When sunset paints Haven's walls in colors few living eyes remember, I return. A woman waits at the sally port, her uniform marking her as commander, a leather tube clutched in scarred hands, and something more - a shield, ancient but still sound. Its surface bears Haven's mark, a rising sun.

  "Take it," she says, pushing the shield forward. "Let other survivors know you come as guardian, not destroyer."

  I tilt my skull, considering the offering. Not a weapon, but a symbol. My bony fingers close around its grip. The weight feels familiar, though I've never carried this particular shield before.

  "There are other settlements," Serrah continues, her voice dropping lower. "Scattered. Hidden. They see a walking skeleton, they'll shoot first. This might give you a moment's pause in their defense."

  I nod once, securing the shield to my arm. The leather straps require adjustment to fit my skeletal limb, but they hold.

  "If you find them," she adds, "tell them Haven endures. Tell them they aren't alone. Find the survivors."

  The words hang between us—heavy with meaning. How long has this settlement stood isolated, believing themselves the last flickering light in a world consumed by shadow? How many others huddle behind makeshift walls, thinking the same?

  Survivors. Once more the word settles wrong against borrowed bones. Survivors. These fragments know better, each piece carries glimpses of searching, finding only silence. Cities gone quiet. Kingdoms fallen to shadow. Fortresses whose walls no longer answer signal fires.

  My finger traces in the dirt: NO OTHERS LEFT?

  The commander's jaw tightens. She looks across the Field of Broken Banners, where shadows stretch longer with each passing day. "Five years since the last outpost went dark. We used to see their signals - smoke on the horizon, mirror flashes at dawn. Now only darkness answers."

  She studies my hollow form, assessing what stands before her - a skeleton in rusted armor, no fangs or claws yet, only ancient steel and bone. Her eyes linger on my skull, a simple human shape without wolf's muzzle or dragon's ridge.

  "I am Commander Serrah Ikert," she offers finally, though I had not asked. Names mean little to these borrowed fragments, save what they represent. "Haven's walls stand under my watch, for what that's worth."

  The shield settles onto borrowed bones.

  Not strapped or bound, but drawn to this frame like scattered pieces returning home. Knowledge floods through hollow joints - combat forms etched into the shield itself. Centuries of defenders have left their mark on its surface. Their techniques pulse through ancient metal, teaching borrowed bones new ways to guard.

  I move to an open space near Haven's wall, shield raised against imagined blows. Ancient muscles that no longer exist remember these motions. Block high. Pivot. Let the shield's weight guide the turn. Each stance flows into the next.

  The shield pulses with stored knowledge. Shield wall formations, defensive stances, ways to protect those who still draw breath. My frame adjusts, compensating for the shield's mass.

  My body moves without conscious direction, shield angling to deflect overhead strikes while my sword sweeps low. The motion would have taken a living warrior's breath. These bones care nothing for fatigue.

  I repeat the sequence. Shield up. Blade out. Turn. The movements sharpen with each iteration, muscle memory settling into marrow that never knew muscle.

  The shield is an extension, not a burden.

  Block. Counter. Advance. The shield is struck by phantom blades in memory. The patterns grow more complex. Shield bash flowing into sword thrust. Defensive stance opening into sweeping counter. My bones click and scrape against simple armor as forms perfect themselves through repetition.

  Haven's guards gather at the wall to watch, wary but curious. They've never seen death training for battle. Their whispers carry on the evening breeze, wondering what manner of guardian defends their gates. Not a holy champion sent by forgotten gods. Something else. Something formed of necessity rather than blessing.

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  Commander Ikert watches, her expression unreadable. But her hand rests easier on her sword hilt than before.

  "Our maps," she says as I finish, unrolling weathered parchment. "What little we know of the lands beyond." Her finger traces paths through corrupted realms. "The Endless Rot lies northward. Forests that hunt, trees that feed on flesh. Ancient elven cities rot in its canopy, their magic turned savage. Something darker than shadow rules there."

  Another map unfolds. "East, the Drowned Kingdom. Black waters rise higher each year, pulling our old cities under. Things swim in those depths - things that remember being human."

  The maps' edges remain unmarked, blank spaces where knowledge fails. Many areas show only hastily sketched warnings rather than accurate geography. The corruption reshapes landscapes faster than cartographers can record.

