"I walked because Jhin asked. But I think it was something deeper… like being pulled by invisible roots."
---
Nocth stood before the old man who sold maps, in that quaint little shop near the Thaleon Guild banners—his fingers curled beside his sides, unsure what to do with the stillness between them.
The little girl with him had already greeted Nocth with cheerful curiosity, but the room had since gone quiet.
The map seller stared.
So Nocth spoke.
"You asked how I found you... I'll try."
"It began after I left Old Jhin…"
His voice was even, tone like mist against glass, as he described it—not as a story, but as fragments of memory surfacing from the void.
"He was drunk again, leaning too far over the fence of what's real and what's lost. But this time, there was something in his eyes… not wine. Something like urgency.
He told me I had to find 'the man who sells maps' and to remember these words exactly: 'Tell him Old Jhin sent you. And make sure his daughter sees you too.'
I don't know why. But I walked."
The Mhaerun District was worse than Nocth had imagined. The air carried a tired pulse. Streets curled into dead ends like snakes that had forgotten how to bite.
> "I wandered without direction. Not because I didn't know where to go, but because I didn't know how to arrive."
He described the dust on cracked corners, the drifting banners, and the laughter that echoed before he saw it—the small plaza, where a crowd had gathered.
---
"There was a man… dressed like a clown."
He paused, uncertain if he should continue, but the map seller's silence gave him space.
"His face was painted in a flowering bloom pattern. His gown matched it. Bright, but worn. His sleeves jingled, not from joy—but from veins. Sixty-nine of them, and their Ascendancy wasn't silence. It was sound. Strange, awkward sounds. Things meant to be funny. Things that… weren't."
Children laughed. Rich ones. Accompanied by guards with faintly glowing veins. Some threw yellow crystals—low grade. Others didn't pay, but all laughed anyway.
Nocth saw how their laughter bruised the man.
Then came the words.
> "He called me an idiot. Said I looked orphaned. Maybe I do."
A flicker crossed Nocth's voice then, something duller than pain, but deeper than pride.
"I stopped walking. There was this... feeling in me. I didn't know it. But I remembered it. Something old. Cold. Not rage. Not shame. Something that wanted to look through him."
He had stared.
The Clown's sounds died. His veins quieted. The laughter was replaced by stillness, then broken again by the Clown falling awkwardly on his rear. The children clapped, misreading fear as jest, and tossed better crystals than they ever had.
"He smiled like he'd been saved. But I didn't say a word. I just left."
Nocth's voice quieted.
"That's how I found your shop. It was right after. I saw your guild's banner on a pole, and your sign tucked under it."
---
The silence returned. Nocth stood inside the map seller's warm-lit shop, hands by his sides. His eyes, void yet gentle, held no expectation. Only presence.
The little girl, listening quietly from the corner, stepped forward.
She blinked twice. Then, in a practiced, theatrical pout—her cheeks puffed, her lashes drooped dramatically—she clasped her hands and said:
"Can you stay for dinner, mister wander-boy? We have bread, stew, and no clowns!"
Nocth blinked, caught off guard.
The map seller didn't speak. He just looked on, pipe resting on his lower lip but never lit. Perhaps waiting to see if the boy understood how to accept kindness.
Nocth hesitated, as if calculating something hidden.
Then he saw the girl's eyes. Not because they were adorable. But because they reminded him of something ancient and soft—like dusk in a village he never lived in.
"Alright," he said.
---
Thus, the maps remained rolled. The stew stayed warm. And the evening began with a quiet nod that would one day redraw fates.