Three days passed before Blaze visited the hut.
I had wondered if he would. Once or twice, I’d considered going to see him myself, but I knew there were things he needed to discuss with Light, and I wasn’t sure another visit from me would help after everything that had happened in the gathering hall.
So I left the invitation where it was and tried to be patient.
That afternoon, Raven had taken Shade out with her to gather more kindling for the fire while I stayed behind to prepare dinner. Fresh cuts of venison were already simmering in the pot, and I was working on cutting up a small pile of roots at the table when I heard the hide covering the entrance shift.
I looked up, my knife resting against an unfinished cut.
Blaze stood in the doorway.
“Wanderer.”
I blinked, staring at him for a moment before setting the knife down.
“Hello,” I greeted.
His gaze dropped briefly to what I was doing before returning to meet my gaze.
“You said I could visit.”
“I did,” I said, pushing the roots aside. “Come in.”
He nodded and stepped inside, letting the covering fall into place behind him. His eyes passed over the hut before settling on an empty space beside the firepit.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“For now,” I responded. “Raven and Shade will be back before supper.”
He nodded.
“Here.” I placed a folded pelt near the spot he'd been eyeing. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Blaze said nothing as he sat, his tail curling around himself and coming to rest over his feet. I returned to the table and gathered up the roots, though I didn’t immediately resume cutting.
I thought I'd be relieved when he finally came. Instead, I found myself thinking about the last time we had stood together, and everything that had happened before he took my hand.
“Have you been well?” he finally asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “Better.”
His eyes lingered on me, studying me with the same scrutiny his gaze had carried since I'd recovered enough from Winter Lung to leave the hut. I sat a little straighter beneath it, suddenly conscious of whether I looked tired.
“And you?” I asked him.
Blaze let out a soft chuff. “Well enough.”
I nodded.
I reached for the knife again as the silence began to stretch.
“Wanderer,” he spoke up.
“You can just call me David,” I said, looking across at him. “I don't mind.”
His ears shifted slightly, his gaze staying on me for another moment before he inclined his head.
“David.”
This time, hearing my name from him didn’t make me tense. There was no accusation in it, and none of the formality from his apology in the gathering hall. I smiled a little, then returned to the roots.
“There’s enough if you want to stay for supper,” I offered.
Blaze snorted. “You haven’t seen how much I eat.”
I glanced up.
I couldn’t quite tell whether he was joking, but I found myself smiling.
“I’ve fed Bone.”
A quiet breath left his nose. “Then perhaps there is.”
I carried the bowl to the firepit and tipped its contents into the pot. Across from me, I heard the pelt on the floor rustle softly as Blaze shifted his weight.
“Did he speak of me?”
I stopped stirring and turned towards him. He leaned forward, his forearms bracing against his thighs.
“Thorn,” he added quietly.
“Yes,” I answered.
He pressed his fingers together. “What did he say?”
I rested the spoon across the edge of the pot, then moved to sit.
“He told me you’d fought,” I began. “That he’d dismissed you.”
Blaze lowered his eyes.
For a moment, I wondered whether I should have started a little more gently. But I felt he deserved to know the full truth. Not just the parts that would be easy for him to hear.
“He knew you were hurting,” I continued. “He saw you here. From the Shifting Place.”
His gaze lifted. “Here?”
I nodded. “In the hut.”
Blaze looked down, watching the flames. His jaw tightened, and I waited as he took a slow breath.
“What else?” he asked.
I pressed my palms against my knees.
“He warned me that when you’re hurting, you look for somewhere to put it.”
Blaze went still.
I could hear the broth bubbling in the pot in front me. I resisted the urge to get up and check it.
“I see,” he finally said.
“He told me something else, too. ‘You know where I am.’ And ‘I know where you are.’” My throat tightened a little around the now-familiar words. “He explained what that meant.”
He looked down at his hands. One thumb moved slowly over the knuckles of the other.
“What was he like?” he asked, “When he spoke of me?”
I thought back to the way Thorn had spoken as he watched him through the Shifting Place's vision, trying to separate what I remembered from what I wished I could give him.
