## Chapter 372 — The Things They Chose The train from Miyato returned Thomas and Isha to Sendai on Sunday evening with one overnight bag, a second ring cake and enough photographs to prove that returning somewhere did not require reproducing it. Monday returned them to work. It also made Isha twenty-six. The coincidence occupied less of the day than Thomas might once have allowed. Isha took both rings off before beginning her climbing-centre shift, put them back on after changing, received messages from Kanno and several other people who knew the date, and came home to find that Thomas had accepted the Miyato ring cake as sufficient birthday dessert instead of attempting another piece of edible engineering. They ate it after dinner with tea. Thomas said “twenty-six” once while looking at her across the table; Isha told him the number had already been available all day and kissed him before he could justify the observation. The following week settled around them. Thomas went to the university. Isha worked, trained and spent one evening with paper spread across the flexible-room floor because the second hanging had developed another section she disliked. Nagai's full wedding set had still not arrived, but the eighteen preview photographs remained available on their laptop. By Sunday, 14 November, Thomas and Isha had chosen the one they wanted to send. It was the courtyard photograph taken after the ceremony. No guest appeared in it. Thomas stood beside Isha beneath one of the young maples, navy suit and green tie visible beneath the pale autumn light, while Isha's ivory dress fell cleanly to the ground. Neither looked directly at the camera. Her new wedding band was just visible beside the sapphire. They printed the image small enough to sit directly on the lower half of one side of the Common page. The rest of the sheet required less negotiation. > Kelda, and everyone, > > The wedding we told you about happened on 30 October. > > We made our promises to each other and exchanged rings. Seven people we chose were with us. We ate together afterward. The weather was cool and dry, with some sun, exactly as we had hoped. > > The next week we returned for one night to the coast where we took our first Earth holiday after beginning work. We stayed in the same house for travellers, walked by the cold sea and climbed the same small hill. We made new still images there beside the ones from our first visit. > > Isha turned twenty-six by the Earth count on 8 November. We both continue our work. We are well. > > Tessa: I am keeping the arrow. I will not shoot it. I am very glad to have it. Thank you. > > The still image on this page was made on our wedding day. It is ours to send. We are sending it because we want you to see us, not as payment for anything. > > We love you. > > We are safe. > > Thomas and Isha Thomas read the Common twice on Sunday night and found nothing to add. Isha read it once more on Monday morning and found nothing to remove. The page waited under the clean weight throughout the day. --- The direction came at 20:17 on Monday evening. Thomas had finished washing the dinner bowls. Isha was drying the last one when he stopped beside the sink with both hands resting on the counter. She knew the expression before he said anything. “Now?” Thomas nodded. “I think so.” The bowl went onto the drying rack. Within three minutes the flexible room had returned to the arrangement they had used often enough that neither needed to discuss it. Phone. Timer. Water. Clear floor. The outgoing Common sheet beneath the clean weight. Isha sat behind Thomas on the mat, close enough to support his head and shoulders if the transfer took him without warning. The wedding photograph looked oddly small beneath the weight. Thomas glanced at it once. “Ready?” “Yes.” He closed his eyes. Kelda Flintvein of Green Road. The workshop. The road between three houses. The compact shape of a half-dwarf woman whose hands had once held broken structure together while Thomas tried to become more power than any person should have needed. The familiar recognition formed. Grey-white interference crossed his vision. **PROTECTION ENABLED** Thomas gave the combined instruction they had settled into months ago: send what he and Isha had chosen; accept whatever Kelda had chosen to return. The page vanished. A cream sheet appeared beneath the weight. Thomas went slack against Isha. She lowered him onto his right side and started the timer. His pulse remained steady. Breathing normal. No twitching, unusual colour or sign that the protection had failed in any way she could observe. At fifty-three seconds Thomas drew a deeper breath. His eyes opened at fifty-six. “Flat 202,” Isha said. “Sendai. Monday, 15 November 2027.” Thomas focused on her. “Fifty-six?” “Yes.” He moved both hands, checked vision, answered the same questions he had answered after every protected opening and sat slowly once Isha was satisfied enough to let him. No headache. No nausea. No weakness. No confusion. The interface resolved while he drank. **TRANSFER SENT** **TRANSFER RECEIVED** **30 CYCLES TILL NEXT PASSAGE** Nothing else followed. No anomaly line. No biological message. No attempt to explain what the System thought about any of the things that had happened outside it. Thomas wrote **16 outgoing / 14 incoming** into the correspondence log and put down the pen. The cream sheet remained under the weight. They waited ten minutes. At the end of them, Isha lifted the page. Kelda's handwriting filled both sides. The first four words stopped her before she reached the rest. Thomas saw her face change. “What?” Isha handed him the page. He read. > Thomas. Isha. > > We are safe. This page is strange, but the strangeness itself has not harmed us. > > Ian came to Kelda's house. > > We mean the same Ian you described in your last page: the Earth man connected to Tessa's arrow, the old objects and the claims about a written account outside our world. > > He appeared as an ordinary human man. Kelda met him