The light left Iceland without apology.
It did not dim or slide away. It withdrew. One moment the sky still held the exhausted suggestion of color, a gray thin enough to pass for mercy, and the next it was simply absent. What replaced it was not darkness. Darkness implied intent. This was a withholding, a refusal to continue.
Lio noticed because he had been warned.
Everyone warned you about the light. It appeared early in conversations, often after a pause that sounded like someone deciding whether honesty would be welcome. They spoke of it the way they spoke of a difficult truth. He had listened politely, nodded in the right places, promised himself he would take it seriously.
Light disappeared everywhere, eventually. He had lived long enough to understand that without romance.
Still, watching it leave this quickly felt almost personal.
"Well," he said to the cold air, "that was efficient."
The cold answered immediately.
It did not bite. It entered.
It slid beneath his jacket with professional ease, found the weak points in fabric and confidence, and settled there as if it intended to stay. This was not a place that tested people for sport. It assessed them. It drew conclusions.
Lio adjusted the strap of his bag higher on his shoulder and took a few steps forward. Frost cracked beneath his boots, a thin, brittle sound that carried farther than it should have. He liked it. The sound was honest. Already the place was giving him something to listen to.
He began, out of habit, to catalogue it. Frost over stone. Minimal wind. The air dense enough to hold sound close. Silence compact rather than empty. He had just decided the quiet here was not absence but pressure when he felt it.
Attention.
He turned his head.
The man stood several meters away, leaning against a vehicle that looked less like a car and more like a promise of survival. Dark green. Scarred but meticulously maintained. Tires wide enough to take offense at bad terrain. It did not try to be friendly.
Neither did the man.
He was dressed plainly, efficiently, in layers that had been worn long enough to understand themselves. His posture was relaxed without softness, weight distributed evenly, as though he did not trust the ground to forgive missteps. His hands were gloved. A knit cap sat low, shading his eyes.
Those eyes were attentive.
Not curious. Not judgmental.
Measuring.
Lio smiled. He always did first. It saved time. It offered a version of himself that invited response rather than resistance.
The man did not return it.
He pushed away from the vehicle and approached, steps unhurried, measured. His boots struck the ground with a sound deeper than Lio's, familiar rather than tentative. When he stopped, it was close enough that Lio could see the faint reddening at his cheeks, the pale lashes clotted slightly with frost. There was nothing ornamental about him. Nothing wasted.
"You're late," the man said.
The accent was unmistakably Icelandic. The English clean, unadorned.
Lio blinked once, recalibrating. "Hello."
"Your flight landed forty minutes ago," the man continued. "You didn't answer your phone."
"I didn't have service," Lio said automatically.
"You did."
The correction was calm. Not argumentative. Not confrontational. Simply factual.
Lio considered this. He pulled his phone from his pocket and stared at it with exaggerated suspicion.
"So," he said to the phone, "you had service and chose not to tell me."
The man waited.
Lio looked back up. "I apologize on behalf of my phone. It is new to Iceland. It is adjusting."
The man's gaze dropped. Not to Lio's face. To his jacket. His scarf. His boots.
"You're underdressed," he said.
Lio looked down at himself, as if expecting to discover a hidden parka. "I disagree."
The man looked back up.
Lio sighed. "I am dressed. That is objectively true. The issue is whether I am dressed correctly."
The man did not smile.
"What's your name," he asked.
"Lionel Álvarez," Lio said. Then, immediately, "Lio. Please. Lionel is for paperwork and my mother when she's unhappy."
The man nodded once, as if filing this away.
"Ari Jónsson," he said. "Land safety."
It was said without emphasis. Without invitation.
Lio smiled anyway. "That sounds like a job for someone who doesn't enjoy surprises."
"It's a job for someone who doesn't enjoy funerals," Ari replied.
The bluntness landed cleanly. No flourish. No drama.
Lio's smile shifted, becoming more careful. "Noted."
"And today," Ari continued, "you're my responsibility."
Lio blinked. "That feels premature."
"You're standing outside in November without gloves," Ari said. "It isn't."
Lio lifted both hands, bare, and wiggled his fingers in apology. "They're in my suitcase."
Ari's eyes flicked toward the luggage carousel visible through the glass, then back.
"Your suitcase," he said, "is not here."
"It is traveling independently," Lio said. "It needs personal growth."
Ari stared at him for a beat that felt like a structural assessment. Then he said, flatly, "Get in the car."
"Is that a suggestion," Lio asked, "or are you kidnapping me."
"A direction."
"I want you to know," Lio said solemnly, "that if this is a kidnapping, you have chosen poorly. I talk constantly."
"I noticed."
