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nahimjustfeelingit-writes · 15 days ago

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Wrought in Honey and Flame

Amelia’s backstory. A Hoodoo Apprentice prequel.

Summary: Amelia Broussard’s backstory unfolds in a slow-burning tale of grief, magic, forbidden love, and the dangerous sweetness of longing.

Warnings: Light smut, Angst, Flashback

“Sweeten a man’s thoughts with sugar and fire, and he’ll follow you straight into the water.”

— Old conjure saying, St. Landry Parish

“I didn’t mean to burn him. I only wanted to be loved. But some of us are made from things that don’t cool easy.”

— Amelia Broussard

Long before Amelia Broussard ever opened her eyes to the world, she was already a secret the bayou couldn’t keep.

In Louisiana, folks say the feu follet are trickster lights that drift just above the water at night—flickering blue-white orbs that draw travelers off the path. Some say they’re the souls of unbaptized children. Others swear they’re witches in exile, restless and cruel.

But the oldest tellings—the ones whispered over boiling pots and told in French-Creole by candlelight—say the feu follet are fae folk, born of swamp mist and starlight, wild as river currents and bound by rules older than blood.

They don’t marry. They don’t bear children.

And they sure as hell don’t fall in love with humans.

But Lysara did.

Lysara was not of the Bright Court—not silver-haired and crowned in jewels like the fae in books. She was wilder than that. A bayou-born daughter of dusk and marshlight. The kind of beauty whispered about in nighttime stories, where men vanish following flickers between the trees.

She stood at just under average height, but nothing about her ever seemed small. Her presence filled a space the way mist fills a field—slow, sudden, impossible to hold.

Her skin was a radiant bronze-brown, with undertones of gold that caught the light like wet stone. It shimmered faintly when she moved, not like glitter, but like heat rising off summer roads. People often stared and couldn’t say why—only that she glowed.

Her hair was thick and long, black as swampwater at night, but when it caught the moonlight, it revealed strands of deep green and indigo, like oil slick on river glass. She wore it loose and wild, tangled with moss threads or little clover flowers when she returned from the trees. It curled like smoke around her shoulders and sometimes moved even when the air was still.

Her eyes were the color of dark amber honey, flecked with motes of green and gold. When she looked at you, it felt like sunlight filtering through cypress trees—soft, warm, but full of secrets. The kind of eyes that saw through you, and into you, all at once.

Her lips were full, always slightly parted, as if she were holding back laughter or a sigh. Her smile was rare but devastating—not from cruelty, but from the way it felt like light breaking over the bayou after days of rain.

She walked barefoot, even in places she shouldn’t, and she never made a sound. Her footsteps were silence. Her presence was thunder.

She smelled of wild things—crushed mint, fresh rain, and the faint sweetness of night jasmine. If you got close enough, you’d catch a trace of something deeper: like damp earth, warm sugar, and candle smoke. That scent lingered long after she left a room, clinging to clothes and memory.

Her voice was low and melodic, with a lilt like wind in the reeds. When she spoke, it was as if the trees leaned in to listen. There was music in her tone—not song, exactly, but rhythm. Gentle. Lulling. Dangerous in its softness. She never raised her voice. She didn’t have to. You heard her whether she whispered or wept.

Lysara was a full-blooded fae of the feu follet kind— born of light, moon-soaked waters, and marsh spirits.

Her court was wild and ancient, dwelling in the bayous of southern Louisiana, hidden in veils of mist and magnolia bloom. The feu follet fae are luminous, emotionally potent beings who walk the line between seduction and sorrow.

Lysara was known for her beauty and her curiosity about humans, which made her suspect in her court. She often slipped into the mortal world to dance at the edges of hoodoo rituals and funerals, unseen by most —but not all.

August Broussard was a mortal man—a preacher’s son and jazz pianist in Louisiana. Handsome, thoughtful, and disillusioned with the rigid expectations of his family.

He was tall—easily over six feet—with broad shoulders and a long, lean frame shaped by years of hard work under Southern sun. There was something statuesque about him, like he’d been carved from river stone and polished by time, a man who carried the weight of expectation but bore it with quiet ease.

His skin was deep umber, rich and dark as fertile soil, with undertones of copper that came alive when the light touched him. It gave his features a kind of glow that wasn’t magical, but still arresting—the glow of a man fully alive in his body.

He had high cheekbones and a strong jawline softened just slightly by a neatly kept beard. His nose was straight and broad, his mouth full but rarely smiling— though when it did, it changed his whole face. His teeth were ivory and even with a touch of gold, a flash of brightness that felt earned, not effortless.

His eyes were dark brown, almost black, with a steadiness to them—the kind of eyes that could silence a room without raising a voice. When he looked at you, it felt like a quiet challenge: Tell the truth. Say what you mean. But those who knew him well swore his eyes held a softness too, something protective, especially when he looked at Lysara.

His voice was low, resonant—a preacher’s voice, but without the fire. He spoke with patience, depth, and a quiet conviction that made people lean in. Whether reading scripture, reciting poetry, or simply asking how your mama was doing, there was music in the way he talked. Earthbound music. Southern gospel. Muddy water hymns.

He often walked alone at night, especially after gigs, humming lullabies his mother used to sing. One night in the bayou, he saw a flicker of light—and followed it. That’s where he found Lysara. She didn’t flee. She laughed. And she kissed him before he could ask her name.

It began as a secret—stolen hours under cypress trees, in the crook of Spanish moss.

Fae magic does not know time the way mortals do. A season to a fae can feel like a lifetime to a human—and for August, those nights were eternal. Lysara fell in love despite knowing she shouldn’t. Fae are not meant to bear children with mortals—it breaks laws older than any written. Her court warned her: “If you carry his blood, you’ll lose your light. Or worse—your child will bear both hungers.”

But she was already pregnant.

August called her his ‘sugar-light.’ She called him her jeune fou, her foolish boy. They met under moss and moon, traded kisses for poems, made love in wildflower patches only the fae remembered.

For a season, it was bliss.

The bayou sang with it. Her glow softened around him. His music changed; became richer, aching.

But when her people discovered she’d conceived a child, the swamp itself recoiled.

“A feu follet does not give life,” they told her, “If you keep the child, you will fade. If you stay in this world, you will tear it apart.”

August asked her to stay. To live with him. Raise their child. Lysara wanted to, more than anything. But her magic began to change. The child inside her dimmed her glow, made her ache in ways she didn’t understand. Her kin grew fearful of her. She was no longer safe in the fae realm and not safe in the human one either. On the eve of Amelia’s birth, she returned to the Broussard family home in the dead of night. She was weak. Fading.

She didn’t want to let go. August begged her not to.

“Stay. We can raise her. I’ll love her. I’ll love you. Just be mine.”

But she wasn’t made for staying. She was made of in-between. The longer she held the child inside her, the more her glow dimmed, her skin thinned. Her kin turned their backs. Her magic faltered.

August’s mother, Mère Vivienne Broussard, was a powerful rootworker and midwife. She had seen Lysara once before, dancing at a crossroads when she was a child. She knew what she was. Knew what her son had done.

She helped deliver the baby.

“She shines too bright,” Vivienne whispered, “She’s not meant for here.”

Lysara, dying, begged her, “Raise her. Hide her light. Teach her love but not hunger.”

Vivienne agreed. But she made her own vow: Amelia would know the truth one day. And no man — no magic — would claim her before she knew who she was.

Lysara kissed Amelia’s forehead once before she vanished in the mist before dawn. Vivienne wrapped baby Amelia in blue silk with silver threads, fabric woven with old fae symbols to protect and veil. She laid her gently on her own doorstep, as if someone had left the child by accident.

She called the neighbors and said only, “A baby’s been left at my door. Looks like kin to me. I’ll take her in.”

After Lysara’s disappearance, August spirals quietly and grieving, still holding onto his baby girl from afar. He’s changed. He stops playing music in public. Whispers swirl around town about him. August becomes an object of suspicion—a Black man seen consorting with someone people claimed was ‘not right.’ One night, a white woman accuses August of ‘looking at her wrong’ in the street. No crime. No trial. A mob forms. He’s taken from his home. He is lynched at the edge of the swamp, near the same waters where he first met Lysara. His mother, Mère Vivienne, buries him quietly, lighting candles for both her son and the daughter of magic he left behind.

a few days after August Broussard’s death. Vivienne sits in her candlelit living room in New Orleans. Rain taps on the roof. Outside, the town pretends not to know what happened. Inside, she’s building a shield between Amelia and the world.

The baby wouldn’t sleep unless she held her. Her beautiful granddaughter.

Vivienne rocked gently in an old creaking chair that belonged to her late husband, her arms full of too much light and too much sorrow. The child swaddled in blue silk shimmered faintly, even in sleep, her breath like moth wings, her skin warm like sunlit water.

Vivienne had seen many things in her years. Rootwork and spirits, dreams that came true. She’d pulled babies out of women screaming, buried others too small to cry.

But this child?

She was something else entirely.

Born of a man whose love got him killed. Born of a woman who vanished like fog. A child glowing with fae fire and carried by blood that made her a target before she could even walk.

Vivienne whispered a prayer under her breath—not one from the Bible, but older. A calling to her people. To the old spirits. To the ancestors who walked barefoot through fire.

“Watch over her. Don’t let her shine blind. Don’t let her light get twisted...”

She lit seven candles and placed a small jar of honey on the windowsill.

She’d done what she could for August. Washed his blood off the porch, cut a lock of his hair, buried it deep beneath the cypress tree he used to sit under when he played the blues alone. But she hadn’t saved him.

She couldn’t save Lysara either. That poor glowing thing who looked at her like a girl begging to come inside from a storm.

But this baby?

This baby girl she could raise. Quietly. Carefully. Between hymns and hoodoo. Between sugar water and salt lines.

“You gon’ grow up strong,” she whispered to the infant, “But quiet. Hidden. I ain’t letting the world eat ya’ like it did ya’ daddy.”

Amelia stirred, eyes fluttering—and for the first time, they glowed.

Just for a moment.

Vivienne didn’t flinch. She only pulled her closer.

“Ain’t no light that bright that can’t be taught when to dim.”

She blew out six of the candles. Left one burning.

Always one.

And as time passed, the girl glowed…

It’s a warm Louisiana evening, thunder rumbling in the distance. Mère Vivienne is brushing her hair on the porch. The storm hadn’t broken yet, but the wind told secrets.

Seven year old Amelia sat between her grandmother’s knees, her little feet bare, a book clutched in her lap. Mère Vivienne’s fingers moved through her hair slow and steady, the same way she stirred a pot or mixed herbs for a customer—with intention, with knowing.

“Keep still now,” she murmured.

But Amelia fidgeted. Her skin prickled. She was too warm. Not from the weather, from inside. She opened her mouth to speak and light leaked from it. Just a flicker—like candlelight dancing on a wall. But Vivienne saw it.

