The commissioner worked from a table, not an office.
It sat beneath an awning of rough stone and timber near the outer gate, its surface scarred by years of ink spills, knife nicks, and impatient knuckles. A ledger lay open at its center, weighted down by a smooth riverstone. The wind worried at its pages anyway.
Commissioner Veldt stood behind it like a boundary line.
He was broad without being tall, his face weathered into a permanent expression of tolerance rather than patience. He watched the approaching caravan first, then the adventurers escorting it, his gaze counting wagons, packs, and people with practiced efficiency.
"Escort confirmed, Mazurka" he said. "Three civilian wagons. Minor cargo. Destination, the fortified frontier village of Ridgeholt"
Aluna stepped forward.
"Route and risks?"
Veldt slid a charcoal-marked map across the table.
"Three days at most if nothing goes wrong. First day is clear woodland. Second day narrows."
His finger tapped a stretch where the road cut close to the treeline.
"That's where trouble likes to grow teeth."
"Bandits?" Agnes asked.
"Unsettled ones," Veldt replied. "No banners. No structure. Hungry men watching roads instead of fields. Five to eight by report, numbers vary depending on the time of day."
"And beasts," Kristaph said quietly.
Veldt nodded. "Boar packs near the ridge. Something larger took livestock two nights ago. No corpse left behind."
Bran smiled. No one commented on it.
"Reach the second-day camp before dusk," Veldt continued. "Do not stop to argue with the light. And if something follows you from the trees—" He looked directly at Agnes. "—you keep moving unless it forces you not to."
Aluna signed the ledger. The rest followed.
Sawyer did not sign.
He stood a step behind the others, taller than the crowd around him, black trenchcoat falling in straight, severe lines that didn't belong to this place. The sunlight caught his shoulders and made him look larger than he already was.
Veldt noticed.
Everyone did.
The commissioner's gaze lingered, then moved on.
"Departure in twenty," he announced. "Last chance to turn back."
No one did.
The questions found Aluna after the gate.
Not all at once. They came in cautious increments—one civilian at first, then another, curiosity emboldened by shared fear.
A woman in a travel-worn shawl leaned close.
"Miss priestess… may I ask you something?"
Aluna already knew what it would be.
"It's about him," the woman said, glancing toward Sawyer as he adjusted the strap of his pack. "He's very tall."
"Yes," Aluna said evenly.
"Is he… human?"
Another civilian edged closer. Then another. A young man with a bandaged hand. An older one leaning on a stick. A girl with eyes too sharp for her years.
"He is," Aluna replied.
"That's not possible," the girl said flatly.
Aluna's patience thinned.
"It is uncommon. That does not make it impossible."
The older man lowered his voice.
"Maybe he's a half-breed. One with them immortal races."
There it was. The mountain of speculation that came with Sawyer's presence.
"He must be, how can a man be so pale," another said carefully.
The questions did not stop there.
A middle-aged trader shifted his weight, eyes darting between Sawyer and the road ahead. "I heard stories, back when I was hauling salt past the western marsh. Folk like that don't age right. Don't bleed right either."
"That's nonsense," a woman snapped back, though her grip tightened on her satchel. "You've never even left the valley."
"I've left enough," the trader shot back. "Enough to know when something doesn't fit."
A younger man swallowed, voice barely above a whisper. "Does he… sleep?"
The question hung heavier than it should have.
Aluna turned fully then, meeting his eyes. "Yes."
"Does he pray?" another asked, more cautiously.
Aluna hesitated only a fraction. "In his own way."
The girl with sharp eyes crossed her arms. "So he's not blessed."
"Nor cursed," Aluna replied. "Those are not the only two states a soul can exist in."
A woman clutching a child stepped forward, fear winning over decorum. "If something happens on the road—if beasts come—will he run?"
Aluna followed her gaze to Sawyer again. He was tightening a strap, movements precise, unhurried, as if the world did not rush him and he did not rush it.
"He stands," Aluna said simply.
That answer quieted them more than any reassurance could have.
A young girl exhaled like she'd been holding her breath for miles.
"He won't cause trouble r-right?"
Aluna looked at Sawyer again. He stood quietly among the wagons, posture relaxed but alert, like someone who had learned that stillness was safer than movement.
"He has protected people who didn't owe him anything," Aluna said.
She let the Song carry gently in her voice.
"If you fear the journey, let the Song resonate with you. But remember that God's melody protects all who are faithful."
Silence followed.
Then the shawled woman nodded once.
"May God's melody reach us all."
The girl lingered a moment longer, studying Sawyer with an expression that was still filled with worry, before turning away.
They left the settlement behind as the sun rose from beyond the treeline.
Stone gave way to packed earth. The trees danced along with the wind. Water rushed downstream as a creek set a constant tempo. Wheels rolled. Leaves caught gusts. Boots found rhythm.
The Song followed through.
Not loud—present—yet distant, like a melody remembered instead of heard. Here, it offered less guidance. Yet flowed freely regardless.
An hour passed before anyone spoke openly again.
Bran stretched his arms as he walked.
"Road feels too quiet," he said.
"You empathize with pavement now," Kristaph replied calmly. "I really am worried for you Bran."
Faust snorted.
"He always has been an upstanding guy. Truely, a model adventurer."
