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There was fresh snow on the ground, so it was unsurprising to see the children of the village out in it, tumbling over each other and throwing snowballs. Upon seeing his approach, the younger ones shied away and hid behind their elders. Such small children were a good sign that finally the village was recovering after the Calamity. He couldn't help but smile.
A smile that was returned on one of the elder children, who waved both arms and cried out, "Disparu!" before running towards him.
"Oof!" Gwydion gasped out as the boy charged into him with a hug. Boy? He was well into adolescence now. "Ease up, Baret. Gods you've gotten big," he held him out at arm's length, looking him over before ruffling the young hyur's hair, "Been good to your mama?"
Baret ignored the question, "You bring me anythin?"
Gwydion snort at him deep in his throat. "Not sure now, didn't realize how old you'd gotten. I should probably give it to one of the younger kids, you don't need a toy."
Baret gave him a twisted look somewhere between a pout and a sneer. "How about you give it to me an' then I'll decide if I need it or not?"
"Maybe if you don't piss me off, or hold me out in this cold. Come on, I've been walking since morning, let me sit down in front of a fire for a minute, you little fiend." He re-shouldered his pack and trudged onward towards the center of the village to a large building that dominated the horizon among the little houses.
"I can carry something," Baret chattered, "How about your axe? Can I carry your axe, Mr. Disparu?"
"No! Don't you remember what happened last time?" the poor kid had lost feeling in his hands for half a day, "Don't touch her, she bites."
"How long you stayin?"
"Just passing through."
Baret shoved his mittened hands into the pockets of his woolen tunic in annoyance, "You always 'just pass through.' You never stay anymore."
"This isn't my home," Gwydion said softly.
"Why not? S'not like you're livin anywhere else, an' you were here for a long time when you were gettin better. 'Sides, I think Miss Erhnhart's sweet on you..."
"Baret," he said sharply and stopped, regarding the boy intently, "I'm pushing my luck as it is. I can't stay."
Baret looked up at him, though not as far up as he used to. "Why not?" A genuine question this time rather than the mere arguing of a child.
Gwydion's ears drooped slightly, the tips red from the cold. "You know why," he said softly, "You're old enough now to know why."
Baret's eyes slid down to the snow. He did. The adults didn't hide their opinions on the matter from him anymore. Despite that, when Gwydion started walking again, he hurried after.
"Really! I can carry your pack!"
"Baret!" he cried in exasperation, though Gwydion couldn't keep the fondness out of his voice. Baret was a good kid, one of the ones who came to Conjurer Edmont's home to keep him company while he was bedridden all those years ago. "Is Hughoc here? I assume so with this weather."
"Should be. If he went anywhere it was before I got up."
Unlikely then. He nodded and gave Baret another pat on his head. "Go play, I've got to drop this off," he hefted his heavy extra pack, "and talk to Hughoc. I'll call on your home after, alright?"
"To steal the pie Mama made for us."
"Always. Go on."
Baret hesitated, then turned and hurried back to the other children. He had no interest in the meeting between Gwydion and Hughoc, the bear of a highlander that ran their little village. Just as well, Gwydion thought, it was rarely a pleasant one.
The central building was the village meeting hall, large enough to encompass most of the population but also built with smaller meetings in mind, with a large fireplace and seating. Gwydion yearned for both. Behind the hall, adding to its size, was Hughoc's home, or the home of whoever was running things at the time. Whether the home had been added to the hall or the hall built from the home, he didn't know.
He trudged up the few front steps and pushed against the door that was always unlocked, hurrying inside out of the cold. The hall itself wasn't very warm, too big for the fire to heat on its own without bodies to add to it, but Gwydion had no intention of hanging out by the door.
"Hello!" he called as he slung off his packs, outer gear, and axe, shoving the mess against some benches before settling down before the fire in a proper chair with a relieved sigh. He stuck his hands out and leaned close to the flames, warming his ears.
