The space Alaric left behind was not empty. It was filled with the low, resonant hum of a community exhaling, of a tension released. His absence was a lesson more profound than his presence had ever been. The journals and tools he'd abandoned were gathered and, after much discussion, not destroyed, but placed in a locked chest in the council granary. They were not a blueprint for the future, but a relic of a path not taken—a cautionary tale written in precise ink and cold brass.
The community, for a time, seemed to revert to its old rhythm. The evening harmonies were softer, less performative, more genuine. The mountain's song settled, the wary vibrato smoothing back into its deep, confident thrum. The fissure in the main cavern, under the gentle attention of daily, wordless meditations, began to knit itself back together, the seam visible only as a faint, silvery scar.