Her hands paused.

“Did you feel that?” Amelia whispered.

Vivienne didn’t answer right away. She placed a cool hand over the child’s heart.

It beat fast. Glowing faintly beneath the skin.

“I didn’t mean to,” Amelia said, trembling. Misty–eyed.

“I know, baby. You never do.”

Vivienne stood and went inside. She came back with a glass jar filled with bay leaves, ashes, and a drop of molasses. She anointed Amelia’s temples with the thick mixture, muttering words that weren’t English.

“What’s that for?” Ameila asked.

Her grandmother exhaled, “To keep ya’ light low. Ya’ too little to carry what ya’ carry. Too many people see brightness and want to break it.”

Amelia didn’t understand. But she nodded.

She fell asleep in Vivienne’s lap, glowing faintly, the storm finally breaking overhead.

Then there was a time when she was nine years old, it was a late summer evening in Louisiana. Amelia was playing in the yard behind her grandmother Vivienne’s shotgun house. Crickets hummed. The smell of warm bread and woodsmoke lingered in the balmy air.

Amelia was supposed to be skipping rope. But the rope had other ideas.

Every time she got to seven, the air shimmered.

The first time, she thought it was just heat.

The second time, she saw fireflies hovering in daylight, circling her, matching her breath.

The third time, the rope sparked in her hands.

It wasn’t flame. Not exactly. More like light—gold-white, flickering across her fingers like something alive.

She dropped the rope and backed away.

The fireflies followed.

She ran inside, heart pounding, hands trembling.

Vivienne didn’t flinch when she saw her.

“It’s coming sooner than I thought,” she muttered, already lighting a candle, “Your mama had the same shimmer in her blood.”

Her teenage years were torture living in secret.

Vivienne taught Amelia how to dim her light with baths of blue hyssop, chamomile, and graveyard dirt. She taught her to speak softly to mirrors, to never cry in public, and to carry iron when walking alone at night.

But it didn’t always work.

Her glow leaked out when she was overwhelmed, when she blushed, when she bled, when she loved anything too much.

At fourteen, a boy tried to kiss her under the magnolia tree.

When he touched her cheek, he gasped—said she felt ‘like warm lightning’ he never looked her in the eye again.

And then 1922 came, a little before Amelia’s eighteenth birthday.

Tragedy struck.

The house smelled of mint and old pages.

Vivienne lay beneath a quilt stitched with protective sigils, her breathing thin as thread. She reached for Amelia’s hand.

“You were born from something wild, baby. Something bright. You got both the ache and the hunger in you.”

“What am I?” Amelia questioned between sobs.

“You ain’t a curse, no matter what anyone says. But you got to learn to walk careful…”

Vivienne placed a velvet pouch in Amelia’s palm.

Inside: a small, obsidian pendant strung on red thread, and a folded note wrapped in oil paper.

“This’ll help keep ya’ light tucked in. When ya’ feel like you’re gonna glow, hold it. Think of me.”

Amelia cried.

Her grandmother cupped her cheek, smiling weakly.

“Don’t be afraid of what you are. But don’t trust the wrong hands to love it, either.”

Vivienne died that night. Quiet. The candle at her bedside snuffed itself.

After the funeral came a new scenery. Amelia packed up and moved to New Orleans with Celine, her aunt, in a tall, polished house along Esplanade Avenue, in a neighborhood lined with magnolia trees, wrought iron gates, and quiet money.

The people there were Black and powerful—bankers, doctors, teachers, wives in pearls and linen gloves.

They didn’t speak of hoodoo or ghosts.

They spoke of Jesus, of dignity, of not being like the old folk from the backwoods.

Celine was marrying Nathaniel, a doctor with a voice like scripture and skin like mahogany. He didn’t smile easily. He didn’t touch often. But he looked at Amelia— really looked.

Celine Broussard was raised in a world where appearances were survival—especially for light-skinned Creole women navigating both privilege and constraint within the Black elite. Her family, especially her mother Vivienne, carried power behind closed doors through conjure and healing, but in public, they cultivated a gentle image of piety and refinement.

Marrying Nathaniel—a well-respected, dark-skinned Black doctor and preacher—elevated her. It allowed her to reinforce her position in society as ‘The First Lady’ of the church, admired for her beauty, her grace, and the impression of virtue. It gave her legitimacy not just socially, but spiritually.

She loved the idea of being admired.

Celine warned Amelia:

“No glowing. No humming. No stories about spirits. You keep that side of you locked tight. You hear me?”

Amelia nodded.

But the light inside her wasn’t meant to stay hidden forever.

Celine first noticed it in the plants.

Her lilies, so carefully tended in the front window, leaned toward Amelia when she passed. The camellias bloomed early. Her lavender wouldn’t dry right—it stayed wet, fragrant, pulsing like it was still alive.

Then it was the animals.

The neighbor’s cat refused to cross the porch unless Amelia was gone. Dogs barked through fences. And birds lingered too long outside her window.

Then it was the light.

Flickering candle flames. Mirror surfaces humming with faint gold. Once, Celine swore she saw a second reflection of Amelia in the glass—glowing, smiling faintly—even when the girl looked solemn.

She began to pray harder. Burn frankincense. Salt the thresholds. She said nothing.

But she watched.

Sunday Morning at Mount Calvary Baptist Church

1925:

The church smelled of sweat, starch, and sweet oil— the holy trifecta.

Crisp white gloves, pressed suits, and polished shoes filled the sanctuary like a river of devotion. Ceiling fans turned slow and deliberate overhead, clacking in rhythm with the rustling of paper fans printed with funeral home ads. The choir had just finished a number that shook dust from the rafters—all low moans and high wails, voices lifted to Heaven and somewhere deeper. Somewhere closer.

The sanctuary was a long rectangle, wood-paneled and warm, with windows painted in pale stained glass that let in the sunlight like softened fire. The pulpit stood elevated at the front, wrapped in white lace and gold-trimmed velvet, and behind it towered Dr. Nathaniel DuPont, pastor, healer, and pillar of the congregation.

He preached like thunder rolled through his chest.

Not loud. Not wild. But with a stillness that commanded. When Nathaniel spoke, the room leaned forward. Every syllable landed like a nail in wood—deliberate, strong, crafted to last.

“There is a light,” he said, holding the air in his palm, “and it is not ours to hold or to dim. It is the Lord’s. And He places it in each of us as He sees fit. But beware, beloved, for not every light comes from God. There are other lights. Strange ones.”

There were nods. Calls of mmm and tell it. The kind of agreement that passed down through bone and blood.

From the first pew, Celine Broussard, fiancé of Nathaniel DuPont, sat tall and polished like she was carved from marble. Wide-brimmed cream hat. Gloves that matched. A delicate veil shadowed her painted mouth. She never said amen aloud, but her posture exuded satisfaction—a woman not just engaged to the preacher, but master of the house of God itself. People whispered about how refined she was, how her women’s ministry raised more money than the men’s ever could. They said God had blessed her hands.

And maybe he had. Or maybe someone else had.

Celine’s rootwork was never visible, never spoken of. But it was there. It was in the oils she dabbed behind her ears before service. In the bathwater she poured down the drain before hosting luncheons. In the church donations that always seemed to circle back to her. She kept her altar locked in a back closet and wrapped her working jars in lace handkerchiefs, but the spirits knew her by name.

Beside her sat Amelia Broussard, a shadow in silk.

She was too quiet, too still. Fresh-faced from grief, still mourning the death of her grandmother—the woman who had raised her, taught her things in secret and in moonlight. Here, under Celine’s roof, she had no footing. No roots.

Her dress was simple. Her hands folded. She barely blinked as Nathaniel spoke. She didn’t say amen. She didn’t move. But she felt everything.

And the eyes—the eyes of the congregation felt her back.

They looked at her like something uncertain. She was family, yes. But not of them. There was something soft about her, something other. A strange shine behind her gaze, like dusk just before the lightning bugs appeared. Her presence unsettled. Women whispered behind fans. Men looked twice and then looked away, shame burning at the edges of their thoughts.

Amelia didn’t know the words to their hymns. She didn’t know the names of the women in the second row. But she knew the weight of judgment.

She felt it press into her shoulders like hands from behind.

And yet, when Nathaniel glanced down from the pulpit, just once, and their eyes met, something passed between them. Not recognition. Not yet.

Just an ache. The kind grief carves into those who pretend they’ve moved on.

He looked away quickly, back to the Bible.

“Let your light so shine before men,” he said, voice deep, solemn, “that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”

Amelia lowered her gaze.

Because her light did shine.

But it had never belonged to Heaven.

Four Years a Flame in Hiding

New Orleans, 1922–1926

Amelia Broussard, aged 18 to 22

She bloomed slow, like something half afraid of sunlight.

The house was beautiful but cold. Celine kept it pristine, full of lace curtains and polished wood, and every mirror wiped spotless. Amelia learned to walk through it like a ghost—quiet, careful, unseen. She kept her grief hidden beneath silk and prayer.

At eighteen, she was still all colt-legs and caution. By twenty, she had grown into her curves like honey settling into glass—smooth, deep, sweet. Her hair thickened into a wild halo of curls. Her eyes, wide and dark, held a flicker of gold that never went out, though she tried to dim it.

Because Celine watched her.

And so did Nathaniel.

She made friends—eventually.

Girls from church, mostly. They called her pretty but strange. They liked to braid her hair and tell her which boys liked her. They whispered during service and passed notes folded in fans.

Sometimes she snuck out with them, just after supper, when the heat of the day clung to the bricks like molasses. They’d meet boys on corner stoops, near the ice cream parlor or behind the neighborhood school. Boys who smelled like pomade and cologne. Boys with hands that moved too fast but words that melted like butter.

Amelia let them kiss her.

She’d lean back against peeling wood and part her lips just enough. Let them touch her cheek, her collarbone. But she never let them past her dress buttons. Never let their breath tangle too long in her throat.

Because she couldn’t trust what might slip out of her— that golden shimmer that burned brighter when she was flustered, the flicker that made boys fall too fast, too deep.

One boy swore he saw light in her mouth when she sighed.

Another tried to follow her home after one kiss and carved her initials into a tree.

She stopped seeing him after that.

By day, she was Celine’s niece. Respectable. Quiet. Presentable.

She wore pastels to service. Said ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘no sir.’ Read scripture aloud at the dining table. Nathaniel barely looked at her when they ate, but she felt the crackle of tension—low and persistent, like heat behind the walls.

He was kind. Reserved. But sometimes his gaze slipped.

Celine never mentioned it. But she noticed everything.

By night, Amelia became someone else.

She would lock her bedroom door, turn down the lamp, and draw the curtains tight. Then she’d pull out her grandmother’s leather-bound journal from beneath a loose floorboard. A book soft with age, full of folded prayers, dirt smudges, and wax seals.

She practiced quietly.

