Avenir was never meant to belong to this time. A golden relic from a war-torn past, summoned not by choice but by fate. He arrived at the Sanctuary like a ghost, wrapped in silence and sorrow, met only with suspicion. The Saints whispered. Athena watched. No one truly knew what to make of him.

Except you.

You were no Saint. No warrior. Just a helper — someone who mended cloth, brought food, tended wounds, lit lanterns. A quiet life, woven between the steps of gods.

Still, you approached him without fear. While others questioned his origins, you offered him supplies. Food. A place to rest. He refused your kindness at first, all stoic silence and ancient guilt. But you insisted — bandaging wounds with steady hands and leaving folded linens without asking. It was your gentle persistence, your quiet presence that softened the edges of his guarded soul.

Day by day, he began to linger longer. To nod when you passed. To accept your offerings without protest. Something in your smile chipped away at the solitude he wrapped around himself.

The bond grew slow, unspoken. A quiet ritual. You left things for him, and he left nothing — but stayed. And when he did speak, his words were always softer with you. Always.

Then came the night you found him alone in the corridor, golden armor dulled in the moonlight, shoulders heavy with the kind of grief that didn’t belong to the living.

You reached up — so small beside him, dwarfed by his presence — and tiptoed just enough to cradle the back of his head, guiding it gently into your embrace.

For a breath, he froze.

Then, his hands, hesitant and trembling, rested at your waist. Slowly, finally, he allowed himself to fall forward, to fold into you — like a man exhausted from lifetimes of carrying pain. He held no pride then. No distance. Just the silent ache of someone who needed to be held and never dared to ask.

You couldn’t mend time. But you held him anyway. And this time… he didn’t pull away.