In the cataclysmic firestorm of Marcus Hale's last moments, everything was consumed by a blinding fiery inferno. The IE-D's deafening blast echoed through his skull, shrapnel tore into his flesh like a storm of lethal fragments, and with his last labored breath, he fought in vain against the cold hard truth: he was dying.
As he reflected on the past few weeks, he thought about his teammates he would likely never see again and the Goddess of the Barracks, Emma Brown. A blonde bombshell who could have been a model but accidentally took a wrong turn and found herself in the military.
"Heh, now I can't pay you back the 30 dollars I borrowed to buy a new comic book."
While he gazed at the sky, he was gradually losing consciousness, and his last thought was
Perhaps next time...
Then, it all went dark.
It seemed like a moment, but in the next instant, a chilling cold swept through his body. Marcus attempted to breathe, but the moment he opened his mouth, the taste of saltwater assaulted his tongue. As he gradually opened his eyes, all he saw was a dark, deep blue.
Although he attempted to remain calm and evaluate his surroundings, the headache and nausea were not making it easy.
He attempted to swim upwards, and it seemed like it took a century before he finally broke the surface of the water.
He struggled to breathe. "Just where the hell am I now?"
While he surveyed his surroundings, he caught a glimpse of his own reflection.
He appeared younger, resembling his eleven-year-old self. Red hair that was slightly unkempt, amber eyes, and the same playful grin he always had.
"More than once, that smile got me into trouble. "And I got a free shot at reincarnation on top of getting younger; that's pretty nice."
While he contemplated a possible escape plan from his predicament, he suddenly heard the sound of an engine and spotted a small ship in the distance, slowly approaching him.
The ship was small, weathered, her wooden hull darkened by years of salt and sun. A man stood at the bow, peering through the sea spray.
"Oi! Boy! Don't move, I'm coming!"
The man threw the rope with an impressive deal of accuracy .
Marcus thought as he grabbed it instinctively his muscle memory doing what his tired body could not.
As he was hauled onto the deck. He got a proper look at the man for the first time. Late 30s, maybe older. A short white beard, sharp grey eyes that missed nothing, and a trident across his back like most men carried rifles. His face was a map of scars, his hands like knotted rope, the hands of a man who had fought the ocean all his life and always somehow won.
A trident. Alright then.
'You're lucky I was checking the eastern nets today, boy. The man squatted. He stared at him, expression somewhere between relief and suspicion.
"Where did you come from? There's no other vessel for miles."
Marcus opened his mouth to answer — and then it hit him.
A sudden, blinding pain behind his eyes. He brought a hand instinctively to his temple.
And in that fraction of a second, he saw something.
A storm. Black clouds tearing open over a violent sea, waves crashing over the railing of a ship like the ocean itself had lost its patience. Screaming — not one voice, many — swallowed almost instantly by the roar of the water.
And then a hand. Reaching. Desperately grabbing for something, for someone —
"Leo!"
And Then it was gone.
Marcus blinked. The pain faded as quickly as it came, leaving nothing behind but the dull throb of a headache and the taste of salt on his tongue.
The old man was still watching him.
"...I don't know," Marcus said quietly. And for the first time since waking up in the ocean, he meant it completely. "I genuinely don't know where I came from."
The man was still watching him. "... I don't know," said Marcus quietly. And for the first time since he had woken in the ocean, he meant it with every fiber of his being. "I genuinely don't know where I came from .
The man studied him for a long moment, not the way people look at a lost child, but the way someone looks at a problem they don't know how to solve yet. Then he grunted, stood up and walked towards the wheel. "Whats Your Name?"
Marcus opened his mouth — and stopped.
It was strange. For just a fraction of a second, something surfaced. Not a memory exactly. More like a word that had been waiting at the back of his throat without him knowing it.
"...Leo," he said slowly. "Leo Stoneheart."
He had no idea where that came from.
The man's back stiffened . Not by much, but Marcus had spent years reading people in situations where missing a cue could mean death. He caught it.
"I'm Doran," he said flatly, his face unreadable.
Apparently that was it. No questions, no explanations. The old man turned around and walked back to the steering wheel and that was the end of the conversation.
Leo didn't push his luck.
He sat back against the railing in a dry corner of the deck and watched Doran navigate in silence. The man moved with a quiet efficiency that came from years of experience – the way he adjusted the wheel, read the wind, glanced at the water.
