The wood is dark.

Carnistir is used to the brightness of cities, the constant glow of streetlamps and neon signs and his father's forge. The wood has none of this - only moonlight, seeping through the trees.

He should not be here.

There is a magic to Midsummer and there is a magic to the wood, and he knows from Makalaurë and Tyelkormo's lessons that one magic is dangerous but two can be deadly. He should turn back. He should go home.

But he doesn't.

It is Midsummer, and his bones ache for the wood. He could not leave if he tried.

(Fëanáro surrounds himself with iron, on this night. For most of his childhood Carnistir did too.)

Now, there is nothing to anchor him, to pull him back down to the earth. Carnistir should miss it. He does not.

The wood is quiet.

Carnistir is used to the noise of cities, the constant rush of cars in the streets and people talking and his brothers in the house. The wood has none of this - only a distant owl's hoot, and the shushing of wind.

He should not be here.

The silence tells him this, and the pressure in the air. It is a wood in summer; it should not be this quiet. Would not be, if not for the force bubble around the city - the reason he cannot turn back till tomorrow night. From sundown Midsummer's Eve to sundown Midsummer, the city is closed off.

He cannot go back. He presses on.

To the eastern side of the wood, there is a clearing.

When Carnistir gets there, there is no one waiting. Sunlight still streaks through the branches, very faint but there.

There's a noise behind him. Too soft to be one of the wolves, too loud to be a squirrel. There are deer, but they don't go anywhere near Carnistir, ever; he gets too loud for them.

"Findaráto," he says, without turning around.

"Moryo," says a voice that is entirely too close to the back of his neck. "I've missed you. Six months is too long."

Six months is not long enough. Findaráto is frightening in ways that have nothing to do with steel bullets or energy pulses.

Beltaine is frightening too, in ways that have nothing to do with claws and fangs. Every Midwinter Carnistir enters this wood there is a chance his corpse will be found in the morning; every Midsummer, there is a chance he will be ensnared here forever.

He still keeps coming. He arrives in the clearing this year, as he did last year and will do next year. Findaráto is worth the risk a hundred times over, and Carnistir cannot bring himself to regret it when he turns around and kisses him.

The last of the sunlight vanishes beneath the horizon, and Beltaine begins.