Faelan woke, clutching Niri. The aroma of a rich stew drifted through the house.
He made his way over and found Selira preparing breakfast.
"I came back rather late yesterday. Sorry about that," Selira remarked as she added spices to the pot.
"Don't worry. I-it's fine."
"You don't look too well. Are you doing alright?"
"Yes. It's just... I'm a bit tired. I didn't really sleep much last night."
"I'm sorry. Did I disturb you?"
"No. I didn't even know when you came back."
"Alright then."
She returned to her cooking.
"It'll be ready soon."
Faelan nodded before heading to the well to draw water for a bath.
At one point, the water seemed to turn a rusty red.
He paid it no mind.
He had his bath.
Afterward, they ate breakfast together.
It was different.
Like something was missing.
But he ate it anyway.
A few more days passed.
Selira began leaving again, leaving him alone with Niri.
...
The taccorox had never tried to attack him.
It had never even hissed.
It was far too friendly.
It didn't make sense.
Taccoroxes were supposed to be crafty...
Temperamental.
His gaze lingered on the creature's steady breathing, the subtle twitch of its ears.
Then there was the matter of Selira's regular trips into the forest.
How was it she could venture in and return without so much as a scratch?
...
And then there were his own thoughts.
Pointless paranoia, he told himself.
He hoped.
The nagging thought didn't leave.
Where does she go?
Sometimes, he caught glimpses of her—a flash of boots through the window, a shadow slipping between the trees, or the faint smell of earth and herbs, far stronger than anything in her garden.
His mind raced with possibilities. Was she just foraging farther than he realized? Meeting someone? Something? Or... something worse?
He found himself pacing the small yard, hands tucked into his sleeves, trying to shake the unease. Niri followed silently, her tails flicking as though she was aware of his rising tension.
Selira returned late, as usual, carrying a bundle of herbs.
Faelan hesitated before speaking.
"You've been gone a lot during the day," he said cautiously. "Is everything... alright?"
Selira tilted her head, studying him. A small smile crept onto her face.
"Everything is fine," she said simply, setting the herbs down and brushing her hands. "Some things need attention outside the house. Nothing you need to worry about."
Faelan nodded, though the tightness in his chest didn't ease.
He wanted to trust her. He really did.
But it felt safer if he didn't.
He watched as Selira moved about her chores, silent and purposeful.
Faelan sighed, running a hand through his hair.
He wanted to know. He needed either a reason to stop worrying or something that confirmed his suspicions.
Night arrived, carrying an unnerving stillness.
The quiet safety of the house suddenly felt... fragile.
That night, his eyes barely closed.
When morning came, sunlight from the window traced the edges of the furniture, long and still, as though even the shadows were holding their breath.
Selira eventually slipped on her boots and moved toward the door.
Faelan stayed hidden in the corner, careful not to make a sound.
She opened the door and stepped into the soft morning light.
Faelan's curiosity overcame his caution.
He waited a moment, then followed.
Quietly. Deliberately.
He slipped out the side of the house, keeping to the shadows of the low shrubs and trees.
The forest loomed as it always did, its undergrowth filled with kretes and rhakens, small rodents that could frequently signal trouble.
Selira moved with certainty, passing over roots and low branches.
She paused at a particular cluster of trees and lowered herself to inspect the ground.
Faelan crouched behind a bush, straining to see.
She knelt and began digging gently, pulling something small from the earth—roots, herbs, maybe something else.
Her movements were precise and careful, almost ritualistic.
It had become routine for her.
There was a quiet focus to her that Faelan had never seen before.
It didn't seem like foraging.
What is she doing?
She continued digging deeper into the soil until her fingers found something solid.
A box.
She pulled it from the earth.
Her fingers brushed across its surface gently, almost reverently, as though handling something fragile—or dangerous.
Selira opened the box slowly.
Inside lay several small vials. Some contained faintly glowing liquid, with fragments of plants suspended within them.
She brought the vials closer to her mouth, whispering something to them.
Faelan strained to hear, but he couldn't make out what she was saying.
The vials pulsed lightly in response.
Selira moved a little farther through the forest, but it wasn't long before she returned toward the house.
Faelan hurried back before she could notice him.
When he got there, he saw her kneeling beside the garden as usual, tending to it as though nothing had happened.
The Selira Faelan knew now seemed like a different person.
He hesitated for a moment before going inside.
The same unnerving stillness wrapped around him that night.
He could feel them staring, circling him.
Yet again, he got no sleep, even when morning came.
After that, he began following Selira whenever she left the house.
Each time, she went to a different part of the forest.
He still didn't know what she was doing, but there were always similarities. He would hear her mumbling a few words as she handled the vials, sometimes mixing their contents, sometimes pouring them into the soil.
Then she'd return home as though nothing had happened.
One day, she ventured farther than usual.
She entered a cave with scratch marks covering the stone outside, making it obvious that something had called it home.
Faelan approached the entrance and peeked inside.
The cave breathed.
That was the first thing he noticed—the slow, heavy rise and fall of air, warm and damp, carrying the thick scent of fur, stone, and something faintly metallic.
The scratch marks outside suddenly made sense.
They were old.
Repeated.
Claimed.
Inside, a sarited slept.
A massive three-metre beast with a broad skull and long snout.
It lay curled against the cavern wall, its massive shoulders rising and falling with each breath. Its fur was coarse and dark, matted in places, streaked with pale scars that glimmered faintly in the cave's low light.