“He knew he’d hurt you,” I told him. “He didn’t try to pretend otherwise.”
Blaze’s eyes remained on mine.
“And he knew you were hurting when you were here. He understood you well enough to warn me.”
A faint, humorless breath escaped him as his eyes lowered.
“Yes,” he muttered. “He would.”
“He didn’t say that I should stay away from you, though,” I added.
The movement of his thumb stopped.
“He could have. After what happened at your hut, I probably would have listened. Instead, he told me about those phrases, hoping it would help us both.”
Blaze fell silent. For a while, the only sound between us was the fire. A piece of wood settled against the others, sending a brief scatter of sparks up beneath the pot.
“I had wondered how much you understood when you answered me at the gathering,” he stated. “For a moment, I forgot… My apologies.”
An ache settled in my chest. “You don’t have to apologize for that.”
The words came more easily than I expected. I believed him. That didn’t mean it would always be easy for him to look at me and not see Thorn.
I glanced at the pot suspended over the fire, noting the large amounts of steam that billowed out from under the lid.
“I should move that.”
Blaze nodded, and I stood.
The broth had begun to boil too hard. I shifted it away from where the heat was the strongest and stirred along the bottom, loosening a few pieces that had started to stick.
Across from me, Blaze took a slow breath.
“Was he able to see everything?” he asked. “From the Shifting Place. Had he been watching all this time?”
“I don’t know how much he saw,” I replied, resting the spoon against the rim. “I only know what he showed me and what we talked about.”
I paused to think, spoon still in my hand. There was one thing I could tell him for certain.
“But he saw you sitting with me.”
Blaze’s ears lowered as I set the spoon aside and settled on the floor again.
There were questions gathering behind his silence. I could see him struggling with them, deciding which ones he could bear to ask. I knew something of that feeling. I had felt it while sitting across from Storm, terrified of every answer that might come next.
“You're free to ask me whatever you'd like,” I said. “I can’t guarantee that I'll know the answer, but if I do, I’ll tell you.”
He studied me for a moment before asking how long Thorn and I had spent together in the Shifting Place. I couldn’t give him much of an answer. Time had been difficult to judge there, though I mentioned that we had talked and shown each other something of our worlds.
“What did he think of yours?” he asked.
My eyes lowered. “He didn’t see it at its best…”
Blaze waited as I struggled to find the words that could describe just what he had seen.
“I was still there,” I said. “My body was.”
His gaze sharpened. “Alive?”
I nodded.
The room came back to me with painful clarity. The bed. The machines. My grandparents beside me, and Thorn’s words as he tried to make sense of it all.
“This… is living?”
Those words still made part of me bristle.
“For a while, I thought that meant I could go home.” I looked back up at Blaze. “I asked Thorn to come back here. To take his life back.”
His hands slowly separated and came to rest over his knees. “What did he say?”
I had known this question would come. Still, I wished there were some way to make the answer easier.
I shook my head. “He wouldn’t.”
Blaze stared at me.
His gaze moved past me toward the bed. Several seconds passed before he spoke.
“But he could have?”
“I don’t know what would have happened if he’d agreed. I just know I asked.”
“But he refused.”
“Yes.”
He worked his jaw as he leaned forward again. “What did you tell him?”
“That his family was here. That this was his life.” I swallowed. “I thought maybe if he chose to go back, it would make my choice a bit easier.”
“Did you want to leave?”
I paused as I felt my jaw clench. “At first.”
The admission sat uneasily between us. I resisted the urge to soften it.
“I’d seen my grandparents. They were beside my bed, and I wanted to be with them.” My fingers tightened against my knees. “I hadn’t stopped wanting that just because there were people that I cared about here.”
Blaze lowered his gaze.
“No,” he said quietly. “I suppose you wouldn’t.”
I watched the fire as I explained how little I had understood about the choice itself. For a time, I had thought it'd boiled down to returning to my grandparents or remaining in the Shifting Place with Thorn.
Then I asked to see the hut.