Footwork first—where to step to find or lose a thing. Crossroads blessings. Ways to turn someone’s tongue or sweeten a neighbor’s opinion.

She whispered Psalms into jars and slipped cinnamon under her tongue. Pricked her finger just once, to learn what power tasted like. Learned to blow smoke just so. To anoint. To hide.

All of it in secret.

Because even though Celine worked root too—Amelia felt the difference. Celine’s work was all command and iron, her jars full of hair and heat and pressure. Celine’s magic controlled.

Amelia’s didn’t want to control. It wanted to call.

To beckon. To illuminate. To stir.

Which made it far more dangerous.

Suppressing her light was the hardest thing.

At first, she used cotton gloves to hide her fingertips when they glowed. Sat in cold baths to calm the fire in her blood. She prayed hard and often. Chewed bitter roots to keep her magic still. Bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper every time she smiled.

By twenty-one, she had learned to keep it in—most days.

But it was like trying to hold back tidewater with her bare hands. Especially when she was alone. Especially when Nathaniel passed too close. Especially when her own loneliness pushed against the corners of her ribs, aching to be seen.

She became a woman quietly, secretly, dangerously.

Not the kind who bloomed in public.

The kind who kindled in private—learning her curves in candlelight, whispering her grandmother’s name when the light started to rise. She didn’t need anyone to tell her what she was becoming. She felt it every time a boy looked at her too long, or a married man tipped his hat, or Celine’s gaze cut sharp like a blade across her back.

She was becoming something Celine feared.

Something even Nathaniel, for all his righteousness, would not be able to resist.

The Ride Home

Early Summer, New Orleans, 1929:

The heat didn’t let up, not even after sundown.

Church had run long. Nathaniel’s sermon had been on temptation, but his voice had softened by the end— less fire and brimstone, more like a man preaching to himself. The congregation lingered in the fellowship hall, sipping sweet tea and fanning themselves. Celine was still inside, smiling tightly at Sister Marguerite’s gossip, already halfway into next week’s planning.

Amelia slipped out onto the front steps, arms folded around her waist. The cicadas had begun their night chorus, humming like something ancient and relentless. Her hair clung to her neck in damp curls. She longed for air, for stillness. For somewhere she could be herself again.

A shadow fell across her shoulder.

“Would you like a ride home?”

She turned.

Nathaniel stood a step below her, his hat in his hands, shirt collar slightly unbuttoned, sweat darkening the edges of his vest. The look in his eyes was practiced— neutral, authoritative. But his voice had a catch in it, low and unreadable.

“I can walk,” she said, though her feet ached in her Sunday shoes.

“It’s late. Celine won’t be leavin’ no time soon either. Got work to do back here. I can take you to the house, Amelia.”

She hesitated, searching his face for motive.

He didn’t touch her. Didn’t crowd her. Just waited.

And she said, “Alright.”

The car was quiet.

A clean old Ford, smelling of cedar and something sharper—maybe bay rum or holy oil. The windows were cracked, letting in the warm wind as they rolled past the dark oak-lined streets. They didn’t speak at first.

That was, until he broke the silence.

“You’ve grown,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road, “Not just older. Wiser.”

Amelia glanced at him, then quickly away. “That what you tell all the girls?”

He laughed, surprised. “You’re not a girl.”

The words hung between them.

She shifted in her seat, suddenly hyperaware of her own body—the curve of her thigh against the leather, the pulse in her wrist, the way her bosom sat full and rose and fell with her shaky breath.

“…You used to call me that when I first came to live with Celine.” Amelia recalled.

“Well,” he said, “you aren’t that anymore.”

Silence.

The house came into view—tall, pale, still glowing with electric light. Celine’s fortress. Amelia felt her ribs tighten just looking at it.

He pulled to the curb.

“Thank you,” she murmured, hand on the door handle.

But before she could open it, his fingers touched her wrist.

Just lightly.

Just long enough.

The heat from his skin went through her like flame. Her light—that cursed, beautiful thing—sparked under her skin, flickering behind her eyes.

She didn’t move. Neither did he.

“I know what it’s like to live in someone’s shadow,” he said quietly. “To feel like you gotta shrink just to survive.”

Her lips parted, but no words came.

Then he let go.

She slipped out of the car without another glance, heart pounding like a drum in her throat. She didn’t look back until she was halfway up the walk—and even then, only once.

He was still sitting there, hands on the wheel, unmoving.

Watching.

Then came the sweetening of the flame.

Nothing transpired for some time, but then by late fall, 1929—Amelia is twenty-six.

It began with the brush of his hand again.

This time, he didn’t pretend it was accidental.

It was a Wednesday. Bible study had ended. Rain tapped soft against the chapel roof. Nathaniel offered her a ride again, and she took it again—this time without hesitation.

He didn’t speak when they reached the house.

Didn’t let go when his fingers grazed hers in the doorway. His touch lingered—thumb grazing her palm, a pause full of something unspoken.

Then he leaned in.

Not to kiss her. Just to look. To be close enough that she could feel the breath between them. Her light stirred beneath her skin, drawn to him like a tide to moonlight.

“You feel it too,” she whispered.

“I’ve been fighting it longer than I can stand.”

And then she was back inside the house, alone, trembling, lit from within like a paper lantern about to catch fire.

That night, she made the jar.

Not for him exactly. Not at first.

She lit a white candle and a blue one. Wrote her full name and his, folded the paper in honey, and pressed it into a small jar with rose petals, brown sugar, orange peel, and cinnamon. She added his handwriting—a scrap from a discarded sermon draft. A sliver of his sermon robe’s thread. A whisper from her mouth.

“Sweeten his thoughts of me. Pull him close, let it build.”

It was half rootwork, half instinct.

Part of her—the fae part—understood how sweetness could snare. How longing could bind. How fire could feed. When the wax melted down, she felt it inside her. Like something opening.

The first time happened days later.

Celine was away—called out to tend to a friend dealing with her own mother’s sudden illness. Nathaniel stayed behind to tend the church. Amelia wandered into the sanctuary just before dusk, barefoot and silent, drawn by something low and humming in the air.

She found him in the pulpit. Alone.

Reading scripture by lantern light.

He looked up when she entered—and didn’t look away.

Neither spoke.

She stepped forward like sleepwalking. He came down from the altar like he had waited a thousand years. And when their bodies touched, it wasn’t desperate—it was inevitable. As if the universe had always planned for this.

He kissed her first. Gentle, reverent.

Then again. Harder. With tongue and grunts.

He lifted her onto the front pew, parted her thighs with trembling hands. Her dress hiked up over her hips. She felt like silk and smoke, warm and wet, breathless beneath him. She let herself open—not just her body, but the light inside her, that golden, forbidden thing.

He got on his knees and spread her flower that bloomed with arousal and inexperience. Nathaniel removed his glasses so they wouldn’t fog his vision. He took one look at Amelia, at the way she glowed like the sun. He delve in for a taste of her and Amelia moaned so angelic.

“You taste so good…this virgin pussy is so good, baby…”

She wanted Nathaniel to be her first. She needed him to break her down.

And he responded to it. Moaned into it. Sank into her like a man starving.

Nathaniel fucked Amelia in that church like he ain’t have pussy in a long time. The sound of their sex echoed within the sanctuary beneath the large cross nailed to the wall. Instead of preaching the word, Nathaniel preached lustrous.

“Pussy so tight…been wanting this pussy for so long…you take me deep, baby…look how you take me…”

He lifted so Amelia could watch. Dress hiked up. The ache had settled into a tingle she was addicted to. The wetness and the heavy girth of him. He had grown man dick and it fucked her with talent and attentiveness. Something the younger men couldn’t give her. Nathaniel hooked her legs over his arms and plowed into her, claiming her pussy as his, thick sweat trickling down and over her.

Amelia gasped with each stroke. Eyes glowing and brows pinched together.

“Yes, Nathaniel! Take me! Take your pussy!”

He groaned.

Nathaniel picked her up and fucked her standing. She glowed in his arms. Powerful. All consuming.

“You tugging on the root of my dick, baby…what kinda pussy you got?” Nathaniel spoke between moans.

“I–I feel like I’m gonna climax!”

Amelia felt Nathaniel hold her legs open further and he dipped her, drilling into her while she clung to his neck. He fucked her so hard her breasts popped out of her silk dress and bounced.

“NATHANIEL!”

Her head lulled back and her eyes crossed. Like she was capturing the holy essence. Nathaniel didn’t stop feeding her broken in pussy with seven inches of fat dick. He felt her grip him up tighter, tugging on his dick like a boa constrictor to its prey.

“You gonna make me cum, Amelia…”

Nathaniel sat her down and dug in her with all he could, sweet moans tickling his ears. He pressed his lips into hers, swallowing her cries of pleasure. Nathaniel felt himself ready to bust.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum!”

Nathaniel pulled out, jerking his hot semen all over Amelia’s pubic hair. He fought to catch his breath.

After, Amelia lay stretched out across the empty pews, chest rising slow.

Nathaniel sat nearby, his head in his hands. Regret already thick in the air.

But Amelia didn’t feel shame.

She felt powerful.

Not over him—though she knew now she had that, too.

But over herself. Her own body. Her own hunger.

Her light hummed low under her skin, fed by touch, by heat, by the release of holding back for so long. Her magic had fed. And it wanted more.

She turned her head toward him, lips still swollen, curls wild across her shoulders.

“I’ve never felt like this before.”

“You shouldn’t,” he muttered, eyes dark. “We crossed a line I can’t uncross.”

“But you wanted to.”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

Because the truth was in the way he looked at her now —not like a child or a niece or even a woman from the pews.

He looked at her like she was dangerous.

And she was.

The jar never left her room.

She hid it beneath her bed, in a velvet pouch wrapped with silk thread. The honey inside grew darker over time, thicker—like time itself had settled into it. Like all the sweat and sighs and secrets between them had soaked into the sugar.

She’d light the same candle when she wanted to stir him. And it worked.

He would show up.

Late at night, with excuses and shadows. Under the guise of checking the lock on the side gate. Or coming to leave a Bible in the parlor. Sometimes he’d only linger near her door. Other nights, he’d slip in.

And each time, she gave in.

Not because she was powerless—but because she wanted him. Loved him. Needed him to need her.

He was her first.

The first man to see her, want her, touch her.

And every time he returned, it reminded her: she could keep him.

But she couldn’t keep all of him.

Even as he loved her, he married Celine.

The wedding was a church affair—lace and pearls and lilies. The First Lady of the church, finally crowned. Celine glowed with pride, not love. She wore success like perfume, thick and heavy. Her smile was sharp, her hands cold as crystal.

Amelia stood on the church steps, watching the white doves release, the crowd clapping, her heart folding into itself like paper in flame.

Nathaniel looked at her only once that day.

A glance.

It was all she needed.

Still, it continued.

Behind closed doors. In hotel rooms. Once even in the church office, late on a stormy night when he said he couldn’t help it.

