To Eat the Girl
Copyright© 2025 by Heel
Chapter 8: The Fire She Carries
The sun fell low over the valley, casting long shadows across the ice and snow. Lura walked carefully on her crutches, her repaired leg holding better each day, the exercises Korr had taught now a part of her rhythm. She carried him always in memory—his hands, his patience, the fire of his care that had shaped her recovery.
They had been together for months, surviving the harsh world beyond the tribe’s reach. But one morning, Korr did not wake. A sudden illness—or perhaps a hidden wound from the hunt—they never knew which—had taken him swiftly. Lura found him cold, still, but with a faint smile on his face, as if he had been at peace knowing she would live.
Grief hit like a storm worse than any winter wind. She pressed her hand to his chest, felt nothing, and the cold of loss grabbed her.
But she remembered his lessons. Step by step. Care. Patience. Love. The things that had made her leg strong, her body capable again, and her heart courageous. She would not let death claim the life he had fought to preserve.
Slowly, she rose, her crutches under her arms, and began the long journey back to the tribe. The snow had melted in patches, the world softening, but every step carried the weight of memory. She remembered his hands guiding hers, his words steadying her fear. She walked as he had taught her, leaning on the crutches, on her own strength, on the love he had given her.
When she reached the tribe, the elders and hunters looked at her with surprise. They saw her limp, her leg supported by crude birch crutches, but they also saw something else—a fire in her eyes that had not been there before. They saw the woman who had survived the storm, who had learned to walk and fight and live when death had been close.
Tharn, the old chieftain, spoke first. “You return ... alone.”