"Does it bother you?" Rohan asked. "Being reminded of what you lost."
Corven considered the question a long moment, watching the children work through their exercise with genuine, focused enthusiasm. "Used to think it would. Turns out it doesn’t, not the way I expected. Feels more like paying something forward than reopening an old wound. She’d have liked this place, I think. Liked the way these kids look at flying like it’s still something worth dreaming about, rather than just a job that took their father away too often."
Rohan said nothing, simply resting a hand on the man’s shoulder, and Corven, after a moment, nodded once in quiet, grateful acknowledgment.
On their final night at Veyrhold, the settlement gathered in the common chamber for what Bryan insisted, with unusual formality, on calling a proper farewell feast — modest by any standard beyond Cael Athis’s own harsh scarcity, but generous enough by Veyrhold’s careful rationing that
Rohan understood immediately how much genuine effort had gone into arranging it.
"We don’t often have reason to celebrate rather than simply survive," Maerin said, settling beside him as the gathering swelled with familiar faces — Jorren and Iri sharing some private joke near the food stores, Bryan carefully supervising the meal’s distribution with his usual meticulous attention, Pell weaving excitedly between the adults, clearly delighted by the rare festivity. "Seemed worth making an exception, for the man who found his way home and came back to say goodbye properly before disappearing into it."
"This is more than I expected," Rohan admitted, watching the gathered crowd with a warmth that ached almost as much as it comforted. "I didn’t think I deserved this kind of send-off."
"You earned considerably more than this modest gathering can properly express," Maerin said.
"Seven months ago, you were a burden this settlement debated whether it could afford to feed. Now you’re the reason half these people believe impossible things are worth chasing at all." She studied the gathering a long moment. "Let them give you this. It costs you nothing, and it means more to them than you’re currently allowing yourself to understand."
Jorren found him partway through the evening, pressing a small, carved wooden token into his palm — a crude but carefully made likeness of a spear, whittled, Rohan realised with a rush of emotion, from the same type of wood Jorren used for his own practice weapons.
"Made it these past few nights," Jorren said gruffly, clearly uncomfortable with the sentiment even as he offered it. "Figured you should have something of Veyrhold’s to carry with you, wherever you end up. Something that isn’t just a memory."
"Thank you," Rohan said, closing his fingers around the small carving. "I’ll carry it as far as I’m able to carry anything."
Bryan, for his part, presented Rohan with a formal, carefully sealed copy of every record they’d worked on together — petitions, salvage documentation, the entire history of Rohan’s contributions to the settlement compiled into a single, official archive. "For your own record," Bryan explained, "in case anyone on the other side of that crossing ever asks what became of the seven months you spent in this universe. Proof that it mattered. That you mattered, to people who had every reason not to trust a stranger who fell from nowhere."
Rohan accepted the record with hands that weren’t entirely steady, understanding, with fresh, aching clarity, exactly how much this small, struggling settlement had given him across the months of his stay — not just survival, but purpose, community, the genuine foundation of whoever he’d finally become.
It was on the final evening before their planned departure that Maerin found Rohan alone at the settlement’s outer wall, watching the same violet sky he’d watched every evening since his return, turning over the weight of everything still waiting for him back at the Halcyon Span.
"You’re ready," Maerin said, settling beside him without preamble. "Whatever waits for you out there, you’re readier for it than you were seven months ago. I can see it in how you carry yourself now."
"I don’t feel ready," Rohan admitted. "I feel like I’m about to lose everyone I’ve come to care about, all at once, the moment I finally cross."
"That’s not the same as being unready," Maerin said. "That’s simply the cost of caring about something enough to grieve losing it. I’d worry about you considerably more if you felt nothing at all." She studied the darkening sky a long moment. "For what it’s worth — and I don’t say this often, so take it for the weight it carries — I’m proud of the person you’ve become since the day you first stumbled into this settlement, half-frozen and entirely unprepared for the world you’d landed in. Whatever happens on the other side of that crossing, you’ve more than earned the right to reach it."
Rohan felt his throat tighten with an emotion too large to properly voice. "Thank you, Maerin. For everything. I wouldn’t have survived any of this without what you taught me."
"You’d have found a way regardless," Maerin said, something almost gentle beneath her characteristic sternness. "You’re stubborn enough for that much, at least. But I’m glad I got to be part of the journey, whatever shape it eventually took."