A skittish miqo'te woman appeared, eyes wide at the sight of him. The village was mostly hyur, but a few Keepers of the Moon had carved out a place for themselves here. He gave her a small wave.
"Hello, Nahda. Can you let Hughoc know I've come? ...He's here, right?"
She nodded but came no closer to him. He was used to that and let her hurry back out without further comment.
He'd slumped back into the chair and fell into a doze before the village leader appeared some time later, facing him from the other side of the fire, arms crossed over his chest in displeasure, bushy mustache bristling. It would make Gwydion laugh if the rest of the man wasn't so formidable.
"Disparu."
"Hello, Hughoc. I'm sure you're busy so I'll be brief." He pointed to the extra pack lying on the floor, "I've managed to find some valuable baubles this time, and a long escort paid me well. I've also brought some trinkets for the children, but I'll let you hand those out, considering."
Hughoc stared at him a long time, and Gwydion stared right back. He was in no hurry.
The large man sighed. "I've told you, Disparu..."
"You tell me every year," he couldn't help but interrupt, "yet here I am." He sat up straight and softened his tone, "I'm just passing through."
It was almost ritual at this point. Hughoc had barely tolerated his presence when Gwydion had been found near death in the forest, but for all his bluster he'd never cast an injured man to the wolves. But Gwydion kept coming back, year after year, and every year Hughoc made it clear he wasn't welcome.
He was a fair man, and Gwydion did respect him, but this place was the first thing he ever knew in his active memory. They'd looked after him as he recovered, and well, and for all their wariness of him, did not force him out until he was ready to move on himself.
He owed them. The Calamity decimated the village, ruined their crop and drove away their game. And yet they fed him, cared for him. The idea of this place, these people, uprooting themselves from all they knew just to survive was unacceptable to him. So his pay from his adventuring came here, his treasures and artifacts and anything that could be turned into coin for food and clothing was brought here to these people. He owed them.
And they were still here, year after year, when many other villages died.
Pushing himself to his feet, Gwydion stretched, heard too many snappings and poppings from his joints. "I came across an alchemist who made this wondrous salve. I brought some for Edmont, is he here?"
"He left for Mor Dhona. Won't be back until the snows thaw."
Gwydion paused, something in Hughoc's tone sending a warning through him.
"I see... I'll drop it off at his home, not like it's hard to get in and I spent so much time there--"
"Gwydion."
The name was said firmly, but too weary to be sharp. Laden with regret.
Hughoc's eyes were on the fire now, not looking at him.
"We are...I am grateful...for what you have given us, make no mistake on that. But this is now done. You are not welcome here. You will leave and not come back."
Gwydion stared. This was not the ritual. This was not Hughoc's usual grumbling that would come to nothing.
The finality in the man's tone was as true as a swing of Gwydion's battle axe.
"I... I've never meant harm, never harmed any of you. This..." was not his home, but it was a point, a beginning, where his memory began, where people knew him, "This is as close to a home as I have," he said quietly.
"There is no home for you in this world. No respite save that of a grave," Hughoc's voice began to raise, "You shouldn't be here, Gwydion! Even if I believed Edmont's claim that you just appeared before him in a flash of light, I can't possibly believe that the gods would put a man on death's door upon the most incompetent, failed conjurer on this side of the world!" He finally looked at Gwydion, his eyes burning even as his voice softened again. "You should not have survived with what we could provide you, yet you did. Thal was not given his due, so took your life in another way. No memories have ever returned to you, have they?"
Gwydion looked away. He tried, he tried for so long, but before waking up in this place, there was nothing. Nothing true. He may as well have not existed.
Hughoc nodded, and looked to the fire again. "If it's any consolation, I do not believe you to be a fell man, but what you carry...this wrongness that exists in you...I cannot permit that into the village any longer."
