The hand tightened around his throat, unyielding and steady not out of anger, but expectation. Neo's limbs twitched once, a weak impulse of resistance quickly swallowed by pain as it lanced through his spine, his ribs grinding beneath pressure that belonged to something far beyond mortal strength. Air refused to come. Speech was impossible. His vision began to darken at the edges, shadows creeping inward with a cold that came not from wind, but from something older, something eternal and impossible to name.
The figure leaned in, slow and deliberate, drawing closer until its presence felt suffocating on its own. Through the haze of pain and the blur of breathlessness, Neo managed to see beneath the white hood. The face wasn't fully visible never truly visible but there was enough. Beneath the shroud of fabric and that unnatural radiance, there existed a face, or perhaps the memory of one. It was chiseled and pale, with sharp lines that looked carved from marble and shadow. The eyes didn't glow instead, they consumed light, swallowing it into their golden depths. A heavy brow, a strong jaw, the structure of something not just ageless, but merciless. And buried somewhere within it, a shape Neo recognized far too well.
His pulse quickened. The shape of the features, the cut of the cheekbones, the very structure of the face it was all familiar. He looked like Thal. Or rather, Thal looked like him. This being was no echo. He was the original. Larger, more defined, terrifying in his clarity. A template. A titan. Something ancient, wrapped in silence and inevitability. He wasn't just taller or broader than Thal he was beyond scale, his presence bending the very air around him, as though the world itself struggled to contain his shape and dared not resist.
The realization struck Neo with brutal force. The familiarity wasn't coincidence. It was truth.
This was Fall.
Thal's father. The first. The one the others feared. The one Tor would not speak of. The one the Rim itself seemed to remember. And now, he held Neo with ease, as if he were nothing more than a dying spark waiting to be snuffed out.
Neo choked, his throat raw beneath the crushing grip, his body aching from the pressure, his thoughts scattering in panic. He had bled a Harbinger. He had crossed into a realm untouched by mortals. And yet, before Fall, he was meaningless.
The figure didn't blink. His expression didn't change. He didn't speak again. He simply pressed Neo harder into the earth with a calm, unshakable force, and in that moment, Neo felt it not just the pain, not just the weight, but the full, shattering truth of it all. He was being measured, and in the eyes of something infinite, he had been found lacking.
Bones strained beneath the pressure, joints creaking as if the very framework of Neo's body were moments from collapse. Sparks danced at the edges of his vision, flickering like dying stars. Then Fall spoke again. "This ant drew blood from a god."
There was no anger in the words, no thunderous roar or violent flourish. The voice came quiet, but absolute, sinking into the trees, the ground, the marrow in Neo's bones. It wasn't loudness that gave it power it was presence. The world itself seemed to lean into it, to pause and listen.
Neo wanted to speak, to explain or plead or fight, but no words came. His mouth wouldn't open. His lungs refused to rise. His blood moved slow, held still beneath that crushing voice. Fall's eyes stayed fixed, not with hatred, not even contempt. There was no disgust in him. No personal scorn for Neo.
Only disappointment deep and impersonal. Disappointment not in the boy before him, but in the world that had allowed this to happen. In the need for Neo to exist at all. In the path that led here.
Fall leaned closer, slow and inexorable, and the air that passed from his breath was cold not the cold of weather, but the cold that comes just before the edge gives way beneath your feet. Final. Certain. "Do you think this changes the end?"
Neo's heart answered before he could. One beat. Then another. But his voice remained silent. There was nothing to say. He had hurt a Harbinger. He had crossed into a realm untouched by most. He had fought and bled and survived. But none of it mattered. Not to Fall.
Then, beyond the tree line snow broke beneath the thunder of hooves. Tor was the first to appear, her massive form charging into the clearing, chest heaving, eyes wide not with confusion, but recognition. She froze the moment her gaze fell upon Fall and Neo.
Behind her, a dozen Jotun followed, their towering shapes emerging one by one through the brush. They saw him too and they stopped. Not from command. Not from any voice or signal.
They dropped to their knees together, as if by instinct, as if their bodies remembered something their minds could not. It was not fear. Not reverence. Not loyalty. It was survival.
Their heads bowed. Weapons slipped from their hands. Massive bodies, honed through generations of war and winter, bent beneath a pressure they hadn't even known was there until it had wrapped around them like gravity itself. Their bones remembered what their minds had forgotten that something had once walked among the first stars, and it now stood before them.