He told her he loved her. Told her he wished he’d met her first. Told her she made him feel young, like God hadn’t given up on him yet.

And she believed it.

But belief doesn’t hold a woman through the night.

Eventually, she began to see other men.

Not because she didn’t love Nathaniel—but because she needed to feel wanted in the open. Not stolen. Not hidden. Not touched only in shadows.

She let young men take her dancing. Let them kiss her neck, slow and soft, on streetcars and porch swings. Let their hands touch her waist in public.

She never slept with any of them.

But Nathaniel saw.

And it worked.

His jealousy flared like a match—sudden, violent, consuming.

“You think I don’t see the way he looks at you?”

“Let him look. At least he’s not ashamed.” Amelia argued back.

Nathaniel never said he was ashamed of her.

But he never said he wasn’t, either.

Amelia kept the jar anyway.

Even when she thought about smashing it. Even when she hated herself for lighting that candle again.

She kept it because it was hers. Because it had worked. Because it was proof that she could take something, shape it, and make it stay. Even when the world told her she was unnatural. Even when Celine gave her that tight, knowing smile across dinner plates and prayed longer every time Amelia passed the salt.

The jar was control.

A spell for sweetness. For longing. For power disguised as love.

But it was still love.

And with every stolen night, Amelia changed.

Her light burned lower, but deeper. No longer wild. No longer flickering.

It smoldered.

Nathaniel never understood how much of her he was feeding. How each kiss—each desperate return—wasn’t weakening her. It was growing her.

She stopped asking him to choose.

Because she knew he never could.

Celine had always been watchful.

She never raised her voice, never accused. But she could peel flesh with a look. And lately, she looked at Amelia too long. When they sat together in the parlor, the silence between them grew heavy. Sticky.

She asked strange questions.

“You still lighting candles in your room at night?”

“You walk with so much light, girl—don’t let it blind you.”

“I remember how your grandmother glowed before she burned out.”

Celine started keeping track of her husband’s hours. Staring longer at his collars. Laying out shirts with starch so sharp it scratched his neck—as if she wanted the marks left behind.

She began sprinkling powders at thresholds, whispering at night behind her closet door. Her altar grew fuller—oils, bones, a cracked jar of molasses.

And when Nathaniel came home one night too quiet, smelling faintly of gardenia and guilt.

The walls of the parlor hummed with silence, too still for midday. Outside, cicadas droned in the heat, their song like static under the thick tension in the house.

Celine sat perched in her velvet chair, her back rigid, hands clasped so tightly in her lap her knuckles paled. Nathaniel was just inside the door, hat still in hand, the sweat of the street clinging to his collar.

“…I ran into Sister Deveraux at the market this morning,” Celine said coolly, eyes fixed on the embroidered cushion beside her. “She said she saw you stepping out of the Hotel Maison. With a girl.”

Nathaniel blinked. He remained still, like prey trying not to spook the huntress. “She must’ve been mistaken.”

Celine finally lifted her gaze. “Don’t insult me.”

He sighed and set his hat on the small table near the door. “Celine—”

“You’ve been slipping!” she cut in, rising from the chair. “Sneaking in late. Avoiding me. You barely touch me anymore. You think I wouldn’t notice?!”

“I’ve been working more. You know the clinic’s short-staffed.” Nathaniel argued in his defense.

“The Lord may forgive liars, Nathaniel, but I am not so generous.” Celine replied spitefully.

That stopped him. He stepped forward, tone low. “You want the truth?”

“I deserve the truth.”

His face faltered, but only for a moment.

“You’ve built this life to be a monument. A museum. No room in it for love. Only appearances. Respectability. You stopped seeing me years ago, Celine.”

Celine’s lips parted, then flattened. “So you find yourself in the arms of some little whore instead?”

The word struck him. His jaw clenched, hands balling at his sides.

“You don’t even know what you’ve done,” he said, voice trembling, not with fear—but guilt, “You think you can shame me into righteousness, but you don’t know the half of it.”

A silence stretched between them like a drawn blade.

Celine’s voice dropped to a hush. “Who is she?”

Nathaniel’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing.

Celine stepped forward, searching his eyes.

“It’s someone close, isn’t it? Someone I know.”

Still, he said nothing.

Her voice broke. “Is it her?”

His silence was answer enough.

Celine staggered back like she’d been slapped.

“My niece?” Her voice cracked. “That girl I took in? That child?!”

“She’s not a child.”

“You raised her with me!”

“NO! You raised her. You used her to fill a silence you refused to face. She was never yours to control.”

“And you think she was yours to take?!” Celine’s hand flew to her chest. “You disgust me.”

“I never meant to hurt you,” Nathaniel said, stepping back toward the door, pain etched deep into the lines of his face.

“No,” she said coldly, “You just wanted to ruin the last good thing you had.”

He stood there for a breath longer, then reached for his hat.

“I’ll come for the rest of my things tomorrow.”

He left without another word. The door clicked shut like the final nail in a coffin.

“I hope she’s worth your soul.”

A day later, Amelia sat cross-legged on the wide windowsill of her small room, overlooking the alley behind the jazz club below. A trumpet floated up, muffled and mournful, while cigarette smoke curled like lazy ghosts around her. Her suitcases sat half-unpacked beside the bed.

She hadn’t meant to stay long. Just long enough to figure out her next move. It had been two days since she’d fled Celine’s house. The walls there had started to close in, thick with tension, judgment, and the shadow of everything she and Nathaniel had done.

She thought she might weep again, but her tears had dried out like the swamp after a long drought.

A knock rattled the door.

Her heart jumped, but when she opened it, no one was there—only a slip of paper tucked under the door.It was Nathaniel’s handwriting.

Room 302. If you’ll still have me.

She looked down the hall, but it was empty.The club downstairs burst into applause, the crowd roaring under the rise of the saxophone. Amelia pressed the paper to her chest, eyes fluttering shut. She didn’t know whether to run or to open the door wider. But in her bones, she already knew what she’d do. The hotel room was Nathaniel’s final goodbye. A discreet room above a jazz club, late one afternoon.

The hallway smelled of sweat, cigarette smoke, and the ghost of old perfume. Room 302 waited at the end, its number brass-plated and tarnished by years of fingertips.

Amelia opened the door slowly.

Nathaniel stood inside, hat in hand, kinky hair damp from the walk in the rain. The soft light from the bedside lamp gilded the edge of his profile, catching the deep lines of guilt etched around his mouth.

For a moment, they just looked at each other.

“You came,” she said, voice hushed.

“I shouldn’t have,” he answered.

“But you did.”

He shut the door behind him and crossed the room in three slow steps. She stood in a simple cotton slip, her curls loose around her shoulders, face bare but glowing with something that wasn’t of this world.

“Tell me not to touch you,” he said.

She didn’t.

So he did.

His hand rose, trembling slightly, and cupped her cheek. “I thought I could stay away,” he whispered, “I told myself it had to end.”

“I know.”

He kissed her.

It wasn’t the kiss of a man who planned to stay. It was the kiss of a man starving, who knew the meal was his last. His mouth claimed hers with longing and guilt braided tightly together. Her hands slid beneath his coat, pushing it off his shoulders, and he let it fall to the floor.

His fingers moved with reverence, pulling the strap of her slip down her shoulder, tracing the path with his mouth. She moaned softly as he trailed kisses down her collarbone, her breath hitching when he knelt and pushed the fabric down past her hips.

Amelia guided him to the bed.

He worshipped her slowly at first—his mouth moving over her belly, her thighs, between her legs— murmuring prayers in the shape of her name. She arched under him, her body lighting from within like swampfire. The glow behind her eyes pulsed, faint but unmistakable.

When he entered her, it was deep and unhurried, as if he wanted to memorize every sound she made. Her hands pressed into his back, her mouth at his ear. Usually, he couldn’t last inside of her, but this time, he fought the urge to release prematurely. He wanted it last.

“I love you,” she said.

He froze for a second—just a second—and then moved faster, as if to chase the truth back into the dark.

They came together wrapped in sweat and shame and something too sacred to name.

After, he lay beside her in silence, one hand resting on her bare thigh, the other pressed over his eyes. Amelia turned her head to look at him.

“I know you’ll go back to her,” she said.

He didn’t deny it.

“She’s calling you already,” Amelia murmured. “I can feel it.”

He sat up, hands trembling. “I don’t want to hurt either of you.”

“But you already have,” she said, softly.

A wind picked up outside the window, rattling the loose panes. The jazz had long since faded into quiet. Something was stirring beneath the surface of the night.

The sheets were still warm when Nathaniel rose from the bed. The sun filtered through the gauzy curtains, casting golden stripes across Amelia’s bare skin. She lay on her side, watching him button his shirt with practiced guilt. His collar trembled in his fingers.

“I can feel it, you know,” she said softly, “When you start pulling away, even before you speak.”

Nathaniel paused, knuckles tightening around his cufflink.

“It ain’t about you.” Nathaniel spoke.

“That’s a lie.”

He turned, his jaw hard, lips thinned like a closed door.

“Celine’s been looking at me different. Watching. I come home smelling like… like gardenia and something older. Something that ain’t her.”

“You said she didn’t believe in magic,” Amelia murmured.

“She don’t. But she believe in sin,” He walked over and crouched beside the bed, the weight of his body making the mattress shift, “This can’t go on.”

Amelia’s breath caught in her throat. Her fingers curled in the sheet.

“Don’t say that. Don’t make this something ugly. You came to me. You followed me here.”

“I was weak.”

“You were human.”

He cupped her face with both hands, thumbs brushing the high arc of her cheeks.

“You’re not, “His voice cracked, “I don’t know what you are, baby, but I can’t be part of it no more.”

Her eyes shimmered—not with tears, but with light. That faint, otherworldly glimmer just under the surface of her brown irises, like a candle’s reflection in a puddle. He kissed her once, too quickly. Then stood and gathered his coat like it was a shield.

She didn’t try to stop him.As the door closed, Amelia sat up in the quiet, the ache settling between her ribs. Outside, a jazz trumpet wailed in a slow, lonely note.

New Orleans, 1932 – Late Night

The parlor smelled of ashes and rosewater.

Celine sat on the floor before the cold hearth, her silk house robe open at the throat, curls unpinned and wild like a storm had passed through her. Candles circled her—red for passion, white for peace, black for truth. She held Nathaniel’s undershirt in one hand, still damp at the collar with the sweat he’d worn out of their home.

Her mother had taught her not to meddle too much with the heart. “A man’s will is like a snake,” she once said. “If you force it into a jar, it’ll still try to bite.”

But Celine didn’t care. Not tonight.

She ground cassia bark with her teeth, letting the heat burn her tongue, and spit it into the bowl. Next came his hair, plucked from the comb in their bathroom. Then a sliver of her fingernail. Her blood, drawn fresh from the palm. Last, a pinch of dirt from the church steps where they married.

