"Oh—oh God—!" he cried, choking on the words. "It hurts—please—plea-!"
His fingers clawed uselessly at the ground. He couldn't feel his hand properly anymore. Everything hurt too much to think.
The creature loomed over him, breath hot and foul.
Then— he saw a light.
And it was-
It was gone.
The weight vanished. The pain faded into a dull, throbbing shock. The pressure on his arm released so suddenly he gasped.
Vesperyn lay there, shaking violently.
Slowly, he lifted his head.
Someone was standing a few steps away.
An old man.
He had red hair streaked with gray, pulled back loosely, and eyes that looked sharp even in the darkness. His posture was relaxed, almost casual, as if nothing unusual had happened at all.
Vesperyn stared at him, mouth open, tears streaming silently down his face.
The old man didn't offer a hand. He just looked at Vesperyn's bleeding arm, then at his red hair, and sighed. It was the sound of a man who had just found more work to do.
"You're making enough noise to wake every Echo in this Reach, boy," he said, his voice like grinding gravel.
"Keep screaming like that and you'll be a meal before the moon sets. Now get up. I don't give tours to corpses."
..
"Eat."
The old man held out a piece of something wrapped in cloth. It smelled faintly of smoke and fat.
Vesperyn didn't move.
He sat with his back against a tree, knees pulled in, staring at the ground as if it might open up and swallow him again. His arm still throbbed where the creature's claws had dug in.
"I'm not poisoning you," the man said flatly. "If I wanted you dead, I'd have left you there."
Vesperyn said nothing.
The old man sighed and dropped down onto a fallen log a short distance away.
Great, he thought. A traumatized child. In the middle of nowhere. At night. As if the forest wasn't already annoying enough.
He rubbed his face with one hand.
There were tracks everywhere—broken branches, torn leaves, blood. And then there was the part that didn't make sense.
No trail leading in.
No sign of arrival.
Either the boy fell from the sky, Harlen thought, or reality glitched.
Neither option made sense.
He glanced at the child again. Thin. Shaking. Trying very hard not to cry.
Wonderful.
The old man cleared his throat and stuck out his hand. "Harlen Rost."
Vesperyn hesitated. Then, slowly, he reached out and shook it.
"…Vesperyn."
Harlen raised an eyebrow.
What kind of fancy, noble nonsense is that? he thought.
At the same time, Vesperyn pulled his hand back.
Harlen
"So," Harlen said, gesturing vaguely at the darkness around them, "you want to tell me what a child is doing alone in the borders of pilgrim at night?"
Vesperyn swallowed.
"I wasn't here before."
Harlen waited.
"And?"
"I was… somewhere else."
"Uh-huh."
Harlen leaned back against the log, arms crossed. "Let me guess. You got lost."
"No."
"You ran away."
"No."
Vesperyn shook his head, more sharply this time. "I came through the sky."
The word hung between them.
Harlen blinked once.
Then twice.
"…A portal," he said.
"Yes."
Harlen stared at him for a long moment, then looked around the forest again, as if expecting to see a glowing hole politely still open.
There was nothing.
"No scorch marks," he muttered. "No residue. No distortion."
He looked back at the boy. "You don't look like a pathway user."
"I'm not."
"Then who opened it?"
Vesperyn opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
His throat tightened.
"I don't know," he said quietly.
That, at least, was true.
Harlen studied him more carefully now. Not like a threat. Not like prey.
Like a problem.
"Kid," he said finally, "portals don't just happen. And children don't fall out of them into monster territory for no reason."
Vesperyn hugged his knees tighter.
"I just want to go home."
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
Harlen's expression softened—just a little. Not enough to be comforting.
"Yeah," he said. "So do most people."
He stood up, brushing dirt from his trousers.
"Eat," he said again, more firmly this time. "You're shaking. And if you pass out, I'm not carrying you."
Vesperyn hesitated.
Then, slowly, he reached for the food.
"Come on," Harlen said, turning away. "Let's go."
Vesperyn pushed himself up, his legs stiff and unsteady. He followed a step behind, careful not to trip over roots he still couldn't properly see.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"Home," Harlen replied without looking back.
They walked in silence for a bit. The forest slowly thinned, the darkness easing just enough that Vesperyn could make out Harlen's back, broad, steady, unhurried.
Then Harlen slowed.
He glanced back, eyes lingering on Vesperyn's hair.
"That red," he said. "I've seen it before."
Vesperyn stiffened. "You have?"
Harlen didn't answer right away. He turned forward again, voice quieter than before.
"…That girl," he murmured to himself. "Inara,"