Chapter 5: Yallin's Request
On the tenth day, Yallin asked for help.
It wasn't a grand request. One of the water conduits in the south wing was leaking, and the official technicians were overwhelmed since the authorization system had become slower after the renunciation of the Axis. Without a responsible party to sign the work order, repairs took cycles.
- "I can do it myself - said Yallin." - "But my knees can't take being crouched for hours anymore. And Sari is helping at the community school."
Kael-Zhur, who had negotiated with axiomatic entities, hesitated.
- "I've never fixed a conduit."
- "You learn - said Yallin, handing him a toolbox." - "It's not so different from maintaining a living weapon. Only instead of killing, it gives water to people."
The work was dirty. Kael spent four hours crouched in a narrow tunnel, with symbiotic water dripping on his face, trying to understand the difference between a compressive mycelium joint and an organic sealing ring. Yallin guided him from above, shouting instructions he didn't always understand.
- "No, that's the nutrient root! If you cut it, the whole wing loses pressure!"
- "Now. Turn left. Left, Kael! Your left!"
When the leak was finally contained, Kael climbed out of the tunnel covered in a viscous substance that smelled like fermented fungus. Yallin looked him up and down and burst out laughing.
- "You look awful."
- "Thank you."
- "No, I'm serious. You look like you fought a sewer and lost."
Kael looked at his hands. They were dirty. Calloused. Alive.
- "You know - he said, slowly." - "I fought the Rejected Core. Crossed the Void of Fractures. Faced entities that could unravel reality."
Yallin tilted her head.
- "And?"
- "And I've never felt as tired as I do now."
She smiled.
- "That's not tiredness, Kael. That's real work."
That night, he ate at Yallin's house again. Sari told them about school, about the other children, about how one of them had found an unregistered space and spent an entire afternoon "doing nothing." Kael listened. He didn't analyze. He just listened.
When he returned to his quarters, Ser'kaum was coiled on his pillow, and Threnaal pulsed in a rhythm he finally recognized:
Peace.