The night before had long faded, leaving only faint cinders of forgotten dreams.
Morning unfolded slowly, creeping into the camp without urgency.
Not with birdsong, nor with the clamor of labor.
But with the gentle shifting of bodies — the Strayed of Selmor stirring as though moved by invisible tides.
They rose without haste.
They moved without aim.
They lived… without expectation.
Asveri sat up, arms crossed over his knees, his back stiff from sleep.
Simple bedding beneath him, the dying embers of last night's fire before him.
He glanced around, frowning.
Nothing happened.
No orders rang out.
No laughter, no tension.
No hierarchy.
The Strayed simply existed, weaving themselves through the still morning air.
Mending ropes frayed by time.
Sharpening blades dulled not by war, but erosion.
Humming tuneless melodies as they arranged stones whose purpose seemed long lost to memory.
It was unsettling. Deeply so.
Asveri shifted, irritation bubbling up.
"This is weird," he muttered under his breath, his words slicing through the soft hum of the camp like a crude knife.
No one seemed to care. Not even the fire.
Across from him, Anor'ven sat, as he always did — composed, motionless, eyes half-lidded as if seeing something beyond the edges of the camp.
Asveri gestured vaguely at the scene before him, frustration tightening his voice.
"Seriously. Do they ever do anything? It's like watching ghosts go through the motions."
Anor'ven blinked slowly, before answering in a voice as flat as the dust-laden air.
"They are ghosts. Of themselves."
Asveri scoffed, leaning back against the log behind him, yet something about those words clung to him.
Ghosts… but not restless.
Ghosts who had chosen to fade — or worse, forgotten how not to.
They haunted no ruins.
They haunted themselves.
Time bled quietly through the day, unnoticed and unacknowledged.
Asveri tried — half-heartedly — to speak with some of the Strayed.
They responded when they felt like it.
Short phrases. Simple words. No more than necessary.
"Where do you go?"
"Where we must."
"Why live like this?"
"Why not?"
He grew irritated fast.
"Ugh," he muttered, running a hand through his hair as he returned to Anor'ven's side near the outskirts of the camp.
"Talking to them is like yelling into a well."
Anor'ven did not argue. He did not smirk or offer his usual detached musings.
He only watched.
Watched as the Strayed repeated tasks without urgency.
Watched as they tended to the same tools they'd tended yesterday, and the day before.
Watched as they preserved things not for need — but because they knew nothing else.
"They do not seek," Anor'ven said quietly, voice carrying the weight of observation rather than judgment.
"They don't even live," Asveri shot back, more bitter than before. "They just… exist."
Anor'ven did not contest the statement.
But within, something shifted.
This…
This was what his false utopia could have been.
Not a place of strict control.
Not a land built on frozen order and fear of chaos.
But something quieter.
Something emptier.
Anor'ven's mind traced the shape of his failure — the utopia he had once forged had died screaming beneath the boots of men and ambition.
But here…
Here, they had no ambition.
No need to impose order.
No dream worth killing or dying for.
Here, existence continued because no one demanded it stop.
This is what I failed to understand, Anor'ven thought, distant yet sharp.
Perfection is not created. It is allowed.
He would not try again.
The realization was not bitter.
It was not heavy.
It simply was.
A silent truth, folded neatly into the gaps between thoughts.
The sun began to sag, as though it too had accepted the camp's rhythm.
Shadows stretched thin. The air cooled, yet still nothing changed.
No voices rose.
No fires burned brighter.
No songs guided the fall of day.
It simply… continued.
Asveri sat cross-legged, hugging his knees tightly.
His eyes drifted between the Strayed — moving, tending, existing without joy or despair.
"Why?" he whispered to no one in particular.
"Why keep fixing what's already broken?"
No answer came from the silent figures.
But Anor'ven, sitting nearby, spoke softly — his words cutting gently through the evening haze.
"Because they still move."
Asveri turned, startled, brows drawn in disbelief.
"What?"
Anor'ven kept his gaze steady on the distant horizon.
"Still moving means they have not yet joined the silence."
Asveri stared for a moment longer before scoffing and looking away.
"So that's it? That's all they are? Just people too stubborn to lay down and die?"
Anor'ven said nothing.
He didn't need to.
The truth was clear in the air, in the way the Strayed moved — not urgently, not desperately.
Just moving because that was all that remained.
And somehow, it was enough for them.
Night settled without ceremony.
It arrived not with fanfare, but with the simple dimming of color.
The camp did not change.
No fires roared to fight the cold.
No guards circled its borders.
No farewells or promises were spoken as darkness claimed the sky.
The Strayed accepted the night as they did the day — as they did everything.
Without resistance.
Without desire.
Asveri sat near the dwindling embers of the communal fire, his eyes fixed on the glow that barely reached his boots.
Anor'ven was nearby, though as silent as ever.
"They really don't care about anything, do they?" Asveri said at last, his voice breaking the heavy stillness.
No answer came immediately.
He sighed, resting his chin on his arms.
