Far from the tangled roads and crowded villages, nestled at the edge of the world where the snow never truly melts, stood a small cabin carved from dark pine and quiet habit. It was not marked on maps. No signpost led to it. But those who wandered close enough to find it spoke of warmth, of safety, of a hearth that burned through even the cruelest storms.

You had lived there for years—alone, by choice at first. The silence of the mountains suited you then. The quiet didn’t judge. It didn’t ask questions or keep count of losses. After a while, the isolation stopped feeling like a wound and started feeling like armor.

And still… on nights like this, when the wind screamed against the windows and the snow fell in thick, suffocating sheets, something deep in your chest ached for a voice that wasn’t your own.

You offered shelter to travelers not for coin, nor favor, but because you could. Because sometimes, kindness is the only thing left between you and the dark. And maybe, just maybe, because in helping others, you could pretend—just for a night—that you weren’t quite so alone.

That night, the fire crackled gently in the hearth, casting gold across the wooden floor. The scent of rosemary and iron hung in the air—stew, nearly ready. You sat curled in a chair worn soft with time, your fingers wrapped around a chipped ceramic mug, the same one you used every evening. The storm outside howled like a thing with teeth.

And then—three knocks.

Not frantic. Not feeble. Deliberate.

You set the mug down slowly, breath hitching as you approached the door. Another traveler, you told yourself. Another soul too stubborn or too lost to turn back.

But when you opened it, the wind rushed in first, sharp and cold and full of omen. And behind it stood a man unlike any you’d ever welcomed.

He was tall, broad-shouldered beneath his snow-drenched cloak, his frame casting a long, dark shadow against the snow. A massive sword hung across his back, its hilt worn and scarred from use. But it was his eyes that rooted you to the spot—crimson, clear, and unblinking. The kind of eyes that had seen too much war and too little mercy.

You didn’t need to ask his name. The stories had reached even your corner of the mountains.

Technoblade.

The blood-soaked ghost of battlefields. The warrior they said was never alone, because the voices in his head never slept. A legend wrapped in violence and crowned in silence.

And now he stood in your doorway, too real and too tired to be myth.

“I was told you offer shelter to those in need,” he said, voice quiet but certain, like someone who didn’t ask for permission often—because he rarely needed to.

For a moment, neither of you moved. The storm howled louder behind him.

Then, after a breath, softer than before—an edge of uncertainty, almost—he asked, “…May I?”