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Alma watches them.
The Hunter moves like a shifting tide—silent, inevitable, pulling away before anyone can catch them. She’s seen it so many times now: the way they step through the camp like a ghost, hands wrapped in the bloodied remains of their last hunt, muscles still taut from the fight. They don't flinch when they press cloth to their wounds. They don't speak unless spoken to. And even then, their words are as measured as their movements—just enough, never more.
Everyone admires them. They whisper about their feats, spin stories around the fire about how they wrestled a beast thrice their size, how they emerged from a storm when no one thought they would. The legend of them grows taller than the real thing, and Alma wonders if that’s how it’s meant to be. If they’re meant to exist in the realm of myth, untouchable and distant, even when standing right beside her.
But she sees more.
She sees the way their hands shake when they think no one’s looking, the way they linger near their tent longer than necessary, as if searching for something that’s no longer there. She sees how they watch the others—hunters with their handlers, laughing, fighting, existing together in a way the Hunter never does. She watches them turn away before anyone can invite them in.
Alma knows better than to get too close. She’s a researcher, an observer. Her job is to catalog, to understand, but not to interfere. And yet, she feels it like a bruise beneath her ribs—the quiet, unrelenting want to reach out. To be more than just another voice in the crowd, another nameless page in their story. But they don't see her that way. She doubts they see her at all.
It’s not their fault. Love, if they’ve ever felt it, must be something instinctive, primal—like the way they leap into battle without hesitation, like the way they protect without words. If they ever loved her, she thinks, it wouldn’t be soft. It wouldn’t be warm. It would be a storm, a wildfire, a thing that devours until there’s nothing left.
And Alma? She was never meant to burn.
So she watches from a distance. Catalogs them in notebooks and quiet glances. Writes their name in her margins and never says it out loud.
And when they leave for the next hunt, she doesn’t say goodbye.
Time passes. The seasons of the Forbidden Lands shift, the research and hunts continue, and Alma remains—watching, waiting, aching in silence.
She is closer to them now than before, but it changes nothing. They return from their battles worn and weary, dropping into the nearest seat like their body no longer belongs to them, and Alma wants to reach out. Wants to pull them close, let them rest against her heartbeat, let them be something soft for once. But she doesn’t. She never does.
Instead, she hands them a waterskin. A meal. A small, simple offering, and they accept it with a quiet nod, a thanks murmured in that low, measured voice.
It’s nothing special. They would accept it from anyone. But still, Alma holds onto it, memorizes the way their fingers brush against hers for the briefest second, the way they sigh—not for her, not because of her, but simply because they are tired, and she happened to be here.
They care for her, she thinks. In the way they care for the expedition, for the scholars, for the beasts they hunt and the world they protect. It is careful and distant, the same way they care for all things. Never more.
She dreams, sometimes, of them turning toward her instead of away. Of them speaking her name the way one does something cherished, something kept. But the dawn always comes, and with it, the quiet understanding that some things are never meant to be held.
And so, she lets them go. Over and over again. Until the ache in her chest is just another part of her, another unspoken thing left behind in the spaces between them.
Alma doesn’t mean to stare.
She really doesn’t.
But it happens anyway, the way the tide meets the shore—inevitable, unstoppable. The way her gaze lingers on them, drawn like a moth to the flickering light of a torch, knowing full well the danger of getting too close.
The Hunter sits across the fire, head bowed slightly as they run a whetstone along the edge of their blade. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about the moment. Nothing that should make her heart seize in her chest, or her breath catch like she’s been winded. And yet, it does. Because it’s them. Because she sees something in the way their fingers move with careful precision, the way the glow of the flames catches in the golden strands of their hair, the way their lips part ever so slightly in quiet concentration.
It’s maddening.
And yet, she can’t stop.
She has spent a lifetime cataloging creatures, memorizing their habits, understanding the unspoken language of the wild. And yet, she will never understand this. The way her pulse trips over itself when they so much as glance in her direction. The way their voice settles into her bones, warm and steady, even when they’re just speaking about the next hunt. The way her chest aches with something unbearable, something impossible.
The fire crackles, and the Hunter shifts, adjusting their grip on the weapon. Their eyes flicker up , just for a second, scanning the camp, unaware that Alma is frozen in place, trapped in the moment like a beast caught in a snare.