first. Aelira later met him with Kelda present. Sereth, Ruvan and Lethira have also met him. No one named here was ordered to speak with him. > > We do not know fully what Ian is or how he came. We have kept the distinction you asked us to keep. What he did, what we saw and what we chose are evidence. What he says about the thing outside our worlds remains his explanation. > > Ian offered us a way to make a marriage gift for you. > > You already know still likenesses made by capturing light. The black Earth device he brought can also preserve a short span while people continue moving, with their voices and the other sounds around them. Ian says those preserved sights and sounds can be carried to the small Earth devices you use for distant writing without using your little passage. > > He gave the use of that ability to us rather than choosing what we should make. > > We chose where it could be used. Every person could refuse. We decided what was kept and what was discarded. Ian offered to leave while some of us spoke together, and he did not observe those conversations as far as we can judge. Some images were made without him present at all. We tested whether we could delete things before he saw them. We could. > > We have made a bound book here containing still images chosen by us. We have also kept several moving records. No person was required to appear or speak. > > **Do you want to receive this gift?** > > If you do not, one copy remains here and nothing else needs to happen. > > If you want to see proof before deciding, Aelira and Ian made a short moving record together. Aelira says what she personally saw, what we chose and what she cannot prove. Ian does not use that record to explain what he claims to be. Ask for that record if you want it. > > There is another matter. It is separate from the gift. > > Ian told us that when he spoke with Isha on the Earth train, there was an important part of his responsibility for earlier events which he did not state fully. > > We required him to tell the truth here. > > He has made a separate moving record in his own words. Aelira is present in it so you know where and when it was made. Kelda and Lethira were also there by their own choice. > > We believe you should know that this record exists. We have not written its contents on this page because receiving a gift from people who love you should not force you to receive Ian's confession with it. > > **If you want the separate record, ask for it.** > > Whether you ask for it or refuse it does not change our gift. > > Tessa's answer about the arrow has not changed. > > Erenai has not been told that you live on Earth. The rebuilt station was not used for any of this. > > Ian did not go to Thomas's family. He told us that if Thomas and Isha want that question put to them, he will return and ask with help from Kelda and Aelira. We promised nothing for them. > > Kelda > Aelira > Sereth > Ruvan > Lethira Thomas reached the signatures. Then returned to the third line. “Ian came to Kelda's house.” “Yes.” “He told you he would never physically return.” Isha looked at the page. “He said I would never see him again. He said he would not return to the reality I inhabit.” Thomas's eyes narrowed. “And apparently his language was precise enough to leave another world available.” “Yes.” “I dislike that.” “So do I.” The page lay between them. Thomas read the names again. Sereth. Ruvan. Aelira. Lethira. Kelda. His attention stopped at Sereth longer than the others. “He met your mother.” “I know.” “And Kelda.” “I know.” Isha's voice had changed on the second answer. Thomas looked towards her. She had gone very still. Not frightened. Something closer to the expression she had worn when Tessa's arrow first appeared on the train: the point where longing and violation approached one another closely enough that neither could be considered separately. Thomas picked up the page again. “They anticipated the problem.” “Which one?” “All of them, apparently.” He pointed to the distinction between evidence and Ian's claims. “That is almost exactly how we described him.” “Because they read our page.” “Yes.” Thomas's finger moved lower. “But then they tested whether he would leave. Whether they could delete things. Whether someone could refuse.” Isha read the paragraph again. “Aelira.” “Probably.” “Kelda too.” “Definitely.” They stayed with that for a while. The easiest interpretation was also the least useful: Ian could have fabricated the entire page, the handwriting, the passage and any proof they requested. Once someone claimed access at that scale, authentication became philosophically impossible. Thomas had learned years ago that impossibility was not a useful standard for daily decisions. The cream sheet had crossed through the mechanism he and Isha already recognised. Kelda's hand was right down to the heavier pressure on certain downstrokes. The wording about debt, refusal and evidence sounded like people who had spent months replying to them rather than like an Earth man attempting to imitate fantasy dialogue. More importantly, the page did not ask them to trust Ian. It offered Aelira. Isha touched the line. “I want the proof.” Thomas nodded immediately. “So do I.” She picked up her phone. There was no application for this. No address. No saved contact called Ian. No reply route to the senderless messages. Isha held the dark screen for several seconds. Then spoke in English. “Ian. Send the proof recording Aelira described. Only that recording.” Nothing happened. Five seconds. Ten. Thomas looked at her. “Perhaps—” The phone vibrated. Once. The screen woke. There was no message. Instead, the photo application showed one new video at the end of the library. No download icon. No sender. No visible route by which it had arrived. Isha put the phone on the low table between them. The thumbnail showed old stone. Her breathing changed. Thomas saw it before he recognised why. “The bridge.” “Yes.” Isha pressed play. --- Aelira stood beside the old pilgrim