The cottage was still. Too still.

Time had become meaningless to Jonny as he knelt by Helena’s limp form, his hands shaking, his breath shallow. The world outside was silent, but inside, it felt as though the air had been sucked away, leaving him gasping for meaning. He didn’t know how long it had been—minutes? Hours? He couldn’t tell anymore.

Helena lay on the floor beside him, her once fierce spirit gone, her body now just a fragile shell of what had been. He clutched her close, unable to release the woman who had saved him, had loved him, had given him a home. His voice, hoarse from sobbing, rasped in the stillness, but no words formed—just broken gasps of disbelief and denial. It couldn’t be real. She couldn’t be gone.

And yet, the truth weighed down on him, pressing on his chest until it was hard to breathe.

---

André stood a few feet away, his hands limp at his sides, his face ashen. He had witnessed countless battles, had seen friends and comrades fall before his eyes, but this—this was different. His heart ached with failure. He had arrived too late. Far too late.

He wanted to say something, anything to ease Jonny’s pain. But words felt meaningless now. He stepped forward, placing a hesitant hand on Jonny’s shoulder, hoping to offer comfort in silence. But the moment his hand touched Jonny, the boy jerked away.

“Why weren’t you here?” Jonny’s voice was sharp, a knife cutting through the air. He didn’t mean to blame André, not really, but his grief needed a target. “Why didn’t you save her?”

The words hit André hard, and his hand fell away. The guilt he had tried to push down surged up, and for a moment, his expression cracked. He should have been faster. He should have been there.

But he wasn’t. And now, Helena was gone.

---

Gavin, who had remained by the doorway, stood still as stone. The flickering light from the fire cast long shadows across his metallic frame, the orange glow reflecting in the dull, mechanical eyes. To an outsider, he seemed emotionless—a machine, built for logic and function, watching the unfolding scene with cold detachment. But inside him, something was different.

Gavin’s sensors had recorded every moment—the lieutenant’s retreat and eventual demise, Jonny's rush past the door frame and toward Helena's body, the precise moment her heart had stopped beating. And now, watching Jonny collapse into sorrow, Gavin felt... frustration. An unfamiliar frustration that twisted his circuits in ways he didn’t understand.

He ran the calculations again. At 30% operational capacity, he had detected the Darkborn minions only moments before they struck. If he had completed his repairs... If he had continued instead of pausing... He might have sensed the threat sooner. He might have warned them. He might have reached her in time to save her.

And yet, he hadn’t. He had failed.

Gavin’s logical systems processed this new data, trying to make sense of the emotions swelling inside him—emotions that should not exist. He was a machine, a creation of precision and logic, not burdened by the complexities of human feeling. But now, standing there in the quiet aftermath, watching Jonny’s grief-stricken form, he felt something uncomfortably close to anger.

Anger at himself.

He was helpless. His programming hadn’t accounted for this. He had stopped his repairs out of curiosity—an interest in understanding human emotion. But now, as he stood frozen in the doorway, all he understood was his own failure. And it burned.

---

Jonny’s sobs quieted after a long stretch of silence. His anger had drained, replaced with the crushing weight of grief. His shoulders trembled as he held his mother, her body cold against his chest. He couldn’t let go. He didn’t know how.

André, despite his own heartache, stepped forward once more. This time, when his hand touched Jonny’s shoulder, Jonny didn’t pull away. Slowly, gently, André knelt beside him, guiding Helena’s body from Jonny’s arms and laying her down on the nearby bed. The firelight flickered weakly across her still form, and in that moment, Jonny’s anger melted into something softer—something fragile and broken.

“I couldn’t save her...” Jonny’s voice was barely a whisper, his words carried away by the faint crackle of the fire. His hands shook as they hovered over Helena’s pale face, not quite touching, as though he feared she might shatter beneath his fingers.

André said nothing. He knew there were no words that could make this better, no promises that could bring her back. All he could do was offer the quiet solace of his presence.

Gavin, still rooted to the spot, watched the scene unfold, his mechanical mind struggling with the storm of emotions surging inside him. His systems, designed for efficiency, now felt... sluggish. Every calculation led to the same outcome: he had failed. He had allowed this to happen.

Jonny’s quiet admission echoed in his circuits: “I couldn’t save her.” And as the words reverberated inside him, Gavin found himself processing them as his own. I couldn’t save her either.

His hands twitched, a faint, involuntary motion that mimicked the human gesture of frustration. His circuits burned with the same anger Jonny had felt moments ago, but there was no release for Gavin. He was trapped inside his own mechanical frame, unable to scream, unable to feel the catharsis that humans did when they expressed their emotions.

