The cabin felt too quiet.
It wasn't the usual peaceful kind of quiet that Stiles had grown used to during the long training months with Ronan. No distant wind stirring the branches, no soft creaking of old wooden beams settling for the night. Instead, the silence hung like something waiting — stretched thin, alert, uneasy.
Stiles sat at the wooden table that doubled as both a training desk and their meal spot, a half-sharpened pencil twirling between his fingers. He'd been trying to keep himself busy by sketching details of their investigation, outlining tracks, mapping distances between the sites Ronan had shown him earlier that afternoon. But every few seconds his eyes drifted toward the door, listening for footsteps he couldn't hear.
Ronan had told him to stay inside the cabin while he finished the hunt.He'd said it in a steady, calm voice, but the shadows in his eyes had said something else — something older, heavier.
Stiles hated waiting like this.
His brain, still only eleven, but wired with the instincts and memories of someone older, bounced between focus and anxiety, between curiosity and the echoing worry he always tried to hide. And now, with Ronan gone for hours, worry had definitely won.
He finally dropped the pencil and pushed back from the table. The fireplace crackled softly, a small line of orange glow washing the walls. It was warm inside, but the woods outside were freezing. Stiles could feel the cold pressing against the windows like a reminder that the world outside wasn't safe — not for kids, not for regular people, not for anyone who didn't know how to prepare.
His heartbeat picked up at the faint crunch of snow outside.
Footsteps.
He held his breath.
Not slow. Not dragging.Purposeful.
Stiles stood up straight, just like Ronan had trained him: feet balanced, breath steady, mind focused. The door handle turned, and the door pushed open with a cold burst of mountain air.
Ronan stepped inside.
And Stiles exhaled so quietly he barely heard himself.
The older man wasn't injured — at least not visibly — but he looked worn. Snow clung to his coat, and his expression carried the quiet weight of someone who had been staring into the woods for too long. He shut the door behind him and brushed snow from his shoulders.
"You stayed awake," Ronan said, his voice low, almost warm.
"Like I was going to sleep," Stiles muttered, crossing his arms. "You were gone for four hours. Four. And you told me thirty minutes, maybe forty-five." He tried to sound annoyed, but the concern slipped through anyway.
Ronan offered a tired half-smile. "Time stretches differently when you're on a trail."
"Yeah, well… I noticed."
Ronan took off his gloves and set them near the fire to dry. Stiles caught every motion — the small stiffness in his shoulders, the controlled way he exhaled, the slight shaking in his fingertips that faded quickly, almost too quickly, like Ronan forced it away.
Something about the hunt had pushed him. Stiles could tell.
He approached cautiously. "So… it's done?"
Ronan nodded. "Yes."
Stiles didn't ask how. Ronan had never let him witness a kill, and Stiles respected that. He didn't feel ready — not for that. Not mentally, not emotionally. A part of him wondered if he ever would be.
"What was it?" Stiles finally asked, pulling out his notebook automatically, pencil ready.
Ronan leaned against the counter, running a hand through his hair. "Wendigo."
Stiles blinked. "A Wendigo? As in—"
"The one from the stories?" Ronan finished for him. "Sort of. The folklore exaggerates some things and ignores others, but the core idea is the same."
Stiles paused, letting the word settle in the room like a new piece of reality.
He'd heard the word before, in passing conversations from online forums, whispered legends in the supernatural spaces he used to read about in his old world. But hearing it here — in a world where supernatural creatures really existed — made it feel sharper, colder.
"What did it look like?" Stiles asked, but then quickly added, "Not… in a graphic way. Just… describe it how you can."
Ronan nodded thoughtfully. "Think of someone starving. Not just hungry — starved in a way the body shouldn't allow. Thin. Too thin. Movements that don't match human rhythm anymore. A voice that sounds like it remembers being human but can't quite imitate it."
Stiles shivered slightly. Not from fear exactly — more from the weight of what Ronan was describing. He imagined someone twisted by desperation, by hunger that had turned into something else entirely.
"How did it happen?" he asked quietly. "I mean—how did it become that?"
Ronan took a slow breath. "That part the legends get right. A Wendigo starts as a human who gives in to a very dark instinct. A moment of extreme hunger, fear, or desperation — and a terrible choice made during that moment. After that… the change takes hold. Their body tries to sustain itself in ways it shouldn't. Their mind cracks under the strain."
