Trin spent the first part of the afternoon with needle and thread instead of gods and dragons.
The room he'd been given was small but clean: a narrow bed against one wall, a single shuttered window, a plain table with a chair, and a peg for hanging clothes. Sunlight slipped in through a gap in the shutters, drawing a bright diagonal across the worn floorboards.
He laid his armor and tunic on the table, the torn leather and cloth spreading like old wounds.
The arrow had left no mark on his skin, but the material had not been so fortunate. The hole was small—neat, almost—but it bothered him. Not because of what it represented, but because it whispered of something unfinished.
He took out his tools, rolling them onto the table one by one: the carved-handled awl, the sharpened knife, the smoothed shuttle, the coils of thread. The familiarity of them eased some of the tension he hadn't realized he was still carrying.
He worked in silence.
He reinforced the leather from the inside with a small, carefully cut patch, stitching it down in a tight, overlapping pattern that would distribute any future impact. The lines of thread formed a discreet sigil of strength—not magical, not in the way he used to think of it, but symbolic. A promise he made with his hands.
For the tunic, he chose not to hide the mark entirely. Instead, he folded the torn edges inward and stitched them into a subtle, decorative line—a small, pale scar of fabric that looked intentional.
Things remembered, rather than erased.
When he finished, he sat back and regarded his work. It was not elegant by the standards of his old life, but it was honest and sturdy.
"That will do," he murmured.
His stomach rumbled in agreement.
He set his tools aside, donned the mended clothing and armor, and headed downstairs.
The inn's common room was livelier in the late hour. A few more tables were filled now—traders with travel-dusted cloaks, a pair of young guards sharing a half-whispered joke, a woman with ink-stained fingers sorting papers in a corner.
The innkeep, a broad-shouldered woman with iron-gray hair tied back in a practical knot, glanced up as he approached the bar.
"Evening," she said. "You with the Freewardens?"
"For the moment," Trin replied.
"Then you get the standard rate," she said. "Stew and bread, if you want it. Ale costs extra. Water's free if you don't mind it tasting like the barrel."
"Stew and bread will be fine," he said. "Water as well."
She nodded, ladled a portion from the pot over the fire into a wooden bowl, and slid it across along with a hunk of bread and a cup.
Trin carried the food to an empty corner table and sat.
The stew was…average. The broth had more water than flavor, the vegetables cooked down to indeterminate softness, the bits of meat small and chewy. The bread was dense and slightly stale around the edges.
He ate it all.
It did what it needed to do: filled the space, warmed the stomach, reminded him that sustenance here was not always a grand feast or a divine offering. Sometimes it was just…food. Adequate. Ordinary.
There was something quietly grounding in that.
When the bowl was empty and the bread reduced to a few crumbs, he wiped his fingers, thanked the innkeep with a small nod as he returned the dishes, and stepped out into the street.
Arlindale's eastern town at twilight was neither grand nor particularly beautiful, but it was alive.
Lanterns were being lit one by one, bright points of warm light in the deepening dusk. The main street bustled with people finishing their day's business: a cart being unloaded at a small warehouse, a child chasing another around a water trough, a street vendor packing away skewers and clay jars.
Trin walked without any particular destination, letting the flow of the town carry him.
He found the crafters' quarter almost by instinct.
It was nothing formal—just a stretch of street where more of the buildings had open fronts and the air smelled of metal, oil, wood shavings, and dye. A tailor's shop with colorful cloth samples pinned outside. A cobbler bent over a boot. A carpenter's open yard with planks stacked in neat rows.
And, of course, the blacksmith.
The smithy sat at the corner where stone gave way to packed earth, its forge glowing a deep, steady orange. A broad-armed man with soot-streaked skin stood over an anvil, hammer rising and falling in a slow rhythm, shaping what looked to be a horseshoe. Sparks jumped with each strike, briefly bright against the growing dark.
Trin stopped a few paces away, watching.
The smith's technique was…competent. Not artful. The hammer blows were a bit heavy, the timing not as refined as it could be, the edge of the metal occasionally catching slightly off-center. But the lines of the work held. The iron obeyed where it mattered.
"Need something?" the smith grunted after a moment, not pausing in his rhythm.
"Just watching," Trin said. "Your work holds."
The man snorted. "It holds enough for horses not to complain. People either."
Trin's gaze drifted to a rack of finished goods near the wall: nails in bundles, hinges, simple knives, a few spearheads, a sword or two. None of it would have impressed a noble armorer. But each piece bore the marks of deliberate effort: an extra pass of the file here, a slightly smoother curve there, a careful tempering line.
"Do you work alone?" Trin asked.
"Mostly," the smith replied. "Got an apprentice, but he's off delivering an order." He finally looked up, eyes narrowing slightly as he took in Trin's armor. "That's not from around here."
"No," Trin said. "I made it myself. From scraps you wouldn't consider worth keeping."
The smith grunted again, this time with a shade more respect. "Holds well?"
"So far," Trin said.
The man nodded. "That's what matters. Fancy work's for city shows. Out here, it either holds or it kills you."