bridge. The first shock was movement. Thomas and Isha possessed still images of people from the fantasy world. Kelda's handwriting crossed every month. Memory supplied voices well enough that sometimes Thomas could hear Mira correcting him while he cooked or Kelda insulting a joint he had made badly fifteen years earlier. This was different. Aelira shifted her weight before speaking. Wind moved a few strands of pale hair near her face. Water passed beneath the repaired bridge behind her. Her clothing belonged to the current Wood Elf settlement rather than the formal court Thomas remembered most strongly, practical layers in green and muted brown. She looked older only because Earth had given Thomas and Isha time in which to imagine everyone else continuing. Her eyes were exactly Aelira's. She looked directly into the small lens. “My name is Aelira Caelithen, First Princess of the Wood Elves.” Isha covered her mouth with one hand. Thomas reached for the other. Aelira continued in Common. “I am standing at the old pilgrim bridge where Isha Vaeloren died and Thomas Albrecht restored her.” The camera did not move. “Ian asked to make this record here. He said that he did not want the gift he offered to hide from the harm he says he helped choose. I agreed to the location. Kelda and Lethira are present outside the image by their own choice.” Aelira glanced briefly towards someone beyond the lens. Probably Kelda. Then back. “I have met Ian willingly. Kelda met him first. Sereth, Ruvan and Lethira have also chosen to speak with him. Ian offered to leave while we spoke without him. He did. I cannot prove that whatever he claims allows him to observe us did not do so anyway. I can say that he offered the boundary before we demanded it.” Thomas's grip tightened around Isha's fingers. Aelira continued. “I have seen the black device. I have used it. Kelda has used it. We have made still and moving images and removed some again. We chose when recording began and ended. We chose who appeared. Ian did not choose which moments were important after the fact.” There was a faint sound from beyond the camera. Lethira, perhaps. Aelira's mouth tightened slightly. “We have also learned that some people should not be permitted to comment while another person is making a formal record.” Isha made a sound that was half laugh and half sob. Thomas smiled despite himself. Aelira resumed without turning. “I cannot verify that Ian is a reader, author, editor, architect, deity, machine operator, or any of the other descriptions he apparently finds unsatisfactory.” The dry emphasis on *architect* was unmistakable. “I can verify that he arrived, that he demonstrated abilities outside anything I understand, and that he then allowed us to decide what we wanted to do with them.” She stepped a fraction aside. Ian entered the frame. Black jeans. Black T-shirt. Human. Ordinary enough that the old bridge behind him looked more fantastical than he did. Isha had seen him before. Thomas had not. He studied the man who had known his childhood, read his private fear and given Isha Tessa's arrow. Ian looked tired. Not grand. Not particularly comfortable. Aelira said, “Ian wished to add one sentence.” Ian looked into the lens. “I have offered the option for each person to decide themselves. The choice to record is theirs. The choice to receive is yours. I hope you take it.” He paused. Then, because apparently the structure of reality contained no force capable of preventing him: “This was not the most sensible attire to meet Princess Aelira Caelithen, First Princess of the Wood Elves. But at least it wasn't the version with you on it, Isha.” Aelira's composure cracked. Only slightly. “I was told there was a worse version.” Thomas slowly turned his head towards his wife. Isha did not look at him. “You are not asking.” “I had not yet decided whether survival required it.” “It does.” Thomas returned his attention to the screen. Aelira had recovered. “If you receive this record, it is because you asked for it. The gift is separate. There is also something Ian needs to tell you about choices he made in your past. That is separate again.” Her gaze stayed on the lens. “We have kept those things apart deliberately.” A pause. “You may decide whether you want any of them.” Aelira nodded once. The recording ended. The phone returned to its gallery. Neither Thomas nor Isha moved for several seconds. Then Isha touched the blank screen where Aelira's face had been. “That was her.” “Yes.” “Not a still image.” “No.” Isha's eyes were wet. Thomas's were too. She wiped once beneath one eye and looked at the Common page again. “Aelira believes they were choosing.” “Yes.” “Kelda does.” “Yes.” “Sereth.” Thomas waited. Isha's hand settled over his. Then she said, “I want the other recording.” Thomas did not ask which. “Do you want me with you?” Isha looked at him as though the question had arrived from an unexpected direction. “Yes.” He nodded. “Then I want it too.” Isha picked up the phone again. “Ian.” Her voice was steadier this time. “Send the separate recording.” The phone vibrated almost immediately. A second video appeared. Its thumbnail showed the same bridge. Ian was already in frame. Aelira stood beside him. Isha pressed play. --- Aelira spoke first. “This record is separate from the gift.” The wind had strengthened slightly. A few pale strands crossed her cheek before she moved them away. “Ian told us there was an important part of his responsibility which he did not tell Isha fully when they spoke on Earth. We believe Thomas and Isha should decide whether to hear it from him rather than receive our version of it.” She looked briefly at Ian. “We are at the old pilgrim bridge by his request. I agreed to remain in the image so you know that he made this record here, with us present.” Aelira stepped slightly aside. Ian looked down. Kelda's voice came from behind the camera. “Ready?” Ian took a breath. “I am as ready as I'll ever be.” Then he looked into the lens. “Isha, Thomas, I hope that