From the moment he'd opened his eyes...blank and unnatural...Gwydion had known wariness. From the black ash in his hair and sometimes clothing that never washed away, to his ability to 'read' certain objects, to the fact that aether-sensitive souls like Edmont sometimes felt unnerved by him...
The worst part was he couldn't blame Hughoc. The lives of the people were his concern, and Gwydion was an unknown. Maybe not an active threat, but a potential. He wasn't one of them.
It still hurt.
"You gave me my name," he whispered, unable to help the brokenness of it, "that may not seem like much to you, but to me that's..." all I have.
Hughoc sighed, and for but a moment, the resolve in his eyes wavered, but it was brief. He faced Gwydion, head high, an impassable man.
"Then carry it with our blessing and gratitude.... and never come back."
Gwydion shut his eyes, nodded, then turned to pick up the pack laden with treasures and extra coin. He dropped it between them before the fire.
"You do not need to..." Hughoc began.
Gwydion cut him off, sharply, "I don't want it."
He turned and began to put his winter gear back on, hefted his pack, and re-slung his axe. He didn't look at the highlander.
"The winter looks like it's going to be a bad one. Use that to feed your families."
Neither said anything more and Gwydion walked out, stepping into biting wind as evening settled. He'd hoped on some shelter for the night here but that was no longer an option. He'd have to hole up somewhere in the woods.
He headed back the way he came and wasn't surprised when Baret came up alongside him.
"My house is the other way, remember? Come on, Mama's got more than a pie waitin for you. Got dinner an' everythin!"
Gwydion stopped, shoulders slumped. "Baret..."
The boy looked up and him, and slowly his smile waned as realization dawned. "You're leaving."
"Yes."
"But you just got here."
"I know."
Baret's face fell further, eyes sharpening, and for a moment, the boy was gone and Gwydion saw the man-to-be there.
"You're not coming back."
"No."
He expected argument, the demand for answers or reasons why it all meant nothing and he could stay. He wanted to hear it. But there was no point. They both knew it.
"Here," he twisted and rooted around in one of his back pouches, "I guess I will give it to you. Just a silly thing, but you know me and axes..."
He handed Baret a little wooden figure, with moveable limbs and an axe in hand, painted as though wearing white armor. The lack of pointed ears or tail made it most likely a hyur, maybe a roegadyn.
The boy stared at it, then smiled sadly with a small laugh. "It is pretty silly, isn't it?"
"Well that's why I thought of you," Gwydion said, and ruffled his hair.
Baret continued to stare at the toy, then said, voice low, "Take me with you."
"No," Gwydion's voice was almost harsh, "You have a life here, a future, a family. What I wouldn't give for that." He sighed, and his voiced dropped to a deep whisper, "Go home, it's getting cold."
He expected the hug, was grateful for it, and perhaps held it too long, making it ache all the more. Baret and the other children had never been wary of him, they just wanted him to amuse them. Wanted the weird elezen to stop being a mopey, hurt lump and get out of bed already.
Well, he did, eventually. He wondered if Hughoc ever considered the healing power of enamored children.
He watched Baret go, made sure he was well on his way home before Gwydion turned and walked away. The houses in his peripheral view dwindled and then vanished, and then the woods were before him.
The village had no gate, and yet he was sure he felt one close behind him. The thin, tenuous string that connected him to a point of origin severed, and Gwydion Disparu was left adrift.
He sighed, hand reaching back to brush against his axe, the only comfort he had left to him, and continued down the road.
Stars came out in time, just as cold as everything around him, and he stopped, staring up at them. He'd never believed Hughoc's fear, that he was some form of walking dead man, and yet... He clenched his fists.
"What in the hells did I do?!" he yelled to the sky, "What crime did I commit!? If I owe you a life, then take it already, damn you!"
No answer, no flash of light, no voice to confirm or deny. Nothing.
He sneered, at the silent gods and at himself, and started walking.
Somewhere in the trees, so soft it might have just been the wind, he thought he heard a woman crying.