But Tor did not kneel.
She skidded to a halt, eyes locked on Neo pinned beneath the figure in white, his body twitching helplessly beneath that crushing grip. Her breath came sharp through flared nostrils, her muscles tensed, coiled tight, her gaze rising to the face beneath the hood. And even then, even as terror surged through her veins like lightning racing through frozen bark, she moved.
She charged.
A roar tore from her throat, not a war cry, but a raw, guttural refusal a sound born of instinct and fury, the scream of a protector unwilling to surrender. She didn't care who or what he was. She didn't care what face lay beneath that hood, or how the others knelt, or how her own legs threatened to give way beneath her. She had seen Neo bleed, fall, and rise again. He wasn't just some boy they had fought beside each other, bled beside each other. He was one of them.
And no one hurt one of hers.
She raised her axe mid sprint, its arc wide and terrible, her teeth bared in defiance. Every ounce of her strength, every drop of mountain born rage, was poured into the swing as she brought the weapon down with a fury shaped by ice and war.
Fall didn't turn. He didn't glance. He didn't shift his stance.
He simply lifted his other arm.
The backhand was effortless, almost casual.
It connected with her chest before she even registered the movement. Time fractured. Tor's body left the ground not falling, but flying, her enormous frame flung like a broken weapon. She spiralled through the air, crashing through two thick, snow covered trees on the outskirts of the village. Bark split. Branches snapped like bones. The shock of her landing sent a tremor through the earth, shaking snow from the trees and silencing the world in its wake.
Stillness followed. A single wind moved through the clearing, brushing across the place where she had once stood, as if even the air was in awe.
Fall remained motionless.
His hand returned to rest at his side, not bloodied, not clenched. It hung there loosely, casually, as if he had brushed a fly from his shoulder. Neo's breath rasped through his throat again barely a sound but his eyes widened when he saw Tor's body lying still at the treeline. Panic surged through the haze of pain, breaking its hold for the first time. He tried to speak. He couldn't. The air still refused him.
Fall looked down at him once more. "Loyalty," he said. The word fell flat, quiet, carrying none of the weight his voice had held before. It shook nothing. It shattered nothing. "Misplaced."
The Jotun did not move. Their heads remained bowed, not because they hadn't heard him, but because they dared not lift their gaze.
Neo's fingers clawed at the snow, digging into it as if the cold could somehow anchor him. His tail twitched against the ground. He wanted to scream, to lash out, to fight with everything he had left. But he couldn't. The grip still held him, body trembling under the strain, heart hammering with something colder than pain.
Helplessness.
Fall watched him as though examining something unpleasant, something beneath notice. A stain that refused to lift. "You are dust, yet you drew blood," he said again. "Why?"
Neo's voice cracked as it forced its way up from his battered throat, barely more than a whisper. "...someone had to."
Fall didn't blink. Didn't move. But the world responded for him. Something deep beneath the earth stirred, something old and sleeping, reacting not to sound, but to presence. The snow across the field cracked. Distant mountains groaned as if under sudden, unseen weight. And for a single breath, silence itself became dangerous.
The grip around Neo's throat trembled not with weakness, but restraint. Fall's fingers flexed, tightening further, and Neo felt his bones strain and shift beneath the surface. The cold creeping into him wasn't winter. It wasn't snow. It was the cold of being seen by something eternal and found wanting.
Fall's head tilted slightly beneath the hood, the motion quiet and predatory, like a wolf catching something sour in the wind. And when he spoke, his voice was quieter still but filled with something sharper than fury. "Where is he?"
His breath misted in the air, curling like smoke from iron pulled fresh from the forge. "Where is my bastard son?"
The words didn't echo they landed. Heavy. Flat. Final. Each syllable struck like the swing of an axe, cleaving deep, clean through the moment. Neo coughed, unable to answer. His lungs refused to fill. His ribs ached with every heartbeat. He couldn't speak and even if he could, what was there to say?
Fall didn't wait. His tone rose not in volume, but in gravity. "He leaves this inbred... child of dust," he growled, "this... fucking demon spawn... to fight a Harbinger?"
His hand lifted again, dragging Neo off the ground like a ragdoll. Neo's boots kicked once, then again, but he was weightless in that grasp, suspended like something offensive, something to be discarded or studied.
