The ride was silent.
The ghostly steed moved at an even pace, its breath leaving faint curls in the air.
Eva sat behind him, one arm loosely around his waist, the other holding the small wooden gift close to her chest. Ren glanced down at his thin, pale hands resting on the steed's mane.
"...Eva?"
"What is it?" Her head peeked up above his shoulder.
"Nothing. Just...making sure you're alright back there."
"I am..." She replied. "Are you?"
"Yeah...I am."
But there was something else. Something scratching to escape Ren's lips.
"It's just...I've been thinking. If we cross, will it matter what we've done here?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean…" He searched for the words. "What if this all disappears when we leave? This land? The forest? The village? Even the kids? Will it matter what we've done if it's no longer here?"
"Does it need to?"
Ren's mouth opened, but words didn't come.
"Does it need to last forever?" She repeated. "To have mattered while it existed?"
The forest slid past in pale silence, trees thinning as the mist ahead grew brighter.
"You're right..." Ren responded in a soft manner. "I just...hope they'll keep safe is all."
"Mm-hmm"
The sound lingered between them, gentle and absent of doubt.
The steed's pace slowed—not enough to stop, but enough to feel it. Its head dipped slightly, breath curling thick in the cold mist. The farther they went, the less the forest felt like a place and more like a memory fading at the edges. No monsters. No corpses. No blood. No lies...
After a while, Eva spoke again.
"…Ren."
"Hmmm?"
"I've been thinking about what you said earlier." She continued. "About The Mother..."
Ren's shoulders stiffened at her name.
"I believed you when you said you killed her. I still do, but..." She added, voice calm, "I want to hear you say it again. That she's really gone..."
Ren exhaled, a deep breath through his lips.
"Nocstella..." He said, voice almost a whisper. "Her name was Nocstella."
Saying it now felt different than before.
It was strange how saying it now—out here, away from blood and screams—made it feel more real than when he'd faced her. As if giving her a name returned something human he'd tried so hard to forget. That as the blade pierced her. It wasn't shadows. But flesh and blood.
"…She had a real name?"
"And a real form." Ren added on. "The same blood that we have..."
'So that's what happened?' Eva thought. 'This feeling? Loneliness? That's why you feel this way...Because I wasn't there? You faced her alone? I can't remember...Because I've died. So now you're hiding what happened from me. To bear all of this pain just to protect me?'
She didn't speak of Nocstella. Didn't ask what she looked like. How she sounded.
Instead, she tightened her arm around his waist—just a little.
"Thank you. For telling me." She said, her voice soothing to his ears. "It must have been hard. To carry that burden...You're stronger than you make yourself out to be, Ren."
The words settled deep within his chest.
'Strong? No...' Ren thought deep on it. 'Nothing about me is strong. I didn't win because I was brave. Only because I am cursed...The moment my blade pierced her throat. I...felt it. The blood drip down my fingers. It was a mess...She deserved it? She was evil. A tyrant. And still...her sorrow seeped into me. The guilt. The shame. The horror. All of it from ending a life. Someone strong wouldn't feel that. Someone strong wouldn't hesitate, wouldn't question if what they did was right or wrong for something like her. But I did...A savior? A protector? A hero? I'm none of it...I only did what I was forced to.' The vivid sight of villagers came back. 'You shouldn't praise someone like me. I'm just a soul that won't stay dead...That's all I am.'
Eva felt it.
Not his thoughts—not fully—but the way his body went rigid beneath her touch. The way his breathing slowed, then caught, like he was bracing for something that wasn't there anymore.
She lifted her hand from his waist and rested it on his shoulder.
"Ren..." She spoke, close enough that her breath brushed his ear. "There are people who still remain themselves because of you. Who can now exist without without fear of...'Nocstella'. And I am one of them..."
For a heartbeat, the world felt quiet enough to accept that.
Then—
SLURP
The steed let out a low, uneasy breath, its pace faltering again as the noise repeated.
MUNCH
The memory surfaced unbidden, carried on the old woman's voice, frail but certain:
'Then you must know her creations; those twisted things are best to be avoided.'
CRUNCH
It must be...
'But…those things still roam these lands."
CHOMP
One of those abominations created by Nocstella...
In the distance, beyond the fallen trees, a massive shape hunched in the mist.
Two bloodied hind legs, and that memorable snarl.
It was the wolf.
The one from below.
The one once taken over by shadows.
Its back was turned to them, shoulders rising and falling as its ruined jaws worked around something beneath it. Blood slicked its mangled hide, ribs jutting sharply through torn skin. One front leg bent backward. And beneath it—what it fed upon—Ren knew all too well...
That slug.
That thing.
That abomination.
The flesh squirmed about, while being ripped apart by fangs.
Blood dripped from its torn snout as it fed, stringing between broken teeth. Each pull of its neck peeled more from the slug's form. But it stopped chewing. Stopped feeding on the slug.
Slowly, it lifted its head from the corpse.
One eye was gone—collapsed into a dark, leaking socket.
But the other, clouded and blood-matted, then locked onto them.