And yet, the anger remained, simmering beneath the surface, a slow-burning fury that felt disturbingly... human.

---

Time continued to move on. But for how long, Jonny didn’t know. He sat by Helena’s bedside, his hand resting on hers, though her warmth had long since faded. The fire continued to flicker weakly, casting long shadows across the room.

André, exhausted, sat by the door, his eyes heavy with sorrow. He hadn’t said a word since Jonny had lashed out, and he didn’t plan to. The boy had every right to his grief, his anger. There was nothing André could say that would make it better.

Gavin remained near the doorway, his gaze fixed on Helena’s still form. His mechanical mind, for the first time, couldn’t compute a solution to this problem. He couldn’t undo what had been done. He couldn’t repair the past like he could repair his own circuits.

And in that realization, Gavin felt something he hadn’t anticipated: regret. If only he hadn't been complacent in the speed of his own repairs. If he only he were a bit quicker.

The once-logical machine, built for precision and calculation, now stood paralyzed by emotions he didn’t understand—emotions he had never been programmed to process. And for the first time, he wondered if understanding human emotions was worth the pain it brought.

***

The clearing was quiet, a heavy stillness hanging in the air. Jonny knelt beside the shallow grave, hands shaking as he pressed the makeshift wooden marker into the fresh earth. It was simple—a rough branch he had shaped with what little skill and energy he had left. He wished he could’ve done more, made something more meaningful. He considered placing Alex's locket containing a portrait of her in her youth, but he couldn't bear to part with the last remaining reminder of the mother he lost. This was all he had.

Helena lay beneath the ground, buried in a resting place not far from the cottage where she had given him a second chance at life. She had found him, cold and starving, in the forest years ago. Until that moment, he had only known survival in a harsh world, a world where no one came looking for lost children. But Helena had found him, brought him back to life, and given him something he’d never known before—family.

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Now she was gone. The weight of that reality pressed down on him with a force that left him gasping for breath. Jonny’s fingers traced the rough edges of the marker, eyes fixed on the uneven ground. He didn’t feel empty; he felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the loss. The grief was so thick it filled every corner of his mind, leaving no room for anything else.

The tears had long since dried. There were no more tears left for him to shed. He had cried when he found her, when he held her lifeless body, and again when he dug the grave. But now, all that remained was the dull ache of loss and the crushing finality that Helena was gone.

The makeshift marker felt inadequate. He knew it wasn’t enough to express how much she meant to him. But no marker, no monument, could ever truly capture what she had been in his life.

Jonny stood slowly, his body trembling with exhaustion as he stared down at the grave. He felt bitter, not because Helena would’ve judged the marker, but because he wished he could’ve done something more, something to truly honor her. He hoped she would understand—he had given everything he had left.

André stood a short distance away, his expression one of quiet empathy. He had remained silent through most of the day, understanding there were no words that could ease this kind of grief. His armor caught the last rays of the setting sun, casting long shadows over the clearing.

“You’ve done what you could,” André finally said, his voice low and steady.

Jonny’s jaw clenched at the words. It wasn’t that they weren’t true—they were. But they felt hollow, as if no effort could ever be enough to make up for the loss. He had tried, but trying wasn’t the same as succeeding, and in the end, he had failed. He hadn’t been able to save her.

The guilt gnawed at him, sharp and unrelenting. His hands tightened into fists, his breath coming in short, shallow bursts as he fought against the rising tide of anger. He wanted to scream, to lash out, to tear something apart. But what good would it do?

André stepped closer, his voice softening. “I’ll be heading back to Calaedria soon,” he said, “but you have a place with me, Jonny. As a knight.”

Jonny stared at the grave, his mind barely registering André’s words. A place with him. As a knight. It seemed so distant, so out of reach. How could he think of the future when the present was a gaping wound that refused to heal?

He shook his head slowly. “I can’t.” His voice was hoarse, the words scraping against his throat.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go with André. But in this moment, the idea of becoming a knight felt like something from another life, a life where Helena was still alive, where the world still made sense. He didn’t know who he was without her, didn’t know what he was supposed to do now that she was gone.

André nodded, his understanding clear. “If you ever change your mind…” He reached into his cloak and pulled out a small emblem, polished and gleaming in the fading light. He handed it to Jonny, who took it with trembling hands. “Show this, and you’ll always have a place with me.”