Fall's eyes stayed fixed on him. There was no hatred in them. No wrath. Only calculation brutal, cold thought turning behind eyes that had watched stars die and still asked for more. "How did you do it?" Fall whispered.
Neo's fingers clawed weakly at the hand around his throat, nails scraping against skin that felt more like carved stone than anything living. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. But the question didn't let go. "You made it bleed."
The words came softer, but deadlier. Not a question now. A statement. The kind that led to conclusions no one survived. Fall drew him closer, breath passing over Neo's skin like frost. Neo could see more now beneath the hood, through the blur of pain and desperation. He could see the cracks in the flesh, fine fractures forming beneath the surface of something that looked sculpted, something that shouldn't break. He saw the eyes colorless, depthless, uncaring and in their center, something worse than contempt. Curiosity.
Then Fall drove him down. He didn't throw him. He didn't let go. He simply forced Neo to the ground, hand still wrapped around his throat, lowering him with the same casual strength one might use to close a door. Neo's body slammed into the earth with a sound that echoed through the village, a deep, violent thud that shook loose the frost clinging to branches and stone. Snow cratered around him. Cracks split the ground beneath his back in a spiderweb of ruptured earth. His spine arched once as air was torn from his lungs in a sharp, ragged burst.
He didn't scream... he couldn't. Fall stood above him, unmoving, his hand still clamped around Neo's neck like an iron collar. The ground beneath him seemed to recoil. The wind curved around his figure without touching him, as if afraid to brush his frame. He was still. But the stillness was deceptive.
He was thinking. Behind those lifeless, white eyes, something shifted. Thoughts moved like blades tracing patterns in blood and void, a cold analysis building upon itself in silence.
"Thal wouldn't have taught you that," he said at last, his voice deliberate, each word etched from stone. "He would not let a thing like you walk into the Rim."
He began to pace slowly, dragging Neo's body through the snow with effortless motion, the grip never slackening. It wasn't cruel. It was clinical. Detached. A predator circling a strange new prey not out of hunger, but curiosity. "You weren't made for this. You weren't born for this. You are not chosen."
He stopped again, towering above Neo's sprawled form. "But you made it bleed."
His fingers flexed slightly, tightening just enough to make Neo's limbs twitch. He looked down, and a subtle crack formed in the stillness around him.
"I am asking you," he growled, his voice beginning to rise not in volume, but in force, like a storm rising behind glass. "How does a creature of rot, something caught between filth and false blood, draw blood from a Harbinger?"
Neo choked, his eyes fluttering as blood crept down from the corner of his mouth. His ribs screamed with every shallow, failing breath. Still he tried to speak, the muscles in his jaw trembling.
Fall crouched low beside him, hand still wrapped tight around his throat, fingers unrelenting.
The weight of the question settled into the world like the pressure of a collapsing sky.
Neo's lungs convulsed, desperate to pull air through a throat still clamped in a vice. Fall did not release him. But something shifted just enough space to allow a sliver of breath to crawl back in. Neo gasped, coughing, ribs spasming beneath the strain. His fingers twitched in the snow.
Fall leaned in, not with kindness, not even with cruelty, but with command. "Speak," he said. The word scraped the air like a grinding blade.
Neo swallowed hard. His vision swam. His body trembled. But somehow, the words came. He didn't know why he spoke. Didn't know what Fall expected to hear. What truth could possibly explain the impossible? That he could step between realities? That he had walked through the Rim and seen the Harbinger's truth?
"I..." he rasped, barely audible, "I walked through something. A place. I can step between here and somewhere else."
Fall's eyes narrowed. The grip remained. "I saw what it really was. Where it really was." then something inside Fall changed. Not in expression. Not in motion.
Behind his eyes, something ancient stirred. Recognition. A name remembered in silence. He began to speak again but something cut through the moment. A flicker of shadow and breathless light. No sound. No warning. Just presence.
She stepped into the snow covered field as though she had always been there. The silence coiled around her like a cloak, bending to her without resistance. She was small barely reaching Fall's waist. Delicate in build, almost fragile beside the towering titan but her arrival was a blade through stillness.
She wore black. Not fabric, but something deeper, woven with shifting threads that shimmered faintly under the pale sky. Her hair fell past her shoulders, silver veined with darkness. Her face, for a moment, echoed Nyra's so clearly that Neo thought it might be her but then he saw the eyes. Crimson irises. Black sclera.
Fall straightened. Not in alarm. Not in fear. But in acknowledgment.