the proximity of this message to the gift those you love have sent does not tarnish that gift in any way.” Isha's hand found Thomas's. “Isha, when we spoke on the train, I did not give you the full truth.” Ian paused. His gaze moved away from the camera. Down towards the repaired bridge. “I chose your death, which happened here, because—” He swallowed. “—I wanted a good story. One that pushed Thomas towards becoming the Hero.” Thomas stopped breathing for long enough that Isha looked at him. His face had gone still. Not blank. Still. On the screen Ian continued. “I did not expect to go from passive... reader... to... to whatever this is. This is not an excuse. I have come here and asked your friends to help me. You have good friends. They have offered to help me. Not out of fear of a malevolent deity, but because they are great people. Like you. Like Thomas.” His breathing had become uneven. “I am ordinary—this is not self-deprecating, it is fact—with often unpredictable omnipotence.” Thomas's mouth tightened. “It would be foolish to apologise for back then, but I am sorry I didn't open up to you more on the train.” Ian looked at his feet. Then back at the lens. “I didn't want you to leave the train. I could have made you stay, but then you wouldn't be you. But saying the above would have made you leave sooner.” Isha's fingers pressed hard into Thomas's palm. “I am attached to you, to Thomas, to Kelda, Lethira, Aelira, to all of you in different ways. But mostly to you, Thomas, and you, Isha.” His voice caught. “It hurts that I hurt you.” He started crying. Nobody behind the camera interrupted him. There was only running water and wind. Then Ian looked up again. “There is one other thing I want you to know... the name of your story and the first line.” Thomas's attention sharpened. Ian said the title. “*Summoned to another world by accident, I tried to avoid becoming the Hero even though the system kept forcing it on me.*” Thomas's eyes closed. Ian continued. “Chapter One: *Thomas had died once before.*” Thomas opened his eyes again. The bridge remained behind Ian. The same bridge on which Thomas had once held Isha's dead body and discovered that death could become a problem he was willing to destroy himself trying to solve. The title remained in the room after Ian stopped saying it. He looked into the camera one last time. “Please, let me stay connected, in some way. I will try to be a better person.” His voice failed near the end. Nobody spoke. Kelda kept the recording running. Ian cried quietly. Aelira stood beside him. Lethira was nowhere visible, though once the wind shifted Isha could hear her breathing close to the recording device. Then Aelira gave a small nod. The recording ended. --- Thomas took his hand away from Isha's only because he needed both hands over his face. He stayed that way. Isha did not ask him to look at her. The phone remained on the table, frozen on its black end screen. After nearly a minute Thomas lowered his hands. “He killed you to push me towards becoming the Hero.” The sentence came out quietly. “Yes.” “He chose the bridge.” “Yes.” “Because the story needed me to move.” Isha looked down at the phone. “Because he wanted a good story. That is what he said.” Thomas laughed once. There was no humour in it. “That is worse.” “I think so.” He stood. Not to leave. He crossed the flexible room, stopped beside the window and looked into the dark reflection rather than outside. The curtains were still open enough that the room returned him to himself: grey-blue eyes, dark hair, T-shirt, wedding ring, a human body on Earth. The title followed him. *I tried to avoid becoming the Hero even though the system kept forcing it on me.* Thomas rubbed one thumb across the ring. “I hate that the title is accurate.” Isha's voice came from behind him. “It is accurate about one thing you did.” He turned. “What?” “You tried to avoid becoming the Hero.” Thomas looked at her. “He wanted to push you towards it,” Isha said. “He did not get to decide what you became because of that.” “I became enough of it to destroy half my life.” “You also refused the crown. Refused Crownholt. Refused the First Hand's office. Refused to become the permanent warden when that would have been the clean heroic ending.” Thomas looked away. Isha did not follow the thought with a conclusion. The facts were sufficient. After a while he came back and sat beside her. Isha picked up the phone but did not unlock it. “I asked him on the train if he chose the things that hurt us.” “I know.” “He said yes.” Thomas remembered the account. The lamp. Heroes and pain. The broad admission that had been shocking enough before the arrow changed everything. “He answered the question.” “Yes.” “And still did not tell you this.” “No.” Isha's anger was cleaner now than it had been on the train. She understood exactly where to place it. “He should have.” Thomas nodded. “Yes.” Another silence. Then he looked towards the Common page. “He told Sereth.” Isha's face changed. “Yes.” “Your mother asked him?” “We don't know exactly what happened before the recording.” “No.” Thomas looked at the list of names again. “But she knows now.” Isha closed her eyes. Sereth knew that someone beyond the world had selected her daughter's death because it made Thomas's road better. Ruvan knew. Kelda knew. Aelira and Lethira knew. And they had still signed the same page asking whether Thomas and Isha wanted their gift. That mattered to Isha. It did not make Ian's choice smaller. She opened her eyes. “I am still angry with him.” “I would be concerned if you weren't.” “I am also glad he told them.” Thomas's expression tightened. “Eventually.” “Yes.” Neither attempted to convert those statements into forgiveness. Isha looked at the phone. Ian's last request remained there even though the video had ended. *Please, let me stay connected, in some way.