The journey took longer than expected. The sun had shifted noticeably by the time the island began to take form on the horizon — first just a dark smudge, then trees, then the rough outline of a small dock with two or three boats tied to it.
Doran docked the ship with the same wordless efficiency and secured the rope with two practiced knots. He didn't say anything, just started unloading the crates from the hold with the slow, deliberate rhythm of a man who had done more then ten thousand times.
Leo helped without being asked. Because what person would he be without helping the man that saved his Life.
The dock was busier than he expected. A handful of other fishermen were already back, sorting their catches, exchanging short words, the kind of easy back-and-forth that came from knowing someone your whole life. A few of them glanced at Leo with mild curiosity but said nothing. In a fishing village, a man coming back with a strange catch was apparently not unusual enough to warrant a scene.
The village itself spread out from the waterfront in a loose, unhurried way — weathered wooden buildings, nets hanging like tattered curtains outside to dry between posts, the smell of salt, smoke and brine baked permanently into every surface. It was bigger than it first appeared from the water. A handful of proper streets, a Stone well in middle of a small square , children running between houses.
And halfway down the main street sat a tavern.
It was a wide two-story building, older than anything else around it, its dark timber walls stained by decades of sea air and salt. A hand-painted sign swung lazily above the entrance – The Pickled Hook – the letters a little uneven, indicating that whoever painted it had been in a good mood, but not necessarily sober. Warm amber light streamed through the thick, wavy glass of its windows and even from the street Marcus could hear the low hum of voices inside, the occasional explosion of coarse laughter, the dull thud of heavy mugs on wooden tables. When the door was pushed open the aroma that wafted out was a mix of roasted meat, stale ale and something faintly sweet he couldn't identify.
In another life, he thought, I'd be walking straight in there.
He filed that thought away and kept following Doran.
Doran set the first crate down at the dock market with a heavy thud — a long, weathered stall that smelled aggressively of fish and iron. Behind the counter stood a broad-shouldered man , red-faced and somewhere in his fifties, with deep laughter lines around his eyes and the kind of easy grin that made you feel like you'd known him for years even if you'd just met him.
He looked up when they approached and raised a hand in greeting.
"Doran! Back earlier than I expected." His gaze slid over to Marcus with open curiosity. "And who's this you've brought with you?"
"Found him in the water," Doran said simply, setting the second crate down beside the first.
the man leaned over the counter and looked at Leo properly — not like a problem to be assessed, but like something genuinely interesting had just walked up to his stall.
"In the water?" He let out a short laugh. "Well. The sea gives back in strange ways sometimes." He extended a broad hand across the counter. "Brom. I run the market here."
"Leo," Leo said, shaking it. The man's grip was firm.
"Leo." Brom nodded like the name was perfectly acceptable, then turned back to the crates and lifted the first lid. His eyebrows went up appreciably. "Now that's a haul. Eastern waters treating you well this week, Doran."
Doran said nothing, which Leo was beginning to understand was his version of agreement.
Brom worked through the weighing with cheerful efficiency, keeping up a light commentary about the weather, a broken net belonging to someone called Old Reiss, and a rumor that the tavern had gotten a new ale in from the mainland that was either excellent or terrible depending on who you asked.
Finally he quoted a price — fifty thousand Jenny — and slid the coins across the counter with a satisfied pat, like a man who had just done the world a favour. Doran pocketed them without a word.
"Same time next week?" Brom called after them as they turned to leave, already reaching for the next crate. Then, louder, aimed at Leo: "And try arriving by boat next time, eh boy?"
"Come."
Leo followed him away from the waterfront, up the main street, past the tavern — where someone inside laughed loudly at something — and toward a slightly larger building near the center of the village. A small wooden sign hung above the door, faded but still readable.
Village Office.
Inside, a middle-aged man sat behind a cluttered desk, reading something with the focused frown of a man who found paperwork genuinely interesting. He looked up when they entered, his eyes moving from Doran to Leo and back again.
"Doran." A nod. Then, with more curiosity: "And who's this?"
"Found him in the water this morning. Eastern waters, no vessel." Doran crossed his arms. "He says he doesn't know how he got there."
The mayor looked at Leo properly now — not unkindly, but with the measured attention of someone used to solving other people's problems.
