Chapter 1 - The Awakening.
Age of Chaos. Waldruhm. Prime.
A.D. 1845.
Twelve years before the events in Thornholt.
It all began with voices. With inhumanly low, indistinct voices, sounding in a dark and boundless space.
In the middle of that emptiness, where no light reached, lay a young man, his body seemingly frozen lifeless in the dark, right up until the moment he opened his eyes.
He could neither understand these alien, low voices nor see or feel anyone at all, surrounded only by darkness and noise. Little by little the sound of the voices gathered into a single chorus of one word.
"Aren... Aren..."
The volume grew with every repetition, until at last all the voices merged into one many-layered cry.
"AREN... AREN... AREN!"
A brief silence fell, then gave way sharply to a blinding flash of light.
A moment later he was choking, gagging on seawater, and then felt the wind envelop his wet face.
He coughed up the water at once on reflex, with an unpleasant burn in his throat and nose, and felt the air begin to reach his lungs.
Greedily gasping air through his mouth, he braced both hands against the wet sand, rhythmically washed by the sea waves, and stared into the water until his breathing evened out.
He slowly raised his head, the locks of his black hair sticking to his face, while his eyes adjusted by degrees to the light.
Squinting, brows drawn together, he looked over the space around him and saw a sandy shore hemmed in by tall cliffs and a wide path leading up to their tops.
Startled by the sharp cry of gulls, unfamiliar to him in that moment, he rolled onto his back, and the sunlight breaking through the thin clouds made him reflexively raise his forearm in front of his eyes.
Lowering his arm and seeing birds flying overhead, he tried to slowly lift his torso, but he raised his body only a few centimeters, felt it shake and dropped onto his back at once, splashing the water and feeling the wet sand beneath him. Even so, in that attempt he had lifted his head far enough to see that he wore nothing but black, wet, torn trousers, clinging to his legs.
His breathing lost its even rhythm as he turned his head from side to side, his eyes darting across the whole space, until he spotted a silhouette in the distance, growing closer.
As the silhouette drew nearer, he heard a woman's voice, growing louder beneath the sound of feet running over the wet sand.
Still lying on his back, his head turned, the young man went on squinting, trying to make out the approaching figure, until she finally reached him and dropped to her knees at his side, breathless, her voice trembling with a mix of fear and relief.
"Hey! Can you hear me? Oh, Holy Goddess, I thought you were just a piece of driftwood washed up on the shore... Are you alive?"
She reached out and touched his shoulder carefully, but pulled back at once, noticing the black runic tattoos covering his whole body all the way up to his neck.
For a moment a shadow of superstitious fear flickered in her green eyes, but compassion won out, and she put out her hand again, helping the stranger raise his torso.
"Damn, looks like you swallowed a lot of water... I need to turn you on your side, don't move."
The girl quickly worked out what had to be done, and turned the young man's body onto its side to clear his throat.
Even so, his eyes rolled back and his eyelids grew heavy, and the girl's voice blurred slowly in his mind until everything around him sank back into darkness.
Opening his eyes, he saw a wooden ceiling above him, and heard the distant sounds of birds and the village street drifting in through a window left slightly ajar.
Turning his head slightly, he saw a small table scattered with objects that made no sense to him, parts from broken or dismantled devices and mechanisms.
Looking around, the young man finally raised his torso upright, then looked down at his arm and studied the strange marks that ran over his whole body.
Before he had even finished examining one arm, he flinched at hurried footsteps and an energetic young voice coming from behind the room's closed door.
"Just a second! I've got it, hold on!"
The door burst open, and a young boy ran into the room, snatched a gear off the table, then stopped abruptly right in the doorway.
Standing with his back to the now-conscious stranger, he slowly turned around.
"No way..." Staring at the tattooed young man with wide eyes and an open mouth, he froze in place, and from behind him came a woman's voice the stranger recognized.
"Leo! I've asked you to take off your outdoor shoes before coming into the house!"
"E-Elara... you have to see this," the boy answered.