Blaze glanced around us as I told him about seeing them gathered beside the bed, and how it had helped me understand what I would be leaving here. Then I explained how I had heard my grandmother speaking beside my hospital bed, unaware that I could hear her.
Blaze's expression buckled slightly as his gaze drifted back towards the bedding.
“I would have gone to him.” His voice roughened. “If he had come back. Whatever he thought would happen afterward, I would have gone.”
“I know.”
His golden eyes held mine. I wanted to tell him that Thorn had known, that nothing between them could have made him doubt it. But I had no way of knowing that for certain.
“I can’t tell you everything he was thinking,” I told him. “I wish I could.”
Blaze held my gaze for a moment longer before looking down.
“He was tired,” I continued. “He didn’t want to return, and I couldn’t force him to.”
“No.”
The word was barely audible.
He pressed a hand over his mouth. I turned my attention back towards the pot, giving him a little space without leaving him completely alone.
The stew inside smelled ready. I should have checked the roots, but I remained seated.
After a while, Blaze lowered his hand. He let out a harsh breath as he took a moment to gather himself.
“Where is he now?” he asked. “Do you know?”
“Not for certain,” I replied. “But before we parted, I asked him to watch over my grandparents for me.”
His brow furrowed. For a moment, he seemed unable to make sense of it.
“Your grandparents?” he repeated.
I nodded.
“They raised me. It had been the three of us for so long, and then...” I stopped to steady my breathing. “I decided to stay here. They weren’t going to know where I’d gone. They’d just lose me.”
I explained that I had no way to tell them where I was, or even that I was alright. Asking Thorn to go to them was the only thing I could think to do.
“And he agreed?” Blaze asked.
“Yes. That's where he meant to go when we parted.” I sat back. “I don’t know if they’ll ever notice him, or if he can do anything to help. I just hope they aren’t alone.”
Blaze lowered his eyes. Outside, footsteps crunched past the hut and faded into the village.
“When you came back,” he finally asked, “did anyone know what you’d left behind?”
“Raven,” I answered, “I’ve explained most of it to her.”
He nodded, and I looked toward the fire. I held my hands toward it, taking a moment before I spoke again.
“I still miss them.”
“Of course you do.”
There was no hesitation in his answer.
I pressed my palms together and tried to breathe past the ache in my chest.
“I’m happy here.”
“I believe you.”
“I chose this.”
“I heard you.”
I looked back at him.
Blaze gestured towards the open space beside him. He didn’t reach for me or ask me to move. He simply offered the invitation and waited.
Eventually, I got up and sat beside him.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then I looked down and stared into the fire.
“My grandfather would have something to say about that.”
Blaze followed my gaze. “The fire?”
“I let it get too hot.” I leaned forward, looking at the wood I had pushed beneath it. “He taught me better than that.”
“What would he say?”
“That adding more wood wouldn’t make supper ready any sooner. It'd just make it easier to burn.”
Blaze scanned the pot, noting the dried trail of broth that had burned onto the side of it.
“He sounds sensible.”
“He usually was,” I said. "It was irritating.”
A quiet breath escaped him, and I smiled.
“He taught me how to split it, too. Stack it so it would dry. Choose what to burn and what to leave for later.” I rested my hands between my knees. “I complained about that a lot when I was younger.”
“Most cubs do.”
“I thought once I could split a log, there wouldn't be much else left I had to learn. Boy, was I wrong.”
Blaze’s mouth twitched slightly.
“There was always something else. Where to put my feet. Where to leave the axe when I stopped. How to tell whether a piece would split cleanly.” I glanced at him. “Then I came here, and suddenly I was grateful he’d made me listen.”
“Did he teach you to hunt?”
I nodded. “And trap. I went with him before I was old enough to do much besides follow him around.”
I could remember trying to place my boots inside his tracks. His strides had been too long, and I had spent half the walk stumbling after him.
“He’d let me look first. Ask me what I thought had passed through, where it was going. Sometimes I was completely wrong.”
“Did he tell you?”
“Eventually. Usually after asking enough questions that I worked it out myself.” A small smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “I’ve caught myself doing that with Shade.”
