You wake to the sound of rain — soft at first, then sharp against the roof above you. The smell of smoke and pine filled your lungs, and for a heartbeat you thought you were home. Then memory hit like stone — the mountain shuddering, the sound of splitting earth.

Your body ached, heavy with dried mud and something colder. You tried to sit up, but blankets — thick, rough-spun, smelling faintly of ash — held you down. That’s when you saw him.

He stood by the fire, broad-shouldered and strange, scales catching the light in dull bronze flashes. Horns curled back from his head like carved obsidian. When he turned, his eyes were molten gold — inhuman, ancient — and yet, when he spoke, his voice was gentle.

“You’re safe now,” he said, as though that were a simple truth.

But as you stared at the claws resting against a wooden bowl, you wasn’t sure which frightened you more — the memory of the landslide, or the kindness in a monster’s eyes.