When Robin noticed his own breath, the mattress yielded like a cloud while pain tapped his breastbone like a hammer under wool.

“Don’t move—you’ve hurt your bones,” she said, her voice spilling like cold water across hot stone.

It felt like a small wound, a thorn compared to a storm.

“This ‘small’—you said the same when your guts spilled like ropes!”

“It’s really not bad, haha. My breath just got knocked loose, a moment’s lapse. Eurico and Barbara are fine, right?” His smile wavered like a lantern in wind.

He pushed himself up; the sun in the window had barely shifted, a coin glued to glass.

He gave her shoulder a light pat; she shook him off like a horse flicking flies.

“I drifted mid-fight…” Shame prickled like nettles under his skin.

“Eurico and Barbara are fine. I soothed them to their nap,” she said, voice settling like leaves at dusk.

“Oh… then it should be fine…” Relief warmed him like steeped tea on a gray day.

“Robin! Who do you think you are—a great hero!” Her words cracked like a whip in a quiet hall.

Her tone frayed into hysteria as she slammed a stack of papers onto the bed; pages fluttered like startled birds.

They were the files meant for the hidden slot in his desk, a burrow kept for secrets.

The old knight froze mid-stretch; this wasn’t a squall you bantered through, but a tide that pressed the shore.

“‘Time Ruins: Bestial Records,’ ‘Atrocities of Otherworld Invaders,’ ‘Beatrice Academy of Magic—Biology’s Dissection of Beasts,’ ‘Hymns to Heroes Who Withstood Invaders,’ ‘Hero Recruitment Order’—Robin, what are you thinking!” Her list rang like iron on stone.

They were the papers he’d been collecting for weeks; he shut his eyes and sighed, wind leaking from a tent, then gave a barely visible nod.

“As you see.”

“You’ll die! Great heroes all die. Two years since the Time Ruins appeared, and no hero stationed there has come back—do you even know?” Her words fell like stones into a well.

I know.

“Robin! What on earth are you thinking?”

To become a hero. The answer burned like a brand at his tongue.

He had reasons like ordered shields, enough to counter every word of hers, to tell her it was noble, it was honorable, it was grand—three banners he could raise in any hall.

“I don’t want you to die!” After sixty years together, his childhood sweetheart turned, and tears slid like glass beads down her cheeks.

Her face was no longer young; marriage had passed like seasons, and frontier life carved fine lines like furrows into silk. The tears ran along those time-cut grooves like rain tracking bark.

“Robin, I don’t want you to die.” She said it with the poise of a Lady of Tuscany, her bearing a calm pond, yet her voice carried rasp and steel like reeds in a storm.

His urge to argue blew out like a candle in rain. He loved her, and she loved him; the sharp words rested in his chest like knives under cloth, cutting him as they waited, and he refused the dark understanding that pain could breed.

So the question stayed on the table like a blade between them; no accord came.

“I… I should go to the church. Let a Divine Healer cast healing. My chest still drums a little wrong.” He spoke first with unease, then with action, tension knotting like rope.

The old knight slid into his coat and left in a rush, a fox slipping from brush, boots tapping like quick rain.

It was only an argument—for now just an argument, like thunder that hadn’t yet broken into storm. He closed the door gently, hoping time would ease her tide.

He left the manor heavy-hearted, a stone in his pocket. He wanted the healing of a Divine Healer, yes—but also prayer, counsel, a sliver of advice from a Divine Being, like a lighthouse through fog.

He took his beloved sword, mounted his beloved horse, strapped on light plates made for movement, then ran a thumb over the black bramble crest on his shield, feeling its thorns like night vines. He forced a cracked-pottery smile for the guards and rode out of the frontier town.

Mood wasn’t great, he thought, stroking his muttonchops; a cloud hung low over his ridge.

Not terrible, just heavy, like wet mail after rain.

His hands trembled a little, leaves in an early wind.

He wanted to draw the sword and cut something—cut clean, like splitting bamboo.

He wanted to urge the horse to run, hooves drumming dirt into a river of dust, and chase speed to its edge.

He wanted to charge, to cry out, to whip a battle flag into the sky, to be like he had been when youth blazed like summer.

“Father.”

The call snapped him back like a snapped bowstring; he answered, startled, voice skipping like a pebble on water.

From behind, his eldest son rode up, his Kennet, his pride—a sunlit figure catching up like dawn to night.