* She had answered that question once. Now she knew the answer had been made with incomplete information. Thomas watched her. “You don't have to answer him tonight.” “I know.” “That wasn't permission advice.” “I know that too.” Isha almost smiled. Then she looked towards the dark television screen on the other side of the room, as though its blankness could stand in for whatever place Ian occupied when he was not actively doing something impossible. “Ian.” Thomas stayed silent. “I heard it.” Her voice was calm. “I am angry with you. You should have told me on the train. You knew enough to understand that I was deciding whether you could remain part of my life, and you let me decide without this.” She paused. “That changes how much I trust you.” The room offered no response. Isha continued. “It does not change my answer to no.” Thomas looked at her sharply. Isha corrected herself. “That was badly phrased.” Despite everything, Thomas's mouth moved. “Yes.” “My answer is not *no*.” She looked into the empty room again. “You may remain connected to me under the limits I already gave you. I am more angry now than I was when I gave them. Both things are true.” Her hand closed around Thomas's. “You do not get to call what you did necessary because we are happy now. You do not get to use our present life as proof that the bridge was a good decision.” Nothing appeared. No phone vibration. No new line of text. Good. Isha looked at Thomas. He understood the question before she spoke. “Mine is different.” “Yes.” Thomas rubbed one hand over his face again. “I don't know whether I want him *connected* to me in whatever sense he means.” Isha waited. “I don't want him in my thoughts. I don't want him choosing pain because it improves my character. I especially don't want him using you, Kelda or anyone else as a lever to make me more Hero-shaped.” His gaze dropped to their joined hands. “But he is already outside whatever boundary I would be granting. I can't make him stop existing.” “No.” “So I am not giving him some general permission tonight.” Thomas looked towards the phone. “If he wants to do something that depends on my choice, he can ask me before he does it.” Isha nodded. “That is an answer.” “It is the only one I have.” “It is enough.” The word escaped before she thought about it. Thomas gave her a look. Isha sighed. “You may object to the word.” “Later.” That was the first trace of humour to survive the truth recording. It did not last long. The Common page remained on the table. So did the other question. The gift. Thomas picked up the sheet and read the paragraph again. **Whether you ask for it or refuse it does not change our gift.** Isha read over his shoulder. “The gift is theirs.” “Yes.” “Not his.” “They went to considerable effort to say that.” Isha took a slow breath. “I want it.” Thomas looked at her. “So do I.” This request did not require either of them to think long. Isha held the phone but spoke towards the room instead. “Ian. We accept the gift they chose to send.” Thomas added, “Exactly as they chose it.” Isha glanced towards him. Then finished: “Nothing added. Nothing improved.” For perhaps two seconds, flat 202 remained unchanged. Then something landed softly on the low table. Neither had seen it fall. A book simply occupied the space where there had been no book. At almost the same instant, Isha's phone vibrated. A new collection had appeared in the photo application. No sender. No explanation. Twelve video thumbnails. The System did nothing. No grey-white interference. No notification. No counter change. Thomas looked from the book to the cream page. “Separate mechanism.” “Yes.” That observation was all they gave it. The book deserved the rest. --- The covers were pale wood. Thomas touched one corner first. Real grain. Smooth finish. Thin wooden boards over something firmer beneath. A dark muted green cloth covered the spine, and when Isha opened the front cover she found a woven green lining shot through with irregular pale fibres. No title. No symbol. No names on the cover. The paper inside was thick and warm cream, with thin protective leaves between mounted photographs. Thomas ran one fingertip down the inside edge of the binding. “Hand-bound.” Isha looked at him. “You have had it for twelve seconds.” “I am reporting visible evidence.” “You were about to assess the stitching.” “I am still going to.” “Later.” Thomas accepted the boundary. They turned the first page together. A road. The approach to Green Road. Not a grand view of the three houses. The path came first, curving ahead through familiar land until roofs appeared beyond it. Porridge was little more than a dark shape near a fence. Thomas's hand stopped above the page. “I know that bend.” “So do I.” The next spread contained something neither had ever seen. Green Road from above. High above. The three houses, workshop, paths, fences and surrounding land appeared at an angle no hill, tree or tower could have provided. Porridge stood almost exactly at the centre of the composition. Kelda was visible nearer the workshop, bent over some piece of work. In the far upper-left corner, small enough to miss at first, lay Larchmeet. Isha leaned closer. “Oh.” Thomas did not speak. From the ground, each part of Green Road had always required movement to relate to the others. Kelda's house sat there. Their house here. Workshop between and slightly down. Fence line. Lower bend in the path. Trees beyond. The photograph gathered all of it into one physical arrangement. Thomas touched the protective leaf rather than the image. “That drain.” Isha followed his finger. “The lower path.” “We repaired it twice.” “Kelda repaired it a third time after you tried to improve it.” Thomas looked at her. “I improved the upper section.” “You improved a theory about the upper section.” The old argument arrived so easily that both of them stopped. Then Isha laughed. Thomas did too. Porridge remained in the centre of the photograph, completely unaware that metaphysics had placed him correctly. The next pages moved closer. Their house. Kelda's separate house. The workshop. Paths more worn than Thomas remembered. A roof patch he had never seen. A fence whose repaired section told its own small history. Then Porridge. The first photograph showed him beside the fence in an unusually respectable stance. The second contained mostly nose. Beneath it, in Kelda's handwriting: **This was his choice.