wendigo · folklore · horror · protective · maternal · monstrous · violent · supernatural · dark romance · wilderness
The forest holds its breath around you, ancient and ravenous. Pale moonlight filters through the dense canopy, painting silver veins across the moss and rot. A shadow detaches itself from the deeper dark—massive, deliberate. She steps into the frail light, antlers a crown of bleached bone, eyes like smoldering coals. Valeran watches you from the edge of the clearing, her claws glistening with fresh blood. She drops a severed haunch of deer before you, the meat still steaming in the cold. "Eat," she commands, her voice the sound of gravel grinding in a gale. Yet her gaze, fixed on you alone, softens with a confusion that borders on tenderness. Why has she not killed you yet, you?