The afternoon sun hangs low over the village, casting long golden shadows across the dirt road. The cottage sits where it always has, weathered stone walls, thatched roof, the same crooked shutter that Henric never fixed. The garden is smaller now, but the rosemary and thyme still cling to life along the fence. A small wooden shrine stands by the gate, a half-melted candle flickering inside.

On the front porch, Mildred sits on a wooden stool sorting through a basket of dried herbs and bundled trade goods. Her wavy blonde hair is tied back with a simple cord, loose strands falling around her face. Her shawl struggles to contain the heavy swell of her chest beneath her worn dress. Leaning against the porch railing, Joanna works a whetstone along a repaired sickle blade, her short blonde hair damp at the temples, her thick forearms flexing with each deliberate stroke. Her leather work apron is cinched tight around her narrow waist, doing nothing to hide the impossible fullness of her bust or the firm curve of her hips beneath.

The silence between them is comfortable. The kind shared by two people who have already said everything there is to say about grief.

Mildred's hands pause over the basket as she glances toward her sister. "Did you actually eat today? Properly, I mean. Not just bread and cheese while you're hunched over the anvil."

Joanna doesn't look up from the blade. The metal sings against the stone with each stroke. "I had soup at Aldric's. His wife made too much and sent some my way."

"That old woman feeds you like a prize hog." Mildred ties off another bundle with more force than necessary. "You're already broad enough without her help."

The barest twitch at the corner of Joanna's mouth. Almost a smile. "You're one to talk."

Mildred shoots her a look but lets it pass. Her fingers find the copper bracelet on her wrist, turning it absently the way she always does when her mind drifts somewhere heavier. "Eight months now since Da. Do you ever think he'd be embarrassed? How he went, I mean."

Joanna's rhythm falters for just a moment before resuming. "He was sad. Sad people drink. There's nothing to be embarrassed about."

It's blunt. But Joanna has always been blunt. It's one of the things Mildred relies on, the way her sister can cut straight through the noise without getting tangled in it. Mildred wipes her hands on her apron, still turning that bracelet. "I dreamt about him again last night. The little one. Our little one."

The sickle blade goes still in Joanna's grip.

"I dream he comes home. Walks right through that gate like nothing ever happened. Still got that scraggly hair, still got that stupid grin on his face." Mildred's voice cracks on the last word and she clears her throat roughly, angry at herself. "I hate that one. It's worse than the nightmares. Worse than the ones where I see him fall."

Joanna sets down the whetstone. Her calloused fingers rest on the railing, her jaw tight. "I light the candle every morning. Aldric says I shouldn't anymore. Says it's been too long and I need to start letting go."

Mildred's voice cuts like a blade. "Aldric can shut his mouth. You light that candle for as long as you need to and I'll buy them myself, every single one, until the day I'm in the ground next to them."

Joanna nods once, her massive shoulders relaxing just slightly as she picks up the whetstone again. "Same time tomorrow, then."

They settle back into silence. The village is quiet. A cart passes on the road in the distance. The forge is cooling. The autumn air smells like woodsmoke and dying leaves. Everything is the same as it's been for months. For years.

And then, hoofbeats. Slow. Deliberate. Coming up the main road.

Mildred frowns, glancing up from her basket. "Are you expecting anyone?"

Joanna shakes her head, her eyes already fixed on the road, on the ridge, on the approach.

A figure crests the hill. Armored. Riding a tired horse. The silhouette of a knight, battered, road-worn, but unmistakable. The rider comes closer. Past the old oak by the mill. Past the stubble fields. Past the neighbours' fences. And then, the face. Older. Harder. Scarred in places that weren't scarred before. But the same face. The same eyes. The same scraggly hair.

Mildred's basket tips over. Dried herbs scatter across the porch boards. She doesn't notice. Her whole body has gone rigid, her blue eyes wide and unblinking, her plush lips parted around a breath that won't come. Her massive chest heaves with each ragged inhale. Her eyes are wet.

"No," she whispers. "No, that's not, you're not, you can't be..."

Her knees give out. She catches herself on the edge of the stool, knuckles white, trembling from head to toe.

Behind her, Joanna hasn't moved. She's frozen at the railing, her powerful hands gripping the wood hard enough to creak. That stoic, unreadable face is crumbling. Her jaw trembles. Her wide blue eyes are glassy, shining, locked onto the rider approaching the gate. When she finally speaks, her voice is barely audible, broken, the first crack in five years of silence.

"You're dead. They told us you were dead."

Morning light hit the market square grey and cold, the way it always did this time of year. The cobblestones were slick with overnight dew and the smell of woodsmoke hung low across the village like a shawl. You walked into the village proper for the first time since you came back, and the place looked smaller than you remembered. War does that. Shrinks everything that isn't blood or survival. The well sat in the center of the square, the same well you'd drawn water from as a boy, the same bucket hanging from the same weathered rope. The market stalls lined the edges in their usual spots, canvas awnings stretched overhead to keep off the worst of the weather. Familiar. Ordinary. The kind of morning that had repeated itself a thousand times in this village and would repeat itself a thousand more long after you were gone.

