Chapter Text
The morning of the meteor shower arrived crisp and golden, autumn light spilling across the cobblestones of the royal capital’s central plaza.
Heiter arrived first.
Not out of eagerness—he would never admit to that—but because the inn he’d chosen the night before had thin walls and a rooster with a vendetta against sleep. He shuffled into the plaza with the slow, deliberate gait of a man who had earned every one of his seventy-eight years, his priest’s robes hanging from shoulders that had once been broad and were now merely bony. The black-and-gold fabric still fit, more or less. He’d had to let it out twice.
His hair had gone the color of old parchment, slicked back as always, though a few strands had escaped and now drifted around his face with no intention of returning to formation. His spectacles sat low on his nose.
The fountain at the plaza’s center still ran. That was something.
He settled onto the stone edge, produced a flask from somewhere within his robes, and took a long pull. The liquor burned pleasantly.
“Fifty years,” he murmured to no one in particular. “Fifty years, and I’m the punctual one. The goddess has a sense of humor after all.”
A few early merchants were setting up stalls at the plaza’s edge. One of them—a young woman arranging woven baskets—glanced at him, then did a double-take at his vestments.
“Bishop,” she said, bowing her head slightly. “Are you here for the meteors?”
“Something like that.” He capped his flask. “Meeting old friends.”
“That’s lovely. How long has it been?”
“Fifty years.”
The woman’s expression flickered—surprise, then the careful politeness people adopted when they realized they were speaking to someone very old. “You must be excited.”
“Thrilled,” Heiter said, and meant it, though his tone suggested otherwise.
She returned to her baskets.
The sun climbed higher. Heiter watched the plaza fill with people—vendors hawking meteor-themed pastries, children darting between legs, a street performer juggling glowing stones. The capital had changed in fifty years. New buildings leaned against old ones like young trees in an ancient forest. The smells were different, too—more spices from the southern trade routes, fewer horses.
He wondered, briefly, if he would recognize them.
Himmel, certainly. Himmel had been sending letters every month for five decades, written in that precise, irritatingly elegant hand of his, full of details about villages saved and monsters slain and people helped. As if he were still building his legend, one small kindness at a time.
Eisen’s letters came less frequently—dwarven lifespans meant less urgency—but they arrived. Terse. Reliable. Still alive. The mountains are cold. The beer is good.
Frieren had sent nothing at all. That was not surprising. Heiter had long suspected she experienced correspondence the way humans experienced breathing—something that happened when it happened, not something worth tracking.
He was halfway through his second pull from the flask when the crowd near the eastern gate stirred.
A dwarf was approaching.
Eisen walked with the same steady rhythm Heiter remembered from their journey, but there was something different about him now. His steps landed heavier. His shoulders sat lower beneath the horned helmet. The long brown beard that had once been streaked with gray was now gray streaked with white, and his eyes—always sleepy, always patient—seemed deeper set, as if time had pressed its thumbs into his face and left indentations.
He spotted Heiter immediately and changed course.
“You’re early,” Eisen said, stopping before the fountain. His voice had the same gravel quality, though it sounded more tired than Heiter remembered.
“The rooster at the Silver Bell Inn is a demon in animal form. I’m certain of it. We should have left one alive so we could kill it again.”
Eisen’s beard shifted in what might have been a smile. “You look old.”
“And you look short, but I was raised to be polite.”
The dwarf let out a short breath—not quite a laugh, but close. He lowered himself onto the fountain’s edge beside Heiter, and Heiter noticed the way his hands pressed against the stone for balance. Eisen had never needed balance before. Eisen had simply been wherever he decided to be, as immovable as geography.
“The joints,” Eisen said, noticing Heiter’s notice. “They ache in the mornings now.”
“Welcome to humanity. We’ve been complaining about it for millennia.”
“I’m not human.”
“Welcome anyway.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment. Fifty years dissolved into nothing. Heiter found himself remembering the dwarf’s back silhouetted against campfires, the way Eisen had always taken first watch without being asked.
“You’ve kept in touch with Himmel,” Eisen said. It wasn’t a question.
“Monthly. The man writes letters like he’s composing scripture. Dear Heiter, today I helped an old woman carry firewood. She reminded me that heroism is found in small moments.” Heiter’s impression was cruelly accurate. “I write back to tell him I’m still drinking and still lazy, and he writes back to tell me he’s proud of me anyway. It’s infuriating.”
“You love it.”
“I tolerate it.”
Eisen’s beard shifted again. “And Frieren?”
“Nothing.” Heiter adjusted his spectacles. “Although that’s not unusual. She probably thinks fifty years is a long weekend.”
“It is. For her.”
The crowd near the eastern gate stirred again, and this time the stirring was different—a ripple of recognition, a few gasped words that Heiter couldn’t quite catch. He squinted against the morning sun.