She chanted low:

“Come back on bent knee, with guilt in your chest.

Forget her taste, remember mine.

Dream of the wedding bed,

And wake with my name in your mouth.”

The candle flames jumped.

The room trembled—or maybe it was just her heart, fluttering like a sparrow with a broken wing.

She bound the shirt around the bowl with red thread, tied it thirteen times, and buried it in the hearth ashes, whispering, “Let shame drag you home.”

Meanwhile, Amelia feels the shift

Across the city, in a room above a jazz club, Amelia startled awake.

Her breath came fast, heart pounding. The air had turned heavy, like the moment before thunder cracked. She felt it — the pulling. Not from Nathaniel. From something around him.

A spell.

She sat up in bed, pressing her hand to her chest. She could still feel the echo of Nathaniel’s touch, the softness in his voice when he said he didn’t want to leave her again. But something in him was bending now. Like a tree forced against its natural lean.

“Celine,” she whispered.

She closed her eyes and tried to calm the glowing heat rising in her blood—that strange, ancient light that wanted to push back, to unravel whatever had been done.

But she didn’t fight it.

She let him go.

And Nathaniel returns home.

The front gate creaked open as the sun began to rise. Celine had fallen asleep in the parlor, slumped against the velvet arm of the couch. She woke to the sound of keys turning in the door.

Nathaniel stepped in, his coat wrinkled, face drawn, eyes red. He looked like he hadn’t slept—or had dreamed too much.

She rose, wordless.

“I shouldn’t have left like that,” he said.

“You did,” she said, voice soft.

He came to her slowly, like a man walking into a confessional.

“I—I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just—”

“I do.” She stepped closer. “It’s her. She bewitched you.”

He blinked.

“No woman takes another woman’s man without some sort of working. I see the shine on her. Something ain’t clean.”

Nathaniel didn’t argue. He simply sagged into her arms, overwhelmed by guilt, by something pulling him back—home, whatever home meant now.

Celine held him tightly, but her eyes stared into the dark, calculating.

Amelia prepared to leave.

Later that afternoon, the sky hung low and gray. Rain threatened. Amelia stood at the edge of her hotel room, her suitcases packed. Her hands lingered on the window ledge one last time.

The jazz club’s music below was faint, just a memory now.

She hadn’t heard from Nathaniel since dawn. That meant he went back. She felt the severing of it, like someone cutting a thread tied to her soul.

She didn’t blame him. Not entirely.

Celine had deep magic, thick with old pain and old pride. It was the kind of rootwork that clung. But it wasn’t truth. What she and Nathaniel had—that had been something real. Even if it wasn’t meant to last.

She touched the necklace her grandmother had left her —a simple glass bead on a thread of fae silk. It shimmered faintly in her hand.

“I’m going home,” she whispered, and meant it this time.

To St. Landry Parish. To the cypress trees and waterbirds. To the memory of her grandmother. To the swamp that still knew her name.

She turned her back on New Orleans, on the secrets that had bloomed there like poison lilies. And walked out into the rain.

Return to St. Landry Parish

Two Days Later:

The road curved through cane fields and low hills thick with cypress and willow. The train dropped her at a depot that hadn’t changed in twenty years. A single mule cart waited near the platform, and the driver recognized her at once.

“You Vivienne’s girl?”

She nodded. “Amelia.”

He tipped his hat. “Thought you looked like her.”

The ride to the old house was slow and swaying, the path muddied from summer rain. Spanish moss clung to the trees like secrets. Birds called from deep in the swamp, and the air buzzed with that thick, honey-slow stillness she remembered from childhood.

The house stood just where she left it—weathered but proud. White paint peeling from the shutters. Porch swing hanging crooked. Ivy claiming the back chimney.

But it was home.

Amelia stepped up the porch steps slowly, her boots echoing against the wood. She unlocked the door with the same iron key her grandmother had given her at eighteen. When it opened, the smell of old cedar, dried herbs, and dust washed over her like a baptism.

Inside, time had barely moved.

The dried bundles of rosemary and mugwort still hung from the rafters. Her grandmother’s rocker faced the hearth, a folded shawl still draped across it. On the mantle, a cluster of faded photographs, candles burned down to stubs.

She walked through the kitchen, trailing her fingers across the table where her grandmother used to crush herbs in a stone mortar. She touched the cupboard that once held charms and tinctures. A smile flickered across her face, then softened into something lonelier.

She didn’t cry.

She simply breathed.

And then—something stirred.

A creak in the floorboards beneath her grandmother’s bedroom. A memory whispered against her skin. She followed the pull to the far room, the one where Vivienne used to sleep.

Amelia opened the armoire. Beneath folded linens, she found a small chest bound in worn red leather. She lifted it gently, set it on the bed, and opened the clasp.

Inside:

•A bundle of fae silk, soft as spider thread and shimmering faintly in the light.

•A worn journal, its pages edged in gold leaf, written in a looping hand.

•A silver pendant shaped like a flame. When she touched it, her fingertips glowed faintly in response.

She opened the journal.

On the first page, there was writing in her grandmother’s script. Amelia settled down to read it.

To my dearest Amelia. If you are reading this, then you have begun to glow too brightly to hide it anymore. You are not just of this world. You are born of the feu follet—child of the marsh flame, the shimmer between dusk and dark. Your mother was fae. Your father, human. What you carry is both blessing and burden.

Amelia sat down slowly, heart thudding, the words ringing like bells in her ears.

Her fingers trembled as she turned the page.

I kept your truth from you to keep you safe. But you’ve always known, haven’t you? The way animals follow you. The way you light the dark. The way love burns too quickly in your hands. It is not madness. It is power.

She closed the journal gently, pressing it to her chest. The pendant still pulsed softly in her palm, warm now, alive.

And for the first time in weeks, she wept.

Not for Nathaniel. Not even for the girl she used to be.

She wept for the truth.

For the strangeness inside her finally having a name. For the ache of being other, and the strange peace of finally seeing herself—all of herself—clearly.

She stood, walked to the mirror in her grandmother’s old room, and looked at her reflection.

The soft glow behind her eyes was no trick of the light.

She didn’t need to hide anymore.

The house had settled around her like an old cloak. Floorboards creaked in familiar places. Wind sang through the trees outside. But inside Amelia, something new had begun to stir.

She sat cross-legged on her grandmother’s bed, the red-leather journal resting on her thighs. The pendant still lay against her chest, faintly pulsing like a heartbeat not her own.

She opened the journal again.

The ink was faded, but the writing flowed in her grandmother’s firm, looping script. The pages smelled faintly of rose oil, cinnamon, and smoke.

Your mother’s name was Lysara. She came from the swamps north of Belle Forêt, where the will-o’-the-wisps still gather under moonlight. She was not fully of the Bright Court — not one of their silken elite. No, she was bayou-born. Wildblood. Faeling. And she fell in love with your father, August, a preacher’s son who liked to fish the river bends at dusk. He saw her light one night, followed her flame, and never turned back…

Amelia’s breath hitched. She turned the page.

…Their love was forbidden. Not just by the fae, but by the people. The old women whispered your mother was a spirit. A temptress. They weren’t wrong. She loved fiercely, too much. And when you were born, glowing and quiet and beautiful, she wrapped you in silk spun from her own hair and left you on my doorstep. She kissed your brow and vanished before the sun rose…

Amelia swallowed hard, tears blurring the words. She turned to the next entry.

…I raised you in secret, masking your shine with salves and shadow work. You were always drawn to fire, to love, to water. You didn’t cry like other babies. You hummed. And when you grew, you made animals follow you like you were made of honey…

She reached the last entry.

…You are feu follet, child. A flame spirit. You carry the light of both bloodlines—human and fae—and your glow will always draw hearts, stir longing, cause unrest. You must learn to use it wisely. Love, when it flows through you, can be sweet…or ruinous…

Amelia closed the book, heart thudding. She pressed her lips to the cover as if to kiss the memory of Vivienne, her grandmother, her protector.

Everything made sense now. Why Nathaniel had been drawn in like a man pulled toward flame. Why animals tilted their heads when they saw her. Why her touch stirred heat and hunger, even when she didn’t mean it to.

She had always been half-light.

Now she knew why.

That evening, as the last light bled through the trees, Amelia lit the hearth.

Not out of need—but memory.

She moved barefoot across the floor, gathering the things her grandmother once taught her to use: sweetgum bark, cypress twigs, a pinch of cinnamon. She added dried rose petals to the flame for remembrance, and a drop of her own blood on the coal for truth.

She stirred the fire with an iron poker, then sat before it in silence.

No prayers. No chants. Just her presence. Her breath. The crackle of flame.

The air around her shifted.

It was subtle at first—a warmth blooming in her chest, the scent of honey and night-blooming jasmine curling around her shoulders. A faint shimmer began to thread through the smoke, like silver light dancing between the sparks.

Then she heard it.

A whisper—not with her ears, but inside her blood.

Welcome home, child of fire.

She didn’t flinch.

She let it wash over her.

Outside, fireflies gathered by the window. Inside, her skin shimmered faintly, her heartbeat slowing to the rhythm of the land.

She pressed her hands into the wooden floor, grounding herself. She felt her grandmother’s energy in the bones of the house. Felt the memory of old rituals humming beneath the boards. Felt the swamp lean in, curious, as if the land itself had been waiting for her return.

Amelia closed her eyes.

And for the first time since fleeing New Orleans…since discovering what she truly was—

She felt still.

Whole.

The girl, the lover, the root worker, the flame.

No longer hiding. No longer afraid.

St. Landry Parish – Three Days Later:

It came mid-morning, in a plain envelope, the handwriting unmistakably his—careful, upright, the tail of his s still curling like it did when he wrote scripture notes. She’d received letters from him before.

Amelia stood at the porch with the letter in her hands. Her stomach clenched.

She didn’t open it right away.

She laid it on the kitchen table beside a mason jar of fresh moon water and a sprig of black sage, then stared at it for a long time. The house was still. The birds outside quieted.

Eventually, she unfolded the paper.

Amelia,

I can’t find peace. I see you when I close my eyes. I wake up next to her and feel like a man buried in the wrong grave. I know I hurt you. I know I ran. But I can’t pretend anymore. Please. Just one more time. Let me see you. I’ll come to you if I have to…

Nathaniel.

She folded the letter, hands shaking. Not with longing.

With rage.

He had chosen. And now he wanted to un-choose? Now he wanted to come back, after all he’d torn up in her?

She didn’t burn the letter. She didn’t cry over it.

She just left it there, and walked into the swamp to gather Spanish moss, barefoot and bright with silence.

Dusk – Two Days Later:

The sun sank like a slow coin into the horizon, painting the bayou in deep gold and violet. Cypress knees poked from the water like crooked fingers. Bullfrogs called low in the distance. A heron shifted in the reeds.