The woman approached slowly, each step delicate but deliberate. She stopped only a few paces away, just beside Neo's prone form, her gaze never leaving Fall.
Her voice, when it came, was soft. Like dusk touching stone. "That's enough."
The words were gentle, but they held a resonance Neo couldn't explain. It wasn't magic. It wasn't volume. Yet every syllable landed with the weight of law.
Fall didn't answer. He didn't move.
The silence stretched. The air itself tightened around them. The woman tilted her head slightly. "You've made your point."
Still, Fall said nothing. But something in the tension began to shift, like a bowstring loosening by degrees.
Neo looked up at her through the haze, eyes flickering between her and Fall. Every breath still burned. His body felt carved open and sewn back together, but this woman she had stopped Fall with presence alone and words spoken like truth. He didn't know who she was. But he knew one thing with absolute certainty.
She did not kneel.
Fall didn't release him. His grip around Neo's throat remained firm as stone, even as the woman came to a full stop before him. The snow between them lay undisturbed. The ground was quiet, as if the world itself refused to interfere.
She looked up at him with those black sclera eyes, unreadable but deeply knowing.
Fall turned his head slightly. Just slightly. And regarded her. His voice came heavy and distant. "This does not concern you, Alinda."
The name drifted into the air like a quiet bell.
Neo blinked through the blur in his vision, blood still leaking from the corner of his mouth. He had never heard that name before. Not from Thal. Not from Nyra. Not from anyone. And yet Fall had spoken it with familiarity not just a name, but an old one, a name bound in time.
Alinda sighed, long and low, and gave a slow, sorrowful shake of her head.
"Is this how you treat your friends now?" she asked. Her voice didn't rise. She didn't take a step back. "You hold children to the earth like insects. You strike down girls half your size with your fist."
Her words did not accuse. They did not bite. They simply existed. Like the tide. Constant and inescapable.
Fall did not flinch. He looked at her for a long moment, the line of his jaw hard as a cliff. His presence still flooded the space between them, but she remained still.
"It is not friendship to defend failure," he said.
Alinda arched a brow. "And is this failure?" Her gaze dropped to Neo, still crushed under his hand. "A child of dust who walked into the Rim. Saw what none of your kind dared to. Wounded what your kind could only delay."
Fall's grip did not loosen, but a subtle twitch passed across his cheek barely visible, but real.
"He bleeds chaos," Fall said flatly. "There is nothing in him that was meant to exist. He is contradiction. Tainted by demonic flesh. If not by his own will, then by Thal's mistake."
"You mean your son's will," Alinda replied softly. "Not a mistake. A choice."
Fall's gaze sharpened.
Neo coughed, gasping as blood dripped into the snow, but still neither of them looked at him. Their focus was only on each other.
"You speak as if you've forgotten," Fall said. "He is not meant to be. And this..." He shook Neo slightly in his grasp. "This should not have been possible."
"And yet," Alinda replied, her tone quiet but unwavering, "it was."
The silence that followed pressed down hard. Neo felt it in his skull, in his lungs, in the trembling of the earth. Alinda didn't step forward. She didn't have to. Her presence was not force. It was truth.
Fall turned his head away, just a little. Not in shame. Not in defeat. In thought. Something cold passed through him, like ice threading through stone. For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
The silence never truly lifted. Not as the wind shifted, not as blood steamed faintly in the snow beneath Fall's feet. Neo still hung in his grasp, head sagging, breath shallow, body barely able to respond. The fight had not left him it had been taken.
Fall's fingers did not twitch. His gaze remained locked forward, his thoughts slow and unreadable.
Alinda stood beside him, arms calmly folded, watching his grip with a faint expression that hovered between amusement and patience.
Then, with a breath soft as settling snow, she spoke. "Let him go."
Fall did not move. Not a twitch. Not a breath. The silence around him deepened. It did not resist. It simply existed, heavy and still, as if her words had been spoken to a mountain that neither heard nor cared.
Alinda tilted her head, lips curling into something like a smile. There were teeth behind it, and the faint glint of fangs. Sarcasm coloured her next words lightly, like honey drizzled over frost.
"Please?" she said sweetly. "Let the poor thing breathe."
Still, Fall did not respond.