Stiles wrote quickly, scribbling notes across two pages.
"But here's the part the stories don't capture," Ronan added. "They're not mindless. They're… fragmented. A piece of the original person remains, buried deep. Sometimes it tries to fight through the hunger. Sometimes it doesn't."
That hit Stiles harder than he expected.
"So the person inside…" Stiles whispered.
"Is still human," Ronan said softly. "In the smallest, faintest way. Enough to make it tragic. Not enough to make it safe."
Stiles paused his writing. "Did it… know you were there?"
Ronan nodded. "Yes. It tried to hide. That's why the hunt took longer than expected. Wendigos are fast when they want to be, but they're even better at slipping into a place where you almost forget they're there."
Stiles swallowed. "Were you ever in danger?"
"No," Ronan answered confidently — but behind the calm tone, Stiles heard the truth: yes, but controlled danger. Ronan wouldn't tell him outright because he didn't want to scare him.
But Stiles noticed anyway.
The subtle tension in Ronan's shoulders.The careful way he breathed out, slow and deliberate, like grounding himself.
Stiles closed his notebook and sat across from him at the table. "Ronan?"
"Mhm?"
"Does it ever get easier? Hunting things like that?"
Ronan studied him for a moment, eyes warm even in his exhaustion. "The fear gets easier. But the responsibility never does." He tapped lightly on Stiles's notebook. "That's why we train. Not to be fearless — but to control the fear so it doesn't control you."
Stiles absorbed that quietly.
It made sense.It fit with everything Ronan had taught him these past two years — discipline, observation, preparation, awareness, restraint. Nothing about the training was meant to make Stiles reckless. It was meant to make him steady.
"Did it suffer?" Stiles asked suddenly before he could stop himself.
Ronan didn't look surprised by the question. He answered the way he always answered Stiles when something mattered: gently, honestly, without hiding the truth but without making it too heavy.
"It wasn't in pain at the end," Ronan said. "And it's better this way. For it, and for anyone who might have crossed paths with it."
Stiles nodded slowly, eyes dropping to his notebook again.
He didn't write anything this time.
He just stared, feeling the mix of sadness and responsibility twist inside him. He wasn't scared of the Wendigo itself — not exactly. He was scared of what these creatures meant for the world. For people like his dad. For Scott. For everyone who had no idea monsters like this existed.
"You did well today," Ronan said, breaking the silence.
Stiles blinked up. "I didn't do anything."
"That's not true." Ronan lowered into the chair across from him. "You read the environment accurately. You spotted the inconsistencies before I pointed them out. You mapped out the trails with more precision than many grown hunters. You stayed aware while waiting here. And you didn't let your imagination control you while I was gone."
Stiles looked away, embarrassed but a little proud.
Ronan leaned forward. "You're growing, Stiles. Faster than I expected. You're becoming someone who can handle this world — someone who can protect others."
That warmth in Ronan's voice balanced the dark heaviness of the night outside. Stiles felt the tension in his chest slowly ease, replaced by a stronger determination than before.
"Thanks," he whispered.
Ronan stood and stretched slightly. "Get some rest. Tomorrow, we'll go over the rest of the creature's behavior. Not just what it is, but how it thinks."
Stiles perked up. "You mean—psychology?"
"A kind of psychology," Ronan confirmed. "The patterns of how creatures act when they've lost their humanity tell us a lot about how to track them. And how to avoid unnecessary harm."
Stiles grabbed his notebook again, already excited. "I want to learn all of that."
"And you will," Ronan said. "But not tonight." He started toward the small storage room off the cabin. "Sleep. You'll need it."
Stiles smiled despite the long day. "Goodnight, Ronan."
Ronan paused at the doorway, looked back, and gave a rare, genuine smile. "Goodnight, kid."
∘ ∘ ∘
Stiles cleaned up the table, closed his notebook, and finally lay in bed. The fire still burned, casting soft light across the cabin walls. Outside, the wind moved again, rustling through the branches. Not haunting this time — just natural. Familiar.
The woods felt safe again.
And for the first time since sunset, Stiles let his eyes drift shut — comforted by knowing Ronan was back, by knowing he was learning, preparing, becoming someone who could one day stand beside Scott and protect the people he loved.
Somewhere in the dark, a part of him whispered:
One day, I'll be ready.
He believed it.
And he slept.