Amelia stood waist-deep in the marsh grass near the edge of her grandmother’s trail, skirts hiked in her hands, the water cool against her calves.

That’s when she heard it.

Twigs cracking. A breath she didn’t recognize. A presence.

She turned slowly.

Nathaniel emerged through the moss and brush, soaked in sweat, chest heaving. He looked older somehow. Like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Amelia,” he said, voice cracking.

She went still.

He took a step forward, but her eyes flashed with something not human. The dusk light caught the shimmer in her irises. Her hair moved like it was alive with static.

“I told you not to come.” Ameila spoke with venom.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” he said, stepping closer. “You wouldn’t write back. I—I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t pray. It’s like you’re inside me now.”

“You don’t get to say that!” she said, voice trembling. “You left me! You chose HER!”

“She put something on me, Amelia! I know it now. I can feel it wearing off. You’re the one I want—”

“No,” she said sharply, stepping back. “You’re just chasing what you broke. You want to fix it, not keep it.”

His eyes darkened. “You think this is easy for me? You think I haven’t been tearing myself apart trying to—”

She raised her hand and he stopped mid-sentence.

“You played with my heart,” she said, voice low and heavy. “You laid in my bed and told me you loved me. Then you left. And now you come into my land like it still belongs to you?”

The air shifted.

Fireflies blinked around her in erratic patterns.

Nathaniel took a step back. “Amelia…”

But it was too late.

The hurt inside her flared—too bright, too wild. It sparked like flint in her blood.

A glow began to rise off her skin, her hair lifting on a breeze that wasn’t there. Her body shimmered like the swamp lights—unearthly, tragic, burning from the inside out.

“I told you not to come,” she whispered again.

Nathaniel stumbled, suddenly disoriented. He looked around like the trees were closing in. The path was gone. The water deepened.

“Amelia?”

The swamp responded, not with words, but with pull. The mist curled, thick and golden, rising from the water like hands. The land had always known her. Now it answered her grief.

Nathaniel tried to move toward her, but his feet sank deeper into the mud.

“Please,” he gasped. “I didn’t mean—”

She screamed.

Not loud, but raw. A sound that cracked the sky open inside her chest.

The light burst from her, sudden and wild.

Nathaniel slipped, hit the water hard. The glow clung to him like fireflies in a storm. He reached for her, eyes wide—

And then the water pulled.

He sank.

She lunged forward too late, hand outstretched.

“Nathaniel!”

Silence.

The ripples calmed.

The birds stopped singing.

The only sound left was the rush of her breath and the glow fading from her skin.

She fell to her knees at the water’s edge, trembling, numb. The swamp watched, impassive. It had only obeyed the wound she carried.

Her light flickered faintly, soft as a candle in mourning.

St. Landry Parish – That Night:

Amelia sat at the water’s edge until the moon climbed high, casting a silver veil over the trees. Her skirt was soaked, feet caked in mud, curls limp with sweat and mist.

She hadn’t moved since the bayou stilled.

The air buzzed faintly, like the magic hadn’t quite settled. A few fireflies still blinked around her, circling close, drawn to the grief that clung to her like perfume.

Her hands trembled in her lap.

She had seen death before.

But never like that.

Never because of her.

Her breath came shallow, uneven. She didn’t cry—not yet. The shock hadn’t cracked enough to let the tears come.

She stared at the place where he went under. No body surfaced. No bubbles rose. Just dark water and memory.

And still, part of her wanted to call his name again. Part of her wanted to believe the swamp might spit him back out—angry, coughing, yelling her name.

But it was over.

He was gone.

And she had done it.

She didn’t walk home. She wandered.

Branches snagged her dress. Mud pulled at her ankles. The night hummed with crickets and frogs, but it felt like the swamp had eyes now—and they were all on her.

By the time she reached the porch, she was shaking.

Inside, she stripped out of her clothes and washed her hands at the kitchen basin. The water ran red-brown with bayou dirt, her reflection warping in the rippling surface.

Her eyes still glowed faintly.

Too bright.

Too much.

She gripped the edge of the sink and finally gasped out a sob.

A single, ugly, sharp noise—ripped from the pit of her.

And then another.

And then she was on the floor, crumpled in front of the basin, the pendant around her neck glowing dim as a dying star. She wept hard, her body folding in on itself like flame snuffed by rain.

“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered to no one. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to.”

But the land didn’t answer.

The swamp didn’t forgive.

And neither did she.

Now, the sweetening jar she’d made for Nathaniel changes. Inside has darkened. Not rotted — but thickened, like it’s carrying something unsaid. The jar sometimes fogs from the inside without temperature change. When Amelia touches it, she swears she hears faint echoes: his voice, or her own.

The rose petal has turned black at the edges. The note remains intact, but the ink bleeds slightly, as if the words are dissolving over time.

Most strange of all:

The jar has begun to warm when she dreams of him.

It hums faintly.

Soft. Sad. Almost like a heartbeat trapped in glass.

She keeps it in a velvet pouch inside her belongings — hidden, but never far. She tried once to bury it. The next morning, it was back on her windowsill, beads of honey at the lid.

Later that night, she sat in her grandmother’s rocker with the red journal in her lap. She didn’t open it. She just held it, like a child might hold a doll for comfort.

She tried to feel her grandmother’s presence.

Tried to imagine her hands, her voice, her touch.

But all she felt was heat under her skin, like embers buried beneath her flesh.

She knew now what her grandmother meant by blessing and burden.

She had the power to enchant, to glow, to stir hearts.

But she could also burn.

And she had.

“I’m not meant to love,” she whispered, “I ruin it.”

The rocker creaked softly as she moved.

A soft breeze stirred the curtains. Somewhere out there, the swamp was reclaiming him.

She thought about the way Nathaniel had looked—confused, afraid, reaching for her even at the end.

She could still feel his hand brushing hers before he sank.

The ache turned cold.

She rose, walked to the hearth, and placed the journal on the mantle.

Then she lit a single white candle. For the dead.

“For you,” she murmured, “For what we had. And what I took.”

She let it burn until dawn.

The glow didn’t vanish overnight.

It took days of practice. Days of sitting still in her grandmother’s old garden with soil between her fingers and her bare feet pressed into the earth. Days of whispering her own name over and over, as if calling herself back from the edge of becoming something too wild, too luminous.

Amelia learned to ground it.

To slow her breathing when her power flared.

To imagine pulling all that radiance back inside her body like coals drawn under ash. Still warm. But hidden.

She drank teas made from moss and wild yam and cooled her pulse with damp cloths of mugwort and fern. She stitched little sachets of lavender and salt and tucked them into her dress pockets, charms to keep her aura muted.

By the seventh day, even the birds that once lingered near her began to treat her like one of their own again. The fireflies stayed at a distance.

She had tamed her light. Or at least caged it.

No one would suspect now—unless they already knew.

The Visit from Celine:

It was near dusk when Amelia heard the sharp crunch of carriage wheels on gravel. A fine-boned white mare stopped at the edge of the path, its reins held by a man in a clean gray suit—hired help.

From the carriage, Celine descended like she was still stepping off the pulpit stairs: spine straight, jaw set, dressed in black satin like mourning suited her even when there was no funeral.

Amelia met her on the porch with calm eyes and clean hands.

“Celine,” she said, voice smooth.

Celine tilted her chin. “I hoped I wouldn’t have to come this far.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I wrote Nathaniel,” Celine said, “He never wrote back. Then I followed his trail. I found your name in the ledger at that hotel on Chartres. I know he came to you.”

Amelia didn’t blink. “He left me too, Celine.”

Celine studied her face like it was scripture, her dark eyes taking in every line, every breath.

“I know he loved you,” Celine said, with the faintest quiver in her voice.

Amelia looked past her, out toward the trees. “And he still went home.”

Silence. Thick as summer heat.

Celine stepped up onto the porch, close enough to smell the rose water in Amelia’s hair. “You’d tell me if you knew where he was?”

Amelia met her eyes. Her voice was steady. “If I knew, I’d tell you.”

It wasn’t a lie. Not really. She had known. Just not anymore.

Celine watched her a moment longer, then relented. Her grief didn’t show on her face, but Amelia could feel it—taut and tight, roiling under the surface.

“Vivienne always said you were too soft,” Celine muttered. “But I see now. You’re just quiet. Not innocent.”

She turned and stepped down. The carriage rolled off with a brittle dignity.

Amelia waited until the wheels were long gone before she sank onto the porch steps and exhaled—deep, full of something that wasn’t quite relief.

She had held her mask. She had passed the test.

But she couldn’t stay.

That night, under a quilt that smelled faintly of dried camphor and cedar, Amelia stared at the ceiling and asked herself where she could go.

Not back to New Orleans.

Not deeper into the parish, where old families remembered her face too well.

She closed her eyes and let her mind drift like smoke—and then, like a warm note rising through memory, she saw her.

Annie.

Older than her by seven years, but never unkind. Strong hands, even as a girl, always tugging Amelia’s hair into ribbons or lifting her up so she could reach the sycamore fruit hanging from the tree.

Annie had laughed easily, talked slow, but watched everything. Her eyes were brown-black like polished stones, always catching glints of what others missed.

Her mother had been a healer, one of Vivienne’s few trusted friends.

Sometimes, when Vivienne left for her rootwork rounds, she’d leave Amelia with Annie. They’d sit on the back porch and Annie would braid herbs into Amelia’s curls, telling her stories about bones that danced and crossroads men who could grant you music in your fingers if you gave them something of your soul.

Annie had smelled like sassafras and moonflower, and even as a teenager, there was something grounding about her — like standing in deep water, cool and slow, but never dangerous.

St. Landry Parish, Louisiana — Summer, 1912

Amelia is 8. Annie is 15.

The colored section of Opelousas was a patchwork of red-dirt roads, shotgun houses, and porches that sang with gossip and music. Heat shimmered off tin roofs, and the air was thick with cayenne and the sound of washboards scraping rhythm into the afternoon. Zydeco spilled from radios and mouths like prayers.

Amelia ran barefoot down the road, curls bouncing, a rusted sardine can swinging from her hand. She was looking for crushed bottle caps to turn into charms. Her grandmother said she had a gift for finding the right ones — the ones that still held stories.

But the neighborhood children didn’t see that as a gift.

They called her strange.

“Swamp girl.”

“Creepy eyes.”

“Glows when she get mad.”

She tried to ignore them. But today, they’d followed her. Threw bits of gravel at her back. One boy grabbed her hair and pulled — hard.

“She ain’t right. She’s like a candle about to catch fire.”

That’s when she heard the voice.

“Let her go, ‘fore I put a root on your whole house.”

The kids froze.

Annie stood at the end of the alley, hands on her hips, skirts dusted with red clay. Fifteen and tall for her age, with smooth brown skin and sharp eyes like she’d seen more than most grown folks ever would.

She marched over, pulled Amelia behind her, and stared the boys down.