Liora found him at the wall’s edge some time after Maerin had returned to the settlement, the two of them sharing the same quiet, aching space they’d claimed nearly every evening since his return, watching the last violet light finally surrender to full dark.
"You leave tomorrow," she said, not quite a question.
"At first light," Rohan confirmed. "Corven wants to catch a clear weather window before the next ash squall rolls through the region."
Liora was quiet a long moment, turning something over in her hands that Rohan recognised, with a fresh ache, as a second charm — smaller than the one she’d already given him, carved from the same weathered wood, its edges not yet worn smooth by years of careful handling the way the first one’s had been.
"I made this while you were gone," she said, offering it to him. "After I gave you Father’s charm, I didn’t have anything left of his to keep for myself. Made this one instead, so I’d have something to hold onto while I waited to find out whether you were even still alive out there." She pressed it into his palm alongside its older twin. "I want you to take this one too. Not because I don’t trust the first one to do its job. Because I want you to carry something that’s entirely, specifically from me, not just something I happened to pass along from him."
Rohan closed his fingers around both charms, feeling their combined weight settle against his palm with a significance that went far beyond their simple physical mass.
"I’ll carry both," he said. "As far as anything’s allowed to travel with me, through whatever that final crossing actually demands."
"Good." Liora’s voice carried a fresh tremor she was fighting to control. "I know I won’t get to see whether you make it through safely. I know this is the last time I’ll ever stand here with you like this. But I want you to know — whatever happens after tomorrow, whatever the crossing costs you, you gave me something too. Seven months of hoping instead of simply grieving. That’s worth more than I think you understand."
Rohan pulled her close one final time, memorising the shape of the moment with the same desperate care he’d once memorised the sight of her standing watch atop the wall.
"Thank you," he said. "For everything. For the charm, for the hope, for every single reason you gave me to keep fighting toward this exact moment."
They stood together a long while longer, saying little else, simply existing in each other’s presence for as long as the fading evening allowed, before finally, reluctantly, making their way back toward the settlement’s warm, familiar lights.
The Rustwake lifted off from the same merchant landing field the following morning, the entire gathered weight of Veyrhold’s community assembled at the settlement’s outer gate to see them off — Maerin’s steady, watchful presence, Jorren’s raised hand in solemn farewell, Bryan’s careful, formal nod, Iri’s fierce, tearful smile, Pell waving with both arms until the ship had fully vanished into the pale morning sky, and Liora, standing slightly apart from the others, one hand pressed to her chest exactly where both charms now rested against Rohan’s own.
Rohan watched Veyrhold shrink away beneath them through the cockpit’s viewport, the settlement’s buried, hard-won lights fading gradually into the vast, ash-scoured horizon, and felt the same complicated tangle of grief and gratitude and stubborn, forward-looking resolve settle over him that had carried him across every single leg of this long, impossible journey.
"You alright?" Corven asked, guiding the ship up through the last of the atmospheric turbulence with careful, practiced precision.
"I will be," Rohan said, watching the violet sky finally give way to the star-scattered black of open space. "Whatever comes next, I said everything I needed to say. That’s more than I ever expected to have the chance to do."
Dr. Farr, settled into the Rustwake’s cramped third seat, studied him with quiet, understanding sympathy. "Then we head back toward the Halcyon Span. Toward the fracture, and whatever choice still waits for you there."
"Toward the fracture," Rohan agreed, feeling the weight of everything still ahead settle over him with equal parts dread and hard-won readiness. "Whatever it finally costs."
[Great System Note: Quest Updated — The Ashford Anomaly]
[Objective: Return to Veyrhold. Deliver news in person. — Complete]
[New Objective: Prepare final farewells. Return to the Halcyon Span when ready.]
[Active Quest Chain: The Halcyon Span → The Wraithfall Fringe → The Ashford Anomaly]
[Status: In Progress]
Rohan closed the notification slowly, watching the last light fade from Cael Athis’s violet sky, and understood, with a clarity that had nothing to do with system messages and everything to do with everything this long, winding search had finally taught him, that whatever waited for him at the end of the crossing, he would carry every single piece of this journey with him — not as baggage, but as the foundation of whoever he’d finally become.
Almost time. Not yet. But almost.
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