Children of the Water (Yandere M. x F. Reader)

Abandoned Shadows

A/N: As usual, I would recommend putting the video on loop.

Traveling down the hallway, she trusted Tarhuinn to guide them through the house since at this point it was pitch black in the place. She knew that he would stop if he saw anything odd lying about. As they made their way down and took a left turn, he told her to step a little to her right to avoid some stones on the ground. After she had passed them, he increased his pace a little. They took a right turn next, and he stopped. "I'm going to let go of your hand for a moment, (f/n). Just remain where you are."

Reluctantly, she allowed him to pull his hand away. She intertwined her own fingers together before she fiddled with the fabric of her cloak. "What are you doing?" she asked to hear his voice. The surrounding darkness kept her imagination on high, so knowing that he was still there would help.

"I'm going to try to light the fireplace in here. We can then light the lanterns using this. It might take awhile, but I'm sure that no one will mind us spending the day and possibly the evening in here." He grabbed the firesteel and chert, and the fire was soon lit. Placing the items down, he stood up and glanced over the kitchen.

(F/n) was just happy that she could see in the place. "Tarhuinn, how could a kelremm house become abandoned? Your population seems to be quite stable according to you. And, there doesn't seem to be conflict between the three complexes. And, I haven't seen anyone who looks ill."

"Illness does strike us occasionally, but we have tougher bodies than humans. If a human partner takes ill, it becomes a community matter, and the complex works to form a cure. The same happens if a kelremm falls ill, but again that rarely happens. So, I doubt that was the reason for this abandoned house. Perhaps, it was built to be specifically abandoned so that the authors would have a secret way out."

"Then, why furnish it? There's still pots and pans in here. Along with a ready supply of wood. In fact, who would keep bringing the wood in?"

"It might just be an elaborate illusion to make it seem like it was abandoned. We could go back out and ask one of the wood traders. It might just be that they supply wood to this house since the other trader mentioned that almost everyone has explored this place."

"That's something that I've been wondering. How is wood supplied to the complexes? Your ceilings aren't high enough for pine trees, yet there seems no way to go outside except for that water passage you used to take me to our home."

"Kelremm used to have to bring in cut-up trees from outside the mountain, but that was rather risky due to unwanted humans possibly spotting us. So over the years, we developed a new kind of tree. We took the shortest of the trees and bred them together. Eventually, we were successful in getting a tree to be a little over my height. This allows the trees to be grown in kelremm homes."

"That must have taken years, though."

"According to history it took many generations of kelremm, but the amount of years still seems to fall short. Some have just stated that we always had the trees in the mountains and that the history is a fabled myth. Others have mentioned that magic may be at work, but a mage has never crossed paths with our kind. Or if they have, there have been no records of it."