At the peak of winter, the hero came back home. He had been gone for only a year. In that time, he had been responsible for sealing a great evil away, and the world met him with newfound adoration. Our hometown greeted him with celebration—an exuberant festival to last the month with plentiful feasts in his name. Walking down the streets, I could sense the enthusiasm weaving itself through the throng of people gathered to receive the hero. Their eyes stared forward, audience members awaiting the finale of his journey.

His arrival wasn’t as sudden as we all expected it to be. Somebody had heard he was coming back, and it caught on like a chill in the wind. My heart settled in my throat when I finally heard; it had only been a year, but I became excited at the thought of seeing him again. My heart clenched as it tried to reassure me that this hero would still be the man I knew.

It was always just the two of us, before he left for his journey. I could remember how restless he was about life—well about everything really. Brave and dashing and impulsive and just bursting to follow the reckless compass that was his heart. He told me that fate called his name, pulling him toward adventure, toward a legacy. He wanted to be remembered, believing that his name deserved to be written in the pages of history.

I didn’t entirely understand him. What does remembrance matter when we’re long gone? Even then, I believed we always left something behind as we lived, whether it be as small as a footprint or as large as a legacy. But it was often his brashness against my complacency. We were the closest thing we had to family, and we got along just as well as companions do, but only in the way one side of a coin could understand the other.

I felt bright inside that his heart had its eyes set on something—but then something akin to fear welled up in me. He had found the path he wanted to walk on, but where was I? Was I to stand behind him, remain here completely unchanged? I did not feel any “call of fate,” no pull toward anything greater than the mediocre life I led now. I thought it would always be me and him, but deep down I knew that I wasn’t strong enough to keep him here. It would have been unfair anyway. I had no right to shackle him. 

“Must you go?”

“Yes,” determination pervaded his grin.

I didn’t want to look sad before he went, but my face betrayed me. His arms embraced me tightly and I flushed. It would have been embarrassing if he could feel my heart beating through my ribs. 

“I’ll miss you,” I said softly. “Make sure to come back home whole.”

“I promise,” he replied. I watched his back go.

Now, I followed the crowds to where the hero was. The mayor wanted to show him off. All around me, I could hear a mixture of love and fear for our new hero.

“How are we so sure we’re saved?”

“He vanquished the darkness. There is nothing to worry about anymore.”

“Was this not foretold? Wasn’t he chosen for this? To think, he lived so close as my children grew up.”

I finally caught sight of him. He stood in the town square, tall and broad. The old mayor seemed delicate next to him, as if he were a feather dressed in a suit. From where I stood (I had to get on the tips of my toes to actually see), the hero looked the same as I remembered him. He held himself strong like a ship’s masthead, his eyes steady and sharp. I wondered if he still had that same reckless demeanor, or if he had grown out of it during his adventure. I almost laughed to myself. I felt hopeless with missing him so much.

He was dressed in drab, dirty clothing with a few tears in his pants and at the cuffs of his sleeves. He had nothing else on him but a sword. That was strange, I knew it had been a long journey, but he didn’t like appearing unkempt. I didn’t expect for him to come back overflowing with riches, but he traveled extremely light. The sword was new, but plain looking—real shining silver. He gripped the hilt firmly against his side.

“We all want to thank you for what you accomplished,” the mayor announced. “We owe you a great service, hero.”

“Thank you,” he said as he smiled. He sounded profoundly tired.

The mayor must have noticed this too. “It is not much, but it would be my family’s greatest honor to host you at our manor for as long as you like. This journey must have taken a toll on you.”

Being invited to the mayor’s manor up on the hill was indeed something to be proud of. The mayor was one of the richest people in the country, and it showed in the way he took care of the town. Because of him, people lived far better and happier lives—nobody around here had been without food or a home in a long time. Even before the hero had gone on his adventure, there was talk that the mayor would have personally funded armies to get rid of the great evil. It was his own philosophy that if he could do anything in his power to stop desolation, he would. 

I was far from living in a hovel, but the hero and I had lived a humble life together by the edge of town. I felt anchored by insecurity then as I saw him walk away with the mayor. Climbing the ranks of heroism, a man could cast aside his humble beginnings if he believed he deserved to.

The hero smiled again. I must have imagined it, but I thought for a moment that it didn’t reach his eyes.

___

The hero came to see me after a few days. He was cleaner now, with nicer clothing, undoubtedly another kindness bestowed by the mayor. I had been tending to the fire when I heard him knock softly. I almost missed it. 

