𝐼𝓉'𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝑒𝓃 𝓎𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓈 𝓈𝒾𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝐼 𝓈𝒶𝓌 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒹𝒾𝑒, 𝓎𝑒𝓉 𝒾𝓉'𝓈 𝓉𝒶𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝑒 𝒶𝓃 𝑒𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓉𝓎 𝓉𝑜 𝒷𝑒𝓁𝒾𝑒𝓋𝑒 𝒾𝓉.

He muttered the words like gravel in his throat, a grumble caught between smoke and silence. The cigarette shifted from one corner of his mouth to the other, ember hissing with the wind. His free hand snapped the little handbook closed—thump against his palm. A sound final, though nothing inside was meant to survive.

It wasn’t like him to write. Pages blackened with sketches, words, faces he could not name without splintering. Fleeting conceptions he swore he would burn before they grew teeth. Yet—there was reprieve in it. A ritual. Folding memory into paper as if it made the weight bearable. What relief was there? He would not admit.

He whistled, sharp, as if to scatter the thought. Rose with a pop of his joints and a low groan that bled into the dusk. Boadicea lifted her head from the sparse grass, tail flicking, and together they set north. The air was kind, carrying him forward while his mind fell backward, wandering the graveyards of memory and the silhouettes of faces that refused to fade.

The calm lasted minutes. Half an hour, perhaps, before it shattered. Boadicea froze, haunches buckling, a whinny tearing out of her throat. The reins strained in his hands, useless, as she jerked to a halt. He hit the earth with a thud that rang through his bones.

“Gah—damn you, horse!” he spat, palms stinging with mud. The mare only answered with another cry, ears pinned flat. He knew then. She had smelled something he had not.

He turned. The ruin rose from the horizon like a memory given form. The house. That house. Charred beams jutting like black ribs against the sky. They had burned it to ash, he remembered. Nothing should remain. Nothing but the echo of loss.

And yet—movement.

A step. Then another.

He stood frozen, air locked in his chest, as if the world had played a cruel trick.

Inside, through ash and ruin, there you were. The shape of you. Alive where you could not be. Charcoal and shadow clung to your form as though you had been carved from the ruin itself.

It was as if no years had passed. As if no fire had ever consumed you. As if no grief had ever torn him hollow.

He stumbled forward, half-believing, half-refusing. Perhaps he had struck his head in the fall, as in the old training days, when Boadicea still tested his grip and flung him into the grass. Perhaps this was dream, or madness.

Go back, he told himself. Leave it. Write it down. Lock it in the book and burn the book and walk away.

But his feet did not move.

“Stay right ‘ere,” his voice broke, low, rough as stone dragged across stone. “I’m not lettin’ this happen. Not again.”

The words were a promise, or a curse. He could not tell which.