Chapter 9: The Return to Arin
Shuun-Vo returned to Arin three weeks after leaving.
He no longer wore plates. His skin was still pale, but it was beginning to gain color, a slightly tanned tone, like someone who had spent too long away from the sun and was now exposed again. The scars on his body were visible, but he didn't hide them.
People looked at him differently. Not with fear but with curiosity.
- "You're... different - Sari said, when she met him at the village entrance."
- "I'm spreading - Shuun-Vo replied. Then he corrected himself." - "I'm remaking myself."
Sari smiled.
- "My mother will be happy to see you."
Yallin was not just happy, she hugged him. Shuun-Vo went rigid for an instant, not knowing how to react. He had never been hugged before. The plates had always prevented any physical contact.
But now, without them, he felt the warmth of Yallin's body. The smell of fungus and earth she always carried. The strength of her arms, squeezing him as if he were a son returning home.
- "You're thin - she said, stepping back to examine him." - "And without plates. What happened?"
- "I got tired - Shuun-Vo said."
Yallin nodded, as if that were the most natural explanation in the world.
- "Then sit down. I'll make food."
Kael-Zhur arrived an hour later. He found Shuun-Vo in Yallin's kitchen, sitting at the worn table, eating a bowl of fungus broth. Ser'kaum was coiled on his forearm, emitting curious clicks.
- "You're different - Kael said."
- "You've already said that."
- "And I still think so."
Kael sat across from him. Threnaal pulsed in a calm rhythm, almost content. The two were silent for a moment, a comfortable silence, the kind that only exists between people who don't need to fill the void with words.
- "Lumea told me - Kael said, finally." - "About the plates. About the lake."
- "Lumea talks too much."
- "Lumea worries."
Shuun-Vo snorted. But it was a different snort, less harsh, closer to a sigh.
- "Are you still creating spaces? - Kael asked."
- "I am. But now... I also use them."
Kael smiled.
- "That's progress."
- "That's tiredness."
- "Sometimes, it's the same thing."
Shuun-Vo looked at his empty bowl. Yallin approached and refilled it, without asking. He thanked her with a nod.
- "I met a child - Shuun-Vo said, after a while." - "In the forty-eighth space. She wasn't afraid of me."
- "Children are rarely afraid of the right things - Kael said."
- "She asked if I was the man who doesn't talk. She said her grandmother was sad because her symbiote had died."
- "And what did you do?"
- "Nothing. I just stayed."
Kael tilted his head.
- "Sometimes, staying is the hardest thing."
- "I know - Shuun-Vo said." - "But I'm learning."