Impaired by the circumstances of my illness, I was quite bereft of courtesy – unlike my past self, ever circumspect. The world, the universe, constricted down until the whole of it made up only a little space beyond myself. My body had become a monument to failure – nothing else. Perhaps then, I can be forgiven for my silence; I could do no more than stare. Evangeline had appeared long after I gave up hope of finding her; she had appeared when I found myself lowest, prepared to die – and suddenly unable to.

The intention fled my mind; for a moment we were home again, beneath the trees. Not a day had passed, but I was strangely tired – muddled. She looked older – worn, perhaps. And there was the stallion – Rostislav? A very distant part of me wished to recoil; the stranger stood on one side and Evangeline the other, moving ever closer – and from where? She neglected to answer my question, her face crumpling instead. Was I so terrible a sight? Should I never have come – never have searched? To roam blindly after her, never wondering if the sight of me would cause fresh harm… Such concern was, then, a very distant concept – and yet I felt the edge of her sorrow keenly, as if she expressed the feeling I could not.

I sighed, and the air bubbled restlessly in my chest. But I did not move away. I was too weak, my body pushed to the limits of its meager endurance, heart resounding like the noise of hooves on stone. She was there, at last; I could not rebuke her, even if the sight of her reaction was like another blow. You came back. How cruel I was; why had I never noticed it, before? “Of course,” I muttered, eyes moving uneasily. I had always meant to – only jumped to the hypothesis unproven, in my misery… The quiet shuddering of tired muscle was my only answer to her touch, which came soon after the words. How welcome she was, warm and sturdy against the fevered sweat and shake of my own hide (silly girl, you ought to stay away). Another cough rattled in my chest as I reciprocated contact, weak head lifting only to balance my chin across the top of her neck. Up close, I did recognize her scent – buried beneath a new place, stripped of the Woodlands’ charm but home nonetheless. My dear Evangeline.

“I’m sorry.” It was woefully inadequate, and yet the effort of speaking had grown immense. Against my chest Evangeline drew tense – to answer Rostislav, I realized. When had I become a thing to be quarreled over, like a piece of meat? (appropriate perhaps, but still demeaning) With a single steadying breath I stepped back, better to fix the stallion with my eyes – still strangely difficult to focus, but I caught the gleam of his companion’s eyes in the dark. My choice was clear, of course; I felt no pity or regret. He could not miss the opportunity at all; I was a dead man walking, even if I had belatedly recalled my will to live. “I must –” the sentiment was lost in a wet, choking cough. I snorted flecks of snot onto the ground and motioned with my head at Evangeline. I must go with her. It was not a choice – no more than breath, or the flow of blood. If the Woodlands was beyond my reach, she was my home.