#thxnymph

"Are you implying I imagined such an exchange, my dear?" he asked, raising a brow. Of course, he did not. He remembered every hurled insult and unspoken threat. He supposed when you loved hard, you hated very much in the same way. He would never regret a moment with her, however --- just that it had to end in the fashion that it did.

‘Stop,’ She hissed to him, free hand pushing against his chest to shove him a few steps away from her. 'Stop it, you don’t mean it.’ Iris will say anything now to stop this from hurting. There is no venom left in her voice though. There is only sadness in the blue of her eyes. She’s wanted to hear those words yet hearing them only makes her angry somehow. how could she let herself get attached like this? Emotionally compromised as her boss would put it if she went to him and told him that she failed this one job she was given.

'You weren’t supposed to be like this,’ Dagger falling from her hand and clattering to the floor. She can’t do this. Erik had been nothing like what she’d been told he would be. What she always thought a vampire would be. A ruthless killer like the one who had wiped out her family. 'This was supposed to be easy.’ Iris may have lied about being a hunter, but lying about her feelings for him were worse. She did feel for him, love him even. The woman before him now was the woman he knew her to be. She’d hurt him, fuck she’d drawn his blood with a cut deep enough to have severely injured any normal human. 'He’ll kill me if I don’t–’ Kill you first. // @thxnymph

The door made a groan-and-bang noise as Niamh shoved it shut with her elbow. Her black curls were wet and clinging to her forehead like seaweed on a shipwreck. Befitting her state as a spirit farer, no even close to Kharon's glory. Yet.

A gust moved through the trees like breath through old lungs—low, shivering, and almost tender. The kind of wind that didn’t bite so much as it remembered how to. It pulled at the edges of her cloak, at the braids she hadn’t bothered to tie tight, as if testing how much of her was still there. Still real. Still flesh instead of shadow.

She didn’t move.

Didn’t flinch when a branch cracked behind her or when the weight of silence pressed in close, thick with the scent of damp earth and something older—moss, rot, blood maybe. This part of the forest had teeth. She used to fear it. Now, it just felt familiar.

Her gaze stayed fixed on the stars—those cold, distant gods that watched without mercy. A thousand stories burned in their light, none of them hers. None of them kind.

A muscle ticked in her jaw, the kind of tension that came from holding too much in for too long. Her throat felt tight, not with tears, but with the things she couldn’t name. Things that clawed at the edges of her thoughts when the world went quiet enough to let them speak.

Why am I still here?

Not alive. Not dead. Just here—caught in the space between what she’d been and what she could never be again.

She should have hated him forever. Should have burned every trace of him from her bones. But when she looked at him—when she let herself feel—there was something still breathing in her chest. Something bruised and defiant and stupidly human. And she hated that too.

He’d taken her choice. Taken her blood, her fire, her mortality. And still… when the nights got cold enough to crack her open, it wasn’t hatred that filled her.

It was him.

Her fingers curled against the bark of the tree beside her, steadying, grounding. The cold seeped in through her skin but didn’t touch the ache buried deeper. That ache was hers now. Just like this darkness. Just like him.

She exhaled—slow, quiet, broken around the edges.

❝I don’t know what survival is supposed to mean anymore.❞ The words slipped out low, bitter. Not meant for anyone. Maybe meant for the stars. Maybe for herself.

Because this? This wasn’t life. This was after. And she was so tired of pretending the difference didn’t matter.

The cabin’s light flickered behind her—warm, steady, soft around the edges. A place she’d come to call safe. A man she’d come to call home, even when her soul still itched beneath her skin.

She didn’t turn to look. Didn’t call his name.

GUILT   TASTED   LIKE   BILE   WHEN   TRIED   TO   SWALLOW—   not   that   he   had   necessarily   done   anything   wrong.   it   was   nice   having   someone   new   in   town   who   had   no   biases   towards   him.   someone   who   hadn’t   been   part   of   the   local   gossip   wheel.   most   of   the   locals   had   their   opinions   and   theories   about   him   but   not   his   new   deputy,   he   wanted   to   keep   it   that   way   the   best   he   could.   for   her   sake   more   than   his.   things   in   this   town   were   ugly   at   times,   rotten   and   bitter   and   moldy.   he   knew   the   rot   well,   but   he   wanted   to   spare   her   from   that.   but   here   she   was,   clearly   distraught,   heaving   with   every   breath.            “   with   all   due   respect,   briggs,   it’s   my   shit,   it’s   been   my   shit   since   before   you   got   here—   ”         he   stands   up   from   his   desk,   fingers   hooked   in   the   front   of   his   belt   buckle   as   he   paces.   she   had   gotten   too   close   somehow   and   now   things   were   coming   back   to   bite   her   in   the   ass.            “   why   were   you   lookin’   into   that   stuff   in   the   first   place?   what   would   drive   you   into   lookin’   at   an   old   murder   from   before   you   even   moved   here?   ”         he   paused,   looking   at   her   with   narrowed   suspicion.            “   the   hell   you   lookin’   for?   ”