Liric had no family, no home, and no place to truly belong. He didn’t truly live anywhere, flitting around the village as he did—one night sleeping at Nestor’s cottage by the river, the next lying in Old Man Marlin’s barn, and after that, cuddling with a sheep at Lester’s. Never sneaking around or breaking in, no, never that, but going from person to person doing good, honest work for a simple crust of bread and a porch to rest on.

Despite always running around town, he never felt like he belonged. Sure, the villagers knew he was there, but they never spoke to him of their own volition. He was more so just there—a force of nature that swept porches, herded sheep, carried bags of grain, and foraged for herbs. In return, he was given enough. Never in excess, but enough to not wither—lest they have to do these odd jobs on their own.

The mornings were always busiest, with Liric struggling to carry water from the well back for Old Marlin, followed by sweeping the steps of the baker’s shop, never missing a spot. Then, just walking down the main path through the village, helping whoever was in need before finally reaching the end of the road and offering to gather herbs for Abigail. Some days, she didn’t need help, and he would continue on with his monotonous life, but some days—some days—she would send him into the woods, and that was his favorite way to spend an afternoon.

One reason for this was that Abigail would always offer him a warm place to sleep and a cut of meat for the night—something she could afford as the only healer in the village. However, the real reason Liric loved this task above all others was the woods. That was where he belonged.

When walking through the village, doing this and that, flitting between a million and one tasks as a branch sways before the wind, Liric was aimless—a thing to simply be pushed by the village’s needs. Yet, out there in the woods, he belonged. He would even live out there if it weren’t for the bears and wolves that sometimes wandered near the village. He would know—after what happened to his parents when he was thirteen. Yet he never felt fear out there—just belonging. And sometimes, he even felt something else. Something more.

Between one blink and the next, as if the colors of the world were slightly brighter. Maybe not enough to be fully recognized, but enough to feel just slightly off. Or how, sometimes in the woods, his step felt more solid than usual—not faster or stronger, but steadier, as if he would never trip again. But only for a single step before he returned to his usual clumsy self.

Asking the other villagers didn’t help either. How do you even ask someone about something like that? Do you sometimes see better? Walk steadier? Feel smarter? Yes, everyone feels groggy sometimes and more alert other times, but Liric knew this was different. It wasn’t as if he was waking up but as if he saw colors he hadn’t seen before, as if they weren’t there a second ago. Or as if his foot always knew the way it was supposed to touch the ground—perfectly settling down without so much as a puff of dust in his wake, almost as if a leaf gently settling upon the ground after a long fall.

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One day was different.

In his seventeenth year, he was sent out to forage for Abigail like many times before. Similar to many other days, he headed out pretty late from the village, as Abigail’s house was near the end of his route, so the sun’s gentle summer glow was setting behind the tall maples of the woods. Their gentle rustle was a welcoming invitation he was always keen to accept.

All the way throughout his walk, nothing felt out of the ordinary—his steps normal and slightly awkward, as the path wasn’t quite as well-worn as the main thoroughfare of the village. His vision was as clear as ever—yet not clearer than usual, especially not with the sun preparing to set in front of him.

As he first approached the woods, he began walking less in a set direction and more freely, wandering this beautiful locale as always—when he saw it. A single leaf.

This leaf had just begun its fall from the highest branches of the maple, the absolute earliest gasps of autumn’s birth showing in its barely orange coloring.

Then, everything he ever knew shifted.

First, his concentration exploded as he intimately saw every facet of this leaf, as if all of the other leaves he had ever seen fall somehow overlaid with this one, and he saw more than his normal human mind was made to handle. Yet, he understood.

He understood everything about this leaf—how it swayed gently back and forth, how the wind plucked it from its branch, how it flitted on the air’s caress, all the way to how it was going to perfectly land. It wasn’t as if he calculated everything affecting the leaf and predicted these things, but that he so intimately understood the leaf that he just knew. The same way you may not understand why or how your friend will act in a conversation but still sense when he is about to make a joke or laugh.

So too did Liric understand when the leaf would spin, or how it would move an inch farther to the left.

The Law of Falling Leaves.

Along with his understanding of the leaf, he felt something change inside him—he had grasped something humans simply weren’t supposed to understand. His being was fuller than it was supposed to be. The brighter colors he had only occasionally glimpsed in the past had now permanently settled within his view. His stance felt as if nothing could possibly move him except his own will.

And finally, just as the leaf finished falling from the heights of the maple, as it grew even with his vision, he realized he could do more.

He raised his right hand with anticipation—yes, but also nervousness and disbelief—as he uttered not a single word but simply willed the leaf to stop its fall.

His will commanded the very laws of nature to bend.

For the leaf to stop falling.

And it did.

For three seconds.

As the leaf began to fall once again, Liric’s vision swam and darkened, and he collapsed onto the grassy woodland floor.

As gentle as a leaf.