Part Fourteen — The Fork

　Doran's arm had healed enough by the second morning that he stopped wincing every time he lifted it, though I noticed he was still favoring it slightly whenever he thought nobody was watching.

　"You know I can see you doing that," I said, watching him "casually" switch his waterskin to the other hand.

　"Doing what?"

　"Protecting the arm. While pretending you're not protecting the arm."

　"Old habit," he said, which I was starting to suspect was his answer for roughly forty percent of everything about himself.

One of these days I'm going to make a list of every "old habit" he's mentioned and see how many of them turn out to be the same story wearing different clothes.

　We reached the fork a little past midday — an unremarkable split in the road marked by a leaning wooden signpost, one arm pointing toward a route that looked exactly as ordinary as the one we'd been walking, and the other pointing toward nothing in particular except more trees.

　"This is it?" Fenrik asked, sounding almost disappointed. "Doesn't look like much."

　"Trouble rarely announces itself with a sign," Doran said, studying the split road like it might give something away if he looked hard enough.

　I crouched near the base of the signpost, mostly out of habit — a leftover instinct from a life where checking your surroundings before making a call was just good practice, whether you were reading a room or reading a road.

　"Tracks," I said, running a finger along a set of disturbed dirt just off the main path. "Recent. Heavier on one side — something being dragged, maybe. Or something big moving carefully."

　Doran crouched beside me, studying the same patch of ground with new interest.

　"You've got a good eye for someone who spent his whole childhood on a mountain."

If you only knew how much of this eye came from an entirely different life.

Some things translate better than you'd think — reading a room, spotting when a situation's been staged, noticing what doesn't add up. Turns out those instincts don't care what world you're using them in.

　"I pay attention," I said instead, which wasn't a lie, just an incomplete truth. "Doesn't take dragon blood to notice when something's off."

　We debated the fork properly over a short rest, the three of us sitting close enough that the decision felt shared rather than handed down from whoever wanted to talk the loudest.

　"Faster route's through," Doran said. "Detour costs us most of a week, easy. Maybe more if the terrain's as bad as I remember."

　"And if the merchant wasn't exaggerating?" Fenrik asked.

　"Then we're careful. We watch the treeline, we don't make camp anywhere exposed, and the second something feels wrong, we're gone. No pride about it, no proving anything to anyone."

Sensible.

I can work with sensible.

　"For what it's worth," I said, "I'd rather know what's actually out there than spend a week walking around it wondering. Uncertainty's worse than most actual threats, in my experience."

　Doran raised an eyebrow at that.

　"That an old-life thing too?"

...Sharper than I give him credit for, sometimes.

　"Something like that," I said, and left it there.

　He let me.

　Same as always.

　The decision made, the rest of the day settled into something almost lazy — Fenrik telling a genuinely terrible joke about a beastkin, an elf, and a very confused innkeeper that landed so badly Doran actually laughed.

　Not at the joke.

　At how badly it had bombed.

　I found myself laughing too, easy and real, the kind of laugh that didn't ask permission from the rest of what I was carrying.

This is nice.

I want to remember this exact afternoon, whatever happens tomorrow.

Doran's arm healing. Fenrik's terrible jokes. This particular quality of light through these particular trees.

　We made camp that night just shy of the fork itself, close together again, fire small and careful the way it had been since the ridgeback.

　"Tomorrow, then," Doran said, more to himself than either of us, watching the flames.

　"Tomorrow," Fenrik agreed.

　I didn't say anything.

　I just watched the fire too, and let myself have one more quiet, ordinary evening before whatever was waiting past that signpost decided to introduce itself properly.

Whatever it is.

We'll handle it.

Together.

That's the whole point of "together," isn't it.