The battle came to an end. The elves and Ken won, not due to numbers or skill, but due to the figures that turned the tide of the battle, Sierra and Ken.

The town could sleep in peace due to the heroics of these two, along with the help of every elf that was in the fight. They ensured that the horror that came was not enough to destroy the town.

But regardless, the town suffered many casualties, with five people in total dead and a few injured. Ken had not been fast enough to save them. He was angry at that, not because they lost their lives, but because he was unable to defend what he said he would. That alone was enough to upset him a lot.

The town chose to bury their dead. Ken left them to it. He headed into the forest once again and back to his camp. Night came, the air was biting cold, yet he stood there facing a tree, throwing punches that landed like missiles, each one loud and heavy.

"Still out here training?"

Sierra’s voice cut through the cold of night. She stepped out of the darkness, her eyes pinned on Ken. Ken stopped. He looked at her casually and then gave a smile.

"It’s nice to see you. I’m sorry I haven’t come to tell Her Majesty thanks for the help. The town is safe, and your very own people won that victory for me," Ken said.

"I believe she understands that already, and she said to tell you that she looks forward to your help," Sierra said. Her eyes stayed on him for a while longer, like she had a little bit more to say, but she looked away.

"Hmmm, you have more to say," Ken pointed out.

She looked at him, shocked that he saw through her.

"You are one hell of a kid," she said. She walked forward and sat on a rock, staring at the flames.

"You saw the battle, you faced the blood. What did you feel as you did that?" she asked, looking up at him.

Ken was stunned by the question. No one had ever asked him what he felt after a fight. He looked at her for a long second, and then he spoke.

"I honestly didn’t feel much. When I fight, whatever I face shifts from beings to targets. All I see is what I’m meant to kill and take down.

"There was a difference today. The smell of blood did make my stomach churn, but I’d say that’s a reaction to the smell more than anything else," he explained his feelings to the best of his ability.

Sierra was quiet for a moment after he finished.

She looked at the fire, her elbows resting on her knees, and the silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the kind that meant someone was actually thinking rather than just waiting for their turn to speak.

"I’m not sure if I should be worried about that or not," she said finally.

Ken looked at her. "Worried about what exactly?"

"The way you perceive battles." She didn’t look up from the fire yet. "The way you move through them. I watched you today, not just in our fight, but out there. You moved without hesitation, without flinching, like someone who has been through enough of it that the edges have all been worn smooth." She paused. "It scares me a little, if I’m being honest with you, to think that a child has a mind like that."

Ken didn’t respond immediately. He let her finish.

"But then," she continued, and her voice shifted slightly, something quieter entering it, "it also makes me glad. Because I need someone reliable. Someone I can trust to be steady when things go wrong." She looked up at him now. "Luna needs that now that she is leaving. She needs someone around her who will not break when it matters."

Ken held her gaze for a moment. "She has you still."

"She has me, but not after she leaves. I can’t follow," Sierra said. "So now she has you."

The fire crackled between them. Somewhere deeper in the forest, something moved through the dark and went still again. The cold pressed in from every direction, but neither of them moved toward the warmth.

Sierra exhaled slowly and looked back at the flames.

"People from the capital will be coming here soon," she said. Her tone had shifted again, practical now, carrying the weight of something she had already thought through completely. "When they arrive, it will be the official transition. Luna moves there." She glanced at him. "Which means you will be leaving with her. As her friend, her guide, her bodyguard. The way we already discussed."

"I remember," Ken said.

"Good." She stood, brushing off her hands, and looked at him one last time with something in her expression that wasn’t quite warmth but was adjacent to it. "Get some rest at some point tonight. You are allowed to do that."

She walked back into the dark, and the forest swallowed her footsteps quickly. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Ken stood where he was for a while.

He looked at the fire and then at his hands and then at nothing in particular. The punches he had been throwing before she arrived had felt good, the impact of each one grounding him in something physical and simple, but now the stillness had come back, and with it the thoughts that he buried long ago.

He didn’t appreciate killing. That was true. He had never enjoyed it, never felt anything bright or satisfying when a body dropped.

But it didn’t hit him either.

It never hit him.

He sat down slowly in front of the fire and stared into it and wondered, somewhere quietly in the back of his mind, when exactly that had happened. When the weight of it had stopped arriving. Whether it had been gradual, worn away fight by fight without him noticing, or whether he had simply woken up one day already numb and never thought to question it.

He didn’t have an answer.

The fire burned low, and he sat with the question anyway, alone in the cold, letting it sit there without trying to resolve it.

’Do I know the meaning of life if I don’t feel anything about death?’