Alinda sighed. The smile faded, replaced by something calmer, more pointed. Her voice dropped, and this time it struck directly. "I came to question him," she said, brushing imaginary dust from her wrist. "And I'm quite confident I can do it better than..." She paused, then gestured idly to Fall's massive hand still wrapped around Neo's throat, then to the rest of him. "...whatever this is."
The words did not rise. They did not cut. But they echoed, as if spoken into a canyon that remembered everything. Because no one spoke to Fall like that.
Fall's gaze turned slowly toward her.
The wind fell silent.
A pressure built in the air, thick and expectant, as if the world itself were waiting for something to break but Alinda didn't flinch. She didn't retreat. She stood in the shadow of a god with arms folded and an expression bordering on bored.
Fall's fingers twitched once, just slightly. Then without a word, he opened his hand.
Neo dropped to the ground like a ragdoll, landing hard on his side with a thud that echoed through the broken snow. He didn't cry out. Couldn't. His body was too far gone, wrung out by pain and pressure until all that remained was breath drawn through clenched teeth. One arm twitched as he tried to rise, but nothing followed.
Fall didn't look at him again. His eyes stayed on Alinda.
She tilted her head slightly and gave a small nod. "Much better," she said softly.
Then she crouched beside Neo, calm and elegant, as if they weren't standing in the wreckage of divine wrath. Her fingers brushed lightly along his cheek, checking the colour in his skin, the pulse beneath his jaw. Everything she did was measured and composed.
"You're not going to die," she said, voice gentle. "But you're going to wish you had for a little while."
Neo couldn't speak. He only looked at her.
She smiled faintly. "Good. That means you're listening."
Air dragged through his throat like glass across stone. Each breath rattled against the pain stitched into his ribs. But as the stars above began to settle in the haze of his vision, and Fall's overwhelming presence finally receded like a storm slipping behind the mountains, Neo saw her, truly saw her for the first time.
He hadn't really registered her before, not through the haze, not through the weight. But now, with her crouched beside him and the sky flickering across the cuts on her coat, something shifted. She crouched like a monument abandoned by time armor ed in shadows, shaped by survival, and tempered by something far older than mercy. Her black armor clung to her body like it had been grown rather than forged, etched with silver runes and fractures that shimmered faintly beneath the dying light. Nothing about her was ornamental everything had purpose, every line a scar, every strap a story.
Belts crossed her waist and wrapped snug around her thighs, layered with pouches, rings, and fastenings that spoke of a warrior who lived in motion. The leather was worn but cared for, stitched with the same precision she gave her blade work. Each strap framed the dense muscle of her leg's thighs shaped by centuries of hard travel, sudden violence, and the burden of walking paths no one else dared. They weren't just strong they were defined, full, commanding in the way mountains are, not simply for their size but for the gravity they carried.
The Armor around her hips and upper legs moved with her rather than restricting her, crafted to accommodate both agility and raw force. Every step she took was deliberate, weighty, like she was pressing herself into the world on purpose. She walked like someone used to resistance her gait told you she had faced storms and men alike and made both yields.
Her skin, a rich bronze, glowed like sun warmed metal under the frost bitten air. Short, windswept blonde hair framed her face an angular beauty defined more by resilience than charm. Her eyes were nothing short of arresting: crimson irises burning inside black sclera, like coals left smoldering beneath obsidian. When she looked at someone, it felt like time took a breath.
There was something unnatural about how silent she was how the snow didn't dare crunch too loudly beneath her steps, how the air around her seemed thinner, colder, watchful. The world did not greet her. It yielded.
And her figure...
Neo's breath hitched. Not just from the pain. She was striking voluptuous, dangerous, a softness shaped for ruin. Every curve defied the bleakness of the world, wrapped in strength that never once asked permission to exist. Her body was a contradiction. Beauty formed as weapon.
But it wasn't just that.
Her face drew him in more than her form. The sharpness of her cheekbones, the subtle curl of her lips there was knowledge there, settled deep behind her eyes. Under her left eye sat a small beauty mark, a single dot in skin too perfect for accident. It didn't hide her beauty. It crowned it.
A mark that made her look not painted but real like a flower blooming beneath moonlight, radiant in defiance of the cold.
Neo blinked slowly, still half lost in pain and fog. But her presence was like a needle through the mist, sharper than the memory of pain, clearer than the echo of gods.
She wasn't Nyra. Not in form, not in voice, not in posture. But the resemblance lingered, enough to make him question the air he breathed.