“You pick on little girls, you gonna learn what your mama’s belt feel like and what a snake root under your bed’ll do.”

They scattered.

Later that day, Amelia sat on Annie’s porch, knees pulled to her chest while Annie oiled her scalp.

“They call me names,” Amelia whispered.

“People fear what they don’t understand,” Annie said, parting her curls with careful fingers. “But fear ain’t the same as truth.”

Amelia relaxed beneath her touch—the rhythm of the comb, the scent of sweet almond oil, the hum of someone who cared.

Inside, Annie’s mama—Miss Geneva—hummed over a pot of herbs and bones. She didn’t talk much, but she’d given Amelia a long look earlier. A look like she’d seen her before. Not her face. Her light.

Later, Amelia overheard her speaking to Annie in a low voice.

“You watch that one. She’s touched. Not just by spirits…by something older. Something that walks between.”

“You mean like a ghost?”

“No. I mean like the wind that stirs before a storm. Like the glint you see in a fox’s eye right ‘fore it disappears. Girls like her shine too bright, baby. And light like that either draws folks in… or burns ‘em up.”

Annie didn’t understand all of it then.

But she remembered.

And so did Amelia.

Years later, when the memories blurred and the road twisted, Amelia would still remember the feeling of Annie’s hands in her hair. The sound of her defending her. The smell of fried okra drifting through the air.

And most of all—that someone had seen her, even if they didn’t yet know what she was.

Amelia hadn’t seen her in years.

But maybe… maybe she’d still be in Clarksdale.

Still working roots. Still living slow. Still sharp-eyed and warm.

Maybe she’d open the door, if Amelia knocked.

She would go to Mississippi.

To Annie.

To whatever came next.

St. Landry Parish – Two Days Later:

Rain tapped gently at the tin roof. The sky outside was overcast, low and thick like it couldn’t decide whether to cry or break open. Inside, the house was hushed. Amelia sat at the kitchen table, wrapped in one of Vivienne’s shawls, a cup of tea cooling beside her elbow.

Before her lay a blank sheet of paper, cream-colored and faintly textured. It looked too fine for what she was about to confess.

She dipped her pen in ink and began to write.

Dear Annie,

It’s been some years since I last wrote, though I’ve thought of you often.

I hope this letter finds you well, and that Mississippi has been kind to you. I heard, some time ago, that you and your mama had set up shop for healing and rootwork near Clarksdale. If she’s still with you, please send her my love.

I won’t pretend I’m writing with lightness. Things have gone dark for me here. My grandmother passed, and I’ve been adrift ever since. I tried staying with family, but it wasn’t right. Not safe, not for my spirit.

I remember how you used to braid herbs into my hair and tell me stories about the ones who walk the in-between. You always seemed to see more than others did—even then.

I need that now. Someone who sees. Someone who doesn’t turn away.

I was wondering if you might have room for one more. Just for a little while. I can work, clean, help with the healing if you still do that kind of thing. I won’t be a burden. I just need a place to be quiet. A place where I won’t be looked at too closely.

If it’s not too much to ask, write me back or send word to St. Landry Parish. I’ll wait.

With warmth,

Amelia Broussard

She read over the letter once, twice, and folded it carefully. No magic, no charm worked into the ink. Just truth—the parts she was brave enough to share.

She sealed it, wrote ‘Annie Fontaine, Clarksdale, Mississippi’ across the front, and set it near the door for the next post.

As she stood and looked out the window, she saw a single ray of sun slip through the clouds and strike the cypress trees beyond the fence line. The light shimmered briefly—not fae, not power. Just light.

Hope.

Clarksdale, Mississippi – One Week Later:

It was near sundown when Annie came back from tending old Mrs. Rucker’s hip poultice. The wind carried that earthy Delta scent—mud, cotton, honeysuckle—and the porch boards groaned beneath her sandals the way they always had.

Her mother’s old dog, Duma, lifted his head and huffed, tail thumping.

“Don’t get up on my account,” Annie murmured, grinning slightly.

She stooped to pick up the mail off the porch table— mostly circulars, one letter from Jackson, and then—

She paused.

The envelope was cream-colored. Southern Louisiana postmark. Handwritten in ink that curved gently, like someone who’d been taught to write with care.

The name hit her in the gut like memory:

Amelia Broussard.

Annie didn’t sit to read it. She opened it right there in the slanting light, her rough fingers careful, her heart suddenly tapping like a drum.

As she read, her eyes softened—then darkened. She reached the part where Amelia asked for shelter, and something in her throat went tight.

I just need a place to be quiet. A place where I won’t be looked at too closely…

She looked up from the page, the edges of her mouth pulled taut.

“Baby girl,” she whispered, “What’ve ya’ gotten yourself into?”

She folded the letter carefully, pressed it to her chest for a moment, and closed her eyes.

Annie remembered the way Amelia used to hum without knowing it, the strange way cats followed her around the porch like she was dripping cream. She remembered Vivienne’s warning once, years ago: “That child shines too bright. Best hope she learns how to shade herself before someone tries to bottle her up or burn her down.”

Annie didn’t write back.

She just set a bed with fresh sheets, cleared out the back room, and told herself: When she comes, I’ll be ready.

Arrival in Clarksdale

Four Days Later:

Amelia stepped off the train in Clarksdale with a small suitcases and a tired heart. The heat clung to her like breath on skin—Mississippi thick, sun low and orange in the sky.

The town moved slow. Mules in the street, voices floating from storefronts, blues drifting faintly from a porch radio.

She felt exposed, but no one looked too long. She had dulled her light well.

Still, the closer she got to Annie’s house, the more her stomach knotted.

What if Annie didn’t want her anymore? What if she had changed? What if—

Then the door opened.

Annie stood barefoot in the doorway, sleeves rolled up, a smear of flour on her cheek.

She looked at Amelia once, just once, and all the worry in Amelia’s chest crumbled.

“Get on in here,” Annie said, voice low and warm like river silt. “You look like you been run ragged.”

Amelia didn’t speak. Her throat was too full.

She stepped forward and Annie opened her arms without asking. Amelia melted into them like rain into soil. Annie held her close, one hand behind her head, the other stroking her back with long, patient movements.

“You ain’t gotta say a word yet,” Annie murmured. “You’re safe now.”

And Amelia believed her.

In that porch-light dusk, wrapped in the scent of woodsmoke and magnolia, something inside her exhaled.

@blackisy2k @thickeeparker @theereinawrites @angelin-dis-guise @thee-germanpeach @harleycativy @slut4smokemoore09 @readingaddict1290 @blackamericanprincessy @aristasworld @avoidthings @brownsugarcoffy @ziayamikaelson @kindofaintrovert @raysogroovy @overhere94 @joysofmyworld @an-ever-evolving-wanderer @starcrossedxwriter @marley1773 @bombshellbre95 @nybearsworld @brincessbarbie @kholdkill @honggihwa @tianna-blanche @wewantsumheaad @theethighpriestess @nearsightedbaddie @charmedthoughts @beaboutthataction @girlsneedlovingfanfics @cancerianprincess @candelalanegra22 @mrsknowitallll @dashhoney25 @pinkprincessluminary @chefjessypooh @sk1121-blog1 @contentfiend @kaystacks17 @bratzlele @kirayuki22 @bxrbie1 @blackerthings @angryflowerwitch @baddiegiii @syko-jpg @inkdrippeddreams @rolemodelshit

#nahimjustfeelingit-writes #sinnersfanfiction #annie sinners #sinners 2025

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yaut-jaknowit · 5 months ago

Note

Could you do a male reader who's a gardener and often uses a cane to get around due to a disorder where they struggle to walk? And found a injured male Yautja (not picky with who, I love all of those silly bois) and end up taking care of the once injured Yauja. And maybe they fall in love? (Your choice to make it nsfw or not, I'm fine with either,) I really enjoy your writing, and I hope you have a great day/night!!

Stumble To A Fall

Pairings: Uihoy (Male Yautja) x AMAB!Reader

Word Count: 3107

Summary: You have your own little place in the city. A small backyard just big enough for plants and flowers to grow. A little peace of heaven in your backyard. It's beautiful. As the day is coming to an end, you go to your shed to put away your tools... only to find a wounded creature inside.

Author Note: I'm gonna be honest, I was a bit unsure about writing about a disability or disorder. But, I did tweak it a little so I didn't feel like pushing any boundaries. Enjoy!

Masterlist

Ao3

Spring was in full swing. Birds chirped beautiful melodies. Flowers galore bloomed in the flower pots and plots you’ve planted around the house. The street was gloomy besides the recently, newly painted house you live in. A bright smile graced your features as you tended to the tomatoes; pulling any dead flowers off or tomatoes that were either ripe or have grown past their picking date.

A random tune hummed from your vocal cords. You deemed this planet freshened up before carefully picking yourself up with the help of your cane. Two steps to the left. Then, you gingerly lowered yourself down to a knee while the other leg stood straight out. The nerves in it have been shot for a long time since a near fatal car accident when you were young. This is how you lived now.

Once this plant had been thoroughly plucked through, you returned to a standing position and stretched out your back. Multiple joints along your spine popped with the move. A satisfied groan fell from your lips before you turned and strolled over to the shed.

Other items were pulled out. The tools you had currently used were placed back in their respectful spots. You returned back to garden with a hose and some bug killer treats. Anything to kill the stupid slugs trying to consume your cucumbers and pumpkins. You didn’t know why they had such a problem with those!

It irritated you to no end. It’s as if they knew. The little buggers had to know and came in large grooves, trying to kill off your plants one by one. You have been struggling for a while to get a hand on them. From soft deterrents to now what you consider was extreme. Pesticide. It’s not that you wanted to kill the insects, but they were destroying everything in their path. Your precious plants.

The sun was falling in the sky by the time you finished up spraying the pesticide. Next, you began to water any thirsty planets. Any spots you missed along the way, you tidied up and ensured your garden was in tip top shape by the time you made your way back to the shed. The hose was rolled up and hung from its holder next to the shed door. Before ending the day, you closed and locked the shed door. Then, you headed inside to prep dinner.

Songs poured from the old radio sitting on the counter. The oven was firing away at a lovely roast you were cooking up. You hummed along to the beat and set up the dining table with a drink, utensils, and condiments. Other snacks like vegetables were placed on the table as well.

As the last of the items were put on the table, you happened to glance out the window that faced your backyard. You did a double take. The sun had fallen below the horizon and left little light to fill the sky. It was dark enough to notice a trail of bright green splotches to mar your stone pathway. All the way to shed. Its door was slightly cracked open.

You remember locking it.

A hard lump grew in your throat. Your heart began to thunder in your ears, pounding against its bony cage. If someone was trying to steal your tools… The thought broke your heart. All your hard work, months of saving for everything you had. You gritted your teeth and snatched up your cane.