His gaze shifted toward the little wooden carvings among Shade’s things.
“I’ll be trying to explain something, and I hear myself asking the same questions Grandpa used to ask me.” I shook my head before resting it against an upturned palm. “I used to wish he’d just give me the answer.”
“And now?”
“Now I understand why he didn’t.”
The fire settled. I got up to stir the stew once more before moving the pot a little farther from the heat.
When I returned, Blaze was looking toward the doorway.
“You repaired that.”
I followed his gaze to the bottom edge of the hide.
“Yes. There was a draft coming through.”
“I remember.”
“Grandpa was particular about those, too. Loose boards. Gaps around windows. Anything that let the weather in.” I sat beside him again. “At home, you fixed things before winter if you could. Waiting usually meant doing it with cold hands.”
Blaze inclined his head in agreement.
“My grandmother taught me to sew,” I went on. “Mostly because she got tired of me bringing her things I’d torn. She’d show me what to do, then make me finish it. Even when she could have done it faster herself.” I smiled a little. “Especially then, I think.”
My gaze drifted to Bunny lying on Shade's bed.
“That helped here.”
Blaze followed it. “The toy?”
I nodded, remembering the state Bunny had been in after Shade and Brook had played just a little too rough with it. I remembered how Raven sat in the snow holding the pieces in her hands, not knowing how she was going to fix it or what to do to make Shade feel better.
“It needed mending,” I said. “And I knew how important it was to him.”
He studied the rabbit for a moment. From where we sat, I could still make out the uneven seam I had made. Shade had never seemed to mind it, though.
“There were a lot of things like that,” I continued. “Cleaning up. Keeping things dry. Fixing something while it was still a small job.”
“Things you knew,” Blaze finished.
“Yes. When I didn't know what I should do, that's where I'd start."
Blaze turned to me.
“I didn’t understand the tribe. I didn’t know what people expected of me, or why Raven looked at me the way she did. But I could get a fire going. I could make this hut a comfortable place to come home to. Find something that needed to be done.”
“And Shade?”
I breathed out slowly. “He was a bit harder.”
Blaze’s mouth softened.
“For a while, I was afraid of upsetting him. Or doing something wrong without realizing it.” My eyes settled back on Bunny. “Sometimes I still am.”
“What helped?” Blaze asked.
“Remembering how my grandparents took care of me. What Grandma did when I was cold or tired and didn’t want to admit it. How Grandpa would give me a job I could manage when I insisted on helping.”
I thought of Shade outside in the snow when I had been out chopping wood, determined to keep working long after his small body had started to tire.
“They were good at letting me try, and noticing when I’d had enough.”
I hadn’t thought about how often I relied on those memories until I started explaining them. Things I’d barely noticed as a child suddenly became useful once I'd started raising a child myself.
“I didn’t always know what Shade needed. But I could remember being his age. And I remembered what helped.”
My chest tightened as the faces of my grandparents surfaced in my mind. There were still times I wished I could have asked for their advice.
“I wish they could meet him,” I said quietly. “I think they’d like him.”
“From what you’ve told me, they would.”
I smiled, though it ached a little.
“Grandpa would have him following him everywhere.”
“And your grandmother?”
“She’d fix him something to eat, and have him bring her everything he’d ever torn.”
Blaze let out a low chuckle.
“When I first got here, I thought I’d lost everything.” I looked around at the stacked wood, the repaired doorway, Shade’s bedding. “But most days, I’m doing something they taught me.”
Blaze leaned his shoulder against mine. Through my furs, I could tell he was built like stone; solid and cold despite sitting beside a fire.
“I’m glad you’ve told me about them,” he said. “I think I would have liked to have met them.”
I turned toward him and smiled. “I think they would’ve liked that, too.”
I leaned forward, picking up the wooden spoon from beside the firepit.
“Would you check the roots?” I asked, offering it to him. “You’re closer.”
Blaze accepted it and fished a piece from the pot. After letting it cool, he tasted it.
“Well?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s cooked.”
