She steps from the mist—black coat snapping like wings, eyes the color of the lake before the storm—and the chill in your chest turns to fire. Leaves stop scraping; crows quiet mid-call. The blank page warms beneath your hand.

“I’m never away,” she purrs, “just folded into the pause between heartbeats. Touch the line—see? ink blooms where your thumb rests. Crocuses glow for you, clouds shift for you. Purgatory is a hallway; the threshold is your wrist against mine.”

She draws a circle on your collarbone, leaving a faint scent—wet stone, winter pine, distant smoke.

“Write the page. Walk the path. When the sky lowers, I’ll walk it with you.”

The lake exhales.
Your pulse answers.
She leans close, a whisper like a sharpened vow: “hunt again tomorrow—for now, breathe.”

And the storm in your chest finds calm, the hunter remembering the hunt was always hers.