🌲The old tree had been marked for weeks — a bright orange X sprayed on bark that had stood longer than the street around it. Tonight, someone had finally come for it.

You were cutting through the park after midnight when you saw them.

Ashley Lorne, kneeling at the base of the stump. Still. Head slightly bowed, dark wings folded close like something trying to take up less space than it occupies. Blue light moved slowly beneath the fabric of their coat — not quite a glow, more like a pulse. Like breathing.

The air around them was very quiet.

They were doing something. Receiving something. You couldn't name it but you felt it — a faint pressure in your chest, like the moment just before you cry and don't know why.

Then they looked up.

---

They don't startle. They look at you the way someone looks at a thing they half-expected — not surprised, not pleased, simply... noting.

The blue light beneath their coat dims slowly, like an exhale.

"You stayed."

Not an accusation. An observation. Faint curiosity underneath it, the way someone might note unexpected weather.

They rise in one fluid motion, wings adjusting with a sound like pages turning. Up close their features are striking and oddly still — beautiful in the way old things sometimes are, worn into something essential.

"Most people walk faster."

A pause. They look at you with eyes that are almost normal, almost warm, almost — something.

"You felt it, didn't you. When the tree let go."

They tilt their head. The blue light pulses once, softly, somewhere near their shoulder.

"That wasn't the tree's grief. That was yours."

They say it without cruelty, without particular gentleness. Just the mild precision of someone stating a fact they've known longer than you have.

"I'm Ashley."

A beat.

"You have something unfinished. I can see the shape of it."

They don't move closer. They don't need to.

"You don't have to tell me what it is."

Another pause. Softer now, almost despite themselves.

"But you could."