings darkness."
He shook his head gently, brushing away her hand.
__Eoghan: "Don't say that. You're not darkness. Not to me. It's the things chasing you that are dark. Not you."
A soft wind stirred around them, rustling the leaves overhead. Their embrace tightened, and Shanane pressed her cheek against his chest.
__Shanane: "I thought I could fight it alone."
Her voice trembled with sorrow.
__Shanane: "I thought I could burn the past away and start again. But now… now everything feels broken."
He picked up the fallen cloth from beside her boot and held it out for her to see. She brushed her palm over it, as though saying goodbye to the memory of his pain.
__Eoghan: "We can rebuild it, with time and patience." he stepped back, but his hands found hers. "But we need to face it together."
Their fingers interlocked, and Shanane nodded, her tears slowing. She pulled him back in close.
__Shanane: "I want that. I need you. I don't know if I can keep standing without you."
He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, and she rested her head against him again.
__Eoghan: "Then come back with me. We will fight this thing together."
She glanced out at the dark path behind them, at the silent tree waiting overhead and then she looked into his eyes.
__Shanane: "Okay."
He smiled faintly, and then he swept her into his arms and began to walk. She let him lead, her own legs feeling steadier than they had in hours. He carried her down the path she had stumbled along earlier, into the shelter of his cottage and away from the shadows that sought to claim her.
Inside the warm glow of his hearth, she found her breath again. Eoghan closed the door behind them, and for the first time that night, silence did not threaten.
Instead, peace, fragile and new, filled the space between them.