He holds my gaze. Firmly. Takes me in. There’s a glint in his eye that says, 'That’s right, I’m Robin Goodfellow, shrewd and knavish sprite.' Like a dare.

-Kaene(about Eryn)

"I wouldn't call my orphanhood a tragedy; My parents are not dead, and they are not cruel--they just didn't know what do with me. That's alright. I learned to do without them."

"[He's]A mess of a man begging for me to piece him together[...]I will do it...[I will] rebuild him even more beautiful than before. I will make him mine and devour him whole."

My eyes follow Doc as he fusses with Corin’s bandages. I can tell from this distance that she is trying to turn down the help. She and I aren't that different, after all; same story, different manifestations. She is softer. Quieter.

Doc is insistent. Not with words, but, he doesn't really offer a chance to tell him no when he is decided he is needed.

I watch his face. It's like stone.

The wind turns and blows a stream of tobacco smoke in my face.

I glance to the side, and catch Kaene’s blood-red gaze.

I flinch.

“Jesus Christ!” I curse. “Are you all like that?”

Kaene let's the quiet linger. Takes another puff of the cigarette. “Hmm. Just the ones you know.”

He looks away. I follow his eyes. He’s also watching Eryn.

“You two go way back, huh?” I take a deep inhale from my joint. Adjust my wings against the wagon frame.

“We’re--.”

“--Cousins.” I finish.

“Hmm. So you’ve heard of me.” There's humor in his tone.

I scoff, breathe out the smoke. “I've known you longer than I've known him.”

“Not like that, though.” Kaene taps some ash from the end of the cigarette, and crosses his ankles.

“No,” I admit. I’m not sure what exactly he means by that. But, I’ve never had a friendship that was remotely close enough to know details like that.

He sighs. “I knew him before he was tame. Still a punk with something to prove.”

I laughed. “No way. I would have called it the other way around.”

“He’s the wild one, if you're comparing us.”

I straighten. Incline an ear. Take another puff of my joint. “Is that so?”

“Let me paint you a picture. When we met, I was pulling him off some kids who took him for easy bait.” He smirked at the memory. “Knuckles bleeding, face muddy, I swear someone lost a fang. He was 12, I was 9.”

My wings drop a little, as I strain to picture a young and feral Eryn Hearthkeeper. I really can't.

“Guess he and I aren't so different,” I admit.

“Just different battlefields.”

My brow shoots up. “literally? Or figuratively?”

He smirks, as he lets out a stream of smoke. “Depemds in your angle. But both.”

“Oh?”

“Eryn spent his life making himself digestible. But there's nothing digestible about thorns.”

I cross my arms. “I don't know if I can see it. He's so. I don't know. Unassuming.”

“That's the point. But if you remain in his parameters…you will. Eventually.” he flicks away more ash. The embers crumble in the sand.

I shiver. “Is that…a good thing? Or a bad thing?”

He tilts his head. Rolls a strand of hair between his thumb and forefinger. Considering his answer.

“Depends on if you're on his good side or not.”

“Say that I am.” I stiffen.

“If you're not afraid for your life, I think you're safe.”

Safe. Safe? I don't know what that feels like.

“And…if I'm not?”

He takes a deliberately long inhale of the cigarette. Lets it sit in his lungs a few seconds longer. “You would know for as long as it takes him to kill you.”

He drops the butt, stomps on it, and with the same heel, disappears.

I scoff. “Kaene! You can't just-”

He's already out of earshot. Cloak billowing in the wind.

Asshole.

I turn to glance to Eryn again. He’s staring my way with an amused smirk. He’s handing Corin another blanket. She is rambling about something.

Kaene just told me Doc is both dangerous and safe in one breath. Is he one or the other?

I shudder, and turn my collar to the wind. Breathe in the joint like it's a lifeline.

I don't like when I can't put people in meat boxes. Doc doesn't fit into any box.

For a man so adept at killing, my eyes are remarkably soft.

It’s something people notice when they look at me long enough. Not at the scars, or the size of me, or the way my hands know what they’re for. They notice it later, almost by accident, like realizing the blade you feared has been set down carefully beside you.

I don’t blame them for the confusion. I’m confused too.

I was trained to end things. Efficiently. Cleanly, when possible. I learned early how much pressure it takes to stop a heart, how fast blood leaves the body when it has nowhere else to go. Those lessons don’t fade. They live in the muscles. In reflex.

And yet.

I have spent just as long learning how to keep people here.

How to slow bleeding with my palms. How to listen for breath when it’s barely there. How to sit with someone who knows they are dying and not lie to them about it. How to hold a life without trying to own it.

That’s the part people don’t expect.

They think softness is ignorance. That if you’ve seen enough, you harden. That gentleness is what you have before the world teaches you better.

But softness, I’ve learned, is what remains when you’ve seen exactly how bad it can get—and decide not to add to it.

My hands remember every life I couldn’t save.

My eyes remember the ones I did.

If that makes me a contradiction, so be it.

I am still here.