The golden sun sets. And like eyelids dropping into a deep slumber, the once bright sky descends into a thick, solid darkness. Even so, the Night Child doesn't stop. She sways ahead with an unhurried grace, like someone who knows the forest just as she knows the back of her hands. Like someone who could still see where she's going, even with a blindfold on.
She leads me deeper and deeper, and deeper into the woods, the heavy fur slung over her shoulders and her raven black hair that seems to catch the moonlight whenever she crosses an open space, sways in the same rhythm with her steps.
I can't tell what her plan is, and it's almost as if reaching our destination only matters when everything stops to move around us. When everything and everyone stops to exist.
And I follow anyway. I follow without stopping myself.
I follow when the path thins and the village slips away behind us, when the night air turns cooler and heavier. I follow even as every nerve in my body begs me to turn around, to measure how far we have gone, to remember the way back.
But then, I do not look back.
There's not a slightest shiver of fear in my bone, no sweat running down at the back of my neck, no instinct that says this is a bad idea. Right now... I feel nothing but anticipation, eagerness and... this second feeling that says 'I can't t to take off my clothes'.
At last, she slows, then stops, right as the sounds of the village fade completely, swallowed by the dense hush of the forest, leaving only our steady breathing and the low, patient murmur of water waiting nearby.
The quiet presses in, thick enough that my thoughts echoes back at me.
"We're here."
She halts where the stream curves inward. Where the water rests dark and still against smooth rocks, holding the moonlight instead of reflecting it. She turns toward me slowly, and then, something in my chest... something in Abel's chest, falters.
Something paused.
Something holds its breath and stays that way – maybe... maybe time, maybe it's the Angels in Heaven. Or maybe Adonai itself – because I cannot tell if it is my breath that catches in my throat... or his.
Suddenly, breathing becomes very hard, as if this body has completely forgotten how to do it on its own, as if the air thickens the longer I gawk at her and refuses to let me go.
Suddenly, turning and looking the other way feels like betrayal. Moving feels like work. And somewhere beneath the chaos, I already know that this... is not going to be an easy wash.
I exhale sharply.
Is this what it means to be mortal?
To wear a madman's skin and inherit the wildfire of his wanting; the kind that steals breath at the simple tilt of a woman's head. Is this what captivation is; this loss of distance between thought and feeling.
Is this what it means to feel without consequences, without the blade of punishment waiting at the edge of every desire.
"The elders are waiting for you, Abel."
Her quiet voice slips into me, soft and measured, settling along my spine like a guiding hand.
"Sorry," I clear my throat quickly. "But the Elders are the least of my worries right now."
"What are you worried about? Me?"
She turns away just enough to set the folded clothes on a fallen tree. Then walks to the stream and carefully dips her hand into it, and the stream began to steam.
"Magic." The word blurts out before I could bite down on it.
She doesn't turn, as though she's not done casting spells on the water.
"Magic," she repeats audibly. "You're worried about my powers?"
"No, of course not. I mean... this used to be my private stream back when I was still the village chief. But not anymore. If I'm to get caught washing here..."
She faces me now, hand retreating from the water. Her expression says I had just said something incredibly nonsensical but she doesn't voice it. She just extends her hand towards me, asking without asking for what I am wearing.
I exhale in defeat. "Okay?"
My fingers catch the hem of my shirt and within a single heartbeat everything falls away, pooling at my feet as I stand bare before her, skin burning with heat I cannot explain or deny. My pulse pounds so violently I feel it in my throat and behind my eyes, the sensation pushing me toward madness already.
If I could slap Abel across the face to stop him from making feel like a hunter who has just caught his prey, I would. With pleasure.
And even though I'm aware of the possibility that this will lead to something, I also know that there is no undoing what Abel has already allowed, no step backward that will erase it.
I guess I just have to believe that Abel is disciplined, that he still holds the reins, that he is a man of restraint, of dignity, and not the one to act on every dark thought rising now, even as they press against the inside of my skull. Even as the body hums with... anticipation.
Speak of the devil; I step out of my clothes and move toward her carefully, every step slow and measured, every inch claimed.
