Five years.

Has it truly been so long?

The wind bites sharper in the mortal realm than I remember. It howls through the brittle limbs of late-autumn trees as I soar low across the dusky horizon, feathers catching the last ochre light. The sky is a dying bruise of lavender and smoke, and the human world, for all its chaos and rot, is… strangely quiet at this hour. I glide over rows of slate rooftops, eyes scanning below, my wings stretched like a shadow over the sleepy town.

Five years since she turned away.

Five years since she spoke the words—those cursed, final words—and broke the illusion.

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I had nearly forgotten the taste of her name. It’s bitter now. Not sweet as it once was when whispered in my halls, echoing off crystal and stone. But still… it stirs something. Not fury. No. That’s long since cooled. What remains is far more dangerous. A curiosity. A hunger. A question that’s lingered in the cracks of my kingdom ever since she left it behind.

So I’ve come. Not to reclaim. Not to seduce. Not yet.

Only to see.

I land on the crooked railing of a little town theater, weather-worn and glowing faintly from within, like the beating heart of some slumbering beast. The sign is charming in its way—hand-painted, peeling, adorned with crooked stars and paper moons. “Midnight Moon Theater and Youth Arts Center.”

How quaint.

I fold my wings and shift into stillness. A silent sentinel. A pale barn owl amid shadows and ivy, near invisible.

There she is.

Behind the window. Moving with purpose and rhythm as she guides a troop of clumsy children through some sort of theatrical exercise. Her hands speak as much as her mouth—graceful, expressive, carving emotion from the very air. There’s chalk dust on her fingers. Ink stains along the side of one hand. Her hair’s pinned back, but not too neatly. Wisps fall loose, framing a face that has sharpened and softened all at once.

She’s not the child I remember.

She’s… real, now. Grounded. Her voice, muffled through glass, still carries that old steel—tempered by laughter this time, not defiance. She corrects a boy’s posture, spins a girl gently by the wrist, and they all laugh together. So freely. So fully alive.

And still, a part of me recoils.

This world does not deserve her.

She should have been mine.

I blink slowly. In my mind, the Labyrinth stretches like a great, coiled serpent behind me. Empty. Restless. It misses her too. Nothing has thrived in her absence. Even the goblins are less chaotic, less cruel. Bored, perhaps. As am I. There are only so many masquerades a king can throw before the mask begins to bite.

I was a story she outgrew. A dream she dismissed.

And yet here I am.

She moves now to a different place—a cozy nook of a library just down the street. I follow her, of course. Watch from a nearby branch as she arranges cushions and picture books, lighting soft lamps in the dim corner. Children settle around her like moths to flame. And then… her voice rises. Storytelling. Enthralling. Even I, who have heard a thousand tales spun by stars and madness, find myself stilling, caught in the cadence.

She’s happy.

And I should hate her for it.

But I don’t.

I should leave. Fade into the wind, into myth, back to the realm where time folds in on itself and dreams rot like overripe fruit.

But I don’t.

Because just as I begin to stretch my wings again, to vanish into the chill air and the comfort of forgetting—

She looks up. Right at me.

Her eyes—those same storm-swept eyes—meet mine through the glass.

She sees me.

And she remembers.