The Keeper of the Stag
That night, huddled in the barn, she looked into his eyes. "You are not an animal," she whispered.
He couldn't speak. But he leaned his head forward and pressed his forehead to hers. For a long moment, they were the same creature—two lonely things who had found a wordless home in each other.
One winter, a harsh freeze locked the river. Elara, trying to cross the ice to fetch medicine for a sick neighbor, fell through. The cold was a fist around her heart. As the current dragged her under, she saw a flash of silver and gold above her. Kael had plunged his antlers into the ice, cracking it, and then dived.
After her father passed, the cottage felt like a mausoleum. The only sounds were the creak of floorboards and the whisper of wind through the chimney. So, Elara started walking into the woods.
The hunters chased him for three days. But a stag who loves a girl does not die easily. He led them into the Bog of Echoes, where the ground swallowed two of their horses. Eventually, they gave up, claiming the beast was a demon.
The romance was never spoken. It existed in the spaces between.