A/N: For the FE Contest prompt, "Town Life". Fic, excluding notes, comes in at 499 words; max was 500.

For those who can't figure out what Saleh's freaking out about, I suggest you glance over his Gerik supports. Pre-FE8, and also mostly with Ewan away, hence his absence.

All feedback is loved; thanks for reading!


Prodigal

"I'll pay you back when I've returned."

"The village welcomes you back, child."

The elder's voice is warm and honest, like the desert that clings to Saleh. He tastes the sand-grit between his teeth, swears the wind has the same howl to it.

"Thank you, Grandmother."


Valega doesn't comfort him as it did when he was younger. He takes those slow, deep breaths, imagines his body folding in with the cliff faces, tries to remember how vast the sky is, how little it cares for his troubles.

Calm comes, and quiet, but there is no peace in it.


The villagers remember Saleh better than he remembers them, calling out his name as he tends to morning chores– fetching water from the well, milking the cranky goats, soaking dirt from linens and hanging them out to dry.

He offers them waves back out of courtesy and wonders what they had to say about the elder's grandson turning his back on the ancient ways, if they recall, too, the day he left.

The village does not welcome, he thinks. It gloats.

He meditates and fasts to excise those selfish thoughts, like scrubbing a stain out of cloth. His guilt matters not. His deeds matter not. Such things are trivial, worldly.

But still, he tells no one why he returned.


The Great Dragon knows. Perhaps not the fine details, but her eyes, fire-red, fix on him and see all. She is not easily deceived. Yet still, she takes his hand as she speaks.

"Tell me what you saw."

He tells her of seas of sand, spice-smelling marketplaces, dancers and music and smiling mercenaries with war-worn hands, faces scarred like the cliffsides. He leaves out screams, burials– but the air in the woods smells like death as she smiles.


He steadies his lungs one morning, counts one, two, three, and wraps his fingers around the tome left on his bookshelf when first he returned.

The energy builds behind his lips as he flips it open, peaking like the highest mountain before he quells it into silence without release. He does it again, again, fire like breath, breath like fire.

He adds it to every morning after that, taking the book as high as he can go on the cliffs and burning away his thoughts.


The old ways are a comfort, soon.

He recalls how the others would interrupt his silence – Gerik's rough fingers brushing against his shoulder for a talk, the soft rhythm of Tethys' footsteps or Marisa's blade strokes cutting in.

But the mountain stands in silence, swallowing his sudden gasp and giving no response but an echo.

He presses himself against the cold rocks as he works, imagines himself as stone, and continues.


His palms are scarred when he leaves the village again, his books too worn for pages with magic left yet in them.

The village offers no farewells. It never does.

Saleh, in turn, offers them no apologies. They aren't the villagers' to have.