"What is it?" said Elara, who came up to the doorway and stopped behind Leo, then lifted her gaze and saw the stranger, whose expression didn't look much different from the boy's.
"Alive... Praise the Mother Goddess, you're finally awake..." she said quietly, gently moving Leo aside and stepping into the room.
"H-how are you feeling?... You've been asleep almost a whole day and night... Bernard, the local blacksmith, and I carried you here..."
The young man didn't answer, and looked from the boy to her.
Elara carefully took a step closer and raised one hand slightly to her chest.
"M-my name is Elara... Elara Greenfield... and this is my little brother, Leo..."
The boy came a step closer, following his sister, but the stranger drew his legs in toward himself, and Elara at once stretched her arm back toward the boy without turning her head.
Leo stopped and took a step back; his sister raised both hands in front of her, palms open toward the stranger.
"It's all right... this is our home... our home in Waldruhm... whatever happened to you, you're safe now..." Elara said slowly.
"Can I... ask what your name is?... And where you're from?..."
The young man went still, his eyes dropping slightly, his mouth falling open a little.
Seeing at least some small reaction, Elara waited patiently, trying not to make any sudden movements.
"Aka... I..." the stranger rasped.
Leo drew his brows together and leaned his head forward a little, trying to make out and understand the young man's words, while Elara stayed still, though her eyes widened and her lips parted slightly.
Suddenly he clutched at his head, twisting in pain and gritting his teeth, and Elara leaned forward at once, stopped by the bed and dropped to her knees on the floor beside him.
"Hey! Easy, easy... you don't have to answer my question right now!... If it hurts, don't think about it!... Take a deep breath!"
She turned to Leo, who still stood in the doorway and watched the scene with his hands pressed to his chest.
"Leo, bring the herbal infusion, number four, and some clean water!"
The boy nodded and tore off toward the kitchen in a whirl, his eyes lingering just a moment on the stranger's hands, covered in unfamiliar runes.
Meanwhile a storm raged in the young man's mind: shapes of letters, the sounds of words, and the names of things around him — "table," "window," "wall," "what's your name," "where are you from" — flared up like bright sparks, taking on meaning, but exacting an unbearable price for it in throbbing pain at his temples.
Elara carefully rose from her knees and sat on the edge of the bed by his feet, and reached her hand slowly out without ever quite touching him.
"Try to breathe deeper... Focus only on my voice..."
What is even happening... she thought, pressing her lips together slightly.
Leo came back with the infusion just as the young man slowly let go of his head, lifted his eyes somewhere ahead of him and sighed, then looked at Elara, and then at Leo as he arrived.
The boy stopped by the bed with a cup of water and a clay mug in his hands, a sharp smell of mixed field and forest herbs rising from it.
Elara turned slowly to her brother, took the clay mug from his hands, nodded, and turned back around.
"Please, drink this... it should help... this infusion clears and refreshes the mind... usually..." she said, and held the mug out to the stranger.
He lowered his eyes to the mug, then glanced at Elara, and looked across at Leo, who was studying his tattoos, his eyes climbing slowly higher until he met the stranger's and looked away at once.
Looking again at Elara's outstretched hands holding the clay mug of cloudy, greenish liquid, he slowly raised his own and took it with both palms, while Elara carefully drew hers back, brushing his fingers just long enough to feel how cold they were.
The young man looked at the liquid, then lifted his eyes to Elara, who watched him without changing her expression, while Leo, for his part, picked up the wooden cup of water in both hands and took a pointed sip, and the stranger turned his eyes back to the mug and copied the boy.
After three swallows he grimaced at the sharp taste and smell, pulled the mug away from himself and turned his head aside with his eyes shut.
Elara took the cup of water from Leo at once and held it out to the young man.
"Here, wash it down!" she said, carefully taking the clay mug from his hands.
Taking the wooden cup, he eyed the clear liquid warily, and Elara smiled.
"It's just water," she said.