Trin inclined his head. "A sound philosophy."
He didn't linger long, but as he left, he glanced back once more.
The work here would not have passed muster in the celestial forges. It would not have graced a divine hall or a hero's legend. But it was honest. Made for a world where imperfection was not an insult, but a condition of living.
He found a leatherworker's stall a few doors down, examining how they cut and dyed their hides. The patterns were simple, the stitching straight but unembellished. A little rough in places. The tools—awls, punches, knives—were cruder than his own adjusted set, but they bore the same calloused fingerprints.
He moved on, curiosity tugging him from shop to shop.
At a small vendor's cart, he discovered something he did not recognize.
The cart was draped in a faded green cloth, and on its wooden surface sat several shallow trays filled with…shapes.
They were roughly spherical, with uneven surfaces that shimmered faintly. Some were deep purple, speckled with lighter flecks. Others were a pale, translucent blue with threads of white running through them. Steam rose gently from the tray.
The vendor—a middle-aged woman with sun-browned skin and a scarf tied around her hair—saw him pause and smiled.
"First time seeing starfruit dumplings?" she asked.
"Starfruit," Trin repeated. The name meant nothing to him in the way she clearly meant it. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure."
"Local specialty," she said proudly. "Fruit from the southern groves, boiled down and folded into sweet dough, glazed with sugar and a bit of frost-salt. Good for travelers and night watch. Keeps you awake without making you jump out of your skin."
He studied the nearest dumpling. The surface caught the lantern light, giving it a faint, shimmering glow like starlight trapped in syrup.
"One," he said. "Please."
She exchanged a dumpling for a coin from his pouch. It was warm in his fingers, slightly sticky. He took a tentative bite.
The taste surprised him.
It was sweet, yes, but not in the cloying way of overripe fruit. There was a bright, almost sharp note that cut through the sugar, something like citrus but tinged with a flavor he had never encountered before—crisp, cool, faintly bitter at the end in a way that made him immediately want another bite.
The dough was soft, yielding, with a slight chew that made each mouthful last.
He blinked.
"This," he said, "is…unexpected."
The vendor laughed. "I'll take that as a compliment."
"It is," he replied earnestly. "Thank you."
He finished the dumpling slowly as he walked, savoring each unfamiliar nuance. This, too, was a kind of creation he had never personally wrought—a flavor that had developed without his direct hand, guided by other minds and other hands.
He passed another stall selling thin, crisp sheets of something that crackled like leaves underfoot but melted on the tongue with a smoky, savory taste. The seller called them emberflats—grain pressed with spice and roasted until they sang.
He tried one.
He later found a small shop that sold glass jars of a strange jelly that glowed faintly in the dark, pulsing softly like a captured heartbeat. "Moonjam," the shopkeeper said. "From night-blooming berries. Good on bread, bad for sleep if you eat too much."
Trin didn't buy any—his coin was still limited, and he knew he'd need it for more practical things—but he lingered a moment, watching the tiny pulses of light within the jelly.
This world had grown its own oddities. Its own small wonders. Not all of them were born of gods or dragons.
The thought made something in his chest loosen.
By the time the sky fully darkened, lamps were lit along the main street, their glow casting overlapping circles of warm light on the cobbles. The town's sounds shifted: fewer carts, more laughter from taverns, the occasional shout from a distant alley.
Trin turned back toward the Copper Crescent.
As he approached the inn, he felt—not a dragon's weight, not a celestial's pull—but a quieter presence waiting like a held breath.
Naera stood in the upstairs hallway outside his door.
She had changed out of her travel-stained cloak, wearing a simple dark tunic and trousers instead. Her hair was still slightly damp at the edges, as if she'd recently washed up after reporting in. The inked lines along her jaw seemed sharper in the lamplight.
She looked up as he climbed the stairs.
"You took your time," she said. There was no accusation in it. Just an observation.
"I was…exploring," he said. "Your town has more flavors than I expected."
"Good ones?" she asked.
"Mostly," he said. "Some will require…acclimatization."
A corner of her mouth lifted. "You sound like a scholar tasting street food for the first time."
"In a way," he replied, "I am."
They stood facing each other in the narrow hallway, the murmur of the inn below a muffled backdrop.
Naera's gaze flicked briefly to his chest, where the tunic lay smooth over skin that should, by all rights, have borne a dark bruise at the very least. Then her eyes returned to his face.
"I waited," she said quietly. "I wasn't sure if you'd come straight back or vanish into another corner of the world."
"I considered," he admitted. "But I find I'm…not yet finished here."
"Good," she said. "Because I have questions."
"I assumed you would," he replied.
She glanced at the door to his room, then back at him. "Inside?"
"Yes," he said.
He stepped forward, and she followed. He opened the door, holding it for her as she passed. The room felt smaller with two people in it now, their presence filling the space once occupied only by quiet and tools.
Naera walked to the center and turned, staff still in hand more out of habit than need.
Trin stepped in after her.
For a moment, neither spoke.
The door clicked softly as he closed it behind them.