The road ended where it hadn't before.
He noticed it only after walking too far.
What should have been a narrow dirt path curved instead into stone, smooth and pale, lined with markers he didn't recognize. The slope of the land was the same. The river still cut through the valley at the same angle. But the edges had been reshaped, pressed into something more deliberate.
He stopped at the crest and looked down.
A town stood there now.
Not a village grown slowly into itself, but something planned—streets laid out in straighter lines, buildings clustered with intent. Roofs of unfamiliar shape caught the light. Smoke rose from chimneys that hadn't existed in his memory.
He waited for recognition to surface.
It didn't.
He descended into the town with the unremarkable patience he'd learned on the road. People moved past him with purpose, clothes cut differently than he remembered, colors brighter in places, duller in others. Accents shifted between sentences. Words bent slightly out of shape.
No one looked at him twice.
At a stall near the square, he stopped to listen.
"…since the old bridge was taken down—"
"…can't believe it's been that long already—"
"…my father used to talk about that war—"
He didn't ask which war.
He didn't need to.
He bought bread with coins he no longer recognized by sight but understood by weight. The vendor counted them without hesitation, sliding one back as unnecessary. When he thanked her, she smiled politely and turned to the next customer.
He ate standing, watching people pass.
The square had been something else once. He remembered an open field, trampled flat by animals and feet. Now there was a fountain at its center, stone worn smooth by hands and time. Children ran around it, laughing, their voices sharp and bright.
He watched them longer than he intended to.
One of them slowed, eyes catching on him briefly—not with curiosity, just with the passing awareness reserved for strangers. Then the child ran on, already absorbed by something else.
He moved again.
At the edge of town, he found an old marker half-hidden behind newer construction. The stone was weathered, the inscription shallow and uneven. Someone had tried to preserve it once, had failed.
He brushed dirt from the surface with his hand.
A name surfaced in his mind.
Someone he had known.
The connection felt thin, stretched.
He stepped away.
The next place he stayed was closer to the hills, where the air thinned and the nights cooled earlier. He worked briefly—lifting, carrying, tasks that required effort but little explanation. People learned his presence, then forgot it just as easily.
Seasons changed without announcement.
Heat gave way to cold. Leaves thickened on the ground, then vanished. The smell of rain shifted. He adjusted his clothing when necessary. Nothing about him resisted the changes.
Only the mirror betrayed it.
In a basin of water one morning, he caught his reflection by accident. The same face looked back at him. The same unmarked skin. The same eyes that had learned to measure distance instead of closeness.
He looked away before anyone could notice him standing still too long.
He recognized someone one afternoon.
The recognition struck without warning, sharp enough to stop him mid-step. The man stood outside a shop, hair thinned and grayed, posture slightly bent. His voice carried the echo of something familiar when he laughed.
They had grown up near each other.
He remembered the man as broader, louder, quicker to smile.
The man glanced at him, eyes sliding past without pause.
A moment later, the man frowned slightly and looked again.
Their gazes met.
Confusion flickered there. Something like recognition tried—and failed—to settle. The man's brow furrowed, lips parting as if to speak.
Then someone called his name from inside the shop.
The moment passed.
The man turned away.
He stood where he was for several breaths after that, the space around him filled with ordinary movement. Carts rattled past. Someone cursed softly. A door slammed.
He did not follow.
He left the town before nightfall.
Further on, he heard a different ruler's name spoken casually by travelers at a crossroads. The name meant nothing to him, but the tone did—familiar, resigned, already half-forgotten.
Someone mentioned a law that hadn't existed the last time he'd listened closely. Another spoke of a border that had shifted "years ago," as if borders were weather.
He listened. He remembered. He did not comment.
He stayed nowhere long enough to be counted.
When questions came—and they still did, from time to time—they were different now. Less personal. Less concerned.
"Where are you from?"
"Passing through?"
"How long do you plan to stay?"
His answers were always temporary.
"Not far."
"Yes."