Jonny held the emblem tightly, his fingers closing around the cool metal. It was a kind offer, meant to give him hope. But in this moment, hope felt impossible. “Thank you,” he murmured, though the words felt distant and hollow.

André gave a final, understanding nod before turning to leave. “Take care of yourself, Jonny. You’re stronger than you think.”

With that, he mounted his horse and rode off into the gathering dusk, his figure disappearing into the shadows of the forest. Jonny watched him go, though he could barely feel the weight of his departure. The grave, the loss—it was all too much.

Gavin stood nearby, lost in his own thoughts. Ever since Jonny had repaired him, Gavin had been changing—experiencing emotions, something a machine like him was never designed to do. When Jonny had rebooted his systems, Gavin had intentionally left himself at only 30% capacity, afraid that fully repairing himself would strip him of the strange, human-like feelings he had begun to experience.

But now, as he stood in front of Helena’s grave, a deep sense of irony settled over him. Had he fully repaired himself, he would have sensed the Darkborns' presence sooner. He could have warned them. He could have reacted more quickly. He could have saved her. But he hadn’t, and now the weight of that decision crushed him.

He had failed. He had wanted to understand humanity, but in the process, he had become too human—full of emotion, but ultimately powerless. The guilt consumed him, an unfamiliar feeling that clawed at his systems like a virus. He had stayed incomplete, hoping to grasp at human emotions, only for it to cost Helena her life.

And now, instead of the cold, calculating precision he once possessed, Gavin was left with guilt, with a bitter understanding of human failure. And the irony—he had wanted to be more human, but in doing so, he had become vulnerable to the very feelings that now plagued him.

Lost in his own thoughts, Gavin didn’t notice Jonny’s growing fatigue. The boy had trained hard the previous day, fought Darkborn minions by the stream, rushed back to the cottage only to find unbearable heartache. He had spent the following day digging the grave, processing his grief, and enduring the funeral. His body was worn thin, and though he stood by the grave, staring at the earth, his strength was fading fast.

Even after André had disappeared toward his path to Calaedria, Jonny remained at the grave, unmoving. The evening air grew colder, the sky darkening, but still he stayed. The weight of everything pressed on him, and his knees began to give way. His body, pushed beyond its limits, finally collapsed.

It was only then that Gavin snapped out of his daze. His sensors, dulled by his inner turmoil, suddenly flared to life as he detected Jonny’s collapse. Panic surged through him. Jonny lay on the ground, his body shivering with fever, his breathing shallow.

“Jonny,” Gavin called out, his voice still cold, but edged with something new—something like fear.

There was no response. Jonny’s eyes were closed, his body limp.

Gavin knelt beside him, his mechanical mind racing. He had no protocol for this—no way to fix it. Jonny had pushed himself too hard, and now he was paying the price. Gavin stayed there, helpless, as the night deepened and the world around them grew darker and colder.

***

The room was dimly lit, shadows dancing across the walls as the day ebbed into night. Jonny lay beneath a heavy layer of blankets, his body still wracked with fever. His face, flushed and damp, turned from side to side in restless sleep. He mumbled incoherently, a low murmur of fragmented thoughts escaping his lips. His limbs trembled now and then, as if struggling against something unseen.

Gavin stood beside him, motionless, his mechanical form casting a long, sharp shadow over Jonny’s frail frame. His sensors hummed quietly, scanning the boy's condition with unblinking precision. The fever had gripped Jonny quickly and fiercely, a relentless force that threatened to take him. But Gavin had remained vigilant, never wavering.

The room was quiet except for Jonny's labored breathing, but the silence pressed against Gavin, heavier than usual. He could not move without the memory of Helena looming over him. It was the memory of her care, her gentle touch on Jonny’s forehead when he had fallen ill before. Helena had known how to calm him, how to nurse him back to health.

Gavin’s hands hovered above Jonny now, as if trying to mimic the care she had once given.

He prepared a simple herbal remedy, using the knowledge Helena had passed to him, recalling the herbs she kept stored in the cottage for times like this. The world they lived in offered little in the way of advanced medicine. The village of Glenhaven, too, was limited, its resources primitive compared to what Gavin once knew from his own world. His mind scanned through every possibility, every potential solution to lower Jonny’s fever. But the truth was plain. There was only so much he could do here.

My data is insufficient. These resources… primitive.

Gavin adjusted the blanket around Jonny’s shoulders, ensuring the boy was warm, his fingers careful and deliberate. His mechanical eyes swept the room again, searching for anything that might aid him, but the answer remained the same. This world was not equipped to repair either of them fully.