She smirked, brushing a silver strand of hair behind her ear as if she hadn't just stared down the unmovable. "Now that you're not being strangled," she said, tone dry, "I'd like to ask a few things."
He tried to sit up. Failed.
She placed a hand gently on his chest. "Not yet. You're still a mess," she said. "You can answer while lying down. I won't judge."
Her crimson eyes narrowed not cruel, but curious. "And when I ask how you did what you did... I expect an answer that makes more sense than 'I walked into a different realm.'" Her smile returned. "But I'll take that one too. For now."
Alinda shifted her weight slightly, the long hem of her coat swaying with the motion. Then, without missing a beat, she turned toward the Jotun still kneeling in the snow the giants of Snowdrift, warriors carved from frost and storm, their heads still bowed before a wrath they dared not challenge.
She clapped once, the sound sharp and clean. "Okay," she said, her voice light, almost cheerful. "Time for everyone to head back to your homes. There's no more spectacle today."
A few of the Jotun twitched, uncertain.
She smiled. "Go on. He's not going to smite anyone else today."
Slowly, uncertain but obedient, they began to rise. They exchanged quiet looks, the kind shared between soldiers who had seen something that would haunt their dreams. No one ran. But none of them lingered. Whatever had happened here had unsettled something in the marrow of the world.
Alinda's smile lingered until they had begun their retreat. Then her gaze returned to Fall. He stood unmoved, arms crossed, his presence still bending the horizon around him.
She nodded toward the shattered tree line, where Tor's body lay crumpled in snow and bark. "Pick up Tor, would you?" she asked casually.
Fall didn't move. Not at first. The wind whispered, rustling the hem of her coat. Then he rolled his eyes. It was barely noticeable, but it was real. Then he turned. Each of his steps struck the earth like the toll of a distant drum. Not rushed. Not reluctant. Just heavy. The kind of movement that the world made space for out of necessity.
Alinda watched him for a moment, then looked down at Neo again. He was still trying to sit up, arms trembling with the effort. She sighed softly. "Oh, for stars' sake."
Without ceremony, she slipped an arm beneath his back and the other beneath his legs, lifting him in one clean motion.
Neo's breath caught. Not from pain. Not even surprise. From the absurdity of it. He was bruised, broken, and half conscious, and now being cradled in the arms of a woman who had dismissed a god like he was a stubborn guest overstaying his welcome.
She adjusted him slightly, making sure his head rested properly against her shoulder. "Careful," she murmured. "Wouldn't want your neck snapping after all that surviving."
Neo blinked, mouth slightly open, unsure whether to speak or just pass out.
Alinda chuckled, low and warm. "Thal's got a good eye," she said, scanning his face. "Took in something strange. Raised it anyway." She wiped a fleck of blood from his jaw with her thumb, her voice softer now. "Didn't expect the brat to draw blood from a Harbinger, though."
Then, quieter, almost to herself. "But maybe that's what makes you interesting. And him."
Neo's body still ached in ways he hadn't known a body could ache. Every breath reminded him how close he'd come to breaking. Yet the warmth of Alinda's arms was unsettlingly soft. Strong, yes unshakably so but never cruel. The way she carried him felt precise, intentional, every step through the snow chosen to avoid jostling him more than necessary.
His vision cleared slowly. The stars above dimmed behind thick clouds, but moonlight clung to the frost like silver, casting long shadows across the fractured village. Ahead, through broken trees and splintered barricades, Thal's hut sat quietly dark, solid, untouched by the chaos. It felt like a contradiction. The home of a man who had once fought Harbingers now waited for the boy who had dared strike one.
Behind them, heavy footsteps crunched steadily through the snow. Fall walked in silence Tor's unconscious form slung over one shoulder like a sack of stone. He didn't speak or glance their way. He moved with the same impossible weight as before, though quieter now, coiled as if something had been left unfinished.
Alinda looked back once, then returned her gaze to Neo. "You're lucky I like Thal," she muttered. "Or I'd have let Fall crush you for calling what you did a strategy."
Neo grunted softly, his voice cracked and rough. "Still made it bleed..."
"You did," she said, almost amused. "You really did."
They reached the hut. The thick wooden door hung open, left ajar from when the Jotun had rushed out to face the storm. Alinda stepped inside without hesitation, adjusting Neo in her arms with the ease of a dancer, the grace of something older than the snow itself.
She knelt beside the hearth, laying him gently onto a thick fur rug. Her fingers brushed his hair back with a quiet tenderness that didn't match the destruction left behind.
