\herosection{The Wayward Gift}{chapters/2025.10.06-TheWaywardGift/image/the-wayward-gift.jpg}

\DROPCAP{../../dropcap_c/dropA.png}lia found a ragged man at the forest's edge,\\
hungry, \\
limping, \\
and shunned by all.\\
The villagers hissed warnings:\\
He is a thief, a shadow, a fool.\\
You will regret your kindness.

But she gave him food from her pack anyway,\\
and bound his wounds with strips of her own cloak.\\
``Thren is my name,'' he said, when asked.

Alia was on a pilgrimage \\
to offer her sacred gift\\
at the temple on the other side \\
of the Grey Mountains.\\
When Thren asked to walk with her,\\
she said yes, \\
though unease stirred in her heart.

For many days they traveled,\\
and she began to hope her mercy was not folly.\\
But when they reached a narrow mountain pass,\\
he betrayed her.

He stole the gift \\
and vanished into the crags,\\
leaving her with empty hands \\
and brokenness.\\
She staggered homeward, \\
grief-struck,\\
while the village mocked her soft heart.\\
Mercy is wasted on the unworthy, they said.\\
Now you see.

Years passed.

Alia lived quietly,\\
alone,\\
her quest abandoned,\\
her heart still tender but scarred.\\
She never knew what became of the thief.

Meanwhile, far from the village,\\
Thren lost his way in the wilderness.\\
Starving, \\
half-mad,\\
he stumbled upon a hidden monastery.\\
The monks took him in, \\
asking nothing.\\
There, \\
he found a silence \\
that would not let him hide,\\
and the chants at dawn \\
pierced him deeper than any blade.

Thren became someone else,\\
slowly, \\
painfully.\\
He became the one who rang the bell at dawn,\\
the one welcoming wanderers at the gate,\\
the first to volunteer for the lowliest chores.

In time, \\
he became the one they called Abbot.

He tried many times to find Alia,\\
to return her gift.\\
But when he had first stumbled upon the monastery,\\
he had been so lost with cold and hunger\\
that afterward he could never retrace his steps.

And so the sacred gift he had stolen\\
was folded into their worship,\\
woven into their daily prayers\\
until it seemed it had always belonged there.

Alia never knew.