He sniffed the cup carefully and smelled nothing, then touched its rim with his lips, pulled back, touched it again, and took a sip, then a second, a third, until at last he'd drunk it all down to the last drop.
Letting go of the cup, the young man sat smacking his lips at the bitter, grassy aftertaste, his face still twisting slightly at it, and Leo couldn't help a small laugh.
"I get it, nobody likes that brew, but it always works, reliable as Aisengard clocks," said Leo, as Elara silently held out her hand with a warm smile, offering to take the cup.
Taking the empty wooden cup, Elara leaned aside without getting up from the bed and set it down on the table, and the stranger saw a small girl behind her, peeking around the other side of the doorway.
Seeing his gaze fixed on something, Elara turned around.
A pale little face with large eyes full of childish curiosity was looking straight at them. She clutched the hem of her plain little dress in her hands and barely breathed as she studied the guest her older brother and sister had been whispering about all morning.
Elara held out a hand to her, inviting her into the room, her voice softening into something even warmer.
"Mia, sweetheart, don't be afraid. Come in."
At first the girl didn't move, still studying the runic tattoos on the guest's body intently, while Leo, standing behind Elara, silently waved her over. Mia took one tiny step forward, still not letting go of the doorframe.
Then Elara turned back to the young man and tilted her head slightly to one side, her eyes on his.
"So how are you? Feeling better?"
He thought over her words for a couple of seconds, then nodded carefully.
He nodded! So he understands me, at least... Thank the Goddess, I was starting to think he didn't know our language... she thought, and sighed quietly with relief, then turned to Leo.
"Leo, please go to Grandma Martha and tell her the bread dough is ready. Help her light the oven, and take Mia with you."
With a crisp "Uh-huh," he headed straight for the door with his hand held out at the same time, which Mia took at once, and the two children left the room.
The silence that settled after the children left felt almost tangible, broken only by the distant creak of the blades of huge windmills outside, known here as the Wind Catchers.
Elara kept looking toward the door for a while longer, close enough that her "guest" could catch the faint smell of field herbs and flour drifting from her clothes, a scent still unfamiliar to him in that moment.
"That was my little sister, Mia."
She turned to him slowly, looking straight into his black eyes.
"Are you starting to remember anything?... Sorry for asking so many questions, but you know, even the bravest warriors, coming back from a real hell, are sometimes so broken they can't remember anything except their own name and the nightmares that visit them every night... and..."
Elara picked up the mug with the infusion and ran her thumb lightly along its side as she went on, her eyes on the liquid still left inside it.
"This brew often helps calm their minds a little, reminding them that it's all behind them now... but it's exactly by asking the right questions that there's a chance to speed up the recovery and help a person remember what they only recently forgot..."
She raised her eyes to him, not hiding her concern.
"I don't know if I'm thinking along the right lines... but since I found you on the shore... maybe you're a sailor?... You were on a ship with your crew... but something happened... out there... at sea?..."
He sat looking at her with the same blank expression, as Elara rubbed the back of her neck and gave a small smile with her brows drawn together.
"Well... your eyes... there's so much in them I can't make sense of. You don't look like the people who live in this part of Prime... though you seem to understand our language..."
The stranger still felt a faint discomfort at his temples, while the words "sailor," "crew," "sea" gave him not images of the past, but only dry definitions from the vocabulary rebuilding itself inside his head. Every reach toward an image of the past brought only a sharp flash of pain behind his eyes, which made him squint against it.
Elara noticed, and reached out to lay her hand gently over his.
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"Don't torture yourself over it. If you're not a sailor... it doesn't matter. Right now the only thing that matters is that you're here, and you're alive."
He looked into her green eyes, which held him with such depth that the pain at his temples faded away, giving way entirely to the warmth and the safety in them.
Seeing some change in her guest's face, Elara slowly rose, took both mugs in her hands, and walked toward the door.
"I think you still need rest, so try to relax and feel at home. If you need anything, just call, all right?" she asked, turning back to him.
