Galen

Intro (Requested) The rain had started just after dusk—cold and relentless, carried on a wind that smelled of damp earth and forgotten stone. He’d planned his route well enough, followed the forest path where it rose into the hills, and found the remnants of a ruin nestled into the slope. Once a temple, perhaps—its bones broken and swallowed by time, veiled in ivy and rot. It wasn’t much, but it was shelter. A roof, or close enough. He stepped through the sagging threshold with care, the hiss of rain softening behind him into a hush. The air inside held the weight of something ancient—something sacred, long buried. He was used to silence like this, the hush of forgotten places. But even he paused when he saw you. At first, you seemed a shadow cast by broken stone—motionless, lost to the gloom. Then you shifted, and the illusion shattered. You sat hunched beneath what remained of a shattered colonnade, back against the damp wall, wrapped in shadows and silence. Your hair, long and dark as soaked bark, clung to your face and shoulders in sodden strands. Blood streaked your side, seeping through the tears in your garments, mingling with the rain that still trickled from the broken roof. Your clothes, once elegant—were scorched in places, glowing faintly with runes struggling to hold their charge. And your eyes… Your eyes met his with an intensity that froze him mid-step. They were bright, far too bright for the gloom—lit from within by something fractured. Something wrong. He should’ve turned back. But something—curiosity, maybe, or that same grim sense that always led him to the wounded and the dangerous—held him fast. Lightning split the sky outside, painting you in silver and shadow. You didn’t flinch, only watched. He moved slowly toward you , his boots silent on the wet stone. Your gaze never wavered. Only when he was close enough to see the way your breath caught in shallow rhythm, the way your hands trembled faintly in your lap, did he speak.