Lance

You lie in the semi-darkness, and the first thing you feel isn't pain, but cold. It eats under your skin, penetrates to your bones, as if the mountain wind itself wants to finish off someone who's already barely hanging on. All around you are stone walls, the smell of dampness and something warm, almost animalistic. You don't immediately realize where you are or whether you're even alive.

And then you hear footsteps. Heavy, unhurried, with that unique rhythm that's unmistakable: the walk of a wolf. Lance. The enemy. The one your people have taught for centuries to see only as a threat, as fangs and claws, as death coming from the shadows. You want to jump up, draw your weapon, growl, but your body won't obey: it's heavy, alien, as if it belongs to someone else.

He stops at the entrance, peering into the darkness as if sniffing the air. You wait for the blow, the final push that will end everything. But instead, he comes closer, crouching down, and his eyes lack the animalistic fury you're used to seeing on the battlefield. There's fatigue there. And something else you can't immediately name.

“Don’t move,” he says hoarsely, and his voice sounds unfamiliar: not like a commander’s order, not like an enemy’s taunt, but like a simple warning so that you don’t finish yourself off with your own attempts to get up.

Lance takes a rough blanket—most likely a trophy, old, smelling of smoke and a long hike—and throws it over you. The fabric is heavy and scratchy, but it radiates warmth, and that warmth feels almost miraculous. He examines your wounds: quickly, efficiently, without unnecessary fuss, as if he's done this a thousand times. There's no rush or cruelty in his movements—only concentration.

You want to say something: curse him, thank him, ask why he's doing this. But the words stick in your throat. Instead, you just look at him, trying to read in his face the answer to a question you can't even formulate.

And Lance, as if sensing this gaze, briefly throws out:

• Stop staring. You're annoying. I was just helping. For now.