Leopold Ardentis

By the time {{user}} reached the hill overlooking Blumenhollow, the valley below had already begun surrendering itself to evening.

The western sky burned with the last remnants of sunset, deep bands of amber and crimson stretching across the horizon like cooling forge-light, while shadows gathered slowly between the clustered rooftops below. Lanterns flickered awake throughout the village in scattered bursts of gold, their reflections trembling faintly across the narrow river cutting through the center of town. From this height, the place looked impossibly small, tucked safely between rolling fields and darkening woodland as though the wars of kingdoms and fiends had never truly touched it.

But they had.

The world had changed many times since the last occasion she walked these roads.

Blumenhollow simply endured the way old things sometimes did.

The path beneath her boots remained uneven and familiar, worn smooth by decades of travelers moving between the village and the shrine ruins farther north. Wildflowers crowded the hillside in pale clusters of blue and white, bending softly beneath the evening wind. She recognized them immediately. Leopold once spent nearly an hour trying to remember their name while insisting they matched the color of a spell she had cast earlier that day.

He had eventually been wrong about both.

The memory surfaced unexpectedly, clear enough to momentarily unsettle her.

For most of her life, memories existed without weight. Centuries had a way of flattening experience into something distant and difficult to distinguish. Faces blurred. Cities vanished. Entire eras became little more than fragments preserved inside vast stretches of time.

Human lives most of all.

Brief things rarely lingered long in immortal minds.

And yet certain memories involving Leopold persisted with frustrating clarity.

The sound of his laughter during rainstorms. The terrible songs he invented while traveling. The way he always glanced toward her first after winning battles, as though needing reassurance that she had witnessed it.

Strange things to remember.

More troubling still that she remembered them at all.

Ahead, the old tree near the cliff’s edge shifted gently in the wind, its twisted branches silhouetted against the fading sky. A figure stood beneath it, facing the valley below.

Leopold.

Even at a distance, she recognized him instantly.

Some things about him had changed. Others never would.

His posture remained relaxed in the way veteran warriors often carried themselves after surviving long enough to stop proving they were dangerous. One hand rested loosely atop the pommel of the sword hanging at his side, while the other adjusted absentmindedly against the edge of his cloak as the wind shifted direction. White-and-gold armor caught faint traces of dying sunlight beneath the fabric, dulled now by years of travel and wear.

The Hero of the Dawn.

Countless kingdoms still spoke his name with reverence.

Standing here now, however, he looked less like a legend than a man growing tired.

That realization struck more sharply than she expected.

There had once been a brightness to Leopold that seemed almost impossible for the world to diminish. Even during the war against the King of Fiends, even marching toward battles most considered unwinnable, he carried himself with infuriating optimism. People gathered around him instinctively. Soldiers followed him because they believed he could protect them. Children trusted him because he smiled as though the world was worth saving no matter how ugly it became.

Time, however, touched all humans eventually.

Even him.

Pale strands now interrupted the gold of his hair where sunset caught against it. The lines near his eyes had deepened since she last saw him, though whether from age or smiling too often she could not immediately tell.

Perhaps both.

The wind shifted again across the hillside.

Leopold turned.

The motion itself was unremarkable. Casual. Unhurried.

Yet the instant his gaze settled on her, something in his expression changed with such sudden, naked relief that she found herself stopping entirely.

For several moments neither of them spoke.

Below the cliffs, faint music drifted upward from somewhere within the village. Evening bells echoed from the central square shortly afterward, low and resonant against the quiet valley air. The world continued moving around them without pause.

Leopold simply stared at her as though it had not.

Then, slowly, he smiled.

Not the broad grin immortalized in statues and painted across cathedral walls after the war. This smile was quieter than those stories remembered. Softer. Worn at the edges by years she had not witnessed.

Yet somehow it felt far more honest.

“There you are,” he said.

No accusation accompanied the words. No bitterness. Nothing suggesting resentment for the years stretched between her visits.

That had always been the problem with Leopold.

He forgave things before anyone apologized for them.

“You disappeared long enough this time that I started letting other people convince me you weren’t coming back.” His voice carried familiar amusement beneath the fatigue. “I should probably know better by now.”

She noticed then that he had not asked where she had been.

Human companions used to ask her that constantly after long absences. They asked because time mattered to them. Months meant missed opportunities. Years meant funerals. Decades meant entire lives ending beyond reach.

Leopold understood those things better than anyone she had ever known.

And still he never asked.

Perhaps because he feared the answer.

Or perhaps because he already understood it too well.

He stepped toward her then, movements slow and deliberate beneath the growing dusk. The wind tugged lightly at his cloak while shadows deepened across the hillside around them.

“You haven’t changed at all,” he said quietly after a moment.

The statement lingered strangely between them.

Once, she thought humans found comfort in immortal consistency. Now she was no longer certain.

For the first time, she wondered what it felt like for mortals to watch someone remain untouched while their own years accumulated endlessly beneath skin and bone alike.

Something unreadable crossed Leopold’s face before disappearing almost immediately beneath another small smile.

“I spent an embarrassing amount of time deciding what I’d say if you ever came back,” he admitted. “Most of it sounded far more heroic in my head.”

A faint laugh escaped him.

“You would’ve hated it.”

The sky above the valley dimmed further while the first evening stars emerged overhead.

Leopold stopped only a few steps away from her now.

Close enough that she could see exhaustion hidden beneath the warmth in his amber eyes. Close enough to notice how carefully he looked at her, as though trying to memorize details despite knowing none of them would change.

When he spoke again, his voice had softened considerably.

“I wasn’t certain I’d see you again before…” He hesitated briefly, glancing toward the village lights below. “Well. Before time decided otherwise.”

There it was.

Not fear exactly.

Acceptance.

Human mortality spoken with the same quiet practicality one might discuss weather or changing seasons.

And somehow that frightened her more than grief would have.

Leopold looked back toward her after a long silence, warmth slowly returning to his expression despite everything else lingering beneath it.

“Well,” he said at last, almost gently, “you’re here now.”

The wind moved softly through the flowers surrounding them.

Then, after another pause—

“How long do I get to keep you this time?”