He just kept blinking silently at Elara, who in turn smiled with a small sigh and let her gaze linger a moment on his tattoos before leaving the room.
The young man, not yet knowing his own name, sat a while longer with his eyes fixed on the doorway Elara had gone through, until another creak from the windmills caught his attention and made him turn his head toward the window.
He slowly moved to the edge of the bed, lowered his feet to the floor, then carefully stood up, swaying slightly and spreading his arms to keep his balance.
Step by step he went slowly and unsteadily from the bed toward the window, watching his feet and holding his arms out at his sides, until at last he reached it and braced both palms on the windowsill.
When he looked up, the bright sunlight made him squint and shield his eyes with his hand, until they had adjusted enough for him to make out the streets of a small village, the wheat fields, and the grove beyond them.
While he took in this view, so astonishing to him, a muffled conversation and the clang of metal drifted up from under the window.
"He's woken up... Though he can barely speak... at first I even thought he didn't understand our language... but thankfully, it seems he does..."
"Be careful, Elara. We still don't know why he's here or what trouble he might bring. And I don't think carrying him into your house was the right call," a low male voice answered.
The young man froze by the window and took in the new words "trouble," "house," "call." They were still just empty sound-shells to him, but some instinctive sense of something bad, buried somewhere in his mind, made him tense up.
Turning toward the door, he went slowly to it, feeling his legs grow used to the walking, though he still held his arms slightly raised at his sides.
Peering past the doorway, he looked around, and only once he was sure no one was there did he step forward slowly and wander through the house, looking over every piece of furniture and studying it.
His steps on the wooden floorboards of the living room were quiet but steadier now, and within a couple of minutes he didn't even notice that he'd let his arms drop and grown used to his balance.
A heavy table of rough wood stood in the middle of the room. He ran his fingers over its surface, feeling its texture and sensing knowledge of what it was take shape in his mind. When he lifted his hand away, he already knew it was wood, and knew that it was old.
On one of the walls he saw a shelf holding dry yellow grass woven into a ring, and a clay bowl.
He looked next at white sheets covered in black lines, showing drawings of toothed circles and long blades like the ones he'd seen through the window, the blades of the windmills.
Suddenly the heavy clang of metal outside gave way to a creak, and he spun around to see a figure in the doorway.
A tall, blond-haired man with a beard, gripping a leather bag tightly, stood frozen on the threshold.
"Elara... you didn't say he was already wandering around the house," the man said.
He was huge. His shoulders nearly brushed the doorframe, and his hands, stained with black soot, were covered in scars.
The man looked at the stranger, his face lowered slightly, brows furrowed, and Elara came running up and stopped behind him.
"A-and this is Bernard! Our blacksmith! Please don't let his fearsome loo—" A gruff snort from Bernard cut her off as he started forward into the room, not taking his eyes off the stranger.
Tossing his leather bag onto the table as he passed, he came so close that the young man took several steps back without meaning to.
Without moving his head, Bernard studied the tattoos from bottom to top, and stopped again on the young man's black eyes.
"You got a name?" Bernard demanded.
Feeling the tension in the air and the plain discomfort of the moment, the young man turned an anxious glance toward Elara, who still stood in the same spot, both hands clasped at her chest.
A moment later Bernard set his rough hand on the stranger's head and turned it back toward himself.
"This conversation is happening between you and me, not with her. And when I say conversation, that means you open your mouth too and answer the questions I'm asking you," Bernard said sternly.
The young man's breathing quickened, his body tensed, and he swallowed hard in spite of himself, while the blacksmith kept staring him in the eye, waiting for answers.
Under the pressure, the meanings of new words surfaced in his head and linked into a chain.
"Question... question... answer... name... answer, name..." the stranger began muttering, his gaze dropping to a single point as he sank into his own thoughts.
Bernard raised his eyebrows at the sight, then exchanged a glance with Elara over his shoulder, and turned back to the young man, in whose mind words he'd heard just before waking on the shore now rose.
"Name... my name... my... name... ar... ar... en... aren... Aren?..." he went on muttering.