“Father, heading to the church to pray again?” Kennet’s words were warm as bread, his eyes bright as a clear stream.

Under the sun, Kennet’s hair flashed gold, almost blinding, like Robin’s had in the days when dawn favored him; his two younger brothers wore their mother’s brown, earth rich and steady.

Kennet was gentle and courteous, mild yet intolerant of wickedness, proud yet never displaying it; his smile stayed sunny as a summer field, his nature without shadow. The black bramble crest on his shield marked him a full knight of the order, but his way with townsfolk never hardened like iron.

Old comrades said the squire knights called Kennet “the Perfect Knight,” a title tossed like laurel; noble ladies even cast handkerchiefs like white petals his way—

After enfeoffment and invitations like nets, he still told the Knight-Captain he wanted to return to the frontier town and help his father, his choice firm as a post in earth.

“I heard Eurico and Barbara beat you just now?” Kennet’s laugh sparkled like a brook.

“Yeah. Your brother and sister might catch up to you soon,” Robin said, fondness soft as afternoon light.

“That’s… truly a joy,” Kennet answered, then tilted his head. “But Barbara says Father’s sword shouldn’t be caught by such small tricks.” Curiosity glinted like a cat’s eye.

Robin scratched his dull gold hair—once a bright banner, now straw in autumn. “I drifted in battle, that’s one part. Another is…”

He could have blocked it.

“I can cross the blade to meet a thrust, take it on the sword and peel it away. Years of practice let me control my blade and predict their line. But that isn’t swordsmanship.” His voice settled like a stone placed true.

“Father means… that’s just showing off?” Kennet’s reins creaked like tight rope as he leveled beside him.

“Yeah. It’s flashy nonsense that’s useless in a kill-or-be-killed fight. Even in sparring, it only makes your loss look uglier.” Robin’s shrug fell like a dropped cloak.

Kennet tightened the reins and bumped up the pace, riding shoulder to shoulder, concern shading his tone like a cloud over wheat. “Still, you’ve got to mind your body…”

“This was a strike I should take, Kennet. Practice or battle, once you lift a sword, you must accept death at its edge. That’s basic respect for your weapon. Remember when you were small, when we trained?” His words turned stern, a drum calling order.

He could only guide his eldest in these small places now, like lanterns set along a path.

What he could pass down shrank year by year, sand trickling through a glass he couldn’t stop.

He believed that if he fought full strength, he could still press Kennet with experience, eyesight, and bulk, a mountain leaning on a sapling. But next year? The year after?

He would weaken like a winter branch, while Kennet grew stronger by the day, skill and experience rising like the sun.

That was… good. Good like rain after drought.

An heir to take his spirit, his will, his place, take everything he could hand over, a long son and a long lineage.

It was truly, deeply good, a blessing laid like a hand on his shoulder.

Maybe, if he died now, no regrets would gnaw; the cup felt close to full.

“I remember you threw me a sharpened true blade. I had to use all I had not to cut myself,” Kennet said, closing his eyes, the memory warm as a hearth.

“It’s something to miss,” the young knight laughed softly, childhood glowing like embers.

“It is,” the old knight murmured, battlefields rising like banners in his mind, the years of charge and glory a horizon he could still taste.

“Father, want to race like we used to? Look, this is the warhorse Queen Beatrice gave me after we beat back the ‘Loyalty’ Demon King Army—young and strong!” Kennet brightened, spurring a little, the horse carving the dirt road between pioneer estates like a brush stroke.

He didn’t look like a “Perfect Knight” then, just a boy showing his prize to his father, hoping for praise like sunlight.

“It’s a fine horse, but Mephi Pioneer Estate is right there. I can see the stained glass on the church already. Too short a stretch—the sprint won’t open up,” Robin said, smiling, regret dropping like a small pebble.

Kennet’s mouth tilted, a touch of disappointment, but he still promised, “Next time, Father, you can’t refuse,” his vow tied like a knot.

Wind ruffled the old knight’s dim gold hair and teased the old horse’s combed mane, a playful hand in a weaving.

“And Abby’s old. A hard run would hurt her,” he added, palm soothing the mare’s mane, trying to lay the hair flat like a field after harvest, only for the wind to toss it again like unruly grass.

His last murmur went out like a leaf on the gale, carried by the western frontier’s restless wind, lost before it could reach any ear.