By noon the caravan pulls into the shade of a stand of poplars, with a small stream nearby. The trees break the sun into narrow bands and lower the temperature enough for people to stop wiping sweat from their faces. The wagons halt in a loose line. Buckets are unhooked and filled. Water is given to the animals first, then passed along to the people, most are dry mouthed or limping from a long ride.

  Marden sends two men with shallow cuts to Seren. Standing off to one side, arms folded, watching everyone closely. Aarav understands the look. He is counting what is owed and keeping a tally. Who is pulling their weight and who needs a reminder of their place later.

  While Seren works, Aarav walks to the second wagon and crouches by the wheel. He pulls each pin, taps it against the rim, and listens. Two ring clean. One sounds dull. He replaces it with a spare from the wagon's supplies and puts the old pin aside so it will not be used again.

  As Seren tends the men, Aarav keeps his attention split. He watches the space around her. People stand close enough to hear her but not so close as to crowd her as she works. She doesn’t look to be using magic but then what does he know. She uses some torn cloth and clean water but the injured people seem happy with it. When she finishes, they hesitate, unsure how to speak their thanks.

  “Keep it clean,” Seren tells them. “Change the wrap tonight. If it pulls or throbs, come back.”

  One of them nods too quickly. “Yes. Of course. Thank you.”

  She gives a brief nod in return, washes her hands, and moves on. Her movements are steady and practiced. She does not rush. She does not apologise for taking the time she needs. Aarav notices how easily people seem to listen to her.

  Most people drink from their waterskins while standing beside the wagons, Aarav included. The water is cool and tastes faintly of leather.

  When the caravan moves again, the work resumes. On the rises, everyone leans in. On the dips, hands go to the brake levers. The wagons creak and settle into a shared rhythm.

  By early afternoon they have dropped back into conversation without either of them noticing when it happened. They speak less loudly to be heard over the wheels and the road as they get closer. The talk shifts toward their childhoods without him planning on it. The worst part was he saw no reason to hide anything.

  “I was supposed to be at school one day,” Aarav says. “Both my parents were working, and no one was around to notice where I went. I knew where I was meant to be, and I knew where the market was, and one of those places felt more useful at the time.”

  Seren listens, her expression attentive as always.

  “I wanted sweets,” he continues. “I understood that money mattered in some vague way, but I did not understand that I had to pay for things. Once I had figured that out, I still wanted the sweets. I waited until the stall holder turned his back, and I took them. It was simple. No one saw. No one said anything. I walked away and ate them, happy as could be.”

  “That was still stealing,” Seren says. “Even if you were young enough not to understand what it meant.”

  Aarav looks at her then. “I understood enough,” he says. “I understood that I wanted it and that it was in front of me.”

  “That does not make it right,” she replies. “Need does not turn something wrong into something right.”

  He shakes his head slightly. “That is easy to say if you have never had to choose between starving to death or doing what it takes to survive. There were other days after that one, years later, when it was not sweets. It was bread, or fruit, or something that kept me alive. It was take it or starve, and starving was not an option I was willing to accept.”

  Seren frowns. “There were other ways.”

  “There were not,” Aarav says, a little heated and firmly. “Not for me. Not where I was. Survival doesn’t care about right and wrong, and it does not wait for better choices to appear.”

  She hesitates. “I was taught that hunger does not excuse harm.”

  “I learned early that hunger doesn’t care what you believe,” he answers. “I am not saying it was right. I am saying it was necessary.”

  They sit in silence for a few minutes.

  “I do not think we were raised to understand the same rules,” Seren says at last.

  “No,” Aarav agrees. “I think you were raised somewhere that expected food, warmth and safety to be owed, instead of earned.”

  Aarav keeps his eyes on the road falling beneath them as he speaks. “You were raised somewhere there was food every day, a hearth that was always warm, walls to keep you safe. Hunger was something you talked about, something you worried over, not something that sat with you from morning until night.”

  Seren stays quiet. Going still.

  “In places like that,” he goes on, “hunger is an idea. It is a lesson. It is something meant to teach restraint or gratitude. Where I grew up, it was just another condition, like cold or rain. You found a way, any way, or you died.”

  “That does not mean—” she starts.

  “It means I did what I had to,” Aarav says, raising his voice. “I am not asking you to approve of it, and I am not pretending it made me a good person. I am saying that regret is a luxury, one I didn’t have room for.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He glances at her then, briefly. “I do not regret surviving.”

  He faces forward again, and the space between them settles into an awkward quiet.

  She considers that, then answers carefully after a few minutes. “You are right that I always had food. It was plain and simple but I never went hungry. I spent my life away from many of the troubles you had to face. It wasn’t easy but it was safe, well I thought it was safe…”

  Aarav starts to respond but Seren interrupts him. “I do not need your sympathy, let us just change the subject.”

  “I was not always at the temple,” she says. “People do not start their lives there, even if it sometimes looks that way from the outside.”