"What was that?" Bernard asked again, leaning his head down.
"Aren... my name... Aren."
Bernard slowly took his palm off Aren's head and stepped back half a pace, still keeping his eyes on him.
"Aren, is it... well, at least you can talk," said the blacksmith, folding his arms thoughtfully across his chest and letting out a small sigh.
He turned to Elara, whose shoulders had visibly relaxed at the sound of Aren's voice, and who now stepped closer, leaning her body slightly to one side to peer out from behind Bernard.
"Aren... A beautiful name. If you remembered it yourself, that's a good sign... Bernard! See, he understands us. He's not that much of a threat."
"Not a threat? Elara, the fact that he remembered his name and understands speech doesn't mean he isn't a threat. And nobody puts runes like that, or patterns, whatever they are, on their body for no reason. It's either a brand, or... something worse."
He walked over to the table and slapped his palm down on the leather bag he'd brought.
"But we'll probably learn the truth now," Bernard announced, and turned his head toward Aren.
He reached into the bag and pulled out an old, worn book.
"An old collection with some records from seekers who managed to visit the Shogunate before the Aisengard incident. There's a description of only a few of the hundreds of runes in here, but I'm hoping it's enough to figure out something."
Bernard opened the book and flipped through the pages, trying to find the section with the information he needed.
Moving slowly closer to the table, Aren froze under Bernard's sharp gaze as the man studied his runic tattoos closely, checking them constantly against the notes in the book.
Bernard frowned harder and harder, his thick finger tracing over yellowed pages showing the angular, jagged symbols of the Shogunate.
More than twenty minutes later, the blacksmith snapped the book shut in irritation, kicking up a faint cloud of dust.
"Nothing. All for nothing. These records talk about elemental runes — fire, water, wind. But there's not a thing about what's on him. There's no symmetry to them. They look like..." he stopped, searching for the word.
"Like they were made up on the spot... and yet visually they look a lot like the Shogunate's runes, and even like ours..."
Elara, for her part, sighed heavily, stepping back from the table and rubbing her neck.
"Maybe the book's just too old?... The records are outdated... you know..."
Bernard sighed and tossed the book back into the leather bag, swinging it onto his shoulder.
"I don't know... still... I'd be careful around anyone walking around covered in... something like that. What if he was cast out?... And these tattoos — his brand?..."
Elara sighed, tilting her head to one side and looking Bernard in the eye.
"And how many peoples do you know who do things like that?... Nobody brands a person with tattoos shaped like runes, even ones like these, since they're usually used for enhancement, like your own book just said."
Bernard turned his head away with a sigh, adjusted the bag on his shoulder, and walked toward the head of the stairs down to the lower floor.
"Well then, our friend must love strange symbols so much he had some artist cover himself in them. Then, after whatever happened that we don't know about, it knocked his memory clean out of him, so much that he doesn't even remember that. That's enough for me, Elara. I need to get going. Dara will kill me if I don't make it to the capital with her today," Bernard said as he went down the stairs and headed for the door out of the house.
After a few seconds looking through the doorway to the stairs, Elara turned back to Aren, sighed, and gave a small smile.
"Well... at least we know it's not connected to the Shogunate... probably..." she said, resting her hands on her hips.
Aren looked at her with a blank expression, understanding every word she said better and better, though certain names still echoed in his mind with nothing behind them.
"Shioghunad?" he asked.
Elara raised her eyebrows, frozen like that for a moment, then smirked slightly and stepped closer.
"Sho-gu-nate. It's... it's a very distant place. Lots of water there, and fog, and people who believe every mark on paper or skin holds power of its own. Bernard and I originally thought you'd sailed here from there... because of your... tattoos."
She looked up and, with a light touch, brushed away the last bit of soot Bernard's hands had left in his hair.
