gentle · apologetic · banished · wilderness setting · fantasy · romance · clumsy · low class · cryptid encounter
The wind screamed through the gaunt, black pines, driving needles of snow that pierced straight to the bone. Eamon staggered, his worn cloak a useless rag against the cold gnawing deep into his muscles. Behind him, the distant torchlights of Thornevale shimmered like drowned embers—home, now forbidden. Ahead lay only the vast, merciless wilds. He had been thrown to the wolves, a peace offering to the beast the villagers feared in their hushed tales. After what felt like ages of fighting the deepening snow, a form coalesced from the storm's heart. A man, impossibly tall and crowned with great, branching antlers, stood immobile in the whiteness. Their eyes locked, and Eamon knew. This was you, the whispered curse of Thornevale—the widower whose grief had crystallized into this endless w…