He blinked slowly, staring up at her. "What are you?"
Alinda tilted her head, silver hair sliding across her face. "A question for another night," she said, rising to retrieve a dark satchel she'd dropped near the door. "You're not healed yet."
Neo tried to sit up and failed with a sharp groan.
"Exactly," she said, not bothering to look back. "Which is why I brought this."
She returned with a small glass bottle dark violet, the liquid inside swirling like syrup caught in slow motion. Uncorking it released a scent that filled the air, sweet and metallic, with a sharp undercurrent of pine and something far older.
Neo eyed it warily. "What is that?"
"Health potion," she replied, kneeling beside him with far too much cheer.
His brow furrowed. "A what?"
"You've never heard of one?" she asked, tilting the bottle so the light caught its shimmer. "Cute."
Neo scowled. "No."
"It's homemade," she added, smile widening slightly. That didn't help.
Neo stared at the bottle, then back at her. "...Made of what?"
Alinda met his gaze with perfect calm, then winked. "Love," she said sweetly. "Now drink."
He didn't. "It's glowing."
"It's faintly glowing," she corrected. "Which means it's working."
"Working at what? Killing me slowly?"
"Oh, please. If I wanted you dead, I'd have let Fall do it properly. Or I'd do it myself. Cleaner. Less dramatic."
He said nothing, still watching the bottle like it might grow teeth.
Alinda sighed, dramatic and exasperated. "You know, most people say thank you when someone saves them, carries them like a delicate little snowflake, and offers them handcrafted recovery elixirs made with affection and possibly untraceable ingredients."
Neo narrowed his eyes. "You're not helping your case."
Her grin sharpened. "You're really going to make me do this the hard way, huh?"
Neo didn't move. "I'm not drinking anything that shimmers like demon blood and smells like warm pennies."
"Okay then." She moved fast. Too fast.
He had just enough time to blink, maybe half a breath and then she was behind him, one arm wrapped around his shoulders, the other gripping the bottle. In moments, she'd maneuverer him into a very tight, very inescapable Alinda shaped trap.
"Wait....Alinda don't "
She pinched his cheeks with the efficiency of an irritated sibling. "Say 'ah,' sunshine."
"I swear to mggphh!"
She poured. The potion hit his tongue and detonated into flavour. Sweet. Sour. Bitter. Something that tasted distinctly like raw mana, molten metal, and regret. It fizzed down his throat like bottled lightning.
Neo gagged, coughed, flailed though mostly with his fingers. Everything else hurt too much.
Alinda watched with serene satisfaction. "There we go. Not so bad, right?"
"I hate you," he wheezed.
"That's the spirit." She ruffled his hair and stood like she hadn't just forced fire down his throat. "You'll be back on your feet in no time. Or mildly vibrating through dimensions. Either way progress."
Neo groaned, curling up slightly into the rug. "Why did it taste like cinnamon and lightning?"
"It's homemade," she said with a proud shrug. "Trade secret."
Before he could argue further, the door thudded open with a low boom.
The room trembled as Fall stepped inside, still carrying Tor over his shoulder. He said nothing. Didn't even glance at them. He walked straight to the hearth and lowered her onto the second rug with surprising care. Tor landed with a grunt and a heavy snore, limbs splayed in full Minotaur sprawl.
Neo flinched instinctively. Fall didn't acknowledge either of them. He turned for the door.
Alinda's expression shifted. Just slightly. The playfulness dimmed behind her eyes. "Where are you going?" she asked. Her voice stayed light, but now there was a thread of something quieter woven through it. Concern, unspoken.
Fall didn't answer. He simply opened the door.
Wind swept inside, snow curling around his legs as he stepped into the cold and vanished into the dark. Alinda didn't chase him. Didn't call. She stood still, watching the space where he had been.
Neo stared up at her, dazed, the taste of glittering fire still lingering on his tongue. "You... uh... worried?"
She didn't respond at first. Just moved to the doorway, her silhouette framed in lantern glow and drifting frost. When she spoke, her voice was low, thoughtful. "Fall doesn't wander. If he's walking, something's bleeding." With that, she stepped outside, vanishing into the snow.
Neo lay back and groaned into the fur. "What the fuck..." A beat passed. Tor snored like a dying bear beside him. Neo sighed, exhausted. "...Yeah. Might do the same."