  Aarav happily lets her move to conversation on and away from difficult topics.

  “Before the temple, I lived with my mother, far from here. If the colour of my skin was not already a clue, I will add that it was nowhere in this kingdom. I could not tell you the name of the place now, and I would not be able to find it on a map even if you put one in my hands.”

  She looks ahead as she speaks. “But I remember our home. I remember my mother. I used to wake to songbirds outside the window, and the smell of the sea was always there, so close you could almost feel it.”

  “In the mornings she made breakfast from oats and milk and fruit and spices,” Seren says. “She cooked it slowly, and the smell stayed in the house all day. You could come back hours later and still know exactly what we had eaten that morning.”

  “That sounds,” Aarav says carefully, “like a good place.”

  “It was,” she replies. “It was my first home.”

  He hesitates, then asks, “What happened to your parents.”

  Seren looks away. “That is a story for another day.”

  She lets the conversation fall silent, and doesn’t offer anything more.

  They fall quiet for a few moments.

  Aarav breaks it by telling a foolish story. Doing what he does best.

  “There was a tavern near the west gate,” he says. “Someone said I could not balance a full tankard on my head for the length of a song. I said I could. We agreed on the money before anyone sobered up. Of course I was only pretending to be drunk.”

  “And you won?” Seren asks.

  “I did. Perfectly still. Did not spill a drop. Going from a wobbling drunk to still as a statue was too much of a give away though.”

  “What did they do?” Seren asked with genuine interest.

  “Well they called me a cheater and tried to go back on the bet,” Aarav says. “The landlord said I was a disruption. Mostly, I think, because he had bet against me and did not like losing. So they chased me out.”

  He deepens his voice and gestures broadly, mimicking the man’s outrage. Seren laughs before loudly and covers her mouth, then lets it finish.

  Later, as the clouds soften the weather, Aarav tells her about the river in the city at dusk.

  “The bridge stay warm longer than you expect,” he says. “The lamps are lit one at a time. You can watch the reflections stretch across the water. It smells like damp iron and that unique smell of cities. Like stars made my people.”

  Seren answers with the sea.

  “There was a watch tower on the seaward side,” she says. “No windows and the sea air. The wind was strong enough to sting your eyes. You tasted salt for hours after. Everything in front of you felt open. Loud. I have always loved looking at the sea.”

  “Do you miss it,” Aarav asks quietly.

  “Always,” she says. “I cannot imagine a time I will not. Looking out at the endless sea. The waves crashing against the land in an endless battle.”

  He nods. “You make it sound a lot more appealing than salty water.”

  The afternoon passes steadily. The caravan leaves the main road and turns onto a narrower track to avoid patrols and likely the tolls along the way. The ruts are deep and well worn. To the right, a stream runs below the bank. Its sound comes and goes as the wagons move.

  They talk about small things for the rest of the trip. Ordinary things.

  “Light rain is the worst,” Aarav says. “It looks harmless. Then you are soaked before you realise it and spend the day trying to get dry.”

  “No,” Seren says. “Warm heavy rain. You sweat and freeze at the same time. It is unbearable.”

  He snorts. “That does sound terrible but at least we can both agree to not linking the rain.”

  “And our poor judgement for going out in it,” she replies.

  They argue about boots.

  “Nice boots are designed by people who never see mud, all you need is a single good pair to keep your feet dry” Aarav says.

  “A good pair must be both functional and nice to wear,” Seren says. “You just have to pay for them.”

  “I object to that principle entirely.”

  They argue about breakfast.

  “I like honey,” Aarav says. “Sweet things. There should be some reward for getting out of bed.”

  “Porridge is nice if it is made properly,” Seren says. “Salt. Milk. Time.”

  “I once ate porridge that tasted like regret, or perhaps that was after I ate it” he says.

  “Then whoever made it failed you,” she replies. “If I had made it you would change your mind. I am a very good cook.”

  Sometimes they stop talking and watch the road ahead. Aarav notices that he does not feel the need to move away or find solitude. He sits beside her without adjusting his place.

  When he checks the brake lever again, he notices Seren watching his hands. He wiggles his fingers and smiles.

  “Another thing I am good at,” he says. “Cards, getting into trouble and now wagon braker.”

  “You forgot talking,” she says.

  “Oh,” he replies. “That too. I do enough of it.”

  She smiles and nods. “You do.”

  He gives a small bow from his seat without shifting the wagon. “Your turn. Tell me something about yourself that you wouldn’t normally tell a stranger.”

  Aarav has enjoyed talking to Seren. Talking is something he has had to learn to do and not something that comes naturally to him. Perhaps that is why it is a tool for manipulation, a transaction that costs him more than it does the listener.

  This has been different. Too often finding himself just relaxing into it. Forgetting that this has a purpose, and even if he spoke more than he planned, it has worked. She is smiling and opening up to him like an old friend.