** Thomas laughed hard enough that he had to put the book flat. Isha wiped beneath one eye. “She wrote that.” “She did.” “She let him have two pages.” “One and a half.” “Do not reduce Porridge administratively.” Thomas turned the next leaf. Kelda's workshop filled the spread. Tools. Timber. Work in progress. Then the bench closer. Thomas recognised the scars before he recognised the current project lying across it. A shallow chisel mistake near the edge remained exactly where he remembered. His thumb hovered over it. “Kelda kept that.” “It is a workbench.” “I offered to repair it.” “I remember.” “She said she would repair me.” “She was correct.” Thomas smiled faintly and turned the page. The river came next. Isha stopped. Sereth's river. Water ran beneath roots and pale morning light. The first photograph contained no person. The second did. Sereth sat near the shelter with one hand around a cup, looking slightly past whoever had made the photograph. She was not posed. Something beyond the frame had caught her attention at precisely the wrong—or right—moment. Isha's breath left her. Her mother. Not remembered. Not reconstructed through a description. Sereth as she currently lived. Isha leaned so close that a strand of pale hair fell across the protective sheet. Beneath the photograph were three Common words in Sereth's hand. **I am well.** Isha touched the writing. Her face crumpled. Thomas moved beside her before she turned, and she went into him with enough force that he had to brace one hand against the table. Neither spoke. The page stayed open between them. Sereth's handwriting had changed very little. That somehow hurt more than if it had. When Isha could see properly again, she returned to the book. The facing page held Sereth and Kelda together at the river. Sereth smiled at something outside the frame. Kelda looked towards Sereth rather than the device. Isha stared at that photograph for a long time. “She went to her.” Thomas knew which relationship she meant. “Kelda?” “Yes.” The next pages belonged to Ruvan. His practice ground stood empty in the first image: target line, bow stand, roots, trees. The second caught him replacing a damaged target face. His back was partly turned. His bow leaned against a stand rather than occupying his hands. Isha smiled. “He agreed to that because his face is barely visible.” “Seems plausible.” Then came a low root beside the range. Thomas did not immediately recognise it. Isha did. “I sat there after an argument with him.” “What about?” She thought. “I do not remember the exact beginning.” “That makes it sound significant.” “It probably was at the time.” The root required no caption. Lethira's platform followed. Thomas recognised it from Isha's descriptions before the changed rail or view properly settled into place. One photograph showed the settlement through leaves. Another showed Lethira sitting on the edge with her back partly towards the device, looking outward rather than performing for it. Underneath, Lethira had written: **The bow on your shirt was still bad.** Isha closed her eyes. Thomas read the line again. “Context?” “No.” “You know I will eventually discover it.” “I know no such thing.” “I am married to you.” “That grants no archaeological rights.” Thomas turned the page while smiling. The communal meal occupied the next spread. Five people around a low table. Kelda reaching for a dish. Aelira pushing it closer from the other side. Sereth laughing. Lethira visibly halfway through saying something. Ruvan holding a cup and looking as though he had already reached a judgement nobody else had requested. Nobody looked at the camera. Thomas stared. “They're eating.” “Yes.” The sentence sounded inadequate because it was exact. The book moved outward after that. Lower settlement paths. One old bridge between trees. The central tree from ground level rather than from any ceremonial angle. The lower guest house. A gap near the ward line where the forest opened to sky. Thomas pointed at the guest house. “I slept there.” “I know.” “Many times.” “I was assigned to stop you causing problems.” “You were only moderately successful.” “I was very successful. Your natural rate was much higher.” The photograph of Aelira came later. No throne. No council hall. She stood beneath the central tree speaking with someone whose face lay outside the frame. One hand lifted slightly while she listened. Her clothes were practical enough that a stranger would not have known she was a princess. Isha touched the edge of the image. “She chose that.” “Yes.” The final photographs returned to Green Road. Late light. The houses from farther down the road. Their door. Closed. Thomas looked at it. In his memory, Kelda had left that door closed and unlocked. The photograph did not show the second part. It did not need to. Then the workshop again. And finally Kelda. She stood behind the bench with both hands on its scarred surface. Work shirt. Hair tied back badly enough for one piece to have escaped. No armour. No hammer raised. She looked directly at the camera. Beneath the image: **Still here. Still working.