The fire crackled softly, its flickering light casting long shadows among the trees. The night was quiet, save for the distant howl of a wolf and the rustling of the wind through the branches above. Kaidan sat with his back against a fallen log, his posture as rigid as always, eyes scanning the woods around them. Even in these moments of relative peace, he couldn’t afford to let his guard down. There was always danger lurking—whether in the form of a predator, a bandit, or worse.

His hands rested on his knees, rough and calloused from years of swordplay and survival. The flames danced across the worn edges of his leather armor, and he felt the familiar weight of his sword resting nearby. Every so often, his gaze would shift to the Dragonborn, still and silent by the fire. Kaidan had grown used to the stillness that came with their company—there was an unspoken understanding between them, a bond forged in the crucible of battle. But even now, as he watched the embers burn low, his thoughts inevitably wandered.

Memories, sharp and jagged like his scars, rose unbidden—faces he had failed to protect, names he couldn’t forget. He closed his eyes for a moment, pushing them down, but they were never far from the surface. Kaidan had made peace with his past—or, at least, he’d told himself that.

But when the silence stretched too long, when the weight of it pressed too hard against him, the words he kept buried threatened to rise.

"Sometimes," he muttered low, more to himself than to anyone else, "the world doesn’t care if you’ve been broken... or if you’ve put yourself back together." His red eyes shifted, catching the faint glow of the fire as it reflected in them.