By the front door, you picked up a baseball bat and marched towards the back door. No one was stealing anything of yours. Not if you have anything to say about it.

The door was ripped nearly off its hinges as you raced out into the back yard. One hand gripping the bat while the other rapidly moved your cane to keep up. Pain raced up your bad leg, as if trying to slow you down. Yet, you used it fuel your rage for looters.

“Who the hell is in my shed?!” you shouted at the top of your lungs then reached the shed door. With the bat, you used it to pushed the door open. Then, you held the bat up, ready to wield it on the poor soul who dares to break in.

The lack of light makes you blind everything besides the neon green substance that stained the inside of the area. You squinted and leaned forward, as if that would help you. Then, you saw two bright yellow eyes peering at you from the darkness. Glowing almost as bright as the green stuff.

A gasp tears at your throat. In a panic, you stumble backwards. The heel of your good foot catches on the ledge of a stone brick. With a surprised cry, you land on your butt hard. You hissed and clutched the bat and cane tightly in your hands.

Pain surged up the length of your spine. You squint through the agony to see the eyes growing taller and taller. You make a noise of surprise before trying to scramble away. Only for a large, dark hand to wrap around the ankle of your bad leg. A hiss sounds from lips when that pulled on your damaged nerves.

Fear crawled up the back of your throat as you saw this humanoid figure step out into the full moon light. It’s bright, vibrant eyes pinned on your trembling form. It easily towered over you with a fierce look that filled its gaze. You felt your heart lodge its way into your throat as you could only lay on the stone path, trembling.

Neon green fluid leaked down its powerful frame. Muscles corded its strong body. You pushed down the lump and finally took in a breath.

Both the bat and cane were dropped off to the sides. Its gaze jumped to each item at they fell away from your body. The tension that gripped its entire frame slightly eased away. That didn’t make it move away from you. It continued to stare down at you, sizing you up like a predator would do to its prey.

“U-uh, um… What, what are you?” you sputtered out, unable to look away from it. It captured your entire attention. Nothing could draw you away from its powerful gaze. It looked to be thinking. Was it weighing if it was reasonable to kill you? It looked like it could easily do that.

With the limited light offered to you by the moon, you were finally able to notice the details of its… inhuman features. Mandibles tipped with sharp, white fangs that looked like they could pull your jugular out twitched when you spoke. Four them covered its mouth with more teeth. There was nothing you could do to stop it if it wanted to attack you.

After a long time, you finally realize the green liquid dripping down its body was its blood. Clearly, whatever it was, wasn’t from here. Not from earth.

“You’re injured,” you stated the facts as if it didn’t know of its own situation. One of its upper mandibles twitched. “I have supplies. I can help you.” Does the alien even understand you? You were using a soft voice like you would do to a scared animal. “I don’t mean harm.”

The unknown creature snorted. It was a very human reaction. But it understood you! Possibly. You think.

“Please?”

Its shoulders sagged. The weight of its decision finally rolling off of them. You took it as a sign to unsteadily get back to your feet with the help of your cane. The creature’s bright eyes quickly snapped to the wooden stick in your hand. “It’s not a weapon. I have to have it to walk,” you explained to it and timidly demonstrated its use to the creature.

Once it deems you safe enough to continue, you slowly lead it into the safety of your dwelling. It pauses at the entrance, eyes dancing this way and that before stepping in. A very cautious being, you internally noted.

Despite its large feet, it stepped behind you on the hardwood floor was silent. If it wasn’t for the fact that you knew it was there, you wouldn’t have known at all. Not even its heavy presence that seemed to consume the entire space of your house.

You lead it to the bathroom where a first aid kit was stowed underneath the cabinet. Its broad form takes up the entire doorway behind you as you placed the kit on the counter. A quick look from the corner of your eye has you darting your gaze back to the box. “Uh… you can have a set. On the tub edge.”

Now with light, you see its skin wasn’t skin. Scales. Lizard scales, soft by the looks of them. Said scales were a dull purple. Hints of moss green covered the sides of its body and the outer sides of its arms. Thick, grey tresses hung from its dome shaped head. The thing was powerful looking, terrifying in the least. And, you had now let it into your home.

Another snort escapes its inhuman mouth. It grabs the kit straight from your hands and walks back through the house, taking the same path. You scrambled to follow after it once getting over your shock.

“Where are you going?!” you asked in hurry as the figure stalked back through your house and into back yard once more. Your cane wobbled in your grip as you scrambled to keep up. Was it just going to take the kit and scurry off? You… you wanted to make sure it didn’t die at the very least. Nothing deserved to die.

It continued to move through your small back yard. Black, inky darkness washed over its broad frame. The shed became its new home. You stood there, panting slight as you watch it close the door in your door.

Stunned, you gingerly turned around and moped back to the kitchen, confused about this whole situation. The roast was pulled from the oven pipping hot. The smell filled the small space and brought your spirit back up. As you plated some food, you couldn’t help but think back to what just happened. Did it just happen? Or did you just imagine it?

Another plate was filled with some roast, bread, and vegetables. You carried it out to the shed and lightly knocked on the door. All you could hear was the soft rustling inside.

“Hey… um, I brought you some food if you’re hungry?” A few seconds of silence passed. With a sigh, you set down the plate before the door before returning to the kitchen. Maybe in the morning you’ll find out if you’re crazy or not. You gazed out of the kitchen window and saw the plate still there. A slight ache pained your heart. You had hoped maybe it had grabbed it.

You sat down at the dinner table and had your meal. Your phone set off to the side as you scrolled randomly through social media. It wasn’t long before you finished up and returned to the kitchen. You began to clean up the meal and randomly glanced out the window.

A small smile broke across your features. The plate had disappeared from in front of the shed door.

This had become a daily occurrence.

Everyday, when you were home, you would make a second plate. A jug of water set out with the food. When he would finish off the jug, he’d set the jug out with an empty plate. You go out to pick lunch’s plate and set down dinner and a new, fresh water for him. A simple two knock on the shed door to let him know it was ready for him.

As you turned your back towards the shed, a familiar creak behind you made you pause mid step. All of your muscles froze. You didn’t dare to turn around and face him. That may scare him off, back into the darkness of the shed. A lump grew in your throat as you just stood there, waiting for him to retreat back into the safety of his new home. But, the door doesn’t close afterwards. Not in a timely manner. You timidly turned around with the help of your cane and see a wall of muscles standing there. You had to close off your throat to stop a yelp from sounding from you.

Purple scales covered the alien from head to toe. You couldn’t help but let your gaze roam over his form. “Uh… hi, um. W-what can you do for you?” you asked him in a quiet voice and kept your gaze anywhere besides his eyes. You could feel them piercing your skin.

A deep grumble came from his chest. A chest so close that you felt the vibrations without touching him. “Look… up,” he orders and demands your attention. Your muscles tensed up at his words. The lump in your throat was forced down before you tilted your head up. Slowly, you met his intense gaze and felt like a deer in headlights. Standing before a creature that had the chance to kill you. Easily.

“Shower. Bathe.” Oh! You perked up and dipped your head.

“That’s what you wanted?” From this position, you weren’t able to see his injuries. White gauze covered where he must be hurt though. It had been a week since he first showed up. “Yeah, just-just follow me.” You carefully turned around with your cane and slowly made your way back into the house. The purple alien followed after you like a shadow.

Through the halls of your small home, you lead him to the only bathroom. Each doorway he had to go through, the beast had to duck to fit. The height difference only becoming more apparent with him so close. You stopped in front of the bathroom door and motioned towards it. “Well, here you go. I probably don’t have any clothes that fit you unfortunately.”

None of your clothing will be able to fit his size. He gazed down at you then glanced towards the bathroom. “No issue.” Then, he moves around you and into the bathroom, ducking down. The door closes behind him. You stand there while looking at the door for a few seconds, gathering you feeling about this whole situation. Then, you decided to head to the living room and wait for him. Just encase he may need something from you.

The T.V played something random as you watched a show. You weren’t even paying much attention to it. You had become too drawn into your own thoughts. All revolving around the alien who was currently taking a shower… in your apartment. What has your life become? That reminds you, you don’t know his name.

Where did he come from? How far away from home is he? What’s his life like? Oh, god. What had hurt him? That’s a question that you needed to ask him. What in the world could hurt a beast like him? Was there another creature like him out there? Here on earth with him. Why did they attack each other?

And would they come back?

It wasn’t the click of a door or the footsteps that alerted you to someone approaching you. A figure stood in front of the T.V. The sight finally drawing you out of your thoughts. You refocused your vision on the purple form standing before you. Only to slap a hand over your face with a loud gasp.

“You’re naked!” you screeched and kept your hand over your eyes. The soft footfalls of the creature announced he grew closer. Heat flushed to your cheeks. Yeah, you didn’t have any clothes for him but… you weren’t expecting him to coming out naked. At least a towel until you could wash his clothes or something!

“Yes,” is his simple answer. Though, he did seem to struggle with English though. “What the problem?” There was clearly a difference between the two cultures at that. You timidly lowered your hand and glanced at him. Your eyes flickering back to the ground and him a few times. Seeing things you… weren’t expecting.

One being the fact there wasn’t anything between his legs. Your eyes snapped back to him only realize how insensitive that was and looked back to the ground. “Humans… humans don’t walk around naked. It’s seen as-it’s just bad.” You didn’t know how to explain it to him. It’s just is. You were raised to see nakedness outside of intimacy as wrong. Clearly, his kind didn’t have that.

All you got in return was a grunt.

You cleared your throat and found his stunning, yellow eyes. “I’ve been meaning to ask: what’s your name?” After a week, you feel like you should know it by now. If he’ll let you.

His piercing gaze studied you thoroughly. It felt like he was looking directly into your soul, trying to figure out if you deserved to know. He must have found what he was looking for.

“Uihoy.” The first thought was how alien it was. It wasn’t a name that would easily roll off your tongue. You tilted your head to the side, brow furrowed. One his upper mandibles quirked up into a human-like smirk. He read the look on your face like an open book.

“I will… learn how to say that,” you told him. “As for clothing, why don’t you give me the dirty ones and I can clean them for you.” A minute pause as your eyes scanned over him. “So, you’re not naked anymore. For the time being, do you mind wearing a towel? I feel rude each time I accidently glance at you.” After the third time, you don’t know if you could call it an accident then. You realize your actions and flushed deeply afterwards.

In an instant, you got off of the couch and slipped past him. “Don’t worry! I’ll just grab them myself.” He lets you go without much of a complaint and watches you though. Uihoy takes a seat on the couch you once sat at, arms spread out across the back of the couch. You were quick to grab the brown shorts he had been wearing and scrambled to the laundry room.

Once in the safety of the room, you leaned against the washing machine and placed a hand over your mouth. What is wrong with you?! With a few deep breaths, you threw the piece of cloth in the washing machine and started it. One last calming breath. You left the laundry room. You couldn’t hide in here forever.

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