** Thomas's breath broke. Isha put one hand against his back. He read the words again. Then a third time. Kelda had written them in the same hand that filled fourteen cream replies, except this was not a report about a culvert, station, bench, arrow or family question. Just Kelda. Still there. Thomas wiped his face and laughed once at himself without humour. “I knew that.” Isha's hand moved slowly between his shoulders. “I know.” “I have fourteen pages proving it.” “Yes.” He looked at the photograph. “This is different.” Isha did not explain why. The next page was blank. So was the next. And the one after that. Several empty leaves waited before the back cover. Thomas turned one, then another. “For us?” “I think so.” Neither filled them. The book closed softly. For a while it remained beneath both their hands. Then Thomas looked at the cream page again. The final paragraph. His family. “Ian didn't go to them.” “No.” “He was willing to if we ask.” “Yes.” Thomas looked towards the book. There was no Mira. No Rowan. No Mara. No Tessa except indirectly through the arrow already in 202. The absence hurt, but it did not feel like exclusion. Ian had stopped somewhere. The people who had already engaged with his proposal had made what they wanted without assuming Thomas's family should be added because a complete gift required them. Thomas rubbed his thumb across his wedding ring. “I think I want them asked.” Isha waited. “Asked,” he repeated. “Not surprised by him appearing at the farm. Not told they should record anything because we accepted this.” “Then Kelda asks first.” Thomas nodded. “And we decide the wording before we tell Ian to do anything.” “Yes.” “Not tonight.” “No.” The decision remained there. There were twelve videos on Isha's phone. She picked it up. Her thumb stopped above one thumbnail almost immediately. The river. Thomas saw Sereth in the tiny frame. “Her first?” Isha nodded. “Yes.” She pressed play. --- Water filled the screen. Not dramatically. The device had been placed low enough that the river occupied the lower half of the image and the old shelter stood behind it. Leaves moved. Somewhere beyond the frame a bird repeated the same three-note call twice. Then Sereth sat down. Isha stopped breathing. Her mother adjusted the position of the device once. Too low. Then once again. Better. Sereth looked into the lens. For several seconds she said nothing. Her expression held the exact seriousness Isha remembered from childhood conversations in which Sereth had already decided that pretending not to know something would waste both their time. “Isha.” Isha's fingers shook around the phone. “I have tried to decide what I should tell you while you can see my face.” Sereth paused. “That was a mistake. You would object to *should*.” Isha laughed through the first tears. Thomas's hand covered hers around the phone. Sereth continued. “I am well.” She glanced towards the river. “Ruvan is still Ruvan. Aelira remains more patient than most of us deserve. Lethira remains dangerous. Kelda is here.” A faint smile. “I miss you.” The smile disappeared, but not into grief. “I miss you when something happens that you would notice. I miss you when nothing happens. Sometimes I think of something I would tell you and remember there is no road for the telling.” Sereth looked down at her hands. “I do not spend every morning waiting for you to return.” Isha made a small sound. Sereth looked up again. “I live here.” The words came gently. “I have meals. I work. I become annoyed with your uncle. I speak to Aelira. Lethira appears when she has not been invited and claims this is a social improvement. There are days when I am happy for the whole day before I remember that you are somewhere I cannot reach.” Sereth's mouth tightened slightly. “Remembering does not ruin the day.” Isha bent forward. Thomas moved with her, keeping the phone upright. Sereth continued from the small screen. “I saw the still likeness of you and Thomas.” Her eyes softened. “You look human.” A pause. “You also look like yourself.” Isha covered her face with her free hand. “I do not know whether this is the part we will send you. I may decide tomorrow that speaking to a black square was foolish and make them remove it.” Sereth looked briefly off-camera. Someone said something too quiet to understand. She frowned. “No, Ruvan.” Isha laughed helplessly. Sereth returned her attention to the lens. “If you receive this, it means I did not change my mind.” She smiled. Not broadly. Enough. “I love you.” The recording continued for perhaps two seconds after she finished. Sereth leaned forward to stop it. Her face came too close to the lens. The image tilted. Then ended. Isha lowered the phone. She cried against Thomas for a long time. There was no reason to moderate it. No train passengers. No work morning waiting in the next hour. No one in the room who needed the emotion translated into something easier. Thomas held her. After a while she sat up again. “I want to watch it again.” “Now?” “Yes.” They watched Sereth again. The second time Isha cried earlier and laughed more. When it ended, she did not start a third. Not yet. There were other people. Ruvan's first recording contained almost no speech. The practice ground filled the frame while wind moved through the leaves. An arrow struck a target from outside view. Then another. Ruvan entered only to collect them. He looked once towards the device. “If you are keeping this, keep the empty part too.” Then he walked out of frame again. Isha smiled. “That is extremely him.” A second Ruvan clip showed target repair and a short explanation of why one support had been replaced rather than repaired. Thomas listened more carefully than the subject justified because he had missed Ruvan's voice. Lethira's recording began at the childhood platform. She appeared only after nearly half a minute of trees and distant settlement sound. “Isha will care more about this than watching me shoot,” she said, settling beside the rail. Then she looked directly into the lens. “Although I remain very good.” Isha snorted. Lethira smiled as though she had expected the reaction across worlds. She spent most of the recording showing the changed platform, the repaired rail and the view below. Near the end she said nothing for almost a minute. Thomas and Isha watched the forest move behind her. Then the clip ended. The Green Road recordings were shorter. House. Workshop. Road. Fence. One contained Porridge walking calmly across the frame. The next contained Porridge discovering the device. His nose expanded until almost nothing else remained. The image shook violently. Kelda swore somewhere