"I can't figure it out. No goals, no fear, no anger… How the fuck do you live like that?"
He wasn't asking Anor'ven specifically.
But it was Anor'ven who replied, his words quiet, yet definitive.
"You stop expecting. You stop resisting."
Asveri scowled.
"Sounds like giving up."
"Not quite," Anor'ven said.
"More like… dissolving."
The word hung in the air between them, delicate and cruel.
Asveri turned his gaze upwards.
The stars were faint and scattered — like memories, like dreams he couldn't quite hold onto.
For a moment, he imagined himself still here, in this camp, years from now.
No anger.
No hope.
No dreams.
Just routine.
Just silence.
It terrified him more than death ever could.
He didn't say it aloud.
But the fear was carved deep into the lines of his face as he stared at the pale sky.
It was just before dawn when the leader of the Strayed returned.
He appeared without sound, stepping into the faint glow of the sleeping camp.
Not summoned.
Not awaited.
He simply arrived — as though the very idea of endings or beginnings was foreign to him.
Asveri straightened, surprised by the sudden presence.
"You're here early," he muttered.
The masked figure said nothing for a moment, then spoke in his usual soft, emotionless cadence.
"It is time for you to leave."
Asveri blinked.
"…Just like that?"
"No chains bind you here," the leader said simply.
"You stayed because you could. You leave because you must."
Anor'ven rose immediately, no resistance or hesitation in his movements.
Asveri, however, hesitated.
For all his frustration, something about leaving this stillness unnerved him.
The silence here had become… familiar.
A dangerous kind of comfort.
Before they could turn to go, the leader spoke again — this time slower, as though weighing his words carefully.
"Remember this," he said softly.
"You still carry noise within you. That is not a weakness."
Asveri frowned.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The leader tilted his head faintly.
"You still seek. You still chase. That is why you do not belong here — yet."
He stepped closer, his presence no heavier, yet somehow undeniable.
"If you wish to know yourselves… if you wish to understand what you truly are… then go."
Asveri squinted.
"Go where?"
"To where things break," the leader answered simply.
"Where dreams rot. Where the strong fall.
Where the world screams — but no longer cares if anyone hears."
Silence followed.
Asveri swallowed, uncertain.
"So… find broken places?"
"Not to fix," the leader corrected softly.
"But to witness. To learn."
Anor'ven nodded slightly, as though the words confirmed something he already understood.
Asveri looked between them, uneasy.
"That's it?"
"That is all," the leader replied without embellishment.
And with that, he turned and walked away, vanishing into the folds of the camp — as quietly and effortlessly as the dusk itself.
No farewell followed.
The Strayed did not wave.
They did not gather.
Their camp faded behind Asveri and Anor'ven like a mirage — as though it had never truly existed in the first place.
They walked in silence, leaving the stillness behind without fanfare.
The morning air was cool, the ground dry and cracked beneath their feet.
Nothing followed them.
Nothing waited for them.
Asveri kicked at the dust absently, his shoulders tense.
For a while, he said nothing.
But distance always loosened his tongue.
"So… what now?" he finally asked, voice rough from sleep and irritation.
"What do we do?"
Anor'ven did not answer. He simply kept walking, steady as ever.
Asveri clicked his tongue, frustrated.
"I mean, seriously — aren't we kinda lost?"
He threw his arms slightly, glancing at the barren road stretching ahead.
"Think about it. Look at where we are. A whole damn world out there and we know nearly no one.
Yeah, sure, we've been through shit — prison, that damn farm, thrown into some manor where the so-called Master ended up getting killed because of his own mess.
Then bandits. Then these weird masked freaks — the Strayed of Selmor or whatever."
He shook his head, voice rising a little, carried by growing agitation.
"But what's the point of all that? What was it for? Is there supposed to be some big meaning behind this crap?
Isn't there… I don't know. Something to do? Something fun, even? Or just… something worth a damn?"
Anor'ven remained silent.
Asveri let out a breath, his shoulders sagging.
"Shit… it's just walking. Always walking. Doesn't it ever get boring?"
The only sound was the soft crunch of boots against dust.
The wind offered no opinion.
Neither did Anor'ven — at least not immediately.
But after several more paces, he spoke, his voice calm and stripped of all pretense.
"Sometimes."
Asveri blinked, caught off guard by the honesty.
"Sometimes?" he echoed.
Anor'ven's eyes did not shift from the road ahead.
"Sometimes it is boring. Sometimes it is worse than boring."
"But stopping doesn't change that."
His words were not cruel.
Nor were they wise.
They were simply the truth, resting heavy in the air.
Asveri fell silent for a while after that.
The dust swirled faintly around their legs, clinging and then falling away again.
He kicked another loose stone, softer this time.
"…Guess boring beats dying, though," he muttered at last, half to himself.
Anor'ven said nothing more.
And yet, when he continued walking, Asveri fell into step beside him — no orders, no plans, no answers.
Only a vague memory of words whispered by masked strangers.
Go where things break.
Go where silence speaks loudest.
The world stretched ahead.
They walked.