Bogwater was quiet.
Not the stillness of dread or tension, but the kind that draped the marsh like a soft blanket—peaceful, unbothered, and wholly undeserved.
The sun rose with no urgency, casting slow golden fingers across the reed-thick waters and muddied paths. Dragonflies danced above the pools.
Sowhere in the distance, a heron took flight, slow and graceful.
And Levi slept.
For the first ti in weeks, he truly slept.
No dreams of falling towers, no echoing guilt, no trials in sinking mud or eyes torn open beneath knives and judgnt.
Just sleep. Real sleep. And when he awoke, the world hadn't ended or changed. That was a small miracle in itself.
He rolled from the bed Mae had prepared a simple bundle of reeds and straw, still itchy and sat at the edge, his muscles aching in the way a body does when it rembers it's alive.
He stared at the floor, at his hands, at the light seeping in through the window. And he smiled. A small one.
For once, no one needed anything from him.
Not Jory. Not Darren's boy who kept asking too many questions. Not the Reeds or their riddling elders. Not the past. Not the gods. Just… silence.
Mae was outside when he stepped into the day, tending to her herbs. She glanced up at him, nodded, then looked back down. No scolding, no lecture. Not even a sarcastic remark.
"Breakfast?" Levi asked after a mont.
"If you're making it," she said.
He made it.
Clumsy, yes and he burned the edge of the cheese and undercooked the bread. But he tried.
Mae gave him no complints, but she ate it without complaint, and for her, that ant everything.
The day stretched long. Levi wandered the village with no real aim.
Jory had gone off to help patch a net with the other boys, his pride swelling now that he'd "been sowhere."
Darren's little crew kept their distance, unsure how to treat soone who had bled for the Crannogn and co back changed.
So Levi found a tree. A crooked old thing by the marsh's edge. He lay beneath it, back against the trunk, arms crossed behind his head, eyes squinting up at the shifting light between branches.
It was warm. Not hot. Just… enough.
He listened to the world. Birds, bugs, laughter drifting from the huts. And his breathing.
He thought of nothing. And that was rare.
No cheat engine. No swampberries or silver coins. No building plans or noble houses or guilt-soaked regrets. Not even his scar, now stitched and scabbed, closed over his right eye like a crude badge.
He just was.
For a boy once addicted to doing nothing, this was the first ti it felt earned.
He dozed off again. A nap after breakfast, like a king. No sword, no scrolls, no summons.
When he woke in the afternoon, Mae had left a small bowl of berries nearby, fresh and untouched by him. Not conjured. Real. Picked by hand.
He ate them slowly. And they tasted like the kind of peace he never thought he'd deserve.
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