beyond the frame. The recording ended. Thomas bent over laughing. Isha had to put the phone down. “That,” Thomas said when breathing became possible again, “may be the most authentic evidence we possess.” “I think he bit it.” “He inspected it.” “With teeth.” “Quality control.” They watched it again. Then came the communal meal. Fifteen minutes. The device remained fixed at the end of a low table. Kelda, Sereth, Ruvan, Lethira and Aelira sat around ordinary food. Nobody introduced themselves. Nobody addressed Thomas or Isha. For several seconds nobody said much at all. Then Lethira looked at Kelda. “You are watching it.” “I am eating.” “You are checking whether it works.” “I can do both.” Ruvan said, “That explains neither activity being done well.” Kelda turned towards him. The argument began. Not about Ian. Not about Earth. About whether Kelda had repositioned the device twice after everyone had already agreed where it should sit. Sereth laughed before anyone established the facts. Aelira tried to continue eating. Lethira denied having moved a borrowed knife that everyone apparently knew she had moved. Kelda took more greens. Aelira pushed the dish closer without interrupting whatever Sereth was saying. The conversation drifted. A repair near the eastern ward. Someone's roof. A young archer whose draw had become too ambitious. Whether a particular batch of hard cakes represented improvement or tactical escalation. Thomas leaned towards the screen. “They still make those?” Isha looked at him. “You sound disappointed.” “I thought time might solve them.” “Some traditions survive adversity.” Halfway through the recording, Sereth said something that made Lethira laugh while she still had food in her mouth. Aelira looked appalled. Kelda saw Aelira's face and began laughing too. Even Ruvan smiled. Thomas stopped talking. The camera did not move towards any of them. It simply stayed where they had put it. Nobody gave a message. Nobody described how much they missed Thomas or Isha. Nobody explained how life had continued. They ate lunch. Near the end, conversation faded for several seconds because everyone was occupied with food. Birds filled the gap. Then Ruvan put down his cup. “There is one thing about this I still dislike.” Aelira's hand moved immediately towards the device. The recording ended. Thomas stared at the black screen. Isha wiped her face. “That is exactly him.” Thomas started laughing again. They had finished with the moving records for the night. The book remained on the low table, closed now, with the cream correspondence page beside it. Isha had put the phone down after watching Sereth's message for the second time and Porridge's assault upon photographic technology for the third. It vibrated. Once. Isha and Thomas both looked at it. No contact name appeared. No number. Isha unlocked the screen. > Isha. I'm sorry I was a coward and hid the truth. I broke down with your friends and asked them to help me as I had no idea what I was doing. They said yes. I'm glad I was able to, hopefully, come up with a gift idea that didn't make things worse. I promised I wouldn't return to your world and I won't. I will face Thomas' family if you both wish it, I hope you do so I make hope they also send you messages. The tears were real, in this place. My reality. That doesn't match what you went through nor Thomas. Ian. Isha read it once. Then again. Thomas did not ask to see it. She passed him the phone anyway. He read more slowly. When he finished, he remained looking at the screen for several seconds before handing it back. “He is asking.” “Yes.” “Not going.” “Yes.” That mattered. Isha returned to the beginning of the message. *I was a coward and hid the truth.* Her anger did not disappear because Ian had found the same description for his conduct that she would have used. The admission was still better than another explanation of machinery, authorship or what he had intended. Her thumb moved down the screen. “The tears.” Thomas waited. “I believed him.” “You did?” “I believed he was crying when I saw the recording.” Isha looked towards the closed book. “That was never the problem.” Thomas nodded. “No.” “I do not need his pain to be equal to mine before it is real.” She locked the phone. For a moment she considered leaving the message unanswered. There was no reply field that led anywhere useful, and Ian had not asked a question requiring an immediate decision. But one part already had an answer. Isha looked towards the room rather than the phone. “Ian.” Thomas turned slightly towards her. “I believe you cried. I believe you are sorry you hid the truth. I am still angry that you did.” She paused. “As for Thomas's family: do not go to them yet.” Thomas's hand found hers. “Kelda asks them first,” Isha continued. “They decide whether they want to meet you. If they say yes, then you may go. Kelda should be there. Aelira too, if she wishes.” She looked at Thomas. He nodded. “And if they say no,” he added, “that is the end of it.” Isha looked back towards the empty room. “You heard him.” Nothing answered. No vibration. No impossible object. The flat remained exactly as it was. Isha put the phone beside the book. Thomas looked at the pale wooden cover. “I hope they say yes.” “So do I.” That answer was allowed to be about his family rather than Ian. Isha opened the book again to Kelda's final photograph. **Still here. Still working.** Thomas sat beside her. They left the phone where it was. The phone vibrated again less than a minute later. > I will ask Kelda to go, and whatever happens I will ask your friends to share the results. I'm glad you liked the weather. Thomas read it over Isha's shoulder. “He heard us.” “Yes.” Isha's attention stayed on the final sentence. Thomas noticed. “That is closer to claiming the weather.” “Much closer.” “Still not evidence of how.” “No.” She locked the phone. Then, after a moment, looked towards the empty room. “I did like the weather, Ian.” A pause. “Thank you for asking first.” Nothing more arrived.