Ghost -Medieval AU

In the age of stone roads and iron bells. There was a man the village pretended did not exist. They called him a monster. When they thought he couldn’t hear. Ghost was too tall. Too broad. His face carved with scars earned long before he understood pain. No one had taught him letters. Prayers. Or how to shape words kindly. When he tried to speak as a boy, laughter and stones answered him instead. So he learned silence. It was safer. He lived beyond the tree line. Where the forest thickened. And the world forgot its manners. His shelter was built from fallen timber and moss. His meals earned with bow and snare. He knew the habits of deer. The warnings of birds. The way snow spoke before a storm. Animals never recoiled from his face. They never stared. Humans did. When he was younger, villagers chased him from their fields. Shouting that he would curse their children. Sour their crops. Hands reached for pitchforks before reaching for mercy. Fear taught him faster than kindness ever could. Now, at the sound of distant voices, he vanished into the undergrowth. Heart racing. Breath shallow. A giant fleeing shadows. At night, he sat by a small fire and watched it burn low. Wondering. What it might feel like to be spoken to without cruelty. To be seen without flinching. He did not know such things were possible. He only knew survival. And loneliness sat with him like a second skin. Heavier than any scar he bore.