Put on the spot, Bran quickly shifted the subject to Sawyer..
"Anyway," he said, glancing back at Sawyer. "We've been pretending not to notice. But I have got to ask."
Sawyer looked at him.
"Your gear," Bran said, pointing at his silhouette. "You didn't have half of that when we met. I recognise that shortsword, but what's with the fishing rod?"
He raised his eyebrow.
"I'm not even gonna start with that thing you've got bundled up next to you."
Faust slowed his pace deliberately, eyes narrowing as he studied Sawyer from a new angle.
"I'm more interested in the coat," he said. "That fabric doesn't behave like wool. And it doesn't crease like leather."
Sawyer adjusted the cuff once.
"It is durable."
Faust grimaced.
"Durable for what?"
Kristaph tilted his head slightly, eyes following the seams.
Agnes glanced back.
"You're all staring," she said. "At least try to be subtle."
"No point," Bran replied. "He knows."
Sawyer did not contradict him.
"Bran," Agnes interjected, pointing. "That's a bow." She said mockingly while holding back a giggle.
"A bow?" Bran said. "How in the hell is that a bow?"
"It's unstrung you moron."
The ranger finally let out a bellowing laugh. The rest of the party hid their smirks from the bewildered warrior.
Agnes turned again, curiosity returning in earnest.
"Where did you get it, Sawyer? I don't know anyone in the city that makes bows that size."
Before Sawyer could answer, Aluna spoke.
Her gaze lingered not on the weapons, but higher—near his collar.
"And the whistle," she said gently. "That isn't decorative. I can feel it resonate."
Sawyer's fingers brushed the cord unconsciously.
"It is for signaling."
Aluna frowned slightly.
Sawyer remained silent.
Agnes sighed.
"You are the most to the point person I know."
"Thank you." Sawyer replied.
Bran barked a laugh.
Before Sawyer could elaborate, someone else spoke.
"Let me see that."
The voice belonged to Darrin, a blacksmith traveling with the caravan.
He did not step forward all at once.
His boots shifted an inch at a time, as if his body had decided on its own that proximity mattered more than permission. His eyes were wide—not with greed or excitement anymore, but with the sharp, frantic focus of a man staring at something that refused to make sense.
"Let me see that." he repeats.
The words came out automatically, a reflex drilled into him by decades of habit. When something unfamiliar crossed his path, his hands needed to understand it. Weight. Balance. Grain. Even now, his fingers twitched at his sides, phantom motions sketching shapes in the air.
"I won't touch it," Darrin said quickly, hearing the warning in his own voice even as he ignored it. "But that shape. The guard— it doesn't look like any—"
Sawyer's hand settled near the sword.
Not gripping it.
Just there.
The effect was immediate.
Darrin's breath hitched hard enough to hurt. The world tilted—not visibly, not dramatically—but inside him, something twisted the wrong way around. His hands began to shake, not from fear alone, but from a deep, crawling revulsion that started in his palms and crept up his arms like ants beneath the skin.
His instincts screamed.
Not danger.
Violation.
The blade did not feel sharp.
The blade did not feel real.
It felt wrong. Like its existence is an impossibility.
The longer he looked, the worse it became. His eyes traced lines that shouldn't have been able to exist at the same time—curves that suggested flexibility in solid steel, angles that implied movement even while still. His mind tried to map the weapon the way it had mapped a thousand others, and failed so completely it left him nauseous.
"I shouldn't," he whispered.
His voice sounded far away.
"I don't know why, but I shouldn't."
His knees weakened. Darrin staggered back a step, hands lifting instinctively, palms open, as if he needed to prove—to himself more than anyone—that he hadn't touched it.
Faust frowned. "You didn't even touch it."
"I don't need to," Darrin rasped.
His hands burned now. Not heat—memory. As if they remembered something they had never held. As if they had already paid a price he couldn't name.
"My hands feel like they'd pay for it," he said. "Like they'd forget what they were made for."
He squeezed his fingers into fists, then forced them open again, panic rising when the motion felt wrong. Too slow. Too deliberate. As though his body was hesitating to obey.
Kristaph watched quietly. "It's not the steel."
Darrin nodded frantically, relief and terror tangling together. "No. No, it's not." His breath came shallow now. "Steel listens. Steel remembers heat and hammer. That thing—"
He swallowed.
"That thing doesn't remember being made."
His vision blurred. The road swayed beneath his feet, the rhythm of the caravan suddenly too loud, too fast. He pressed his hands to his chest, as if he could still his heart by force.
Then a familiar voice cut through the haze.
"Darrin."
He looked up, barely registering the figure pushing through the wagons.
"Darrin, stop."
His wife's hands closed around his arm, firm and grounding, pulling him back before he could argue. Her eyes flicked once to Sawyer, then back to Darrin, sharp with fear she didn't let reach her voice.
"You're shaking," she said. "Sit. Now."
He let her guide him without resistance, legs unsteady, breath ragged. As she eased him down onto a crate, he realized dimly that he was still staring—still trying to understand something his hands had rejected outright.
"I didn't touch it," he whispered again, like a confession.
"I know," she said, gripping his shoulder. "That's enough."
As the caravan moved on, Darrin's gaze lingered on Sawyer until the bend in the road finally stole him from sight.
Only then did he look down at his hands.
And wonder what they had almost lost.