"That was fast," Lio said, pleased.
Ari turned slightly, gesturing toward the vehicle without looking at it. The movement was economical. Practiced.
Lio followed. The cold had begun to tighten around his knees, creeping upward with quiet persistence. He refused the instinct to shift his weight and betray discomfort.
As he passed Ari, his arm brushed Ari's sleeve. Wool against synthetic fabric. Accidental. Ordinary. Ari still went still.
Not frozen. Just paused.
Lio felt it immediately, a tightening of attention that registered in the body before the mind could explain it. The air seemed to hold itself.
Neither of them acknowledged it.
The door closed. The engine turned over. Heat began to seep into the cabin slowly, deliberately, as though even comfort here followed rules.
Lio exhaled and immediately regretted it, because relief made him aware of how cold he had already become.
"You have a very serious car," he said.
"It's a vehicle."
"It has opinions," Lio said. "It disapproves of me."
"That's me," Ari said.
"You and the car are aligned," Lio said. "That's a strong partnership."
Ari put the car in gear and pulled away from the airport, eyes steady on the road. He did not look at Lio again immediately.
Lio watched him in profile.
There were faces that asked to be understood. Faces that invited interpretation. Ari's did neither. It existed complete, uninterested in performance. A man who saved warmth for situations where it mattered.
Lio felt an absurd flicker of affection for that discipline, then dismissed it as jet lag.
Outside, the landscape flattened into an expanse that resisted description. Snow lay in uneven sheets across black lava rock. The sky pressed low, heavy with itself.
"This place looks like the beginning of a story where someone learns humility," Lio said.
Ari did not respond.
Lio tried again, because silence had never stopped him and he saw no reason to start now.
"Do you ever think Iceland is just a very large personality test."
"No."
"That was too fast," Lio said. "You didn't consider it."
"I did."
"And."
"It's not a test."
Lio waited.
"It's just the result," Ari added.
Lio laughed. "Okay. That's dark. You're dark."
"I'm realistic."
"Realism is pessimism with better marketing," Lio said.
They drove past a small cluster of buildings that looked as though they had chosen this place reluctantly. A few lights glowed. The world beyond them seemed to contain only dim and dimmer.
Lio leaned forward, squinting at the dashboard clock. "It is… afternoon."
"Yes."
"That feels illegal," Lio said. "It looks like midnight."
"You'll get used to it."
"That sounds like a threat."
"It's a fact."
Lio leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "I was told Iceland was peaceful."
"It is," Ari said. "If you don't fight it."
"And if you fight it."
A pause.
"It wins."
Lio smiled, slower this time. "You are not big on motivational speeches."
"I'm not here to motivate you."
"That's fair. My mother motivates me with guilt. It's extremely effective."
Ari made a small sound that might have been the beginning of a laugh, or might have been nothing at all. It was brief enough that Lio almost missed it.
He did not miss it.
"Did you almost laugh," Lio asked brightly.
"No."
"That was a yes."
"That was breathing."
"You breathe like someone who distrusts joy."
Ari glanced at him. The look was brief, sharp.
Lio held it. "You have a look that says you could leave me in the snow and no one would find me."
"I would find you," Ari said.
"See," Lio replied, delighted. "Romantic."
"That's responsibility."
"Sometimes those are the same thing."
Ari did not answer, but something in the car shifted, subtle and undeniable.
Lio watched his breath fog the window, appear and disappear with each sentence. He thought of his recorder in his bag, the careful equipment padded against damage. He had come here to record quiet.
He had not expected the quiet to record him back.
"Do you live out here," he asked, softer now.
"Yes."
"Alone."
A pause. "Yes."
Lio nodded, as if he could see the shape of that life.
"Do you like it."
Ari's hands stayed steady on the wheel. "It's my job."
"That's not an answer," Lio said, gently. "That's a shield."
Ari did not deny it.
After a moment he said, "I like knowing what to expect."
"And do you?"
"Usually."
"That's… adorable."
Ari looked at him slowly. Directly. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Call me that."
Lio smiled. "Okay. But I want you to know it's true."
Ari returned his gaze to the road. "You need better gear."
"I know."
"Rules. Schedules. You follow them."
Lio lifted a hand. "I will respect the land."
Ari nodded once. That mattered more than agreement.
They drove on.
The road narrowed. The light thinned further, retreating into itself.
Something in Lio settled. Not fear. Not excitement.
Attention.
The calm awareness that came when you understood a place would not adapt for you, and that this refusal was a kind of honesty.
"Okay," Lio said quietly.
Ari did not look at him. "Okay what?"
"Okay," Lio repeated. "I'm here."
Ari nodded once.
The year had begun.