.
The training hut was quiet that night. The flames outside had burned low, and only the soft creaking of wood and the distant chirping of insects filled the silence. Kaelen sat alone in his quater, his body aching from another full day of Razen's brutal schedule.
He'd been training for two months now.
Each day started before sunrise. Each swing of the sword tore deeper into his muscles. And every night, he collapsed into bed with just enough energy to breathe.
Tonight, though, something felt different.
He opened the window. A light breeze moved through the trees, rustling the leaves just enough to sound like whispers. The air smelled faintly of rain, but no storm had come yet.
Kaelen closed his eyes.
And for the first time in weeks, his thoughts returned to where it all started.
---
A Memory in the Trees
He was a boy again, standing beneath the old lightning tree near his grandfather's home.
Eren Arclight wasn't a loud man. He never told Kaelen stories like other elders. He taught him to watch the skies, to listen more than speak, and to pay attention to what the world said when no one else was around.
One morning, not long before Kaelen left for the academy, Eren had handed him a small scroll.
Wrapped in cloth. Old. Worn from time.
"Keep this close," his grandfather said. "Don't open it yet."
Kaelen looked up at him. "What is it?"
Eren looked away toward the clouds. "It's a piece of who you are. But it won't make sense until you start to feel it… not here—" He tapped Kaelen's head. "—but here." He tapped his chest.
Kaelen had nodded, not understanding. But he never forgot those words.
He never opened the scroll.
---
Now, in the Quiet
Kaelen took the same scroll from the bottom of his bag. The old cloth had faded, but the leather inside still held strong. That same lightning mark burned into the seal.
He didn't try to break it.
He just held it in his hands, feeling the weight of it. The history. The silence that came with it.
And he finally realized—
It wasn't just a relic. It was a promise.
His grandfather hadn't expected him to open it when he wanted to.
Only when he was ready.
Kaelen set it gently on the table and looked out the window again. No lightning. No storm.
Just a boy sitting in a quiet room, finally beginning to understand why he was here.
Not because someone sent him.
But because something in him had always known he had more to become.
---