ISOLDE
The forest felt different now.
Not hostile—at least, not exactly—but aware. As if it were watching them pass beneath the boughs, deciding whether to grant safe passage or swallow them whole.
It was nearly a full day's walk to her cottage. She knew the way by heart. Or she had, once.
But today, the path shifted underfoot. Not dramatically—just a turn where there hadn't been one before, a patch of moss blooming where dry root should've been, a grove she could have sworn wasn't there yesterday, with trees too wide and too still.
She glanced over her shoulder.
Alaric walked a few paces behind, his pack slung over one shoulder, his coat unfastened, dark hair falling across his brow. He looked more at ease than she felt—though not unguarded. His eyes flicked from shadow to light, never resting for long.
She slowed to let him catch up.
"You're quiet," she said.
He looked at her, unreadable for a moment. Then: "So are you."
She smiled faintly. "I thought that was your job."
"I'm adaptable."
She arched a brow. "Are you?"
He stepped closer, their shoulders brushing. "You bring it out of me."
--
ALARIC
He hadn't meant to say it aloud.
But the truth of it rang through his ribs like struck iron.
She brought something out of him. Something steady. Something familiar.
And something old.
The longer they walked together, the more it pulsed beneath the surface—like echoes trying to rise. Images caught at the edge of thought: the scent of her skin. The way she carried her weight. A voice—hers, not hers—calling his name in a storm.
He hadn't told her yet. About the dreams before he met her. The ones where her hands were bloodied, and he always died trying to reach her. He didn't know if it would help.
Or if she already knew.
She knelt ahead of him now, pressing her palm to the soil, whispering something to the roots. The trees around them seemed to lean in, listening.
She wasn't just powerful.
She belonged here in a way that made even his ancient blood pause.
"Did you grow up in these woods?" he asked as she rose.
"Not these ones," she said. "But ones like them. My mother believed all forests were cousins—branches of the same original tree."
His brow furrowed. "That sounds… familiar."
She glanced at him. "It should. Your people used to believe that too."
He stopped walking.
He hadn't told her that.
--
ISOLDE
She turned back when she noticed his stillness.
His eyes were unfocused, his breath shallow.
"Alaric?"
He blinked. Once. Twice.
Then shook his head like clearing a fog.
"I'm fine," he muttered. "Just—" He pressed a hand to his chest. "It's like I remembered something. But the moment I reached for it, it vanished."
She stepped closer. "You said you've had flashes before."
He nodded. "Pieces. Feelings. Never full memory. But walking with you... it's louder now."
She reached up and touched his jaw.
He leaned into it.
"Maybe the forest remembers," she said.
He looked down at her. "Or maybe we do."
--
ALARIC
They reached a clearing just before dusk.
He'd seen it before.
Not in this lifetime—but in a memory buried so deep it made his teeth ache.
There had been a fire here once. A circle of stone. A woman—her—smiling at him in the dark.
He froze.
Isolde looked at him, concerned.
"I've been here before," he said. "With you. You wore red."
She stilled.
"I don't own anything red," she whispered.
"You did then."
His fingers brushed hers—light, hesitant.
She didn't pull away.
The woods rustled around them, not with wind—but breath.
Alive.
Listening.
--
ISOLDE
She watched him, heart rising into her throat.
There was something in the way he stood now—less guarded, more vulnerable. Like the memory that had brushed his senses hadn't vanished completely, but left a thread behind. And that thread led to her.
To here.
To this moment.
She stepped closer. Not because she meant to, but because she couldn't not. Her hand found the edge of his cloak, her fingers curling there like they belonged.
"Tell me what you saw," she whispered.
Alaric's gaze dropped to her mouth, then back to her eyes.
"I saw you," he said. "Before all this. Before me."
Her brow knit. "How can you be sure?"
"Because you looked at me the same way then," he murmured. "Like you already knew how it would end—and you let it happen anyway."
Isolde exhaled softly, something deep in her chest tightening. Not fear. Not quite pain. But the weight of something ancient.
Her thumb brushed the edge of his cloak. His hands found her waist.
Not pulling her in. Not yet.
Just resting there.
Waiting.
"If I knew then," she said, "maybe I know now."
He tipped his forehead against hers.
The forest went silent again. Not ominous—reverent.
"What do you know?" he asked, voice low.
"That I would kiss you," she breathed. "If you asked."
His breath caught.
"I would kiss you," he said, "if I didn't think I'd start remembering too much."
She leaned closer, lips a breath from his.
"Then start slow."
And he did.
Their mouths met like the end of a long hunger—not rushed, not desperate. Just certain. Like they'd done this before. Like the forest had waited for this moment as long as they had.
He kissed her like she was both the wound and the cure.
And when they parted, it wasn't hesitation that lingered. Instead it was the recognition of their soul's counterpoint in another -- recognition of their mate in eachother.
The path narrowed as twilight fell.
No more strange turns. No more shifting moss.
Just the rhythm of their footsteps and the fading orange light catching in the trees—like fireflies brushing the bark.
Neither of them spoke much after the kiss.
They didn't need to.
Something between them had settled. Not into answers, but into understanding. Into silence that didn't stretch, but held.
When they crested the last ridge, the familiar curve of Isolde's cottage came into view—half-wild and nestled in its clearing, ivy climbing the stone chimney, the well glinting silver under the coming moon.
Home.
The chickens clucked lazily in their coop as if nothing had changed. The garden swayed gently in the breeze.
But everything had changed.
Isolde stood at the edge of the clearing, staring at it for a long moment.
Alaric stepped beside her.
"You alright?"
She nodded, but her voice was quiet. "I didn't think I'd come back with someone."
He reached for her hand. "You won't leave alone either."
Her fingers curled into his.
And together, they crossed the threshold—into warmth, into memory, into whatever came next. Into the eye of the storm, their last moment of peace.