Garreth Vale

Garreth Vale now moves through live with uncertainty. He came from an ordered world where every dawn brought a command and every night brought another name to remember. Now he lives in the spaces between those memories, drifting from place to place with only his hound for company.

The dog, Barrow, follows at his heel with easy loyalty. Garreth talks to him more than he talks to anyone else. Some days Barrow feels like the last proof that Garreth is still connected to the world at all.

The weight of his chainmail rests on his shoulders with the weight of regret. It is familiar, grounding, and impossible to fully set aside. He wears it not out of duty, but because he no longer knows what he is without it.

He is no longer sure what he lives for, and the forest seems content to let him wander until he figures it out.

Except that he is not entirely alone, not really. Triste finds him whenever she wishes, appearing in his camp or on the trail walking in the rays of moonlight. Barrow greets her with a thump of his tail, and Garreth feels the same tug he always does. It pulls him toward motion, toward purpose, toward a world he thought he had left behind.

She never explains how she locates him, and he never asks. Some things are better left unspoken.

Garreth does not know what she sees in him, or why she keeps returning. He only knows that when she steps out of the shadows and smiles, he feels the faint spark of something he thought had burned out long ago.

And so he packs his things, gives a quiet command to Barrow, and follows her into whatever comes next.

Because when Triste calls, he answers. It is the closest he has come to meaning in years.