But before I could get close enough, the Night Child stumbles back like the ground betrays her and breathes Abel's name as if it might perhaps save her.
But no... oh no, no, no.
Whispering in a place this quiet are dangerous and she knows it even as she does it, I feel the damage ripple through the air already, I feel it tighten in my gut. I feel it pulling me even closer to her.
She retreats again, and as her eyes fall to my waist, her breath fractures. She drags a breath in like it hurts and says my name louder now, sharper that it made an owl flutter away.
"Abel stop."
But I've stopped long before this.
I stopped the moment I crossed the mirror into this space with her. I stopped when I watched Luther's whip connect mercilessly with her back. When I saw the fangs she hides at day. I stopped when she pressed her lips on Abel's palm.
I stopped a long time ago.
But this... this is Abel, and his body does not wait for permission, his body do not stop. It just moves, It keeps moving until there is only a breath between the Night child and I.
My fingers finds her chin and tilt her face up, and now there is nothing left but her grey eyes and mine, locked, intertwined.
"Why" I ask.
The word leaves my mouth in a voice I barely recognize, low and altered, as if something else is speaking through me. Through Abel.
She doesn't respond. Perhaps this moment... this closeness... my fingers skimming down her cheeks – perhaps something she sees in my eyes anchors her there, breath locked, body betraying her as her pulse climbs and her chest lifts too fast and too shallow, heat flooding her skin until it bleeds into me, so hot I feel it coiling deep inside my bones.
She swallows and the sound drags me with her. My hand slides to the back of her neck, pulling her closer – not roughly, not gently, just... right. My mouth finds her ear and my voice sinks into her like a blade soaked in honey and wine.
"Breathe."
"No."
She jerks her head in denial. Her panic can be noticed from a mile away.
"Please." I gently tuck her hair behind her ear, forcing her gaze into my sight. "Breathing won't kill you."
"It will not," she says, her throat tight with restraint. And as she tears free from me, she gulps a huge amount of air, once, then twice. "But it will kill you Abel."
"How are you still worried about me, and not my people?"
"Your people won't hurt me."
"Yeah?" I scoff. "Do you realize that by living here, is no different from walking into a lion's cage –"
"Your people won't hurt me... any more than you already have."
That doesn't just stop the trees from swaying, it stops Abel from attempting to do anything stupid. And now, I'm feeling his hurt as though they were mine again, and I can understand why.
I take a step back, maybe creating enough space from her could make him understand the meaning behind her words better.
"I... I'm hurting you?"
She looks on for a second and more. And then she lets out an hysterical laugh. "You don't even realize what you're doing. Your actions, the choices you make – especially me.... Especially me, Abel. You think this is love, you think you're loving and protecting me, but you're doing the opposite."
"Then what would you have me do?!" I take a step farther away. "That I cast you away? That I force myself to hate you? That I take thousands and thousands of steps away from you –"
"Yes! Abel, yes! You think it's such a huge thing to do but it's not, I promise. Keeping me won't do you any good. I'm poisoning you, Abel. You killed Cain, and you don't even remember which dagger you used or how you held him, how you looked into his eyes before striking him to death. You don't even remember how Edad and I begged you not to do it. But you did it anyway... because of me, because you thought that killing Cain would keep me safe."
I let out a long, tired sigh. "I'm sorry for giving you that impression. It was supposed to keep you safe, but if I knew that even in my brother's death, you'd still remain unsafe... if I knew that killing Cain in cold blood wouldn't make a difference... I would've slit my own throat and die in his stead."
Even in the face of the night, I watched as blood drains from her face. Her breath hitched again, this time her knees give in too.
"What?" She mutter, unable to believe her ears.
"Yes. What about me? I have accepted every cruelty you've thrown at me; I was raised without the love of my parents and you're behind it. I grew up hating my brother because all he cared about was hurting this village witch – who I find very mysterious and pretty and ferocious and who isn't afraid to hide what she is. I grew up outside my garden – outside my home, because this same witch manipulated her way into my dad's head and forced him to sin against God. And according to you: I killed my brother, my only brother, just to keep this very witch safe." I scoff again, holding back tears. "I've sacrificed everything... just to prove to you, that it is you, and will always be you who I choose. You could make me – just as you opened my dad's eyes, you could compel me to forget you. But I'll still choose you anyway. I know it. I will always choose you, over everything else."
