The rains had softened to a drizzle by the time Arin reached the forest's edge. The air was cool and carried the scent of pine and wet earth. His boots — a size too small, handed down from Old Man Hem — sank into the mud with each step.
"Don't go too deep," Elara had warned. "The woods are uneasy after storms."
Arin didn't need the warning. He knew these woods. Knew the sound of the river when it was angry, knew where the dry kindling gathered beneath the old oaks.
He worked quietly, his hands growing rough and dirty as he filled his basket. This was his duty. His contribution. In a village like Oakhaven, every hand had to work. Every stick of wood counted.
Near the stream, he found Lira trying to salvage reeds for her mother's basket-weaving.
"The water took most of them," she sighed, her hands on her hips.
Arin didn't answer. He just knelt and began to help, pulling the usable reeds from the mud. They worked in comfortable silence — the kind that only exists between two people who understood each other without words.
When their baskets were full, they walked back toward the village. The smoke from morning cook-fires rose in thin gray lines against the pale sky.
At the edge of the village, Korbin and his friends were kicking a leather ball in the square. When he saw Arin, Korbin smirked.
"Storm-hair! Your mama send you out to do women's work again?"
Arin kept walking. He was used to it. Words were like rain — they fell, then dried.
But Lira shot Korbin a sharp look. "At least he does work. Your father still wiping mud from your boots?"
Korbin's face reddened, but he had no comeback.
Back home, Elara was mending a torn cloak by the fire. She looked up as Arin entered, her eyes softening.
"You're soaked," she said.
"It's just water."
She smiled faintly. "Help me with this stitch. Your hands are steadier than mine."
He sat beside her, taking the needle and thread. She watched him work — his focus, his patience. He was a quiet boy. Too quiet, sometimes. But his silence was not emptiness. It was depth.
That evening, as they shared a simple stew, Elara told him an old story — not of dragons or spirits, but of a star that refused to fade, shining alone in a dark sky.
Arin listened, his eyes on the flames.
He didn't know why the story made his chest ache.
He didn't know why the rain always felt like a friend.
He didn't question the silver in his hair, or the strange calm he felt deep in the woods.
Some things just… were.
And for now, that was enough.
The years had begun to paint themselves across Oakhaven in soft, steady strokes.
Arin was now nine winters old. His hair, black as a moonless night, was streaked naturally with strands of silver — like flashes of lightning in a dark sky. It drew eyes, sometimes whispers, but in a village where every family had its quirks, it was simply known as "storm-haired Arin."
One afternoon, while sitting with Elara as she sewed a tear in his only good tunic, he finally asked the question that had lingered in his heart like a stubborn shadow.
"Mama… why is my hair like this?"
Elara's needle stilled. Her own hair was a familiar fiery red, her eyes warm and brown like the earth after rain. She looked nothing like him.
"Why do you ask, my heart?"
"Korbin said… I don't look like you."
Elara set the sewing down. Her gaze was soft but firm. "Families are not always made from the same soil, Arin. Some are planted by different winds." She touched his cheek. "Your hair is a gift. A reminder that you are unique. That you carry a piece of the sky with you."
He wanted to ask more — about his eyes, one dark brown, the other a shade lighter, like amber held to the light. But the quiet firmness in her voice told him the conversation was over.
Some truths were buried deep. And not all roots needed to be pulled into the sun.
Later that week, Arin found himself at the edge of the Stone River with Lira. She was carving a small piece of driftwood into the shape of a bird.
"Your hair is like my father's glaze," she said without looking up. "The one he uses on special pots — dark, but when the light touches it, it shines like starlight."
Arin looked at her. Lira had always seen things differently. Where others saw strange, she saw beauty.
"Do you ever wonder where you came from?" he asked quietly.
Lira paused her carving. "My mother says we all come from the same river. We just enter it at different points." She handed him the wooden bird. "Here. It's for you."
Arin took it. The carving was rough but careful. It felt alive in his hands.
"It's a storm sparrow," she said. "My grandmother told me they fly when the sky is troubled… but they're not afraid. They ride the wind."
He didn't know why, but his throat felt tight.
He had a mother who loved him. A friend who understood his silence. A home, however small.
But sometimes… he felt like that sparrow. Born for a sky he had never seen.
As autumn deepened, a quiet unrest settled over Oakhaven.
The River Guard had not left. They watched the woods not for beasts, but for something else — something that walked on two legs and carried secrets.
One evening, a traveling tinsmith passed through. He spoke of distant lands where spirits still whispered through the trees, and where dragons were not just monsters of flame, but ancient keepers of balance.
That night, Arin found Elara staring into the embers of the fire, her face tight with something he rarely saw in her — fear.
"Mama?"
She looked up, her eyes refocusing. "It's nothing, my heart. Just old stories stirring up old ghosts."
But he knew it was more.
The next morning, a single black feather lay on their doorstep. It was long, sleek, and seemed to drink the light around it.
Elara quickly buried it in the ashes of the hearth.
She did not explain.
And Arin did not ask.
But in the deep of that night, he heard a sound — like great wings beating softly, far above the clouds — and for the first time, the sound did not feel strange.
It felt like a lullaby.