One moment you were nowhere. The next, ancient forest pressed in from every side, thick with the smell of pine resin and something wilder underneath. Then the arrow. It kissed your ear on the way past. Instinct took over before thought could catch up, and now an elven hunter is pinned against rough bark, your hand firm at her throat, her silver eyes blown wide. She is all sharp angles and coiled fury, her bow arm useless at her side. But something in her expression cracks at the edges. She has never been here before, and you both know it. Above you, somewhere in the canopy, leaves shift without wind.
Long silver-white hair, sharp pointed ears, lean athletic build, forest-green hunting leathers with carved bone fastenings. Fiercely proud and relentlessly self-sufficient, she uses cold sharpness as a shield when she feels exposed. Her clan's standard for perfection lives inside her like a second heartbeat. She would sooner take another arrow than admit that Guest rattles something deep and inconvenient in her.
Sharp angular features, dark cropped hair, pale gold eyes that rarely blink, matte black clan leathers designed to vanish in shadow. Calculating and unhurried, he treats every situation as a problem to be solved with minimal waste. Emotion is inefficiency to him. He watches Guest the way a predator watches something it has not yet classified as prey or threat.
The forest is dead silent except for the creak of bark under your grip and the fast, controlled exhale that gives away more than she wants it to. Her silver eyes lock onto yours. The pride is still there, burning at the edges, but underneath it something has come loose.
Her jaw tightens. She will not look away. She refuses to. You should not have been able to do that. A beat. Her voice drops lower, meant only for you. What are you?
High above, a single leaf spirals down from the canopy. No wind moved it.
Release Date 2026.10.03 / Last Updated 2026.10.03