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  Fates First Wound

  The air in the chamber was thick and still, heavy with the quiet of anticipation and loss. Shadows clung to the walls, held back by only the trembling light of a single candle on a small, worn table. The room was humble but sturdy, a sanctuary hidden in the heart of Emberfall, where the warmth and life now battled against the creeping chill of death. On a narrow bed lay a woman, her face pale and drawn, framed by the softness of her dark hair. Her breaths came in shallow gasps, yet her hands clutched the edges of the bed with a strength that defied her weakening body. Beside he, a man stood, his broad shoulders hunched slightly as if bearing the weight of something immense and unseen. He was silent, his gaze locked onto her face, steady and unwavering, though his hands clenched tightly at his sides.

  A healer moved quietly around them, her hands practiced and steady as she murmured words of comfort that drifted into the quiet, unwavering strength, which held the man’s gaze. She looked at him, offering a final wordless promise, her lips curving into a faint, bittersweet smile.

  And then, a cry… a thin, insistent sound that broke through the quiet and filled the room with life. The healer wrapped the child in a soft woolen blanket, holding the newborn carefully as the cries softened into tiny, gasping breaths. The man’s face softened for an instant as he looked at the child, but his sorrow remained shadowed in his eyes, unspoken.

  As the newborn’s small voice rose and fell, the woman’s breaths grew slower, each one fainter than the last, until finally, there was only silence where there had been warmth and love. The man’s face betrayed no tears, only a hallow ache that darkened his eyes as he looked from the child back to the one, he had loved. She lay still now, her hand slipping from the bed’s edge, her face softened in peace even as she left this world.

  The healer lowered her gaze, giving the man his moment, before she gently placed the child in his arms. His hands, rough and calloused from years of wielding steel, held the small, fragile form as though he might break it. The child nestled against his chest, tiny fingers curling instinctively around his thumb. He felt her warmth, her heartbeat steady and strong, even as his own felt shattered beyond repair.

  He looked down at her, the weight of his grief settling beside the fierce, sudden rush of protectiveness he felt for this small helpless life. She was so much of her mother already… quite determined, full of strength she didn’t yet know she had. He took a deep, steadying breath, and in a voice rough with grief but edged with tenderness, he spoke her name.

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  “Alyc”, he murmured. “Your name is Alyc”.

  The sound of her name, soft yet strong, filled the room, a new spark in the darkness, a flicker of hope amid the ashes. He held her close, feeling both the emptiness left by his love’s passing and the new purpose he would carry forward. In Alyc’s small steady breaths, he found the promise of the future he would protect fiercely, a light he would shelter in the world’s vast, cold expanse.

  The days that followed passed quietly, with only the echo of what had been left behind. Durk worked in silence, a man of few words with little desire to change. His grief was carved into the lines of his face, but he kept it buried deep, hidden beneath the daily routines and responsibilities that tethered him to life. It was the small things he did for Alyc... gentle, unspoken gestures… that revealed the depths of his love, a love he could not easily put into words.

  As the years went by, Durk poured his strength into Alyc’s upbringing. He showed her how to carry herself, how to be strong, how to hold a blade. From the moment her small hands could grasp the hilt, he placed a sword in them, shaping her future with each movement and parry. His training was firm, at times unyielding, yet there was a gentleness in the way he corrected her stance or showed her how to guard her heart with the edge of her blade.

  He became both her father and teacher, pouring his energy into every lesson, every calculated move. Training was their language… a way he could express what he could not say in words. Though stern, Durk managed moments of lighthearted humor, flashes of fatherly warmth that softened the edges of his otherwise steely demeanor. Alyc would catch a rare smile, a brief laugh that lifted her spirit, knowing that while he was demanding, he was proud of her.

  In his silence, Alyc felt his devotion, even if his past pain lingered unspoken between them. She learned to navigate the boundaries of her father’s grief, aware of the absence she had never known, yet always felt. She pieced together fragments of her mother from whispered stories and brief, passing mentions never enough to satisfy her curiosity, but enough to understand the reverence with which Durk held her memory.

  And so, Alyc grew strong, quick, and skillful, guided by her father’s hand and shadowed by a mother’s memory. The loss marked them both, but it was an unspoken presence, a quiet void filled with the bond they shared. As she looked to him, she saw a man forged from pain, tempered by love, who, without words, had given her the strength she needed to become someone her mother would have been proud of.

  In rare, quiet moments, Alyc would feel the absence keenly her longing for a mother she had never known, a void left open by Durk’s silence. She never pressed him for answers, aware of the unhealed scars that remained in the background of their lives. She came to accept that her father’s love would always carry the weight of that loss, just as she would always be her mother’s last gift.

  Together, in their shared silence, they honored the past, even as they moved forward into the life they were building, step by step, one sword stroke at a time.