  My finger scrapes in the dirt, WHICH THREAT GROWS STRONGEST?

  "Hard to say. The Rot spreads fastest, corrupting everything it touches. But the waters..." She pauses. "They're patient. Methodical. Each year they claim more land, more souls."

  Movement at the edge of my vision. Haven's blacksmith approaches, arms laden with armor pieces, ancient but still serviceable. Not dragonbone plate, not yet - merely dented steel rescued from the battlefield. He sets them down with shaking hands, retreats quickly.

  "An offering," the commander explains. "He says death should be properly armed."

  The armor rises from the ground of its own accord, drawn to this skeletal frame. Plates settle over bone, fusing with existing pieces. What was rusted becomes sound. What was broken becomes whole.

  My form grows heavier, more complete. Still only human bones beneath, none of the wolf or dragon fragments that will come later. But already something more than mere skeleton. Already death's champion, though I do not yet know the name.

  WHY ALLOW HAVEN TO STAND? I trace in the soil.

  "What do you mean?"

  DEMONS COULD DESTROY THESE WALLS. WHY LET YOU LIVE?

  Understanding darkens her features. "We're their hunting ground. They keep us alive to feed their pets. To test their creatures."

  Ikert spreads another map beside the first, this one dated ten years earlier. Its borders extend twice as far, marked with settlements now gone quiet. "Each year we lose more. Roads vanish. Landmarks transform. The corruption reshapes everything it touches."

  I draw in the soil: TIME BORROWED. NOT EARNED.

  "How long?" she asks, voice hard. "How long have they played with us?"

  DEMONS CAN BREAK THESE WALLS.

  Ikert's jaw tightens. She looks to Haven's gates, where children play in sunlight they've only just discovered. "Then why do you help us? If we're already doomed?"

  My finger scratches against dirt, leaving words that carry more certainty than these borrowed fragments should know:

  LIVING PROTECT LIFE

  DEAD PROTECT HOPE

  She stares at the words until darkness claims them. My finger scrapes stone once more: DEMONS WILL FIND ME FIRST

  The words carry weight. Promise. Threat. Commander Ikert nods once, understanding what isn't written. While Haven's walls shelter the living, these borrowed bones will hunt through corrupted realms.

  "Let me tell you what little we know of the realms. Most is campfire talk, stories from those who ventured too far. But some is truth."

  She points north. "The Endless Rot, that's where the elven kingdoms flourished. Their cities rose through the canopy, connected by bridges of living wood. Now the trees hunger. The bridges writhe. Some say the Briar Queen still holds court there, but she's not what she was."

  My finger traces a question, THE ROT SPREADS FASTEST?

  "Yes. Each season claims more land. The vegetation... changes things it touches. Animals. People. Even the stone itself twists." She pauses. "We lost three scouts last month. What came back wore their faces, but moved wrong."

  WHAT OF THE ELVEN WARDS?

  "The old stories say five great wards protected the realms. The nearest stood in their capital, Elheim. But no one's seen it standing in living memory. Just stories of light in the corrupted canopy."

  These bones pulse with forgotten knowledge. These fragments remember wards, remember their fall. But the memories stay buried, offering only the certainty that such power could be reclaimed.

  I scrape in the dirt, I GO NORTH

  "The sun will set soon," Commander Ikert says, looking past these bones toward the deepening gloom. The brief respite I brought Haven already fades. Shadows gather at the edge of the Field of Broken Banners, held back only by the destruction of the corruption beneath its stones.

  In time, those shadows will come again.

  She rolls the maps with hands that have only known war and surviving, movements too crisp, too controlled. "We saw sunlight for the first time in memory. Today we return to torches and fear."

  Her voice carries no self-pity, only hard truth. "But now we know light exists. Perhaps that's your real gift to us."

  I trace one final message, PREPARE THEM. SHADOWS COME AGAIN.

  She nods once, a soldier's acknowledgment.

  The maps disappear into her coat. There's nothing more to say. Haven's brief respite will return to familiar darkness as I turn north, toward the darkened canopy of the Endless Rot.

  Behind me, Haven's torches reignite. The walls return to fend off shadow. But something has changed -, these fragments sense it in the way the guards stand straighter, how children's voices carry farther.

  They remember sunlight now.

  Let that memory sustain them.

  These bones have darker paths to walk. In lands where elves once dwelled.