They called him the Threadwalker now.
Rin had never liked titles. He preferred shadows to stages, and quiet to command. But in the weeks following the reweaving of Elsewhere, his name had taken on weight.
Not because he was the strongest.
Not because he had survived.
But because *he had returned*—and chosen to stay.
---
He spent his days at the edge of Naelith, where the hills touched the folds between worlds. No longer torn by fire, the veil between Elsewhere and the waking world had thinned into harmony. Every few nights, something strange would shimmer through: a bird with stars in its feathers, a melody that made even trees lean in to listen.
And Rin would go to it, not to fight, but to *remember.*
He was mapping it now. Not just the edges of Elsewhere, but its moods, its *storylines.*
He kept a book, bound in bark and stitched with golden thread. Each page held a drawing, a fragment of wonder. One depicted a bridge made of glass wind. Another, a city folded into a seashell. All real. All Elsewhere-born.
He no longer feared what lay beyond.
Instead, he welcomed it.
---
One morning, Sira found him sitting beside a pool that reflected no sky—only memory.
"Still chasing ghosts?" she teased.
Rin smirked. "Not chasing. Just… listening."
Sira sat beside him, tossing a stone across the still surface. It skipped once—then disappeared *into* the reflection, rippling the image of a past they hadn't lived.
"They want you to come back to the Hall," she said after a moment. "You're being asked to teach."
He raised an eyebrow. "Teach what?"
She smiled. "How to carry stories without being crushed by them."
Rin chuckled. "And you think I've learned that?"
"You're still here, aren't you?"
He looked down at his reflection. For a moment, it wasn't just him. It was *all of them*—Elara with the Heart, Kael in the library's golden light, Maris holding a flame in one hand and hope in the other.
"Yes," he said softly. "I'm still here."
---
That night, he returned to the Hall of Keepers.
Not to stay. Not yet.
But to speak.
The young ones gathered in silence, expecting tales of war or fire or heroism.
Instead, Rin told them this:
"Stories aren't meant to save you. They're meant to *remind* you—who you were, who you might be, and what happens when you forget."
A hush followed. Then, one child raised their hand. "Are you a hero?"
Rin smiled—not bitterly, not sadly.
Just honestly.
"No," he said. "I'm a thread. Like you. Like all of us."
He closed his book, handed it to the child, and rose.
"There's no map to Elsewhere," he said. "Only choices."
And with that, the Threadwalker stepped back into the dusk.