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You've been waiting for so long that you've lost count of the days. Scratch that. You lost count a long time ago, so long you're not even sure how long ago. There's no cycle of days and nights here, not anymore, not this deep into the end of the world.
The shade of the great Tree in the distance blocks some of the sunlight from your eyes. You should visit, you think. You aren't sure how long it's been since you last visited. Maybe you were a few inches shorter back then, still unaware of how this world would shape you to its whims. You barely remember that version of yourself anymore.
(He might as well be a different person, with how long it's been since you were him. There were people who loved him. There were people who cared about him. You can only hope they'll still care about you, too.)
It's been long enough that your spear might as well be sprouting leaves. Vines twine up its shaft, and you fear how dull the blade may have become in the meantime. If you ever require its use again, you'll have to work hard to get it back into shape. It isn't like you need it, though. Nobody and nothing comes to bother you here.
There will be a day when you'll have to fight again. You know it deep in your bones, in the way rot creeps across the earth you protect, unseen but not unnoticed. You know it in the way you stay still even when you long to move, like if you leave this place something will go very, very wrong. You know it in the way you're waiting for someone you can barely remember, someone that clings to the edges of your mind like plastic wrap, except you don't think you've ever seen plastic wrap and don't know how you know about it.
Tree sap, maybe, could be a better comparison.
And so, you wait. You sit, and you wait, and you lose track of time again, and in your brief moments of awareness in between you process just how long it's been and how much everything has changed, how much you have changed. Your past self feels as far away as the stars in the sky, long faded with the changing of time.
(You can't remember when you last saw the stars, or the moon, or even the darkness. There was a time, once, when you existed simultaneously with the night, and then the night vanished for good, and all that was left was eternal day. You know, deep in your bones next to the part that reminds you to wait, that one day there will be day no longer, and that day is approaching as fast as the rot.)
You miss people, sometimes. You miss having a conversation. You can't remember who you ever would have spoken with. Vines curl around the edges of your boots and all you know is to wait, keep waiting, one day they will come.
(And then, one day, they do.)
You'll go back home eventually.
One day, they'll come to get you. One day, that train will come hurtling down to earth, touching down on the planet you've come to love so much, and it will take you home. They'll come to visit your little clearing in the woods.
You'll have already made a plan to leave. You'll know exactly know what you want to keep and what you don't mind leaving behind. You will have spent weeks on that question alone, because so much is dear to you, now, after all these centuries. Cloud-Piercer will come with you, of course. You'll lift it from the vines. You'll free it after all these decades to find it dulled by time. You'll think to yourself I have to sharpen it again after so long of not fighting.
They'll still be waiting for you, outside. They'll realize how important all of this is to you, because it's been so long that the time has changed you inside and out. You'll be the same person you always were, of course, but you'll be so much more at the same time.
You will gather up all the research you've done over the years. It'll still mostly be located in the Grove, of course, but you'll keep a few important copies at home for yourself. You'll wonder when you started thinking of this cave and the clearing outside of it as home, and you'll realize you don't know. It will never be home, not truly. Your home will always be in the stars.
You'll go back home, eventually. They'll still be waiting for you. They'll find you, you know they will. It will have been so long that you barely know how to interact with them anymore, but you'll still know them like the back of your hand, even if you'll have changed so much you become unrecognizable.
The walk back will be long, and it will be louder than most of your past decades combined. You'll realize you missed this, immensely. You'll have missed your family, the people who know you the best in the universe, the people who find you when you're gone and love you when you aren't.
(You'll smile, thinking about spending time with them again. Caelus will do a double take and then mirror it, twice as large. "We missed you, Dan Heng," he'll say. I missed you too, you'll think.)
You'll finally arrive back on the Express. It'll be the same as you left it, inexplicably, and so will they. You'll have waited centuries for people who only waited hours. You'll find your futon on the Archives floor rumpled the same way you left it over a thousand years ago. You'll realize a thousand years ago was actually yesterday morning. You'll be overcome with a sense of loss, for a second, for a life that never truly existed in the first place and years of time that only you now remember.
And you'll still fall asleep that night, because there's nothing you'll be able to do other than keep going.