Aren once fixed a boot for a child soldier.
Name: Nema. Twelve. Couldn't read maps but could skin a field bird with one hand. She tripped during a supply run, tore the heel from her standard-issue.
He was passing through. Saw her trying to fix it with wire and moss.
He stopped. Kneeled. Took out a stitch kit he never admitted carrying.
"You sew?" she asked, suspicious.
"No," he said. "But I've broken a lot of things."
She laughed once — short, bright, ugly. The kind that cracked tension like bone.
When he handed her the boot back, she asked, "You lucky or just hard to kill?"
He thought about lying.
"Lucky," he said.
She nodded. Didn't ask which kind.