“This is—well, was—your home too, you know. You don’t need to knock,” I said. His hands held his elbows, and he slouched awkwardly. He was trying to make himself smaller. I never took him for the shy type.

“Hello,” he said. It was in the tone that polite strangers would have taken with each other. 

“Welcome back.” I wanted to embrace him. I didn’t know why I hesitated. “Well, aren’t you coming in?”

He looked past me; something was holding him back. It was our home. We created this together. His feet stood still, his hands clenching his wrists. Outside, it was snowing lightly, and he was only in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat. His silver sword lay by his hip. I imagined that if I took his hands they would have been freezing.

I moved out of the way to tell him to come inside. “It’s cold.”

It was a few more seconds before he came in. His steps had a certain weight to them. His eyes scanned the house as though this was his first time being in here. Just moments before, I had only been adding more wood to the fire, and if he hadn’t come, I had only planned to read the entire day, so I started to bubble at the thought of catching up with him.

The firelight caught his features. Now that I was really looking at him, he had changed; very faint creases lined his eyes, his hair had streaks of light through it. When he went to rub at the back of his neck out of a nervous tick, his hand had scars. He certainly didn't have those before he left.

I wanted to ask him about everything: how was he? What was it like to adventure out there? How was the world outside of our town? Was it dangerous? I was almost jealous that he had experienced all these new things. Although nothing physically held me down, for the longest time I had felt that my role was to orbit around his narrative, to simply follow him like a moth to a flame. It gnawed at me, bone deep and always there.

(Was your legacy worth us?)

I had to hold my tongue from flooding him with questions. He looked weary.

“Goodness, sit down! You’re acting like we’re strangers,” I gestured to the seat next to mine in front of the fire. It hadn’t been used since he was gone. He removed his sword and placed it beside him. The cushions hugged him like an old friend.

We didn’t say anything for a while, instead, the crackle of the fire was deafening in our silence. The wind started to bang harder on the windows. I lived a ways away from town, especially from the mayor’s manor. Had he walked in such measly layers? Before I could ask him anything, he said, “Has anything changed while I was gone?”

His voice was deep and quiet. It had been a while since I’d heard it so close to me. I remembered the laughs I was able to pull from him, where we’d joke about nothing and everything just because we could. I’d still think of us as two boys who thought that the world was made for them. I couldn’t help but think what he went through to end up this way.

“Of course not. It’s only been a year, you haven’t been gone that long.” But as I said it I could feel the absence he had left behind like a festering wound. “Let’s see, the mayor somehow aged one hundred years this year alone, while his wife found the fountain of youth. Oh! Mr. Steepleton down the road finally married his sweetheart! The wedding was gorgeous in the spring.”

I could have gone on about the little things that lingered here, but I desperately wanted to hear how he had been. I was stuck between showing how sick I was with missing him and acting like I hadn’t noticed he was gone. I didn’t want to come off as some clingy damsel.

“And how are you?” I settled on instead. 

Awkwardness drifted through the air like old dust. Before the words had flowed like rivers. We’d spill whatever and our ears were there to catch it. Even if we were frustrated with each other, we’d always end up saying how we felt, so that the pressure didn’t explode on us in the end.

At the nape of my neck, that familiar pinprick of pressure reappeared. I hadn’t sensed it in so long that I marveled on why it had come back. 

It was like his mouth was chained shut, and it took a tedious amount of time for his lips to unravel. He was staring at the mantel, at the small mirror that hung above it. It was a dirty, old thing—it had been here since we built the house. He was scrutinizing his reflection. I thought he would have adjusted his hair or done something vain like that, but his lips let out the smallest wince, like he was disgusted at what he was seeing. I must have imagined it. “I thought I had been gone longer, I suppose. Has it really been a year?”

I nodded. “What have you been up to? You look…stronger, almost. I’ve noticed your battle scars. There must be a dozen stories to tell there.”

I meant to only tease him, but he must have taken that as prodding. He tucked his fingers on his lap, one hand over the other, so as to hide his hands between his sleeves and shirt. I felt guilt swell in my chest.

My hand reached out to him, to reassure him that everything was alright, that it was just me. I noticed that quick glint of fear in his eyes, and he turned away more harshly than I expected. He caught himself, suddenly all too aware of how much space he took up, how fragile I must have looked sitting right next to him.

I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, and yet my body acted as though he was about to shove me into the wall. The tension that suddenly appeared between us ached in my spine.