She should look away. She should. But gods, it is so easy to imagine—
A different world. A different life. One where things were simpler, where duty and expectation weren’t stone walls pressing in on her from every side. Where she could allow herself to want.
But that isn’t this life.
Her throat tightens. She forces herself to turn her head, to focus on something, anything else before her thoughts betray her further. The stars, the worn leather of her journal, the distant hoot of a nocturnal monster. Anything but them.
It doesn’t matter.
It can’t matter.
Because this isn’t a world where things like this end happily. Because the moment she lets herself dream, lets herself believe —that’s the moment the wild comes to collect, sharp-fanged and merciless.
So she lets the moment pass.
Lets it drift into the air like embers from the fire, carried away by the wind, fading before they ever have the chance to burn.
The days blur together until Alma can no longer remember a time when her heart didn't ache for them. When her pulse didn't quicken at their approach. When her dreams weren't haunted by phantom touches that fade with the morning light.
It happens on a day like any other—the kind of day that shouldn't matter, that shouldn't become a memory etched into her soul. The camp is quiet, most hunters gone, the air heavy with approaching rain. Alma sits alone, sketching a new species of flora she'd discovered near the eastern ridge. The Hunter appears like they always do—silently, a shadow slipping into existence.
They're wounded. Not badly, but enough that Alma's breath catches. A gash across their forearm, hastily bandaged, blood seeping through the cloth.
"You should have that looked at," she says, the words out before she can stop them.
They glance down, as if just noticing the injury. "I had a potion already."
"I can help." She's already setting aside her work, reaching for her pack where she keeps supplies. When they don't object, she gestures to the spot beside her.
And they sit.
Close enough that she can smell the forest on them—pine and earth and something uniquely theirs. Close enough that if she wanted—if she dared—she could count their eyelashes, trace the scar that cuts across their jaw, brush away the strand of hair that falls across their forehead.
She doesn't.
Instead, she unwraps the makeshift bandage, cleans the wound with steady hands that betray nothing of the storm inside her. The silence between them feels different somehow. Less empty. More like the quiet that comes before words that matter.
"You've been watching me," they say suddenly, their voice low, unexpectedly gentle.
Alma's hands still. Heat rises to her cheeks, but she doesn't deny it. "I observe. It's what I do."
"No." Their eyes find hers, and there's something in them she's never seen before—something warm, something almost like vulnerability. "It's different. The way you watch."
The air between them changes, becomes charged with unspoken things.
"I..." She searches for words and finds none.
"I watch you too," they admit softly, and her heart nearly stops. "When you think I don't see. When you're lost in your notes, or speaking with the others, or just... existing."
Alma swallows hard. "Why?"
They look down at her hands, still pressed against their skin. Slowly, deliberately, they cover her fingers with their own. The touch is feather-light, tentative, as if they're as afraid of this as she is.
"Because you see me," they say quietly. "Not the person who slays monsters, or—” the Hunter cut themselves off, before continuing with a sigh. “You see me for who I am.”
A call sounds from across the camp. Another exhibition member, summoning them. A quest, maybe? It could have been about that Xu Wu that had been going rogue earlier. Either way, it didn’t matter.
They don't move immediately, eyes still locked with hers.
"I have to go," they say finally, reluctantly.
Alma nods, unable to speak past the hope blooming in her chest.
They stand, but before they leave, they reach down and brush a strand of hair from her face—a gesture so gentle, so unlike their battle-honed precision, that Alma nearly forgets to breathe.
"When I return," they say, "we’ll talk more." words carrying the weight of a promise.
And then they're gone, moving toward the call of duty that has always defined them. But this time, as Alma watches them leave, something has changed. This time, there's a knowledge that settles into her bones, sweet and terrifying: they see her too.
That night, she writes in her journal not as a researcher cataloging a subject, but as a woman documenting the first moment of something new. Something possible. Something that might, with time and care, become more than just watching from afar.
She doesn't know what will happen when they return. Doesn't know if either of them truly knows how to bridge the distance—the silence built between them. But for the first time, there is a path forward—faint and uncertain, but it’s there.
And for now, that is enough.