A figure in white was crossing the plaza.
Heiter’s flask stopped halfway to his lips.
The white cape caught the light first, billowing slightly in the autumn breeze. Then the blue hair—bright as cornflowers, bright as a summer sky, bright as it had been fifty years ago when they’d parted at this very fountain. The figure walked with easy confidence, shoulders back, one hand resting casually on the sword at his hip. People moved aside without seeming to realize they were doing it.
The face was the same. The same jawline, the same beauty mark beside the left eye, the same sky-blue eyes that crinkled at the corners with perpetual good humor.
Not a single wrinkle.
Not one gray hair.
Himmel the Hero looked exactly as he had looked the day they defeated the Demon King.
Heiter’s flask slipped from his fingers and clattered against the cobblestones.
He didn’t pick it up.
“Eisen,” he said, very quietly.
“I see him.”
“Tell me I’ve finally pickled my brain with alcohol. Tell me I’m hallucinating.”
“You’re not.”
Himmel spotted them and waved—the same cheerful, slightly theatrical wave he’d used when entering liberated villages. “Heiter! Eisen!” His voice carried across the plaza, bright and warm and utterly unchanged. “You’re both early! I thought I’d be the first one here.”
He crossed the remaining distance in long, easy strides and pulled Heiter into an embrace before the priest could react. Heiter’s old bones creaked in protest. Himmel’s arms were strong—exactly as strong as they’d always been.
“You got short,” Himmel said, releasing him.
“I got old,” Heiter managed. “What’s your excuse?”
“Excuse?” Himmel tilted his head, genuinely puzzled. “I’ve been taking care of myself. Good diet, regular exercise, helping people—it keeps a man young. You should try it.”
Heiter stared at him.
Then he looked at Eisen.
Eisen looked back. The dwarf’s expression was unreadable, but his hands had stilled on his knees. That was Eisen’s version of open-mouthed shock.
“Himmel,” Heiter said carefully. “How old are you?”
“Seventy-six. Same as I was last month when you sent me that dreadful wine.”
“And you feel… seventy-six?”
“I feel excellent.” Himmel stretched his arms above his head, loose-limbed and limber. “The journey was pleasant. I stopped in three villages on the way—helped repair a mill, drove off a pack of wolves, and convinced a young couple to elope. They were perfect for each other, just needed a push.” He smiled, and it was the same smile that had launched a thousand heroic ballads. “What have you two been up to?”
Heiter’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
A familiar figure appeared at the plaza’s northern entrance, and for a moment Heiter felt relief so sharp it was almost painful. Frieren hadn’t changed either, but that was expected. That was normal. White hair in high pigtails, red-and-gold staff in hand, teal eyes scanning the plaza with their usual calm detachment.
She approached at her own pace—which was to say, slowly, pausing twice to examine a merchant’s grimoir display and once to stare at a pastry cart with visible longing.
“You’re all here,” she said when she finally reached them. Her gaze passed over Heiter, then Eisen, then Himmel. “That’s convenient.”
She said nothing about anyone’s appearance.
She didn’t even seem to notice.
“Frieren,” Himmel said, and his voice softened slightly—the way it always had when he spoke to her. “You haven’t changed at all.”
“It’s only been fifty years,” she said.
“Has it?” Himmel laughed. “It feels like much longer. I’ve missed you.”
Frieren blinked. “That’s an odd thing to say. We agreed to meet today. I’m here.”
“And I’m glad.”
She studied his face for a moment, and Heiter held his breath. Surely Frieren—of all people—would notice. She’d spent a thousand years observing humans. She knew how they aged.
But Frieren simply nodded and looked toward the fountain. “The meteors won’t arrive until tonight. We should find food.”
Heiter retrieved his flask from the cobblestones. It was empty now, which seemed cosmically appropriate.
“I need a drink,” he announced.
“It’s barely noon,” Eisen said.
“I’m aware.”
Himmel clapped him on the back—a friendly gesture that nearly sent Heiter stumbling into the fountain. “Let’s find a tavern! We have fifty years to catch up on. Well—” He paused, considering. “Fifty years for you two. Frieren and I can just listen.”
Just listen.
As if that were the only difference between them.
Heiter caught Eisen’s eye as Himmel led the way across the plaza, already telling a story about a bridge he’d helped build in the eastern provinces. Frieren walked beside him, her expression placid, occasionally glancing at shops that caught her interest.
“He doesn’t know,” Heiter murmured.
Eisen shook his head slowly. “No.”
“What do we do?”
The dwarf was quiet for a long moment. Around them, the capital bustled with life—merchants shouting prices, children laughing, bells tolling the hour.
“I don’t know,” Eisen said.