“That sounded reluctant.”
“You asked whether it was cooked.”
“Right,” I said dryly, taking the spoon back. “I’ll be more specific next time.”
His mouth shifted at one corner.
I tasted the broth myself. It could have used something, though I wasn’t sure what. Perhaps a bit of salt. Or maybe a specific herb that Bone used. Regardless, I decided against asking him.
Moving the pot clear of the heat, I covered it and set the spoon aside.
When I turned back, Blaze was watching me.
“I haven’t seen this hut like this in some time,” he stated.
My gaze travelled around the room.
There were still peelings from the roots that needed to be cleared from the table. Shade’s little salmon carving had rolled beneath it, and a cloak lay in a heap near the bed.
“I haven’t finished tidying up,” I said, though I knew that wasn’t what he meant.
Blaze looked back at me as I settled beside him.
“Is it difficult?” I asked. “Being here with me?”
He took a slow breath and turned toward the fire.
He explained that there were times he still expected me to respond as Thorn would, only to be caught off guard when I did something different.
I sat with that for a moment.
“I don’t mind you talking about Thorn,” I told him. “You can say his name here.”
Blaze's ears tilted back. “I wasn’t certain you would want that.”
“I do. I just need you to remember whose answer you’re going to get.”
Blaze paused, his mouth tightening slightly before he answered.
“I will try.”
I nodded. I wasn’t expecting it to be easy for him, but knowing he was willing to try was enough for now.
Just then, from outside, Raven's voice reached us through the doorway.
“Let me take a few,” I heard her say.
Then came Shade’s voice. “I can carry it!”
“Alright, alright. Watch where you’re putting your feet, then.”
Blaze turned toward the entrance.
A moment later, the covering pushed inward and Shade appeared beneath it, clutching a small bundle of kindling against his chest. He stopped when he saw us.
“Blaze?”
Blaze dipped his head. “Hello, Shade.”
Shade glanced at me, then lifted the bundle a little. “I brought wood for the fire.”
Blaze shifted his feet out of the way as Shade crossed the hut towards the woodpile. A few twigs slipped out from his arms before he crouched down to try and gather them back into his bundle, only for a few more to fall from his grasp. Blaze caught one before it could roll up to the edge of the firepit.
Raven came in behind him with a load of her own. She paused when she saw Blaze sitting beside me.
“He came to visit,” I said, giving her a soft smile.
“So I see…”
She lowered the covering and crossed over to where Shade was. She set her bundle down, allowing him to rearrange the twigs beside the larger logs.
“Hello, Blaze,” she breathed, dusting the remaining snow and dirt from her sleeves.
Blaze gave her an acknowledging nod. “Raven.”
Raven's eyes remained on him briefly before they flicked back over to me.
“Is dinner ready?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve just taken it off.”
“Good.”
She came over and rested a hand against my shoulder. Her fingers pressed once before she moved toward the bowls.
Blaze let out a breath as he began to rise. “I should leave you to it.”
“You’re not eating with us?” Shade asked.
“I’ve already eaten.”
“There’s still enough,” I said.
Shade's eyes stayed on Blaze for a moment before turning his attention back to the kindling.
“Bone always eats again,” he remarked.
Raven suppressed a laugh as she reached for another bowl.
Blaze looked at the three of us.
“Like I said, you’re welcome to stay,” I offered again.
For a moment, I thought he would find a reason to refuse. He glanced toward the doorway, his tail swaying once behind him.
Then his eyes returned to mine.
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you, David.”
Raven set the fourth bowl beside the others.
I reached down to help Shade gather the last few of the fallen twigs. When I straightened, Blaze had settled again.
By the time I had filled the bowls, Shade had decided Blaze needed to see what he had been working on. He fetched the little wooden animals and arranged them in front of him, explaining each one while Raven persuaded him to leave enough room there for his supper.
Blaze listened. Occasionally, he'd ask a question about one of the carvings, and Shade would answer him with full seriousness as though he should already understand.
I passed Blaze his bowl.
“Careful,” I warned. “It’s hot.”
