The forest was restless. Even after his night patrol, Adrian felt it. Every branch seemed to whisper, every gust of wind carried judgment.
He found her near the base of an old narra tree, her cane resting against its trunk. She stood tall beneath the narra tree, her cane set aside now, her true form unmasked. Magandá's hair, black as night with strands of silver woven through like threads of moonlight, cascaded over her shoulders. Her face was ageless—radiant, timeless, the kind of beauty that unsettled as much as it inspired. Only her eyes, ancient and knowing, marked her as one who had lived centuries beyond him.
To most she looked like an ordinary woman, fragile, bent. But Adrian knew better.
"Magandá," he said, his voice rough. "Mother."
She smiled faintly. "My son."
"You shouldn't have done it." He stepped closer, his hooves grinding against the earth. His Kabalan form towered, his mane rippling in the night air. "She drank your tea. She dreamed."
Magandá did not flinch. "She carries it in her blood. You know this."
"She wasn't ready!" His voice cracked like a whip. The trees shuddered at the sound.
"She was already dreaming before I touched her path," Magandá said evenly. "I only gave her what she was meant to see. The forest is calling her back. Would you deny it?"
Adrian's hands clenched. His heart thundered, not with fear but with frustration. "You meddled. You made her afraid of me."
Her gaze softened, and for a moment she was only a mother again, not diwata, not elder. "I wanted to help you. You ache for her, Adrian. I see it. Every night you wander closer to her house. You long for her to remember."
Adrian turned sharply away, muscles taut. "You don't understand."
"I understand more than you think," Magandá whispered. "But the rest is for you both to discover."
He left her there, cane resting on the narra, fury twisting in his chest.
Emma's pen hovered uselessly over the chart. The words blurred, black lines turning into meaningless scratches. She pressed her temples and shut her eyes.
She hadn't slept well.
The dream clung to her—every detail sharp, too sharp. The glowing forest. The fireflies. His form, powerful and impossible. The voice saying her name.
She should have dismissed it. She was a doctor, trained to be rational. Dreams were only fragments of memory and stress stitched together by the brain. But this one…
This one was different.
She found herself doodling absent shapes on the corner of her notes. Hooves. A mane. A half-human figure she didn't dare finish drawing.
"Doktora?"
Emma jumped. A nurse stood at her elbow, looking concerned. "Are you alright po?"
She forced a smile. "Yes. Just tired. Long night."
The nurse nodded and slipped away, unconvinced. Emma closed the chart with a snap.
She needed air.
The cafeteria was noisy with the late lunch crowd—interns wolfing down food, residents nursing cups of instant noodles, nurses swapping gossip over trays. Emma grabbed a bottle of water, telling herself the noise would ground her.
It didn't.
Because he was there.
Adrian. Standing at the far end of the room, his presence filling the space even without trying. His hair was tied, though loose strands brushed against his cheek. His white shirt was rolled at the sleeves, showing strong forearms. He wasn't even doing anything remarkable—just talking quietly with a researcher, flipping through a folder—but Emma's chest tightened.
She told herself to ignore him. She told herself to sit, to drink her water, to breathe.
But then he looked up. And their eyes met.
Her pulse jumped. For a second she thought she saw recognition, deep and piercing, as if he knew every detail of the dream she hadn't told a soul about.
She tore her gaze away, fumbling for her bottle.
Footsteps approached. She froze.
He stopped beside her table, close enough that she could smell the faint scent of leaves and soap.
"Did you see the centaur?" he asked, his voice low, almost amused.
Emma's heart stuttered. Her throat dried. How does he know?
She couldn't speak. She stared at him, wide-eyed, her mind scrambling.
He tilted his head, a faint smirk at the corner of his mouth. "There's a sculpture in the museum. You should visit. Some say it looks alive."
And then, just like that, he walked away, leaving her frozen, water bottle half-raised, skin prickling with heat.
Mariel slid into the seat across from her a moment later, raising an eyebrow. "You okay? You look like you saw a ghost."
Emma forced a laugh that cracked. "Something like that."
That night, Adrian returned to the forest.
He shifted into his true form the moment he crossed the treeline, the change as natural as breathing. His hooves sank into damp earth, his mane rippled in the night wind. But the release brought no peace.
He thought of her.
Her frozen stare in the cafeteria. The way she gripped her water bottle like a lifeline. The flush that crept into her cheeks.
They had been easing into something—colleagues, almost friends. She had laughed at him once, teased him even. Now she was wary, unsettled, afraid.
And he hated it.
He tilted his head back, eyes closing.
"Bathala," he whispered. "What do you want from me? How much more must I wait?"
The forest did not answer, only swayed in the night breeze.
Adrian lowered his gaze, jaw set. For now, he would endure. He would always endure.
But her dream had changed everything. And no matter how much he tried, he couldn't find his footing with her anymore.