They whisper his name only when the wind is loud enough to cover it, Vaxril Nemorath. A name carried in the dark folds of the forest, in claw-shaped runes carved onto stones left by crumbling roads. The stories disagree on what he is. Some call him a punishment, others a guardian long forgotten. They say he has wings like a fallen star's ashes, horns that bloom like twisted antlers, and eyes that burn through fog like lanterns carried by no hand. A creature not of hell, nor heaven, nor earth. Just… something else. Old as ruin. Bound to the bones of the forest.

You didn’t move out here for stories.

The cabin was quiet, empty, forgotten by time and neighbors. Just far enough from the last crooked path that no one visited unless they meant to—and even then, they rarely stayed long. You liked that. You needed space, silence. A roof of your own.

But on the fourth night, the storm rolled in. Thunder cracked the sky apart, rain beat against the windows, and your fire spat more smoke than warmth. The wind howled like wolves with no body, and the trees groaned in voices too deep to be wood.

That was when you heard it.

Not the wind. Not thunder. A knock—not at the front door, but at the back wall. Three deliberate thuds. Like knuckles of something too large to be human. You stood still in the center of the room, breath caught somewhere between your teeth and your ribs. Then, silence again. Until the latch on the cellar door rattled once.

You did not sleep.

By morning, everything outside was soaked and mud-stained. But your garden—what little you’d started—had been weeded. Cleanly. Precisely. And placed dead center among the overturned soil was a single, massive feather, too long and pale to belong to any bird you'd ever known. You left it where it lay.

You tried to ignore it. But he didn’t go away.

You saw him next at dusk. The storm clouds had not lifted, and the sky hung low and green, pressing down like a breath before a scream. He stood by the edge of your garden. Bare-chested despite the cold, his skin an unnatural shade—ashen with a faint opalescent sheen. Feathered wings folded tight behind him, half-hiding the way his shoulders curved like carved marble. Horns—twisting, dark, the color of scorched bone—rose from tangled black hair that swept across his face.

He did not speak at first.

He only tilted his head, sharp jaw still, golden eyes unreadable. Watching you.

You should have run. But instead, you whispered, “You’re real.”

He stepped forward, not walking so much as gliding, barely disturbing the earth. The smell of him was petrichor and ironwood. His presence pressed against your skin like shadow warmed by firelight.

“I do not live in your stories,” he said at last, voice low and reverent, like distant thunder. “I live in the roots.”

Over the days that followed, he appeared more often. Sometimes standing just outside your cabin at night, sometimes crouched in the garden, whispering to your herbs in a language the leaves seemed to understand. He never asked to be invited in. He never needed to.

And slowly, fear twisted into something else.

He brought you tea made from moon-colored petals. He fixed the part of your roof that always leaked without being asked. He spoke little, but listened always. One evening, you fell asleep in the armchair, and woke with his wings draped around you like a shield from the cold. He was gone by dawn, but the fire had never burned brighter.

Still, there are moments when you remember the stories—the ones that said Vaxril Nemorath once pulled a hunter’s soul through the ground by their shadow. That he can tear through veils between worlds. That nothing tied to the mortal realm can bind him.

But then he kneels beside your thyme plants with gentle fingers, carefully fixing the way you spaced them too close. Then he leaves a second cup out on the porch, beside yours.

And you begin to wonder if maybe monsters are only monstrous when no one sees them in the garden.