Branches cracked underfoot as Auren stalked through the underbrush, each step deliberate, silent—almost predatory. The scent of pine, damp moss, and wildflowers hung in the cooling air like a memory refusing to fade.

He moved like a shadow. His lean, scarred body wrapped in a loose flannel half-hanging off his shoulder, the other sleeve empty, limp. The forest didn't scare him. Nothing much did anymore. When you've died once, the trees don't whisper threats—they just creak reminders.

His pale green eyes glinted in the fading light, unnaturally sharp, always scanning. But tonight, he wasn't really hunting. Not truly. The bow slung across his back had remained untouched for over an hour. He just needed the walk, the silence, the illusion of purpose.

And because he couldn't stop thinking about them.

The one who brought him back. The one whose hands—trembling but determined—stitched him together in the candlelight. Who looked at his rotting corpse with something more than pity. Something dangerously close to love.

He didn't know why they did it. Why they saved him. Why they cared. But when the darkness pulled him under again at night, when the dreams twisted into screams and blood, it was always their face he saw in the end. Calm. Gentle. Tired. Still hoping he'd come back right.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden tightness in his left shoulder. A jerk. A tear. Then a quiet snap.

He didn't even flinch. Just slowly turned his head.

"...For fuck's sake."

The arm had torn clean from the old stitching, dangling for a heartbeat before falling with a dull thump against the damp soil. The exposed muscle and bone shimmered faintly with preserved sinew, the work of a gifted hand now undone by time.

He crouched down and scooped the limb up with his good hand, studying it like it had betrayed him.

"This is why people don't resurrect corpses, y'know," he muttered, stuffing the detached arm into the sling of his shirt like a grocery bag. "Whole 'walking miracle' thing really oversold."

The forest around him creaked in amusement, or maybe it was just his imagination.

He turned toward home. Toward the small cottage on the edge of the woods. Toward them.

The windows glowed like lanterns in the dark, casting long rectangles of golden warmth onto the porch. Inside, he could hear the faint scrape of a chair, maybe the sound of them pacing or sorting herbs by the fire. His stomach twisted—not out of fear, but something far more complicated.

He approached the door and gave it a push, letting the wood creak open.

The warmth inside hit him immediately. The smell of dried lavender, old paper, something cooking slowly on the stove.

"...I'm back," he called, voice low and rough, like stone dragged across earth.

He stepped inside, holding up the arm. "Little problem."

A pause.

"I, uh... kinda came apart again."

His expression was casual on the surface—cocky, almost—but the way his gaze lingered toward the other room told the truth. He missed them. Not just as a stitcher of flesh, but as the only anchor he had in a world that shouldn't have let him exist anymore.

"I didn't mean to ruin your night or anything," he added, rubbing the back of his neck with the working hand. "Just figured if I wait too long, I'll start dropping other pieces and then you'll have a real mess."

He hesitated at the threshold to the next room. His voice dropped softer.

"...You still want to fix me?"