That night, he dreamed.

Not of power.
Not of war.
Not of the Citadel’s burning halls or the screaming of the fallen.

He dreamed of something… simple.

He stood in a quiet orchard,
barefoot,
watching the same apple tree he'd planted—
only now it had grown tall, wild, untamed.

Children laughed as they climbed its crooked branches.
One fell.
He caught the child in time.
The child giggled, touched his face, and whispered:

“You’re not scary anymore.”

He woke with tears on his cheeks.
A strange wetness—foreign, yet comforting.

He had not cried in a thousand years.
He hadn’t thought it possible.

“So this,” he muttered to himself,
“is what it means… to feel without pride.”

The next day, he sat in the village square,
watching life unfold—
a broken wheel being mended,
a dispute between neighbors resolved over soup,
a wedding dance under fading dusk.

He said nothing.
Did nothing.
But in his stillness,
he felt a part of everything.

That evening, Ashen sat beside him again.

“You looked… peaceful,” the boy said.

He nodded.

“I dreamed.”

Ashen raised an eyebrow.

“Of what?”

He hesitated, then smiled.

“Of not needing to be anything more than… this.”

The fire crackled.
The stars watched.
And for the first time in his existence,
he did not fear what might come next.

He had slept without armor.
And woken not to danger—
but to being human.