Location: Branhal
Time: Morning to Evening — Day 3
Morning – Smoke and Silence
The third morning after Alec's arrival in Branhal began with the scent of ash and sour milk.
Mist still clung to the dirt paths like forgotten dreams. Smoke curled slowly from low chimneys. Somewhere, a rooster gave a late, uncertain cry. And beside the healer's hut, Alec stood barefoot on the dew-wet threshold, arms folded, face impassive.
The village woke the same way it always had.
Men slouched toward the fields with crude hoes slung over their shoulders, voices low. Women gathered near the well, buckets swinging in rhythm. Children chased each other between stacks of firewood. No one screamed. No one marched. No one imagined anything could be different.
Alec watched.
Same rhythm. Same energy lost to friction. The inefficiencies pressed in around him like a vice.
Behind him, soft steps approached. He didn't turn.
"You're up again," Mira said, pulling a scarf over her hair. Her voice was half-greeting, half-challenge.
"Didn't sleep much."
"Nightmares?"
"No. Calculations."
She moved beside him, following his gaze. He didn't blink.
"I was thinking," he said, "about how the forge loses sixty percent of its thermal energy to uncontrolled venting. How the carts are unevenly weighted. How the well could be five degrees west and draw cleaner water. How your roofs leak at the lowest point instead of the edge because they're angled wrong. That sort of thing."
She raised an eyebrow. "You call that thinking?"
"I call it restraint. If I told Jorren every inefficiency in his forge, he'd put a hammer through my teeth."
"True," she said, smiling. "He might still."
Alec breathed in deeply. Cold air, rich with soil, and a faint edge of burning pine. It calmed him, slightly.
"There's so much here," he said. "So much raw material. But no synthesis. They're repeating what worked, never asking why."
Mira tilted her head. "And you think they'll thank you for asking?"
He didn't answer.
Because he knew they wouldn't.
Midday – Friction and Function
By midday, Alec walked the paths of the village not as a ghost, not yet as one of them—but as something in between. A disruption. A question.
Children no longer hid when he passed. Their mothers still pulled them close, but with less urgency, more caution. He greeted everyone he passed with calm words, careful nods. He offered help, and when it was accepted, he said little.
At the carpenter's stall, he lifted a beam two men struggled to raise. The carpenter muttered thanks. Alec didn't correct him when he used the wrong bracing angle.
At the weaver's post, he adjusted a loom's tension and produced a thread finer than the woman had ever spun. She stared at the result as if she'd summoned it by accident.
At the stables, he calmed a panicked mare just by standing still and breathing differently. The stablehand blinked like he'd seen witchcraft.
By the time the sun hit its peak, the air around him was thick with whispers again—but not the same ones as before.
"Fixed the loom in under a minute.""Didn't ask for anything.""Strong, fast, quiet—like a soldier.""Maybe touched by the gods. Or cursed by them."
Alec ignored the murmurs. Not out of pride, but because they didn't matter yet. Opinion was weather. It shifted. Only power stayed.
He stopped by the well where Elna, the baker, hawked coarse loaves and cracked bread. Sharp-tongued and watchful, Elna squinted at him as he approached.
"You're the one with the clever hands," she said.
"I try to be useful."
She sniffed. "Silla thinks you're dangerous. Harwin says you're a maybe. I say you haven't done anything that costs you anything."
Alec pointed to the uneven wheel of her cart, subtly leaning under a flour sack.
"Your axle's cracked."
She blinked. "You what?"
"If you keep stacking it like that, it'll snap and ruin the whole wheel. I can brace it for now."
"You expect coin?"
"No," he said. "But if I help today, maybe when I speak tomorrow, you'll listen instead of whispering."
She eyed him. Suspicion warred with curiosity.
"…Fair enough."
Afternoon – The Knife Edge
By late afternoon, Alec walked back toward the healer's hut with a small coil of braided wire—scavenged from scraps and beaten into function by hand.
Near the goat pens, he paused. Not because of the animals—but because of the watching.
Behind a leaning haystack stood Old Garric. The man leaned on a bent cane, chewing a barley stem, his one eye like chipped stone.
"I didn't expect to see you skulking," Alec said, not turning.
"I don't skulk," Garric rasped. "I observe."
Alec faced him. "And what do you observe?"
"A man with too much stillness," Garric said. "A soldier's stillness. A killer's quiet. You hide sharp teeth behind useful words."
"That's dramatic."
"That's accurate."
Alec walked to the fencepost and leaned against it. "You don't trust me."
"I trust fire to burn," Garric replied. "I trust wolves to bite. What I don't trust is fire that pretends it doesn't want to burn the forest."
"You think helping people is a mask?"
"I think you fix too many things that weren't broken. That's how power shifts. Quietly. Through competence."
Alec's voice lowered. "I'm not here to take anyone's power."
"That's the problem," Garric said, stepping closer. "You don't want it. But you'll take it anyway—just by being better than the rest of us."
The wind shifted. Dust scattered in a slow swirl.
"I won't be your enemy," Alec said.
"You don't get to choose that," Garric said, then turned and limped away.
Evening – A Question of Belonging
Back at the hut, Mira stirred lentils over a small flame. The pot hissed quietly. Alec leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching her.
"You're making waves," she said without looking.
"Garric gave me a warning today."
"That's practically a compliment."
"He said I don't want power, but I'll take it anyway."
She turned the pot. "That's because he's right."
Alec raised an eyebrow.
"You don't ask for control. You just do things better. People follow that, whether they mean to or not."
He didn't answer.
The pot simmered. The hut glowed warm. Outside, the sky blushed orange with the first hints of dusk.
"You believe in something," Mira said softly.
Alec looked up.
"You don't demand loyalty. You don't preach. But you keep trying. You fix things. You ask questions. What is it, really? What do you believe in?"
He was quiet. Not defensive. Just… processing.
"I believe," he said finally, "that if I survive in this world and don't try to make it better—then I never deserved to survive at all."
Mira stopped stirring.
The fire crackled between them.
"That's a heavy creed."
"It's a heavy world."
She turned to face him, face unreadable.
"You're going to burn something down."
"Only the parts that rot everything else."
After a moment, she passed him a bowl. "Eat before you get dramatic and burn the soup."
Later – Wordless Shifts
Night fell. Slowly. Quietly.
Alec walked the village under the stars.
No one stopped him.
Some nodded. Others avoided his eyes. One child asked his mother if Alec was still a man. The mother said nothing.
Back in the hut, Mira handed him a folded cloth.
"What's this?"
"New shirt. Rough-stitched. But it'll keep you from looking like a scarecrow with a sword complex."
"I don't have a sword."
"You still have the complex."
Alec smiled faintly and unfolded the shirt. Coarse cloth. The stitching wasn't perfect—but it was careful. Functional.
"You didn't have to."
"No," she said. "But you didn't have to haul Elna's axle across the square. Or fix Silla's boots yesterday when she thought no one was watching."
He met her gaze. "You notice everything."
"So do you."
They stood in silence.
The fire flickered low.
Outside, the wind shifted the thatch. Somewhere, an owl called once. Then silence.
"Goodnight, Alec," Mira said.
"Goodnight, Mira."
And for a moment, the room didn't feel like a hut in a nowhere village on a backward continent.
It felt like a beginning.