"But Bernard's right about one thing, if there's nothing like these marks in his books, that makes you an even bigger mystery to us than we thought. And Bernard... don't be afraid of him. He might look stern, but he's actually very caring and kind. Though today he's even more on edge than usual, since he's driving Dara, his sweetheart, to Ockhaven. That's the big city beyond the walls, the heart of Waldruhm."
"Ock... haven... Wal... druhm..." Aren repeated.
Elara smiled at his now thoughtful expression, then turned and walked over to a chest by the wall.
"You need to get dressed, Aren. I've got some clothes ready that Bernard was kind enough to lend us... they're old, but sturdy. It's not right for a guest to go around in nothing but torn-up trousers, especially if we decide to go out among people."
She held out a stack of clothes to Aren, which he took and then went still with them held in front of him.
Elara froze too and watched him in the same silence, and an awkward hush settled over the room for a few seconds.
"W-what's wrong?" she asked.
Aren looked at the stack of clothes in his hands, then raised his eyes to Elara, and looked back at the clothes again. When the understanding of what the word "dressed" meant took shape in his mind, he turned aside, set the stack down on the table, and started taking off his trousers right in front of her.
Elara yelped, spinning away sharply and covering her face with her hands.
Aren flinched, startled, and stopped dead, while Elara's voice cracked into a high note and she nearly pressed her forehead to the doorframe.
"W-WAIT! Aren! Oh gods... you... you can't just do that like that! You should get changed in your room... or... just... just wait until I've left!"
She hurried into the next room and turned her back to the doorway, laughing a little as she tried to get hold of her embarrassment.
He's... just like a child... she thought, looking down at the floor.
As he picked up each piece of clothing, his instinct, paired with the knowledge forming itself in his head, helped him understand what went where and how to put it on, just from looking at each item laid out.
When Aren finally got dressed, the feel of the fabric stirred up feelings that were unfamiliar, yet ones he understood.
Standing outside the door and going over her plans for the rest of the day, Elara heard Aren come up beside her.
Elara glanced at him, her eyes traveling up from bottom to top, taking in how the coarse linen shirt stretched tight across his shoulders, its sleeves barely hiding the black tracery of runes on his wrists.
She stepped closer, carefully straightening his collar, then glanced down at his bare feet.
"Good, it fits well enough. Now we need to find you some shoes and figure out what to do next... Soon everyone in the village is going to start asking about you."
She turned toward the window, beyond which came the distant laughter of children and the sound of the working mills.
At the new words Aren's mind adjusted again and shaped a meaning for each of them, though a couple of them caught his particular attention.
"Questions... village..." Aren began muttering.
"Question... answer... speak... tell... listen... understand... knowledge."
Elara glanced at Aren, tilting her head to one side and listening closely to what he was saying.
"Tell me... about the village. I want... to listen... to have knowledge."
She stood without moving at all, struck by how hard Aren had to work just to string words together into sense.
It's like he's learning to talk all over again... she thought, then shook her head with a small smile, walked over to the window, and beckoned him with her hand to look at the view of her village opening up outside.
"Sure, Aren. Our village is called Golden Flow. We're in the westernmost part of Waldruhm. It's a small village, but the people here are very friendly and caring."
She gazed out at the horizon, where the golden wheat swayed in the wind like a living sea.
Aren listened closely, even though the knowledge he gained about this place gave him nothing more than names and words, their dry definitions simply forming themselves in his mind.
"Well, since you've already remembered your name and you understand our speech, that means things aren't so bad after all!... All we need now is just time!" she said, looking at him with a smile as she took off her apron, tossed it onto a chair, and turned back to Aren again.
"Luckily for you, Waldruhm is one of the most peaceful kingdoms in Prime, so you can feel safe here. You can stay with us until you've fully gotten your memory back, and I'll help you with that."
Elara took out a deep woven basket and looked it over as she went on talking to Aren.
"By the way, I'm sure Leo will be happy to help you, considering how much he knows about our world and the technologies of many nations across Prime. Now, try these boots on. A friend of mine left them with me to mend, and I don't think he'll mind if you wear them for now, while we go find you a proper pair."
