Aarinen did not move for a long time.
Rain soaked through his clothes, flattened his hair against his face, pooled in the hollows of the ground around his knees. The storm had no urgency now. It fell evenly, indifferently, like the world resuming its default rhythm after an interruption.
Pain sat inside him without translation.
Not sharpened.Not softened.Just there.
It was unbearable precisely because it was ordinary.
He pressed his palm against his chest where Ishar had touched him. Nothing answered. No echo. No recoil. No strange mirth rising against his will.
Silence.
Aarinen laughed once, experimentally.
The sound came out hollow, forced, meaningless. It did nothing. The rain did not bend. His nerves did not twist away from sensation.
The laughter died quickly.
That frightened him more than Merrowen ever had.
He pushed himself to his feet. The movement sent lightning through his injured leg and shoulder. His breath hitched, and he swore under his breath—an old word, unshaped by philosophy or fate.
A human word.
He started walking.
The land outside Merrowen was broken into low fields and abandoned service roads, the remnants of agricultural expansions that had failed generations ago. Stone markers leaned at odd angles, half-sunk into the earth. Fences lay collapsed, their wire rusted into organic curves.
This was not wilderness.
This was neglect.
Aarinen followed the road until his vision began to swim. Twice he stumbled and fell. The third time, he did not get up immediately.
He lay on his back, rain filling his ears, staring at the gray sky.
"This is temporary," he told himself.
He did not believe it.
By the time he reached the settlement, night had already begun to thin the horizon.
It was not a village so much as a pause—a cluster of buildings around a well, their roofs patched with mismatched materials, smoke leaking from uneven chimneys. No walls. No guards. No banners.
A place too small to matter.
Perfect.
Aarinen limped into the open square and immediately felt eyes on him. Not hostile. Curious. Wary. People who had learned the difference.
A woman stepped forward.
She was tall, broad-shouldered, her hair bound in a practical knot, her sleeves rolled to the elbow despite the cold. A scar ran from her jaw to her ear, old and clean.
"You're bleeding," she said.
"Yes," Aarinen replied.
She nodded once, as if that explained everything.
"Can you stand?" she asked.
"Yes."
That was a lie.
She took his arm anyway. Her grip was firm but careful, practiced. She smelled of smoke and herbs.
"My name is Talan," she said. "You don't look like trouble, but you look like it follows you."
"Yes."
She almost smiled.
She led him into a low building near the well. Inside, the air was warm, thick with the smell of stew and damp wood. A man looked up from a table where he was repairing a tool.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Road," Talan said. "And whatever lives on it."
The man grunted.
"Sit," he said to Aarinen. "I'm Brin."
Aarinen lowered himself onto a bench, biting back a groan. Brin knelt and began cutting away the soaked cloth around his leg with practiced efficiency.
"You didn't scream," Brin observed.
"I might later," Aarinen said.
Brin snorted.
"That's fair."
Talan returned with bandages and a bottle of something sharp-smelling.
"Drink," she said.
Aarinen hesitated.
"If it kills me," he said, "that simplifies things."
She raised an eyebrow.
"Not my problem," she said.
He drank.
Fire burned down his throat. He coughed, eyes watering.
"Good," Talan said. "You're alive enough to complain."
They worked in silence for a while. Brin cleaned and wrapped the wounds with care, muttering under his breath. Talan watched Aarinen closely—not like a guard, not like a healer.
Like someone measuring weight.
"You came from Merrowen," she said eventually.
"Yes."
"People who come from Merrowen usually have papers," she continued. "Or stories."
"Yes."
"You have neither."
"Yes."
She studied him.
"You running?" she asked.
Aarinen considered.
"No," he said. "I'm failing to stop."
That earned him a look from Brin.
"Those are different," Brin said.
"Yes."
Brin finished tying off the bandage.
"You can sleep here," Talan said. "Tonight."
"And after?" Aarinen asked.
She shrugged.
"After depends on what you do tomorrow," she said.
That night, Aarinen dreamed of laughter that refused to come.
He woke screaming.
Not loud.
But sharp.
Brin was there immediately, hand on his shoulder.
"You're safe," he said.
Aarinen shook his head.
"No," he whispered. "I'm awake."
The next morning, news arrived with a trader.
Merrowen had issued a regional advisory.
An individual of high destabilization risk had escaped containment. Rewards offered. Cooperation encouraged. Neutralization authorized if necessary.
Aarinen listened from the doorway.
Talan closed the document slowly.
"Is it you?" she asked.
"Yes."
The settlement went quiet.
Not afraid.
Assessing.
Brin exhaled slowly.
"Well," he said. "That explains the bleeding."
Talan looked at Aarinen.
"You bring danger," she said plainly. "Not intentionally. But reliably."
"Yes."
"You also didn't hurt anyone here," she added.
"Not yet."
She nodded.
"That matters."
She turned to the others who had gathered.
"He leaves at dusk," she said. "Rested. Fed."
No one argued.
Aarinen felt something tighten in his chest.
"Why?" he asked.
Talan met his gaze.
"Because when someone is being hunted by systems," she said, "it usually means they don't fit."
She paused.
"And things that don't fit either break," she continued, "or change what they're pressed against."
Aarinen swallowed.
"Thank you," he said.
She shrugged.
"Don't thank me," she replied. "Just don't come back with soldiers."
He almost laughed.
Almost.
As the day wore on, Aarinen sat by the well, watching people move through their routines. Children ran. Old men argued quietly. Life happened without symbolism or prophecy.
It felt heavier than any myth.
By dusk, he stood at the edge of the settlement.
Talan handed him a small bundle of food.
Brin clasped his forearm.
"Try not to die," Brin said.
"I'll try," Aarinen replied.
He walked away as the sun sank low, the sky bleeding orange and red.
The Quiet Hour pressed in.
Pain flared.
He did not laugh.
Instead, he kept walking.
And somewhere deep inside him, something else began to form—not defiance, not irony.
Endurance.
Slow.
Unromantic.
Terrifying.
The kind that lasts.