“H-hey…” I put my hands up, startled. If I asked him if he was okay, I knew he would have just lied. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. His shoulders hunched forward. He looked deeply ashamed of himself. “It’s just...I-”

“Whatever it is, it’s not my business, no matter how much I want to know.” I held myself back from trying to touch him. I needed him to know that he was safe here, beside me. “I won’t mind if it takes you decades to tell me. I’m a pathetically patient person.”

He clenched his hands in his lap. He seemed to search for something among the burning wood and ash. Perhaps apologies, or excuses. 

“You’ve changed,” I said quietly. It was a simple observation. He was not that bright, dashing young man anymore.

His eyes were an oblivion of lost futures when he gazed at me. They had become dull, like the look of a soldier who had a train of ghosts hanging onto him.

“Have I?” he asked. It came out rueful. He ran a hand through his hair. “I came to you because I...I wanted to see you.”

“I wanted to see you too!” There was finally an opening where I could get to him.

“But it seems this was a bad idea,” he said and started to get up.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

He headed towards the door, but I grabbed him by the elbow. That fear in him resurfaced. Everything in him stiffened, as if he was trying to block me out. 

I scraped up any excuse for him to stay here. If I let him leave, he was always going to have his back turned to me. “The snow is piling out there—you aren’t really going to walk in this weather, are you?”

“I can’t feel the cold anymore,” he responded as he opened the door. I shivered.

“Your room is just the same as you left it. It’s a little dusty, but please, just for the night—”

“I’ll be going now.” He looked towards the west, where the sun would have set if the skies had been clear. His dull eyes searched the white horizon that covered the land, past the large, dark oak trees that hugged our town like walls. They always seemed to be looking for something. For an answer. Or maybe an ending.

I didn’t know what else to say. If he didn’t want to stay, then I’ll let him go. He didn’t deserve to be trapped by somebody as dim as me. 

He met my eyes again and shared the ghost of a smile. I couldn’t help but think it seemed to pull too sharply at the edge of his lips—as if he’d been wearing it all day.

___

The hero had left behind his sword. In the midst of him wanting to leave so badly and my wanting him to stay, we somehow didn’t notice and before I could run out to return it, he was already gone. I thought about delivering it back to him, but I didn’t want to walk around town with it and have everybody assume that I had stolen it. In my hand, it was sleek and nearly white. It had a hefty weight to it but I didn’t feel unbalanced. It was absurd to think, but it felt almost right that I held it, like the hilt was molded for the subtle curves of my palm. It struck a strange, yet powerful sensation in my chest. If I swung hard enough, I knew that it could have cut through bone.

I held out hope that he would come back to retrieve it. So for the next week, I waited. 

And waited.

And waited.

And then there was a knock on my door. I sprang up to answer it.

“You finally came back! You left your sword, it seemed really important to you so I didn’t know when—”

It wasn’t him. It was the mayor, accompanied by one of his servants. The snow had lessened over the past few days, but he still looked like he would have collapsed if a strong gale blew over. His large coat only padded him to make him look more spherical. He was fidgeting and rubbing his gloved hands together.

“You’re his companion, yes?” the mayor asked me. The collar of his layers muffled his voice. 

I nodded. “What brings you here, sir? Has something happened to him?”  

The feather of a man coughed, and his servant continued. She spoke with a deep seriousness that made me feel like I had done something illegal, even though the most I had done was walk between the town and my house for groceries in the past week.

“Our hero is missing.”

“Missing?!”

“He often goes out at random times of the day and comes back in the dead of night, but it seems that he didn't come back last night. Has he stopped by at all?”

“No, I haven’t seen him since last week.” My mouth turned to sand at the thought of that terse interaction we last shared.

“Shame. If this gets out to the rest of the town, they’ll think something’s amiss.”

“Right…” I clutched my chest. 

“Do you have any idea where he could have gone?” the mayor questioned. 

“No, I haven’t.”

My mind thought about all the hidden places we had claimed in our life before he left. I yearned for that life back, before he had become everybody’s hero. When we didn’t have to worry about a world that was going to be consumed by a great darkness, when fate’s call to a heroic journey was simply a knock we could miss, because we were too busy laughing like fools.

The mayor and his servant left without another word. I closed the door and thumped my back against it as I slid down. Missing. It was ridiculous to think I caused this, but what if I had made him stay? He might still be here right now.

I eyed the sword across the room. It laid near the fireplace, the metal glinting like a cruel eye. Why did he leave it here? I remember when he first came back, how he gripped it like his life line. His memory wasn’t weak either. He left it here on purpose.

I replayed the events of last week again. 