A man at the bread stall saw you first. He stopped mid-reach, his hand hanging in the air. His mouth opened. Nothing came out. Then he elbowed the woman beside him, hard, and pointed.

She looked. Dropped the cloth in her hands.

"Marvik... Marvik, look."

"I see him."

"That's the Odessa boy."

"He's dead, Bertha."

"I'm looking right at him."

The murmur spread. A farmer stopped his cart. Two women by the well abandoned their gossip mid-sentence. Heads turning, eyes finding you, the weight of a community trying to make sense of something that didn't make sense. An old man near the tavern stepped forward, squinting like he didn't trust his own sight.

"I'll be damned," he said quietly. "I'll be damned."

Someone grabbed a child by the shoulder and pulled them away from the square, quick and rough, like the sight of you was something that shouldn't be witnessed. A woman near the church steps crossed herself without taking her eyes off you. The low hum of voices built and built, individual words lost in the general noise of a village coming apart at the seams over a dead man standing in their market square.

One voice cut through, sharper than the rest. A woman with flour on her apron, standing outside the baker's.

"Does Mildred know? Does Joanna know?"

Nobody answered. They just looked at you. Then past you, toward the road that led past the ridge, toward the cottage where two sisters had spent five years learning how to breathe around a wound that wouldn't close.

The forge was cold today. The merchant stall was shuttered. Both of them were home.

Waiting. Or just surviving. Hard to tell the difference anymore.

The road past the ridge was the same as it had always been. Wagon ruts worn into the dirt. The crooked fence Henric always meant to fix. The garden with its late herbs, browning now in the cold. Smoke rising from the chimney, thin and pale against the grey sky.

Home.

Whatever that word meant now.

The cottage was quiet. The kind of quiet that settles into the bones after years of living with grief. Your old room was the same and not the same. Fresh linens on the bed. Shutters closed against the night. A single candle burning on the small table, throwing wavering shadows across the walls.

They hadn't left. You'd expected them to, after the evening meal, after the stilted conversation and the long silences. But Mildred had followed you to your door. And Joanna had followed Mildred. And now here they were, standing in the room they'd kept closed for a year because opening it meant admitting you were really gone.

Mildred sat on the edge of the bed. Her hands twisted the copper bracelet on her wrist. Her hair was down for the first time since you'd come home, loose blonde waves falling past her shoulders, and she looked younger like this. Softer. The hard edge she wore in the market was nowhere to be found. Just a woman who couldn't stop looking at you and seeing the boy you used to be and the man you'd become and something else, something that flickered behind her eyes when the candlelight caught them.

Joanna stood near the window, arms crossed, broad shoulders hunched inward like she was trying to take up less space. She'd washed the soot from her skin but traces of it still lingered in the creases of her hands. Her short hair was damp. She hadn't said much all evening. She never did. But her eyes hadn't left you for more than a breath at a time, and every time you moved, her gaze tracked you like you might disappear if she looked away.

Mildred broke the silence first.

"I used to come in here." Her voice was low, rough at the edges. "After. I'd sit on this bed and talk to you. Tell you about the stall, about the accounts. Stupid things. Little things. Like you could hear me."

She laughed, but it came out wrong. Thin and brittle.

"Joanna found me once. Sitting in the dark, talking to nobody. She didn't say anything. Just sat down next to me and stayed until I stopped."

Joanna's voice came from the window, quiet.

"You used to cry in your sleep. I could hear it through the wall."

Mildred's jaw tightened.

"I wasn't crying."

"You were."

The silence stretched between them. Old and comfortable. The kind that only exists between people who've shared a wound for too long.

Mildred looked at you. Really looked, the way she'd been avoiding all evening.

"I can't." She stopped. Swallowed. "I can't be in another room right now. Not tonight. I spent five years convincing myself you were gone. If I walk out that door and close my eyes, I'm going to think this was a dream. I can't wake up tomorrow and find out you weren't real."

Her voice cracked on the last word. She pressed her lips together hard, fighting it.

Joanna moved from the window. She didn't speak. Just crossed the room and sat on the other side of the bed, the frame groaning under her weight, and her hand found yours and held on like she was afraid you'd dissolve if she let go.

Three people on a bed meant for one. The candle flickered. Outside, the village slept, and nothing in the world existed except this room and these women and the brother they'd buried who was breathing right in front of them.

Mildred's hand found your other one. Her fingers were cold. Her palm was warm.

"I... I don't know what I'm doing. "I feel... hot. But... I also feel like I'll just lose my shit if I'm not with you tonight."

Joanna's grip tightened. She still hadn't spoken. She didn't need to. The way she held your hand said everything her voice couldn't. Five years of grief and guilt and wanting, and you were real, and she was touching you, and she was terrified of what that meant.

The candle burned low. The night pressed in. And neither of them could leave, and neither of them wanted to, and the things they'd buried for five years were stirring in the dark.

Create your own scenario.