The first light of morning crept over the village edge like an unwelcome guest, pale and hesitant. The Elf felt it before she opened her eyes—a low moan escaping her lips, as though summoning the courage to greet another sunrise. Her auburn hair lay in wild knots across her face, hiding eyes still red from restless sleep. In one hand she clutched a chipped tin cup, in the other a half-empty bottle whose contents offered no comfort.

She blinked at the lonely dirt trail winding toward her, catching sight of a small, wiry figure climbing the slope. The boy was coming, just as she’d known he would.

“Teach me to be as strong as you,” he called when he reached her side, gripping a frayed strap of his too-large pack.

She sighed, took a long swig from the bottle, and let it rest between her knees. “Strength doesn’t come with a snap of the fingers,” she muttered, voice heavy with defeat more than irritation. But his earnest face, hopeful and steady, chipped away at her resistance.

She drew a breath, voice low and deliberate. “You see that horizon? It’s scarred by battles no drunkard’s lullaby can heal.” She motioned vaguely to the distant hills, where dark wounds still showed.

The Elf hugged her knees tight, as though bracing against her own unraveling. Mist clung to the grass like a stubborn memory refusing to fade. A dull ache pulsed in her skull, a reminder of last night’s poor choices. She tipped the bottle to her lips again; its sharp bite felt fitting.

The boy stepped closer, his silhouette framed by dawn’s dim glow. “Please,” he whispered, pleading and determined all at once. “I need to be strong.”

She squinted at his worn-out jacket and scuffed boots, marked by a long night’s march. Running her thumb over the dented rim of her cup, she answered with a sneer: “Go home. This isn’t a game.”

His shoulders dropped, but he didn’t flinch. “I’m not leaving,” he insisted, voice trembling but firm. “I saw what you did. I want you to teach me.”

She laughed—a bitter, hollow sound. “You need a good night’s rest more than ‘strength.’ True power isn’t a parlor trick.”

Yet he remained, inching forward like hope itself had taken human form.

“You can’t just follow me around,” she snapped, sharper than she meant. Still, a flicker of curiosity lit inside her.

The boy knelt beside her, hands pressed into the dew-soaked earth. “I won’t stop asking until you say yes.” His calm resolve was a blade that cut through her apathy.

She studied him in silence, the morning stretching between them like a challenge. Finally, she sighed—a long, weary exhale—and let her guard slip. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” Her tone softened, curiosity overtaking annoyance.

He nodded, bright-eyed, reminding her of a puppy she once owned long ago. “I won’t give up.”

Birds scattered as a crow landed near her boot, pecked with dispassion at a squashed apricot, then hopped away when she flicked a stone its direction. She eyed the boy, measuring the way he retreated from nothing, quiet and compact as if holding breath inside his bones.

The hush held, braced by the world’s collective resolve to ignore her. Ana wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and spat. The hangover wasn’t going to recede; she could feel it anchoring itself behind her eyes, a small hot sun that promised to burn all day.

“Is it true what they say? Were you really a great warrior?” he asked.

The question cracked her facade. “You mean was,” she said bitterly. “No one calls me that anymore.”

“But you led the rebels against the King. Everyone said—”

The bottle slipped from her fingers as the memory seized her: blood-slick armor, his eyes fixed on nothing while rain pelted them both. “Stay with me,” she’d begged, cradling his head as mud churned red beneath them. The weight of him grew until the final stillness. Years later, her hands trembled as she closed around the bottle again; her knuckles went white.

“It doesn’t matter what you heard,” she hissed, anger flaring then ebbing away, leaving a cold calm. “I was wrong about a lot of things.”

The boy neither flinched nor faltered. He looked at her with that relentless curiosity, ready to absorb every scar in her story. She raised a hand. “Enough.” The word was softer, but it stilled him.

In that hush, something shifted. She found words she never thought she’d speak. “I used to lead the King’s Guard.” The admission tasted strange.

His jaw fell open. “Really?”

She shrugged, voice low. “It wasn’t as glorious as they tell in taverns. At the Siege, we forced our way in through a hidden passage—saved the castle, turned the tide. But that was a lifetime ago.”

He leaned forward, awe mingling with questions in his eyes. “So you were...”

She looked down at her ragged clothes, the faded fabric that told its own story. “Shows what you know,” she said with a wry twist of her lips, lifting the tin cup as proof.

He hesitated, doubt flickering in his gaze—then resolve brightened his face. “You were.”

She felt the boy’s unspoken expectation press against her shell. The moment she could still walk away, now gone. With a tilt of her head, she studied the horizon’s gray scars. “It was a long time ago,” she repeated, voice clipped. Yet as the words left her lips, a stubborn part of her yielded to his persistence.

He waited. She inhaled deeply, then let her story spill out. “I was still a kid by my people’s standards—barely older than you. I thought I could change the world.”

He frowned, absorbing every syllable. “What happened?”

“Reality,” she replied flatly, bitterness lacing her tone. “Turns out, the world doesn’t bend so easily.” She traced idle patterns in the dirt with her boot’s toe.

“But you tried,” he said softly, hope shining in his voice. The honesty of it made her heart twist.

She nodded. “Yeah. I tried.”

They sat in quiet companionship as the village roared awake. Birdsong and wood smoke drifted on the breeze. The boy’s steady gaze invited more, but she hesitated.

“This won’t be easy,” she finally said, startling him. “I’m no wizard to hand you magic or destiny.”

He met her look with unexpected seriousness. “I’m sure.”

She studied his determined face, something like respect stirring in her chest. “All right, kid,” she said at last, the words feeling oddly right. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

A grin broke across his face, bright as the rising sun. She found herself smiling back, surprised by how welcome it felt.

The fragile moment stretched, tinted with possibility. She picked up the tin cup again, rolling it between her fingers. The faint tremor in her hand no longer felt like weakness, but the spark of something new.

"Different life. Different me."

The boy leaned forward, eyes wide and encouraging. She could have stopped herself, but his silent acceptance coaxed more from her. “I thought I knew best,” she confessed, words rushing out. “Believed I could fix everything. I was wrong.”

He reached out as if to speak comfort, but she cut him off with a gentle wave. “Never mind,” she said, voice brittle. “You probably don’t understand.”

He opened his mouth, then fell silent, sensing her retreat. She turned to the horizon, the light now bright enough to cast crisp shadows—mirrors of the lines etched in her heart.

“You should rest,” he offered softly.

She raised an eyebrow, amused. “Now you’re ordering me around?”

His cheeks warmed. “I just—well.”

She smiled, a crooked, genuine curve of her lips. “All right,” she said, tone threaded with something like fondness. “I know.”

They leaned into the quiet, side by side, watching possibility unfurl at dawn. When he finally spoke again, it was so soft she almost missed it. “Thank you.”

She shrugged, a playful challenge in her voice. “Don’t thank me yet. You’ve got work to do.”

His grin was contagious. “I will.”

She shook her head, part exasperated, part pleased. “Strange kid.”

He laughed, scratching the back of his neck. “I never even—uh, my name’s Caden.”

She raised one brow, surprised. He offered his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

She let her fingers brush his. “Ana,” she replied, her name hanging between them like a gift.

Caden’s smile widened, and Ana felt warmth spread through her bones, banishing the last shiver of morning chill. Still gripping the tin cup, she acknowledged the tremor in her fingers—only now it felt less like defeat and more like hope at first light.