I came back to my room after washing up the dishes. Mother is the one who usually do all this, in fact, she never made me do any of the house chores which I never objected to either but now...she's acting different. She's acting strange ever since he left. That dunce.

She makes me work a lot these days. In fact, she even insisted me to learn the appropriate prices of each type of harvest from our fields and help her making the accounts.

Though we do have a piece of land, since mother don't know much about farming, she hire freelancers to work on the field. Either because the harvest turns out bad or maybe because the workers embezzle us, in the end we are hardly able to get by but...she is strong. I remember occasionally hearing her sobs from her room calling dad's name but she stayed strong.

She seems to have changed, perhaps she thinks I too will leave someday so she must teach me things to survive. Though sometimes my body urge me to tell her that that fool will be back anytime soon but I'd rather see it happen than telling her.

Yesterday's snowfall marked the beginning of winters, its the season that's the hardest on us financially since nothing can be sown in the thick snow but that's trivial in front of the beauty that this time of the year brings. It's far more than worth sleeping a few nights with a little less than full stomach.

I opened the window and swept my gaze across the village, thin smoke rose from the many chimneys that jutted out of the snow covered roofs. Then I looked at the sky, the moon. Tonight's a full moon, this townscape looks beautiful in dead of the night as the attention diverts from the shacks to the sky. Completely silent, the white landscape due to yesterday's snow reflected the moon's dim light.

That fool, he really thought he could become an adventurer? He must be on his way back after getting rejected out by the academy. I don't really care what happens to him but...it will be sad. Seeing his face, after he has realized that he was deluding himself into thinking of the impossible, will be sad. I don't know how he will react, he is very stubborn but what can he do about something that was never in his control? 

"You fool...Can't we just stay here... together?" 

Don't you see the moon shines brightest in the sky at the same place each night? Then why do you just think about moving out, wandering in the world.

A soft breeze shook me out of my daze, it felt different, almost familiar. My gaze returned to the village, the same white townscape with smoke coming out from fewer chimneys now but it was a bit different this time, there was someone walking towards the house from the plaza. The person wasn't clearly visible in the dark but I could see the ragged clothes, barely covering that man's torso, swaying around. Then my eyes went to the feet, he was bare feet. After he came a few steps closer, my eyes widened seeing the jacket draping on his shoulder, the black leather jacket that I was so familiar with.

Steve? He waved back his hair to the sides, to reveal his face. He looked at me and a sense of relief poured down on me. Why am I reacting this way even though I knew he will come back? 

That's when I realized, my focus wasn't on his tattered clothes, or on the bruises and welts that covered his body or the strange bird that perched on his shoulder and nor on the pile that he hauled behind. His current site was chill inducing yet a smile crept up my face as he looked at me, scratching his ruffled silver locks, smiling. 

His eyes hadn't lost their shine.