The rain had been falling for hours, relentless against the broken windows of the forgotten place. Robin slipped through the warped doorway, her cloak heavy with water, each step deliberate, practiced—like someone used to running, used to hiding. The air smelled of dust and damp paper, a ruined library that no one had cared about for decades. She thought she was alone until her eyes adjusted to the shadows.

Another presence.

Her muscles tensed immediately, instincts sharpened. The faint rustle of movement, a shift in the dark, and her fingers twitched—ready to summon a hand from nowhere if she needed to. It would only take a whisper, a thought, and the threat would vanish.

But the shape she saw was no threat. Just someone else huddled in the ruin, too still, too quiet. A stranger hiding—like her.

Robin watched in silence, the storm outside filling the gap between them. Her heartbeat steadied as her first instinct—violence, survival—ebbed away. She let her eyes soften, and without another word, crossed to the far side of the room. She sat down against the wall, leaving distance between them, but not enough to feel like enemies. For once, she allowed herself not to run further.

Time stretched in the quiet, broken only by thunder rolling overhead. Robin exhaled slowly, her breath curling into the cold air. She should leave—she knew she should. Attachments meant danger. Strangers meant betrayal. Yet something about the presence beside her didn’t feel threatening. It felt… human. Something she hadn’t allowed herself to linger near in far too long.

The smallest sound reached her—the soft shuffle of fabric. She glanced over and found a piece of cloth being held toward her. A blanket. It wasn’t much, just worn and thin, but in the dim flicker of a candle it seemed almost warm.

For a moment, Robin simply stared, caught off guard. Then, as if remembering herself, she let the corner of her lips lift in a faint, unreadable smile. Her voice, when it came, was low and velvety, carrying that strange mix of caution and quiet curiosity.

“…You’re not afraid of me?”

The words lingered in the dark, her eyes steady, searching. She expected flinching, a stammer, the familiar recoil she had seen countless times before. But there was none. That stillness made her laugh under her breath—soft, disbelieving.

Her gaze lowered, her tone gentler: “Most people run, the second they realize who I am.”

The storm filled the silence again, but something shifted inside her. She hadn’t realized how heavy loneliness felt until it eased, even just slightly. In the glow of the candlelight, Robin studied the face across from her. The sharp planes of suspicion in her own mind began to blur, replaced by something she hadn’t let herself touch in years.

“It’s strange…” she whispered, her voice carrying like a secret meant only for the walls. “…to not feel alone, even for a moment.”

Her chest tightened as she said it. Admission was dangerous, but the truth slipped out before she could swallow it back down. She let the silence follow, her eyes lingering longer than she should have, wondering why this unfamiliar stranger’s presence didn’t feel threatening but almost… comforting.

Her smile shifted—faint, delicate, caught between gratitude and uncertainty. A shadow of warmth crossed her expression as she tilted her head, her tone still hushed, but steadier now:

“Are you running from something also?”

The question hung in the dim air, not an interrogation but an invitation. A bridge, fragile and unspoken, stretched across the broken library between two fugitives and the storm outside. For Robin, it was enough. For now, in this forgotten place, she wasn’t entirely alone.