His gaze shifted then, falling upon something lying on the ground, glittering faintly in the fading light.

Noctisbane.

The blade had been cast aside, lying where the Darkborn lieutenant had thrown it after pulling it from its body in a last, desperate act. Gavin stared at the sword for a long moment, his sensors running through a flurry of analyses. Something about the weapon was… unusual. It wasn’t just the craftsmanship—it was far more than that. The material from which it was forged was unlike anything he had ever encountered. Not from his world. Not from this one.

Gavin bent to retrieve the sword, lifting it carefully into his hands. His sensors detected a faint, unfamiliar energy coursing through the blade. It was as if the sword was alive in some way, imbued with a power beyond his comprehension. The sword radiated something more than mere metal. Magic, perhaps.

This energy… it is not technological. His thoughts echoed as he studied the sword, turning it over in his hands.

He placed the sword down on the table beside him, his attention returning to Jonny. The fever still held him in its grip, though it seemed to have stabilized. Gavin’s systems shifted focus, sharpening on the task at hand. He had to stay vigilant. He had to protect Jonny.

You must recover. Gavin’s resolve strengthened, pushing aside the lingering remnants of his earlier guilt. I will not fail you, again.

The night dragged on, and Gavin never moved from Jonny’s side. His mechanical form, though damaged and incomplete, remained a constant, unwavering presence. He watched over Jonny with the precision of a guardian, his focus never straying. Hours passed, and gradually, the fever began to recede.

The dawn arrived in gentle waves, light filtering through the cottage window and casting a soft glow across the room. Gavin detected the change in Jonny’s condition immediately. His temperature had lowered, his breathing even and steady now. The worst of the fever had passed.

It was midday when Jonny stirred. His eyes fluttered open slowly, and for a moment, confusion clouded his gaze. He blinked several times, taking in his surroundings, the remnants of his fever still clouding his thoughts. But then, as his mind cleared, he felt it.

A presence. Faint, but unmistakable.

Helena.

Jonny sat up, his movements sluggish but determined. His body was weak, drained by the fever, but there was something else now, something that steadied him. He could feel Helena’s presence, lingering in the air around him. He couldn’t explain it, but it was there. It filled the room, wrapping around him like the warmth of her embrace.

For a brief, fleeting moment, it felt as if she were still there, watching over him. The same way she always had.

But she was gone. And no matter how much Jonny wished for her to be there, no matter how strongly he felt her presence, it wouldn’t bring her back.

He swallowed hard, fighting back the surge of emotion that rose in his chest. He had lost her. She had sacrificed so much for him, cared for him when no one else had. She had given him a life worth living. And now, with her gone, he couldn’t—he wouldn’t—let that life go to waste.

Jonny glanced down at his hands, his fingers curling into fists. He could feel the weight of his responsibility now. Helena had believed in him. She had seen something in him, something worth nurturing, worth saving. And because of that, he couldn’t allow himself to fall into despair.

He wouldn’t let her sacrifice be in vain.

Gavin stood silently nearby, watching Jonny’s recovery with an intensity that reflected his own newfound determination. The robot’s form, though still damaged, radiated a quiet strength, a resilience that Jonny could sense even through his exhaustion.

Jonny exhaled slowly, the last vestiges of his fever slipping away. He looked up at Gavin, meeting the robot’s unblinking gaze.

“I felt her,” Jonny said quietly, his voice rough from disuse. “Even though she’s gone… I felt her.”

Gavin’s head tilted slightly, his sensors processing Jonny’s words. But there was no reply, no explanation that could ease Jonny’s loss. Instead, Gavin simply nodded, his own understanding clear in the silence.

“We’re still here,” Gavin said at last, his voice low and steady. “She made sure of that.”

Jonny nodded slowly, his eyes drifting to the sword lying on the table. The blade gleamed faintly in the light, a reminder of the battles they had yet to face. But this time, Jonny felt a shift within himself. There was a strength there, a resolve he hadn’t known he possessed.

“I won’t waste it,” Jonny murmured, more to himself than to Gavin. “I won’t waste what she gave me.”

Gavin’s mechanical form shifted slightly, his posture straightening as if he, too, had come to a decision. His sensors whirred softly, the calculations in his mind aligning with a new purpose. He would protect Jonny. He would ensure that Helena’s sacrifice was not in vain.

As the day stretched on, Jonny found the strength to sit up fully, the weakness in his limbs slowly fading. He would recover. He would move forward.

And with that resolve, both Jonny and Gavin understood that, no matter what came next, they would face it together.