The old house stood near the edge of the village, just as he remembered.
Wooden walls.
Sagging roof.
A crooked fence barely holding back the wild grass.
Kaelen froze before the gate.
His heart hammered against his ribs harder than any battle.
For a long moment, he simply stood there, breathing.
Then, slowly, he pushed the gate open.
It creaked — the same old groan he remembered.
Footsteps sounded from inside.
A door swung wide.
And there she was.
His mother.
Older.
Thinner.
Lines carving her face deeper than he remembered.
But her eyes —
Oh, her eyes.
Still the same fierce, unbreakable light.
She froze.
Blinking.
Disbelieving.
"Kaelen…?"
Her voice cracked.
Kaelen dropped his travel bag.
Dropped all the walls he had built across bloody battlefields.
He fell into her arms.
She hugged him fiercely, as if afraid he might vanish again.
He buried his face in her shoulder.
"I'm home, Mother," he whispered.
And for the first time in years,
he allowed himself to simply be her son.
Later
His father came limping from the fields, a battered hoe over his shoulder.
He paused mid-step, staring.
The worn lines of his face cracked into something rare —
a smile.
He said nothing.
Just dropped the hoe and embraced Kaelen in a bone-crushing hug.
Words weren't needed.
Not between blood.
Not between hearts that had never truly parted.