He tells her to write. That she needs it. That it is essential to who she is. That she’s a creator, an artist, a writer.

I used to be, is her first thought, looking at him with wide eyes.

I used to be a lot of things, once.

Every time she taps into that part of herself now it scares her. A monster lurks in the shadows of her imagination where she used to dive deep into worlds she dreamed up. Worlds that were once filled with light and laughter, magic and wonder.

But now. Now, there is a deep darkness, and when she opens the door it spills out, thick and dark like ink-blood.

Who wants to read stories like that? She thinks to herself. Who wants a heroine who has already been through hell?

She says this to him. Her own sunny haired warrior with work-rough hands who has endless faith in her. He’s seen her scars. They don’t bother him. He thinks they’re beautiful, admirable, breathtaking.

“Let it out,” he says of the darkness that scares her, the words that cut with pain, and characters that bite with their realness, “don’t be afraid of it.”

But she is.

Still, she begins to write.

Her name is Osa. She is fierce cold, quiet ferocity, like the biting winter air that humbles even the strongest of men. Her story begins after a war. Coated in dirt, and blood, searching for someone, somewhere safe without hope of ever finding one . . .

Who wants to read a story that has no hope? But here, she stops herself.

There was hope.

It was enough to live for. And maybe that’s exactly where she’ll start.

Even a sliver of hope gives stone cold hearts life-blood.

It holds broken things together, keeps them from shattering by the barest of threads.

Where hope blooms, there is life, a future.

Or in this case, a story.