My arm aches, though it’s not the pain of the wound itself anymore. I keep reaching for a bow that isn’t there. My hand clenches at the empty air, my shoulder burns, and the truth settles deeper each time. I’ll never draw another arrow.

I tell myself this is a new beginning, but it feels hollow. How does a man rebuild himself after losing everything? Alyssa would have had some clever quip, something that would make me laugh and forget for a moment. I miss her more on days like this.

I follow Kalibri’s shadow. I don’t know where her path leads, but it’s better than standing still.

The sky was clear tonight. It was one of those nights that counting the stars overwhelmed me. There are so many. It reminded me of Alyssa. She used to say the stars were pieces of something bigger. I always wonder what she meant.

I stopped by a little creek to rest my legs and clean the wound. The scar is ugly. I’ve seen men wear their scars like trophies, but mine feels like a brand, a mark of what I’ve lost. I want to think Alyssa would be proud of me. But I'm not so sure.

I wonder what she’d think of Kal. They’re so alike in spirit. Bright, unyielding, fierce in their own ways. But Kalibri doesn’t smile the way Alyssa did. Maybe she’s forgotten how.

The sword is broken. The old ways of the Odokhi are shattered. And yet I carry pieces of both, sharp edges scratching at my heels. Maybe this journey will dull them.

I met a merchant today, one of the traveling types like my father used to be. He had wares strapped to a bogstrider and a way of talking that filled the silence whether you wanted it to or not. He didn’t ask about the arm, but I caught him glancing.

He told me the road ahead leads to a city. A big spire. The kind of story that Alyssa and I used to dream about. It’s hard to imagine myself there now. What would I be? Another traveler with a broken past? A shadow following someone else’s dream?

I feel the weight of her memory more heavily today. It drives me forward. But hellfire if it doesn't also press into me. Is this path for her, or for me? 

I sat by the fire tonight, looking at the flames. Gets me lost, sometimes. Remembering what happened. The fire reminds me of the Odokhi camps, but also of the day the sword broke. I wonder if that’s what Kalibri meant to do. Burn the old to make way for something new.

The ache in my arm isn’t as sharp as it was. The healer who tended to me after it all did good work, though it’s clear she was used to patching warriors back together.

Kalibri once told me that strength isn’t about what you hold, but what you let go of. I didn’t understand her then. I think I’m starting to now. I can’t hold onto the life I had. I can’t cling to the bow, to the Odokhi, to the stories I told Alyssa by the campfire. If I carry them with me, I don't think I'll ever be able to move forward.

But letting go is harder than I thought. 

This morning, I watched the sunrise. It felt like something new, but the city isn’t far now.

The world is vast, yes, but maybe that’s a gift. There’s room to build something new, to find a purpose beyond blood and tradition.

I don’t know what I’ll find in the city, but I’ll face it with my head high. I may be broken, but I’m still here.

Kalibri is a storm. Not the kind that tears down trees or floods the rivers. But a kind of anticipation. A quiet, rolling kind you feel in your chest. I don’t think she knows the effect she has on people. Or maybe she does, and she’s learned not to care.

I watched her today, speaking to a small group of travelers gathered for something I didn't truly care about.  There’s a fire in her words, a conviction that pulls you in even if you don’t quite understand it yet. She talks of freedom. She speaks of strength not as a weapon, but as a foundation.

She never asked me to follow her. Not once. That’s what makes her different. Kalibri doesn’t lead with commands. She moves forward, and if you believe in her vision, you follow. But it’s not easy. I see it in her eyes when she I'm not looking. The weight of what it's cost her. I wonder if she ever lets herself grieve for the pieces of her old life she’s shattered. 

The stables smell of hay and musk. Horses always leave a scent that clings to your clothes long after you’ve left.  I didn’t think I’d find peace in a place like this, but here I am, mucking out stalls and brushing down bogstriders, feeling the ghost of a hand that's not there anymore. Honestly, weaving rope is shit with only one arm. Makes everything take twice as long.

There’s something grounding about the work, though. The horses don’t care about who you are. They only care that you’re easy with them, that you speak softly, that you take charge. I’ve taken to talking to these bogstriders, not too different from horses. I find myself sometimes telling them about Alyssa, about Kalibri, about the road I’ve traveled. They don’t answer, of course. I'll be in trouble if they start.

I don’t know if this is the life Alyssa would have imagined for me. It’s quiet. The beasts remind me of the ones we had when we traveled as traders, back before everything changed. Maybe this is a way of holding onto a piece of that time.

The city is loud, but here in the stables, it’s just me and these two fellas. No battles, no traditions to fight against, no shadows to chase. Just the steady beat of work and the soft huffing of bogstriders in the dark. But I still feel that ache in my chest. In my arm. Like I didn't do enough.

@CaitTheGr8

I didn’t sleep well tonight.

She said her name with a voice like wind. No tremor, no plea, like the word itself had forgotten how to live.

She was issued to Helara. Not a prisoner, not a recruit, something in between. The kind of person too quiet to be a threat, but too unbroken to be trusted. I only saw her when she was sitting by the gatehouse. She clinged to the entryway. 

She silently seethed. 

I didn’t recogniz her. But that didn’t matter.

Her gaze held something sharp. A ledger of memory. Of loss. Something I never bothered to witness back then.

When I confronted her about her distance and reclusiveness, she spoke of her history.

I didn’t know which raid she meant. We struck like thunder and left the ash for others to sort through. There were dozens of villages. Too many nameless faces at the ends of my arrows. But hers, she stood there staring at me like I was the last thing on her list, the something she’d spent years waiting to confront.

I don’t remember all of the places I’ve been. That’s the weight I carry now. I don’t know how many people like her are out there, watching me from behind their silence.

She didn’t yell. She didn’t weep. That was the cruelest thing.