I sighed as the mugger said, “Empty your purse.” He had a thick Jarlish accent, making his y’s sound like i’s. Under that, I could hear the telltale squeak of youth in his voice. He wasn’t even half my age.

Another mugger stepped out from an alley in front of me, melting out of the shadow. He was young too, barely old enough for the hairs that grew like weeds on his chin. A third and final mugger stepped out of another alley, holding a knife. She was even older than the first two muggers.

“Your purse,” the mugger growled. In a flash, I grabbed his knife by the blade and twisted it out of my hand. Blood ran down my hand, but it came free from his grip. I wheeled around and punched him in the windpipe, as gently as I could.

He fell to his knees, wheezing. The second mugger took a step forward, but I flipped the knife I’d taken over in my hand and flung it into his shoulder. He screamed in pain.

The third mugger ran off. She was clearly smarter than her friends. I sighed and grabbed the first mugger by the collar, hauling him to his feet.

“You know, back in my day, they hung you for stealing,” I said, dusting the mugger off. He was still gasping for air and his friend continued to groan in pain, but I ignored them both. “They hung you for a lot of crimes, it was a part of a big push to reduce crime.”

I clicked my tongue and shook my head, half-lost in old memories. “It didn’t work. What happened is that every time muggers would rob someone, they’d just cut their throats too. I mean, really, what was the point of leaving a witness around to blab to the police if the punishment was the same either way? Right?”

The mugger’s breathing began to normalize, so I fixed his collar and let go of him. “The big drop in crime didn’t happen until they started subsidizing grain and lowered the punishments,” I explained. “Just so you have your history straight.”

Then, I walked to the river bank, leaving two very confused muggers behind. I stared at the river as it slowly made it’s way toward the ocean, and I listened to it’s faint trickle and the calming lapping of water against stone.

Yvlan’s words echoed in my mind.

“You need to go home, Jonas.”

I didn’t even know where home was.

—

Two weeks later, I was at the first place I’d ever called home. My hometown, a village so long gone that no one except me remembered it’s name. I now realize that throughout this entire story, I haven’t named my hometown. This wasn’t intentional except perhaps on a subconscious level, but I think I like it.

As I paused to fill my waterskin in the river, I realized that I could see my breath in the air. I looked up, squinting, and saw that the sun was well in the sky, near it’s apex. Winter was nearly here, or perhaps it was here already, and I was just too slow to realize it.

I shivered and tied up my waterskin as a cold breeze flew through the valley. Behind me, consumed by time, buried by overgrowth, there was the corpse of the place I was born. Was this home, for me?

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Could I make a home here, away from civilization, admits the remnants of a small village, living with all the good and bad memories that came with this place?

A coughing fit fell over me, twisting and curling in my insides, forcing me to my knees. After a minute, it was gone. When I took my hand away from my mouth, there was blood staining the cloth wrappings around my palm.

I got to my feet and began the long trek back to the Capital. This wasn’t home. I didn’t want to die here.

—

An early snow beset the Capital, blanketing the city in white and cold. Citizens bundled up, warmed themselves by the fire, and filled their bellies with drink and warm food. I was sitting by the door at the Clucking Hen, doing bouncer things.

Really, I could tell Yvlan had given me the job out of pity, to give me something to do and to have a bit of spending money, because there weren’t many people stupid enough to make trouble at the Clucking Hen, but I appreciated it all the same. I got to spend my days reading, relaxing, and talking to people.

I could eat dinner with Xico every day, I could meet Char as often as I wanted, and best of all, I didn’t have to hunt anything. No monsters, people, or paychecks. Everything I needed practically came to me.

Once in a while, when I was feeling violent, Yvlan would enlist me to fight a couple rounds in her arena. She’d bill me as Thésmos, the Minotaur Slayer, and she’d make me dress up like this character from Urelian legend. She made a whole show of it and while I didn’t get any kicks out of it, it paid well enough that I could buy Xico something nice. The fights were all pretty easy and if they weren’t, none of them were deadly. I think I liked that.

After three months of this idyllic lifestyle, Red came to visit me. She looked the same as ever and according to her, I looked like shit.

“Don’t listen to her,” Abraxas said. “We’re happy here. Life is good, we’re in no danger.” He sipped tea from a cup that didn’t exist and sat at a table behind me, leaning over my shoulder to whisper in my ear.

“My lord,” Red said, “you’re not meant to languish like this.”

I scoffed. “Languish? I’m hardly languishing. Besides, you’re a lapdog for the Guild. How’s that treating you?”

Red rolled her eyes and reached into her bag. She pulled out a small mirror and held it up to my face. “Look at yourself,” she pleaded.

I did. There wasn’t anything too surprising there. For better or worse, I looked old. Tired. I hadn’t shaved and my eyes had that look of surrender that aimless people get. I pushed the mirror down and shook my head. “Where have you been?”

Red smiled. “Here and there,” she said. “Looking for something to fix your situation.”

“I told you, I’m fine at the bar,” I growled. Yvlan, Xico, and Char might disagree, but I liked it my new life.

Red sighed and reached into her bag. She pulled out a photograph and slid it across the table from me. “This is a press photograph taken from the day the Pacifist Constitution failed in Parliament.”

I didn’t look at it. I didn’t want to. I just said, “So? I was there.”

“Give the picture a look, please. It’s important.”

I relented and picked the photo up, holding it up to the light. People in wearing boorish suits and stuffy expressions sat in parliament, while the adoring public watched from above, looks of terror, joy, and ambivalence on their faces. I handed the photo back to Red.

“Looks the same as the last time I saw it.”

“Do you recognize this man?” she asked. She tapped a man sitting in the public viewing area, staring directly at the camera.

I leaned in to get a better look.

“No—” I said, before pausing. I picked the picture up.

“Put the picture down,” Abraxas said. “Our life is good here.”

“Shut up,” I growled. Red sat a bit straighter in her chair.

The man was older than I remembered him. His hair, which was only greying on the sides when I knew him, was long and nearly colorless now. He had a lot more wrinkles, but no new scars. Just the one over his lip.

Overall, he’d aged well considering I’d last seen him almost forty years ago. He’d aged impossibly well, in a way that only a Hunter can. But that wasn’t possible either, because he was supposed to be long dead.

Staring at me from the stands above parliament, not ten yards from where I must have been standing, was my master, the man who had taught me to be a Hunter.