“I’ll be going now,” he had said. Always leaving, always turning his back, and I was here. No matter how far I reached for him, my hands never touched him. In the year that he was absent, I had nightmares where black fog consumed every inch of my skin, and I would wake breathless and erratic and remember that I was alone. 

He was gone again, and I was a-

I jumped up. I knew where he was. I grabbed the sword and my coat and rushed out of the house towards the west where the oak trees hid a stillness to them. My lungs heaved in the dry and bitter air as I ran. 

Up the hills, I neared the precipice that overlooked the town. From that point, you could spot the entirety of the mayor’s manor, and at dawn, witness the sun rising from behind it like a halo. Further along, rivers flowed downhill, weaving themselves through the town. The tiny figures of the citizens hurried along the stone streets, blissfully unaware of anything that didn't pertain to their busy lives. The wind was getting stronger at this height so I crossed my arms over my coat. I thought back to how when we stood here, freedom unfurled by the horizon, and the world came undone at our fingertips. 

It was our favorite place out of anything else.

I saw him in the distance, again without a coat. He was dangerously close to the edge, and I felt my blood thrumming with dread. The intense allure the sword had on me whenever I held it disappeared the moment I cast it aside to reach him.

“No!” I cried out as I grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the ledge. His face twisted in shock and his heavy body leaned in on me. We fell towards each other, away from the cliff.

“I wasn’t going to jump! I swear!” he said, and put his hands up defensively. I was nearly on the verge of tears at the thought of him doing that to himself. 

“You scared me, you...idiot,” I embraced him and all at once I could feel what was building up between us bursting beneath my tongue. “I’ve been absolutely beside myself waiting for you to tell me what’s happened with you. I know I’m patient, but patience doesn’t mean I’ll allow for us to never speak again!” 

I gripped his shoulders. My voice was breaking. “I would wait for you always, I would follow you wherever you go, but I don’t deserve to be treated this way. Are you tired of me? Has becoming a hero made you want for more than our life together?”

He simply held my elbows and looked to the ground. 

“Well, say something, damnit,” I pleaded.

“You know, I almost didn’t come back.” 

“What?”

“When I left, the beginning of my journey was alright. It was everything I ever wished for, and I wanted to tell you all of these new experiences and places and people! Then, I had a responsibility. My calling—to defeat that great evil which would consume us all. And I-”

There was a tremor in his hands. 

“I can’t even begin to tell you what occurred in those last months, but I was afraid that on my journey home I changed so much you wouldn’t have recognized me anymore.

“But the thought of you all alone in that house of ours, waiting for me to come back, not knowing whether I was alive or not...I was filled with this indescribable grief. I couldn’t do that to you. You meant too much to me.”

My mind drifted to what could have changed him so fundamentally that even he couldn’t recognize himself anymore. To come back to a place you once called home, to come back so utterly transformed that you thought that even your loved ones wouldn’t know who you were—my heart wept for him. The hero’s duty was to save everybody, but he had thrown his body through too much turmoil. I could feel his heart splintering at the tips of his fingers. That darkness in his eyes, those scars, they were all marks of somebody who had tried their best, but couldn’t escape unscathed. 

We stood up from the snowy ground. I tucked a loose end of his hair behind his ear. His journey, I realized, had dulled every bright shining part of him. How tragic it was that he didn’t think he deserved a happy ending.

“I don’t want you to be scared of me judging you,” I said as I held his face. “So what if you changed? Sometimes things just change, and we grow. It’s not your fault and it’s nothing to ever be ashamed or fearful of. I would know you even when we’re wrinkled and blind. You’re still you.”

He put his hands on mine. They felt cold against my skin, but a comfort I missed deeply.

“There it is,” I whispered. The light in his eyes had come back.

I stood beside him. He faced me fully, and for one brilliant moment, his smile met his eyes. I didn’t know how, but it was almost like he’d finally been given permission to put down the weight of the world and simply live.

He walked over to retrieve the sword I had thrown aside. When he picked it up, I saw him consider the possible futures of what he could have done with it. 

“Did you feel it too?” he asked. 

Did I feel the power in my fingertips, the sudden call of bravery and courage it demanded, the way it would always fit right in my hands? 

“Yes,” I said and held the sword with him, my hand on top of his on the hilt. 

The hero let it go.

I took the silver sword and pierced the snow with it so that it stood at the precipice. I looked back at him and felt more certain of myself than I ever had in my entire life. The sun had come out behind the thick clouds. We hadn’t seen it shine all winter. It carried hundreds of narratives in its colors; a never-ending transformation of endings to beginnings to endings.