Claws the length of Faelan's forearm rested loosely against the stone, chipped and worn from years of use.
Even asleep, it radiated its presence.
One wrong sound and he'd be pulp.
Faelan swallowed, his pulse hammering in his ears.
He was about to back away when movement caught his eye.
Selira.
She stood near the edge of the cave, far closer to the creature than reason allowed.
Her posture was calm.
Almost reverent.
From her satchel, she removed a cloudy blue vial and slowly poured its contents into a shallow crack in the stone.
The liquid hissed softly, thin smoke trailing upward as it seeped down.
The sound was barely louder than a whisper.
Then she spoke.
Not loudly.
Just a few murmured words, steady and measured.
The sarited shifted.
Its breathing deepened.
The tension Faelan hadn't even realized was coiled within its body eased, its muscles slackening further into sleep.
The cave itself seemed to settle.
As though satisfied.
Faelan's blood ran cold.
Selira wiped her hands, sealed the remaining vials, and turned to leave.
Her eyes lifted toward the cave entrance.
Straight to him.
Straight to Faelan.
"Faelan," she said softly, without surprise.
"You can come out now."
How long did she know?
The thought hit him harder than fear.
Not if—how long.
Faelan stepped fully into the mouth of the cave, the dim light outlining his silhouette.
The sarited let out a slow, rumbling breath behind Selira. Still asleep. Still impossibly calm for something that could tear him in half without fully waking.
His eyes never left it.
"What are you doing to it?" he asked quietly, his voice tight. "And why does it look..."
He hesitated.
"...peaceful."
Selira carefully corked the last vial and slid it back into her satchel before facing him.
Her expression held neither defensiveness nor guilt.
"It is," she said. "This is what it looks like when it isn't starving, poisoned, or driven mad."
Faelan frowned.
"That thing is three metres tall. It could kill either of us in a moment."
She nodded once.
"So could people, under the wrong conditions."
She glanced back at the sarited, her voice lowering.
"I'm sure you've heard about how things have changed. How the world changed. The forest is a part of that. It mutated plants, warped animals, disrupted instincts."
She rested a hand against the creature's coarse fur.
"Creatures like this don't always attack because they want to. Sometimes everything hurts. Their habitat can practically poison them slowly."
Faelan's jaw clenched.
"So the vials?"
"Stabilizers. Neutralizers. Sometimes sedatives."
She paused.
"Sometimes... it's something they shouldn't have anymore."
Her eyes returned to him, sharp now.
"All I try to do is keep them from breaking."
The sarited shifted, letting out a low, content rumble—almost like a snore.
Faelan felt something twist in his chest.
Memories of the forest, painful but not necessarily malicious, clicked into place.
"You've been doing this everywhere," he said slowly. "The places I followed you to..."
"Yes."
"...How long did you know I was following you?"
Selira hesitated.
Just for a fraction of a second.
"Since the first time," she admitted. "You could have just asked to come along."
Despite everything, Faelan let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
His eyes flicked once more toward the sleeping sarited.
Selira's hand moved slowly through its coarse fur, each stroke careful and practiced. The creature didn't stir, only leaning into the touch as though some part of it remembered gentler days.
"I think the books I've seen end too early," she said softly.
Faelan looked at her.
"They talk about the change like it was an event. Like a storm you wait out."
Her fingers paused.
"It wasn't."
She looked toward the cave entrance.
"It was a fracture. Cracks spreading through everything."
Her gaze returned to the sarited.
"They changed trying to survive."
A pause.
"Forgetting how to live."
Faelan's gaze drifted over the beast's scarred hide. Old wounds. Poorly healed ones.
"So can you fix them?" he asked.
"I only try to slow the bleeding," Selira corrected. "That's all I can do."
Something uneasy settled in him.
"And people?"
Her hand withdrew at last.
"People adapted too."
She looked at him.
"Some broke. Some learned to exploit the brokenness."
A brief silence.
"Some endure longer than they have to. Longer than they should."
The cave felt smaller.
The sarited exhaled, deep and steady.
"Then that's why you were there that day."
"Yes. You had gone through a lot. Barely breathing, but still alive."
Selira met his eyes this time. There was no warmth there, but no deception either.
She walked out of the cave, Faelan following her.
"Did you know that a few of my plants in the garden have no visible changes?"
She continued toward the edge of the forest.
"People back then used to think they were pure. Tenacious."
She paused, thinking of the words to use.
"But they did change. They began to produce new..."
She hesitated.
"...inner parts of themselves that neutralized the changes they would have undergone. It worked, but that in itself was already a grand change."
"So it changed just like everything else," Faelan remarked.
"Why say this now?"
"Change, Faelan, is a terrifying thing. But that doesn't mean ignoring it or wishing it wasn't there is the way to handle it."
They exited the forest, the evening sun coloring the sky a deep orange.
Selira turned to him.
"Are you well?"
What? Why is she asking me that?
"Yes, I'm alright."
"You have bags under your eyes. You always seem so tense. I hear your mumblings at night. Sometimes you gasp for air when you're outside."
She raised her hand and cupped his cheek.
Her hand was warm against his skin.
Faelan saw a woman.
Her arm was missing, blood splattered across her clothing, bleeding bite marks covering her neck.
But she had a worried look on her face.
Mom...
A tear ran down his face, as though clearing his vision.
He still stood with Selira.
"Faelan, are you okay?"
"No."
More tears rolled down his cheeks.
"I'm not."