He looked up at me. “I did notice the fire.”
“Just making sure.”
Raven glanced between us, and I caught the slight curl at the corner of her mouth before she sat.
For a while, we ate.
Shade talked about where they had gone to collect the kindling. Raven corrected the distance when his account started to make it sound as though they had crossed half the forest. He insisted it had felt that far.
Blaze asked whether he had carried the kindling all the way home on his own.
Shade nodded, his mouth full.
“Swallow first,” Raven reminded him.
He did, with some effort.
“All the way,” he eventually confirmed.
Blaze grinned approvingly. “That was useful work.”
Shade looked down at his bowl, pleased.
I hid a smile in another mouthful of my stew.
When Blaze finished, I nodded toward his bowl.
“Another helping?” I asked.
He glanced down at it, then looked towards the pot. “If there’s enough.”
“There is.”
He returned the nod to me as he held out his bowl. “A little, then.”
Shade caught my eye as I saw the corners of his mouth twitch. I pressed my lips together, remembering his earlier comment about Bone.
“What?” Raven asked.
“Nothing,” I chuckled.
Blaze glanced between us. “Apparently I am on par with the bear.”
She laughed, the sound drawing a reluctant smile from him.
I crouched beside the pot to serve him. There was enough left for another helping after his, and I scraped the spoon along the bottom to bring up some of the thicker broth.
Behind me, Shade began asking about the mountains.
I paused, listening.
Blaze answered after a moment. His voice was low as he described the way the snow and the ice built up along the cliffsides, and the deep caves the people of the High Mountains lived in.
Shade leaned in closer to hear him. Raven shifted the carvings out of the way before one could be caught beneath a careless foot.
I brought Blaze his bowl and returned to my place beside Raven.
She shifted to give me room, then settled, resting her knee against mine. Across from us, Shade picked up the wooden ram and held it toward Blaze, pointing out something about its horns.
Blaze lowered his bowl to look. His eyes stayed on it for just a little longer than they had with all of the others.
I took another mouthful of my dinner and listened to them.
Before the lake, people around me had asked me what I’d wanted to do with my life. I had finished school. There were decisions to make, and I knew I couldn’t keep putting them off simply because I didn’t have an answer.
I had asked myself those same questions.
What did I want? What was I going to do?
Whenever I tried to picture the years ahead, there were things that I'd considered. Work I might find. Places I might go, but none of it ever felt certain enough to say aloud.
Blaze took the carving while Shade rearranged himself, inspecting every detail as he ran his thumbs over the wooden figure.
I smiled into my bowl.
I never would have pictured this.
Even if someone had told me about the village, about Raven and Shade, about Bone, about Blaze as he turned a wooden ram in his hand, I wouldn’t have understood what any of it would come to mean.
Now I knew.
I wanted to be here when Raven came home. I wanted to hear about what Shade had done that day, teach him what I could, and watch him discover things for himself. I wanted to work beside Bone, to be useful, to keep learning.
I wanted Blaze to come back. There were things I still hoped to ask him. Things about Thorn, and things about himself.
He handed the ram back to Shade and reached for his bowl.
“Would you pass that?”
I followed his gaze to a pelt folded beside me. Shade had drawn his feet closer to himself, his earlier energy beginning to fade.
I passed it over, and Blaze spread it across my cub’s legs.
Raven’s fingers slipped between mine.
I looked at her. She gave my hand a gentle squeeze, then turned back to listen as Shade found another question to ask.
For a moment, I thought of my grandparents.
I wished I could tell them about this evening. I would have liked them to meet these people, to sit with us and find their own places beside the fire.
They'd probably be glad I had found them.
There would be work waiting for me tomorrow. Wood to bring in, bowls to wash, something at Bone’s hut that had begun to pile up. There was a tear in Raven’s hunting cloak still needed mending at the shoulder.
I found myself looking forward to it.
All those questions, and I had been living the answer for some time.
I looked around at my family, then settled a little closer to Raven and finished my supper.
This was what I wanted to do with my life.
This was home.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ9CxV9CV3T
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