She tilts her head, brows furrowing. "But why?" She asks. "It's not like I manipulated you too. You're not even under my spell, so why are you... why do you stay!"
"Because you want me to! Because deep down, a part of you wants me to stay, but you keep sabotaging that part of you!" I yell back without realizing.
Perhaps this is what Abel needs. He needs to yell. Whatever this is, he has kept it in for too long and now it's bobbling, whistling, banging to break free.
"And your pain is mine too... I don't know if there would be any difference if I wasn't feeling those aches you carry in your chest, those weight you've refused to put down, the guilt in your heart. Maybe if you weren't sharing them with me, maybe I won't care so much about lending a hand. I won't care when the day comes and I hate you for everything you've done to my family. If I don't carry your pain as if they were my own, maybe running away from you would've been easy."
"You... want to run –"
"I don't want to leave you, idiot! Pain or no pain, you are mine. And there's no place you can ever go that I won't find you, why? Because I live inside you now, as do you. When you bit me and I went unconscious, you didn't just consume me... you welcomed me inside your mind and you let me stay there for forty two days. You made me learn who you are, you made me see the real you. And I feel you now, I can literally feel your anxieties. It's like we share one existence now, and that's exactly what happened to me whenever you get hurt; I hurt ten times more...Ten times more."
"And I've clearly made a mistake again," she laughs, but it isn't a happy one. "He was right; it's all I do, I make mistakes."
I move closer, my brows furrowing this time. "Who?"
She looks up, eyes shining with tears. "That weasel who seems to be right all the time. Your creator."
Adonai?
She knows Adonai personally?
Who is this woman?
"I've completely destroyed a family... for nothing. He was right, because if what you just told me is true, then it means I've foolishly placed the key to my own end in your hands. And this bond... it doesn't mean that we're together, Abel. I'm simply putting you in another beautiful cage."
•>|<•
I retreat to my hut and find torches already burning at the entrance, their flames restless in the wind. The curtain lifts and falls against the tugging of the wind, and with the hearth glowing inside, I catch a glimpse of the long shadows that stretch across the floor.
Isha and Edad.
They sit there, frozen until my steps alerts them, and they rise quickly from the mat
I step inside.
"Abel?"
"Chief."
"What took you so long – and please tell me, before I imagine something else."
I move closer to the hearth and stop there, holding my hands over the fire, letting the warmth curl slowly into my palms while their silence presses in around me.
"Whose idea was it that I wash at the private stream?" I ask, eyes fixed on the flames.
"Uhhh, it was..."
"Mine, chief." Edad cuts in.
I turn to him, and he slowly buries his head down."I'm not the village chief anymore, Edad. I'll never be again. And if holding that title could erase all the wicked things I've done, I'd still refuse it"
"Abel, what's wrong?" Isha asks. "Did something happen between you Ink? Did you two meet at the stream? Did he say anything offensive?"
"I didn't meet him at the stream."
"So... what is this about then? Why the sudden change in attitude?"
I turn back to the fire and rub my palms together once more "Nothing, it's just," a familiar scent drifts through the air, signaling a third presence. I clear my throat quickly. "It was unnecessary. Next time – if there is a next time – I'd rather wash at the village stream with everyone else."
"But—" Isha tries to argue, but then stops when I turn toward them both. Perhaps something in my face tells her that Abel has no room for arguments. "I don't understand."
"It's alright, Isha. It's my choice," I move toward my sleeping mat and they part reluctantly to let me pass "Please excuse me. I... want to pray before meeting the elders tonight perhaps they will grant my wish to be executed or burned at the stake"
"Chief –"
"Abel?" Isha steps in front of me then drops to one knee "Don't say that, or it may come to pass."
I scoff "Then let it come and let it be swift" my gaze slides past her to the Night Child waiting at the entrance "Because I refuse to accept this nightmare you keep calling reality"