"Name?"
"Leo," Leo said. "Leo Stoneheart."
Something shifted in the room. It was subtle — the mayor's pen stopped moving, Doran's jaw tightened slightly — but Leo caught both.
The mayor set his pen down slowly. "Stoneheart." He said the name carefully, like he was checking whether it would break. "Leo Stoneheart."
"You know the name," Leo said. It wasn't a question.
The mayor exchanged a brief look with Doran — the kind of look that carried an entire conversation in half a second.
"There was a family by that name," he said finally, his voice measured. "Wandering merchants. Travelled by sea mostly — different ports, different goods. Good people, from what I remember." He paused, choosing his next words carefully. "Their vessel went down in a storm about three weeks ago, not far from our waters." Another pause. "There were no survivors. Or so we believed."
Leo said nothing. In his chest, a dull throb pulsed once — like a bruise pressed from the inside.
A storm. Screaming. A hand reaching.
Leo.
"I see," he said quietly.
The mayor studied him for a moment, his expression unreadable, then reached for a ledger on the corner of his desk and flipped it open with the practiced efficiency of a man who had handled difficult situations before and preferred to handle them through paperwork. When he looked up again, something in his expression had softened — not quite pity, not quite relief. Something in between.
"I'll need to update the records." He dipped his pen and wrote something in careful, deliberate strokes. "Officially speaking, Leo Stoneheart is no longer listed among the missing." He closed the ledger and looked up. "Where will the boy be staying?"
The mayor studied him for a long moment, then looked at Doran. Another silent exchange.
"He'll stay with me," Doran said. His voice left no room for discussion. "Until things are sorted."
The mayor gave a slow nod, the kind that meant both understood and I have questions I've decided not to ask. He stood and extended a hand across the desk — first to Doran, then to Leo.
"Welcome to Kelpshore, boy."
His handshake was firm and brief. Then he moved toward the door and held it open, the universal signal that the meeting was concluded.
Outside, the afternoon light had shifted, stretching long golden shadows across the main street. The village had grown quieter since the morning — the dock workers gone home, the children called in for supper, only the distant sound of laughter drifting from the Pickled Hook breaking the stillness.
Doran walked without hurrying, hands clasped behind his back, eyes forward. Leo fell into step beside him naturally, the old soldier's instinct to match pace kicking in before he'd even thought about it.
They said nothing to each other.
They didn't need to.
The path home led away from the main street, down a narrow track lined with tall grass that rustled softly in the sea breeze. After a few minutes, a house appeared through the trees — small, solid, set back from the path with a modest garden to one side where a few vegetables grew in uneven rows.
Before they even reached the door, it opened.
A woman appeared in the frame, wiping her hands on a cloth, her dark hair loosely tied back. She had the kind of face that smiled easily — warm eyes, a few laugh lines — the sort of person who made strangers feel like they'd been expected.
Her eyes landed on Leo and stayed there.
"Doran." Her voice was calm but carried a question in it.
"Found him in the water," the old man said, moving past her without slowing. "Eastern nets. No boat."
Mara looked at Leo for a moment longer — something flickering behind her eyes, not quite recognition, but something close to it. Like a memory trying to surface.
"What's your name?" she asked gently.
"Leo," he said. "Leo Stoneheart."
The cloth in her hands stopped moving.
"The merchant family," she said softly. It wasn't a question. Everyone in a coastal village heard when a ship went down nearby — the news travelled faster than the tide. Her expression shifted into something quiet and warm, the particular kindness of someone who understood loss without needing it explained.
She stepped aside and opened the door wider.
"Come in, Leo. You must be exhausted."
The inside of the house was small but lived-in — a wooden table, mismatched chairs, the smell of something warm cooking on the stove. It felt nothing like the barracks.
And then a small figure appeared from behind the doorframe of the next room, peering around the edge with wide curious eyes. A girl, maybe five or six years old, dark-haired like her mother, staring at Leo with the unfiltered intensity that only very young children could get away with.
"Who are you?" she asked directly.
"Leo," he said again.
She considered this seriously, as though weighing whether the name was acceptable.
"I'm Sora," she announced. Then, after a brief pause: "Why is your hair red?"
Leo blinked.
For the first time since waking up in the ocean, something close to a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.
"Honestly," he said, "I have no idea."