✶✶✶
IT was now two weeks into a mission that should’ve taken three days. Fatigue hung over the camp like a mist. There’d been casualties, yes, but so far, no deaths. Ozhorn was to thank for that. Everyone wounded was sent back to the healer’s tent on the backlines—and under Ozhorn’s hand, they were mended as if nothing had ever happened.
Now and then, a voice would let slip some dark sentiment—I want to die, or words close enough—but when uttered by adventurers, such remarks were rarely signs of true despair. They belonged to a people of unusual constitution, not merely in body but also in spirit. Their instinct was always forward. Suffering was met not with silence but with noise—cheers, bursts of song, laughter loud enough to seem unreal. If someone fell, a hand—any hand—was there to lift them. If fortune turned their way, they rejoiced. If it didn’t, they met it with sober eyes. They took measures, adjusted course, and moved on.
To Halin, whose days had long been shaped by the careful detachment and occasional tension of the healer’s tent, this was unfamiliar ground. Unfamiliar—but not at all unwelcome.
The sky was a dull sheet of grey. When Halin stepped out, he found Ozhorn already there, looking upward, his expression unreadable. There was something peculiar in his stillness that moved Halin to speak.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say this, with everyone pushing so hard,” he began, “but I miss home. I just want to get back, even a second sooner, you know what I mean?”
The words had barely left his mouth before he regretted them. This was Silent Ozhorn. Silent Ozhorn didn’t admit to fear, let alone longing.
So it only came as a surprise then when Ozhorn replied. A quiet, subdued, “I know what you mean.”
Halin practically did a double-take.
“I miss it too.”
For a moment, those dark eyes—so often flat and impenetrable—seemed to catch the light. And in them, something distant flickered.
✦ ✦ ✦
✶✶✶
ONE night, Halin returned from his cold bath to find Ozhorn in the healer’s tent, intently studying a white square of fabric in his hands. Without thinking, he asked, “What do you have there, sir?”
Well, not without thinking. He’d seen that serious expression on Ozhorn’s face and assumed it had something to do with battle plans or a change in tactics. Only when Ozhorn quickly tucked the item away did Halin realize he might’ve just committed a faux pas.
As he floundered for something to say to recover, Ozhorn looked up, calm as ever.
“Sorry,” Halin said a little sheepishly.
“It’s all right,” Ozhorn replied. After a brief pause, he brought the square of fabric back into view.
Halin recognized it to be a handkerchief. And on that pristine white square, something round, something green.
“Is that…a turtle?” Halin asked, squinting.
Then, as if realizing something, he snapped his eyes to Ozhorn’s chest. Sure enough, the identification brooch he remembered from the central infirmary—the one that had once been whole—was now clearly split in half.
“Is that…” He gestured at the handkerchief. “From your fiancée?”
“No. A female acquaintance,” Ozhorn replied.
Halin blinked. “Do your ‘female acquaintances’ usually gift you embroidered handkerchiefs? Because mine definitely don’t.”
“I’m not sure. She said it was a lucky charm. One that symbolizes longevity.”
“It’s a very thoughtful gift.”
“You think so?”
“Look at the stitching, how well it’s done. And the turtle’s face. Doesn’t it look very kind?”
Ozhorn studied the little turtle in silence. As if he was seeing it properly for the first time. And when he was done, his expression softened—ever so slightly.
“…I suppose so.”
That quiet, I suppose so. The distant, I miss it too, from the other day. The faraway look in his eyes—suddenly, it all came together for Halin.
Ah, he thought. It’s not that this man doesn’t have a heart. It’s just that no one ever thought to look for it.
That look hadn’t been detachment, Halin realized. It was longing. Ozhorn was carrying something with him—something of home. Something he still hoped to return to.
The Silent. The young prodigy. The lofty eccentric.
In Halin’s mind, all those sobriquets melted away. And in their place, there was only this.
A person. Just one man only slightly older than Halin himself…
Kurt Ozhorn.
The realization carried Halin away for a moment, and before he knew it, he was speaking, sharing something that even surprised himself. “You know, I have a girl waiting for me back home. We’re getting married when I return.”
“I’ve heard that’s a very unlucky thing to say,” Ozhorn replied. “Though…I envy you for being able to say it.”
Halin gave a bashful smile and laughed. “We’ve known each other since we were kids. Before I became a healer, we were inseparable. I love her. Truly.”
“I’m envious.”
“You should tell her.”
“Tell her what?”
“Your feelings. If there’s one thing girls hate, it’s being left guessing.”
“…I see.”
Ozhorn’s gaze drifted back down to the little turtle in his hand.
“Your identification brooch,” Halin said after a pause.
“Hm?” Ozhorn looked up.
“Is it with your fiancée?”
“If by fiancée you mean the female acquaintance I mentioned earlier, then yes.”
“And she accepted it? Despite knowing what it means?”
“I…may have omitted some of its significance. She doesn’t know exactly what it means.”
A healer’s identification badge-half usually only went to their family, wife, or fiancée. To give an unmarried woman the half, telling them to hold on to it, was as good as a proposal.
“Well,” Halin said, “I’d say it’s a good sign she took it. And if you come back and find her wearing it around her neck, that’s all the proof you need.”
“She has a skin condition. It’s more likely she’s tucked it away in a drawer somewhere.”
“But if you were to find it around her neck?”
“…I’d be very happy.”
He said it while looking off into the distance, his hand drifting absently to the empty space on his chest where the brooch had once been whole. His fingers brushed over it gently, almost without thinking.
Then he smiled.
Softly. Kindly.
The kind of smile that only thinking of that distant someone could bring.