The village of Liria knew hardship—but not like this.
In their long winters and poor harvests, they had leaned on each other. Shared food, shared warmth, shared pain. But none of them had ever witnessed the broken silence of a child who had lost everything.
Eren had not spoken since he arrived.
Each day, he sat at the edge of the bed by the window. Silent. Still. His snow-white hair tousled, his small hands folded stiffly in his lap. His bright blue eyes—beautiful, but cold—stared at the world like it was made of glass, ready to crack.
And still, the villagers tried.
The village doctor came in every morning, checking his wounds with gentle hands. "Healing well physically," he would say with a soft sigh, "but the mind… that's where the true scars lie."
Arin, the young girl who had first sat by his bedside, visited him daily. She was only five herself—barely older—but she would talk softly to him. About the chickens. About the flowers she liked. About her doll, Mira, who she said was shy too.
"I think Mira likes you," she said one afternoon, placing the doll beside him.
Eren didn't look at it. But… his fingers twitched.
Just once.
The village baker, a stout man named Garn, left warm bread near his bed each evening, sometimes shaped like little animals. "Don't need to eat it," he muttered one day, placing a small rabbit-shaped loaf on the table. "But I made it for ya anyway."
The next morning, the bread was gone.
Bit by bit… quietly, softly… the village gave what little it could.
Not out of pity—but out of love.
They didn't ask him questions. They didn't push. They just… stayed.
The elderly seamstress, Maela, brought him a knitted scarf. "White, like your hair," she said with a smile, though her eyes glistened. "The snow protects itself with beauty, you know."
The blacksmith, a gruff man named Orlen, left a tiny wooden carving of a sword near the windowsill. "For when you're strong enough to hold the real one," he murmured, before leaving.
Eren didn't touch it.
Not yet.
But each night, after the house was quiet… he would stare at it.
---
On the seventh day, snow fell gently outside, thick and soft.
Eren sat in his usual place, staring out the window. Arin was there, humming to herself as she drew little animals in the dust on the table.
Then, quietly… so quietly it was almost missed… Eren's lips parted.
"Why…?"
The word was broken. Barely a whisper. A breath, more than a sound.
Arin turned slowly, eyes wide. "Did you… say something?"
Eren looked at her. Truly looked.
And for the first time, she saw something flicker in his eyes.
Not light.
But life.
He didn't speak again that day. Or the next.
But from that moment on, he heard them.
He saw them.
And though he still didn't smile, still didn't cry… he began to move.
He accepted the soup.
He touched the doll.
He sat beside Arin, even if he said nothing.
Like a frozen lake touched by sunlight, the ice had not melted—but it had cracked.
And in that crack, something stirred.
A soul that refused to break.
A child, not yet lost.
Eren, the boy of ice and sorrow, had taken his first step back to the world.
---