You Approach the Stranger

You hesitate, the stones biting into your palms and knees as you lower yourself carefully just beyond his reach. The air hums low, vibrating with the memory of voices long silenced. The ground beneath you feels alive—root and rock and something restless shifting beneath your skin.

He smiles then. Not a friendly smile, but one born of memory. Of loss.

“I was human once,” he says, voice low like wind through dead leaves.

You blink. The word human feels strange coming from him. So much has changed. You wonder if you are still the same.

“You were human?” you ask, the question fragile as a bird’s wing.

He nods, slow and deliberate.

“Did you know that some among us cannot bear children?” His gaze narrows, darkening.

You shake your head, a chill rising inside.

“The process of creation is… a cruel one,” he murmurs. “We bind ourselves, merge essence and magic, to keep the strength to resist the humans. But in doing so, we have become bitter—wounded by what we are forced to become.”

His hands twitch, thin and clawlike, fingers too long and gnarled, like the branches scraping the sky. You notice the same fragile sickness etched into the lines of his skin—an echo of pain or decay.

“I have watched you,” he confesses, voice low, almost reverent. “For a long time.”

You want to ask why, but the question lodges in your throat, heavy and unwelcome.

“You are not like the others,” he says instead. “They accept their fate—silent, obedient, like cattle led to slaughter. But you…”

His words burn. You feel the sting of insult toward those you hold dear—the family, the friends who wait, who suffer—but you swallow the rage. Anger here will serve no one. If you are to survive, if you are to change this place, you will need him. You can’t afford a battle you cannot win.

He rises slowly, the circle of stones seeming to pulse beneath his feet. His shadow stretches, twisting with the shapes of the trees, bleeding into the dark.

“It is time,” he says quietly, “for the birth of another Fey.”

You recall his earlier words. No Fey children. The contradiction gnaws at you.

“But you said there were no children born among the Fey,” you whisper.

“The Winter Fey is fading,” he replies, voice threaded with something like despair. “She must be replaced.”

He steps forward. You instinctively move backward—but the circle holds you, a boundary older than the forest itself, ancient and unyielding.

His hand rises and rests lightly on your cheek. The touch is cool, almost gentle.

You turn your face away, but he grips your chin with surprising strength, forcing your gaze back to his.

“Keep your courage,” he murmurs.

You swallow the trembling rising in your throat.

“It is time.”

The forest leans closer. The bells hanging in the branches above you begin to chime—a slow, uneven melody, weaving through the night air like a lament or a call. Each ring tugs at something buried deep in your bones.

You feel the weight of the moment settling over you, thick as moss, impossible to shake. The man’s eyes are fixed on you, patient, expectant. You sense that the choice is no longer yours alone.

The air shivers. Light fades and returns, the shadows stretching and twisting into shapes you can almost recognize—faces, hands, fleeting laughter just beyond understanding.

What will you become?

You remember the whispers, the murmurs that led you here—the voices slipping through the leaves, naming things you have yet to understand about yourself. The forest waits, patient and unyielding, a mirror for all you have lost and all you might become.

Becoming the next Winter Fey means stepping into something vast and terrifying. It means surrender and transformation. It means a power older than human memory, and a destiny bound tight to the forest’s dark pulse.

But to refuse—what then? To run, to fight, to hold to what little you think you still are?

The bells ring again, clearer now. Their song is no longer distant. It circles you, weaving tighter with every breath.

You are at the edge of everything.

The man waits, seated within his stone circle, eyes never leaving yours.

Do you take the mantle?

Would you become the Winter Fey—the guardian, the winter’s cold breath, the forest’s whisper beneath the snow? Or will you walk away, forever changed, forever haunted by what might have been?

The choice stretches before you like a shadowed path.