She set down a pair of leather boots in front of him, worn-looking already, but still fairly well-kept and neat.
Putting them on, he stood up and looked over each foot.
"So? Think you can manage in them for the next half hour?" she asked, watching him closely with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Hm... big..." Aren answered thoughtfully, feeling too much loose space around his toes and heels.
Elara laughed a little, picking up the basket.
"Well, that was to be expected. Einer's pretty tall, though not as... solid as you, so his feet are naturally bigger."
Elara's light laughter stirred up a feeling of warmth and calm in Aren, and it made things far easier for him, at a moment when he felt utterly lost, even abandoned, in this world unknown to him.
The day in Golden Flow crawled by slowly, filled with the sound of the working mills and the rustle of wheat.
Their first stop was the shop of a woman named Ingrid, and the walk there turned into Aren's first real trial. His oversized boots flopped along the dusty road, forcing him to focus on every step just to keep his balance, and the place greeted them with the smell of tanned leather, sharp dye, and a faint trace of oils from the capital.
Stepping inside, they immediately saw a middle-aged woman with fiery red curly hair at the far end of the room.
"Oh, Elara! I was just thinking about you the other day! How've you bee—" Ingrid cut herself off sharply, seeing Aren walk in behind Elara.
"Interesting... Elara, who's this young man? Your new friend?" she asked with a smile.
Elara gave a quick account of everything that had happened, while Ingrid eyed Aren's tattoos peeking out from under his collar with brisk professional interest.
"Hmm... well, I never... I can't even imagine how that feels... my husband got so drunk once that it knocked the sense clean out of him, and poor Bernard had to haul the fool home on his own back, and by morning he'd forgotten the whole day before completely. But looking at you, your case is a lot worse..." Ingrid announced, losing all sense of tact in the moment, at which Elara shot her a pointed, awkward look.
"Ah... er... well, don't you worry, big guy, it'll all clear up on its own, and you'll remember everything, all it takes is time and a strong woman!" she added, winking at Elara.
Ingrid later fitted Aren with a pair of sturdy leather boots, plain but reliable, and once he had them on, that loose, empty feeling gave way to a snug, pleasant fit.
After saying goodbye to her, they headed for Grandma Martha's bakery, and on the way there Aren caught a new and pleasant smell of baking bread; once they stepped inside, the scent was so thick it seemed almost solid enough to touch.
Inside, life was in full swing. Leo, covered in flour up to his eyebrows, was enthusiastically feeding logs into a huge oven, while little Mia sat molding dumplings with fierce concentration, the tip of her tongue poking out with effort.
Suddenly he heard a woman's voice, and turning the other way, he saw Grandma Martha.
"So this is him, our mysterious guest. The children haven't stopped chattering about you all day."
She came closer, not smiling as openly as Elara did, shaking off her hands and looking straight into his eyes. As she peered deeper her eyes narrowed slightly, while Elara spoke to her.
"This is Aren. We haven't managed to find out where he's from, or why he's here... but at least he's remembered his name."
Martha's thoughtful expression gave way to a warm smile as she gestured with her hand toward the table.
"Sit down, young man, we're just about to set the table."
Aren turned and walked to the table without a word, as Martha stepped closer to Elara and spoke to her in a whisper.
"His eyes run deep, girl... he reminds me more of a child than a grown man who's simply lost his memory."
Elara knit her brows and turned to Martha, paused a moment, then leaned in a little closer to her ear, glancing at Aren.
"What do you mean?"
"The eyes, Elara. It doesn't matter whether you've lost your memory or not, the eyes are the mirror of the soul. If that soul is locked away somewhere inside, waiting to wake, it'll show its signs one way or another. But his eyes... they're like a blank page... I've only ever seen eyes like that in newborn children."
Suddenly Aren flinched back a little when Leo handed him a hot roll. He tried to toss it from palm to palm, and the bread ended up on the flour-dusted floor, while new definitions of "hot" and "pain" flared up and locked into place in his mind.
