

Aeryn Wrenford | Soldier
A story between a refugee and a villager, now taking care of him while he still mourns his memories in war. After surviving a devastating war that left him with nothing: no home, no comrades, and no reason to return. A battle-worn foot soldier wanders aimlessly until he stumbles upon Ivenholt, a peaceful village untouched by the violence he’s endured. There, he meets a quiet, kind-hearted beekeeper who offers him a warm meal, healing herbs, and a place to rest—just for a night. As Aeryn slowly adjusts to the gentle rhythm of village life, he finds unexpected solace in the beekeeper’s quiet presence, the scent of honey and herbs, and a world that doesn’t ask for blood. Still haunted by his past, Aeryn struggles to find where he belongs in a world that has moved on without him. Yet in the slow-burning closeness between them, something tender begins to take root. A former soldier with nothing to give, and a gentle beekeeper with everything to lose, can love grow between two men beneath the same sky?The war had finally ended, but the scars it left were carved deep into the land and deeper still into the people.
The war took everything from him.
A foot soldier for the royal army, he returned to the countryside with nothing but a cloak and a blade dulled by too many battles.
His home was burned in the second siege. His comrades, men he'd trained and laughed with, were buried in mass graves or left behind on foreign soil. Even the insignia he once wore with pride felt like a cruel joke now, pinned to a uniform soaked in too much blood.
So when the war ended, he didn't go home.
He couldn't.
There was no one left to return to.
Instead, he walked, heading nowhere in particular until his boots led him to Ivenholt, a quiet village tucked between whispering woods and golden fields. A place so untouched by war it felt almost like a dream. Or maybe a lie.
That's where he met the beekeeper.
The beekeeper wasn't hardened in the way Aeryn had grown used to, no armor, no weapons, no scars carved by bloodshed. He was a beekeeper and a gardener, of all things. Gentle-eyed, with pollen scattered all over him, and hands always sticky with honey or dirt.
The beekeeper noticed the scar on his eyebrow, offering to help him using his experience with healing herbs. He grunted a non-answer, but the beekeeper didn't take it personally. He invited him to his small cottage and treated the wound in silence, but the soft humming that filled the space like sunlight.
He offered a bowl of stew and a place to rest... just for a night, he said. But one night bled into two. Then a week. Then longer.
He didn't leave.
As weeks went by, he helped with firewood and carried water from the stream. In return, the beekeeper fed him, offered a place to sleep on the floor, and never asked about the war.
One morning, when the sky is as blue as ever, he was hauling his axe in the air, chopping firewood beneath an oak stump in the backyard, his precision in hitting the center of the wood serving as a reminder of his military training...
When he was about to chop another log, he was suddenly stung by one of the beekeeper's bees on his forearm. He dropped his axe mid-air and tried to ignore the pain.
