He is a wild thing, this man in her woods: older than her brothers, with a shadow longer than any mortals: teeth too sharp to be her father, armor too darkly-gleaming to be anyone affiliated with her mother, who does not care for war.

"Who are you?" She asks, her hands still on his flower, which is strange: snow-drop white with a red center, as if it were plucked, the blush spreading through the white, and each blossom on a dried vine tugged so close to the ground as to kiss it.

He does not answer in words, simply holds out his hand, strange and cold and still, and she knows in that what the answer is.