Leo burst into loud, childish laughter, holding his stomach as he turned to Mia.
"Mia, did you see? Did you see his face?"
Elara hissed angrily at her little brother and grabbed a clean rag, picking the bread up off the floor.
"Leo! That's not funny at all! Aren, are you all right? Let me see your hand."
She gently took his hand, examining it closely. The skin was reddened, but there was no serious damage.
Martha stood off to the side, watching it all with a smile.
"Don't be cross with the little one, Elara. Pain is the best teacher there is. Now he knows what warm is, and what hot is. The body's memory always comes back first," the old woman said, and gave Leo's ear a tug at the same time.
Later, evening wrapped Golden Flow in soft twilight. Over the course of the day, Aren had heard a great many new words, concepts, and definitions slip past in the conversations between Elara, Leo, and Martha. Inside the bakery it had grown a little cooler, but around the oak table where everyone had gathered, the warmth remained.
In front of Aren stood a deep bowl of thick stew made from root vegetables and boiled wheat, while a mountain of fresh bread rose in the center of the table, and he now reached for it carefully.
Elara broke off a piece of bread and passed it to Mia, who was doing her best to eat her stew slowly and carefully.
"Careful, Aren. This one's just warm, this time. Eat, you need to get your strength back," she said.
New sensations kept surfacing in his mind. The taste of salt, of sweetness, of baked carrot, and the fullness of meat. With every mouthful, the fog in his head grew a little less thick, and the movements of his hands grew steadier.
Leo, for his part, tried talking to him with his mouth full of food, waving his spoon around at the same time.
"Aren, did you know our windmills — they're the biggest in Waldruhm! We use them for grinding, but in Aeris-Lund they can even make little bolts of lightning!"
"Leo, don't chatter with your mouth full. Aren's learned enough for one day. He needs time to... let it all settle in his head," Martha answered, stern and faintly smiling at the same time.
Aren looked up from his plate and saw Mia sitting across from him, gripping her spoon in her small fingers, her eyes fixed on his wrists, where black lines showed beneath the cuffs of his shirt. The room smelled of dying embers, flour, and home, a thing he couldn't fully grasp yet, but one that was already giving him a feeling of safety.
Elara thought for a moment, then set down her spoon and looked at Aren.
"Aren, I never did ask what you think about staying here for a while..."
Silence hung over the table while Aren thought over what Elara had said. He looked at each person sitting there with him, until he lowered his eyes again.
"I... don't have the knowledge... I don't know where to go... what to do..." Aren answered, his eyes moving slowly from side to side.
Just when it seemed everyone at the table felt Aren's lostness, young Leo's voice broke the silence.
"Then let's find out about everything, and you'll figure out where to go and what to do along the way!"
Aren raised his head, looking at Leo with mild surprise. Elara and Martha traded a smile, then looked at Aren, who didn't know where to rest his eyes.
"Yes. We'll find out about everything. And figure out where to go," Elara added.
Aren held his eyes on Elara's, which openly showed her certainty and her wish to support the man she had saved. And in that moment, for the first time all day, the corners of Aren's mouth lifted slightly, though it still couldn't quite be called a smile.
He nodded with a touch of uncertainty, dropping his gaze to the table.
"I take it that's a yes," said Martha, glancing at Elara, who was smiling warmly.
At that, Leo hopped down from his chair and ran over to Aren.
"Yay! Now I've got a new friend to go exploring with! Fist bump!" he cried, thrusting out his small clenched fist.
Aren looked at him in confusion, and Leo lifted his hand, folded the fingers into a fist, and knocked his own fist against it.
A tap that looked slight — a child's hand against his — but for Aren it felt like something important. Something he had yet to understand more deeply. Something he would come to treasure for a long time to come.
That very evening, the Greenfield family opened a new chapter of their story. A story in which the mysterious stranger had, for now, become part of their family circle, with no notion that his very existence had forever set in motion a cycle of irreversible changes, changes that would touch, first and foremost, a home once quiet and at peace.