"Not long."
They accepted this easily.
By the time he realized how much time had passed, it no longer surprised him.
He marked it instead by absence.
By names that no longer surfaced.
By places that no longer matched.
By habits that had fallen away without struggle.
One evening, he stood at the edge of a gathering he had not been invited to, watching lanterns lifted into the dark. People cheered softly as the lights rose, faces warm with shared memory.
He did not know what they were celebrating.
He did not ask.
When the lanterns drifted out of sight, he turned away and continued down the road alone.
Time did not chase him.
It simply kept going.
He learned to notice time in ways that had nothing to do with calendars.
It showed itself in speech first. Words softened, then shifted. Phrases he had once used without thought drew brief looks now—never suspicion, just mild confusion. He listened more than he spoke, adjusting quietly, letting language move past him while he stayed still at its center.
Clothes changed next.
Not suddenly. Gradually. Sleeves cut differently. Colors favored, then abandoned. What he wore always felt a step behind or ahead, no matter how carefully he chose. He stopped trying to match it exactly. Close enough was enough.
People aged around him.
He watched it happen without ceremony.
A woman who had once carried water easily began to pause halfway down the path, resting her hand against the wall. A man who had laughed loudly started to repeat himself, then to forget what he had been saying. Children grew into shapes that resembled their parents more than themselves.
He remained.
When someone noticed, it was never dramatic.
"You don't look much different," they would say, tone light.
He learned to smile at that. Learned to shrug. "Good fortune," he would answer, and the conversation would move on.
Good fortune explained everything people didn't want to examine.
He stayed long enough in one place once for the seasons to cycle twice. Long enough for familiarity to take root, for his presence to be accepted as part of the background. That was when he understood he had stayed too long.
It began with a question asked twice.
Then with a pause that lasted longer than politeness required.
Then with a look that lingered after he had turned away.
He left the next morning before anyone could decide what that look meant.
Years overlapped after that.
Not neatly. Not in sequence.
He remembered a drought and a harvest festival as if they had occurred close together, though he knew they hadn't. He remembered a ruler's name paired with the face of a man who had served under two different banners without ever changing sides.
Wars came and went in fragments.
He saw their edges more often than their centers—columns of soldiers moving along roads, villages quieter than they should have been, fields left untended for reasons no one explained outright. By the time he heard the outcome spoken aloud, it was already history.
Someone would say, "After the war—"
And someone else would reply, "That was a long time ago."
It never felt that way to him.
Once, passing through a town at dusk, he saw a monument being erected. Stone blocks stacked carefully, names etched shallow and precise. People stood nearby, heads bowed.
He read none of the names.
He didn't need to.
They would fade eventually. Either worn down by weather, or replaced by another list carved into another stone. He had learned that much.
The realization did not sadden him.
It hollowed something out instead.
He adapted without deciding to.
He stopped learning faces.
Stopped asking questions whose answers would expire.
Stopped offering details that tied him to a place.
He became useful without being necessary.
He fixed things. Carried loads. Watched roads when asked. Left before anyone thought to ask him to stay.
When he slept, it was lightly. Not from fear, but from habit. Dreams thinned, then vanished entirely. Sleep became a function, not a refuge.
One evening, he stood on a rise overlooking a city he had once known by another name.
The walls were taller now. The gates reinforced. The river diverted slightly to serve new mills. Lights burned in places that had once gone dark at sunset.
He searched his memory for the version he remembered.
It felt like recalling a story someone else had told him.
Below, people moved through the streets unaware of him, carrying concerns that mattered urgently to them and not at all beyond their lifetimes. He watched until the last of the light faded and the city settled into itself.
He did not feel excluded.
He felt out of alignment.
Time was no longer something he moved through.
It was something that moved around him.
When he turned away and continued on, there was no sense of destination—only continuation. The road accepted his steps without comment.
Somewhere behind him, another era was beginning.
Somewhere ahead, it would end.
He would still be there.