CHAPTER 64: THREADS OF REST

A shout erupted from the village square, drawing Apollo’s attention from Nik’s elaborate fabrications. A crowd had gathered around one of the wooden tables normally used for displaying market goods, now repurposed for a different kind of commerce altogether.

"Another challenger!" someone called out, followed by raucous laughter and the distinctive thud of coins hitting wood.

Apollo drifted closer, curious. The crowd parted just enough to reveal Thorin seated at the table, his sleeve rolled up to expose a forearm corded with muscle. Across from him sat a red-faced farmer, his arm trembling as Thorin inexorably forced it down to the table’s surface.

"And that makes three!" declared a self-appointed referee, slapping the table as the farmer’s hand touched wood. "The dwarf remains undefeated!"

Thorin grinned through his beard, collecting a small pile of copper coins with his free hand. "Any other takers?" he called, voice booming with newfound confidence. "Or have all you farmers gone soft from riding your plows instead of pulling them?"

The gathered villagers hooted and jeered good-naturedly. Apollo leaned against a nearby post, amused by the dwarf’s showmanship. After weeks of grim vigilance and hard travel, the simple pleasure of Thorin’s bragging felt refreshingly ordinary.

"I’ll have a go," came a voice from the back of the crowd.

The villagers turned, then parted with a mixture of amusement and reverence as a wiry old man stepped forward. His skin was tanned to leather by decades in the sun, white hair wispy around a face mapped with wrinkles.

He couldn’t have weighed more than half what Thorin did, his frame so slight that his clothes hung on him like laundry on a line.

Thorin’s eyebrows rose, disappearing beneath the fall of his hair. "No disrespect, grandfather, but I’d hate to snap that twig you call an arm."

The old man said nothing, simply settling onto the bench across from Thorin and placing his elbow on the table. His hand, when extended, looked like gnarled roots, twisted with age but somehow immovable, fixed to the earth by forces older than memory.

"Your funeral," Thorin muttered, clasping the old man’s hand.

The referee counted down, and the contest began. Apollo expected it to end quickly, a token effort from the old man followed by a gentle defeat. Instead, both arms remained perfectly vertical, neither giving an inch.

Thorin’s confident grin faltered, then transformed into a grimace of effort. A vein bulged in his forehead as he applied more pressure.

The old man’s arm trembled slightly but held firm. His face betrayed no strain, no effort, only the faintest suggestion of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Come on, Thorin," Renna called from somewhere in the crowd. "Don’t let him show you up!"

Thorin growled, his face flushing deeper as he committed more of his strength to the contest. Slowly, by fractions, the old man’s arm began to bend backward. The crowd murmured in appreciation, several onlookers nodding as if this outcome had been inevitable.

Then something shifted. The old man’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he adjusted his grip. His arm stopped its backward travel, steadied, then began, impossibly, to push back.

Thorin’s eyes widened in genuine shock. He leaned his weight forward, shoulders bunching with effort, but could not halt the old man’s inexorable advance. Their joined hands passed the centerpoint, now tilting decidedly in the old man’s favor.

Just when defeat seemed certain, the old man’s arm spasmed. A fleeting grimace crossed his weathered face. Thorin seized the opportunity, summoning a final surge of strength that slammed the old man’s hand to the table with enough force to make the coins jump.

The crowd erupted in cheers and groans, money changing hands as bets were settled. The old man flexed his fingers, the ghost of a smile still haunting his face.

"Good match," he said simply, rising from the bench with surprising grace.

Thorin sat stunned, staring at his own hand as if it had betrayed him. "How did you—" he began, then stopped, shaking his head in bewilderment.

The old man paused. "Sixty years pulling nets from the river," he said, patting Thorin’s shoulder with his gnarled hand. "Strength isn’t always about size, master dwarf."

He melted back into the crowd, leaving Thorin flustered and oddly quiet. When the next challenger approached, a burly blacksmith with arms like tree trunks, Thorin seemed distracted, his earlier bravado replaced by thoughtful concentration.

Apollo smiled to himself, oddly touched by the dwarf’s humbling. Even gods could learn from mortals, it seemed, a lesson he was still struggling to accept himself.

Across the market, he spotted Lyra engaged in fierce negotiation with a spice merchant. Her stance was deceptively casual, but Apollo recognized the intensity in her green eyes as she examined a small packet of dried herbs.

"Three copper for this?" she was saying, voice pitched to carry just far enough for nearby merchants to overhear. "When the trader in Saltspire sells twice this amount for the same price?"

The merchant’s smile thinned. "Saltspire is a coastal port with direct trade routes. We’re inland, everything costs more to transport."

Lyra set the packet down with deliberate care. "Of course. I understand completely." She turned as if to leave, then paused. "Though I was planning to purchase quite a bit more than just this. Our group needs supplies for the road ahead, salt, preserved meats, dried fruits." She shrugged. "But if your prices are fixed, perhaps the next village will be more reasonable."

Apollo watched with admiration as Lyra worked her magic, not the golden power that flowed through his veins, but the equally potent alchemy of negotiation. The merchant’s resistance crumbled in stages: first the defensive crossing of arms, then the calculating squint, finally the resigned sigh.

"Two copper for the packet," the merchant conceded. "And I might be able to offer a further discount if your purchase is substantial enough."

Lyra’s smile was brief but genuine. "Let’s discuss quantities, then."

By the time she finished her circuit of the market, Lyra had accumulated an impressive array of supplies for half what they would have ordinarily paid. The merchants grumbled but seemed to harbor no ill will, in fact, several nodded to her with something like respect as she passed.

"Impressive," Apollo said when she joined him near the village well. "I haven’t seen bargaining like that since Hermes talked Zeus out of—" He caught himself, clearing his throat. "Since I visited the bazaars in the east."

Lyra adjusted the pack slung over her shoulder, its weight considerably increased by her purchases. "My mother taught me. She always said that a fair price is whatever two people agree upon, and that most people agree too quickly."

A commotion near the edge of the square drew their attention. Renna stood surrounded by a group of boys ranging from perhaps eight to fourteen years of age, each clutching a makeshift spear fashioned from a straight branch. She had removed the metal head from her own weapon, demonstrating proper technique with the wooden shaft alone.

"No, no, your grip is all wrong," she was saying to a gangly youth whose arms seemed too long for his body. "You’re choking it. Hold it like this." She adjusted his hands on the shaft, moving them farther apart. "Feel how much more control that gives you? Now try the thrust again."

The boy lunged awkwardly, nearly overbalancing. Renna steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. "Better. Again, but this time step with the thrust. Your body and the spear move as one."

Apollo watched, surprised by her patience. Renna had always seemed the most pragmatic of their group, focused on survival rather than teaching. Yet here she was, correcting stances and demonstrating footwork with the care of a dedicated instructor.

"My brother was about their age," Lyra said quietly beside him, following his gaze. "She lost him in a border skirmish. Raiders came through their village."

Apollo nodded, understanding blooming in his chest. Teaching these boys wasn’t just about spear technique, it was about preparation, about survival. Renna was giving them something she hadn’t been able to give her brother.

A small hand tugged at Apollo’s sleeve, interrupting his thoughts. He looked down to find a young girl with dark braids and missing front teeth smiling up at him.

"Want to play with us?" she asked, pointing to where several children had arranged a pyramid of clay cups on a flat stone about twenty paces away.

"They’re trying to knock them down with stones," Lyra explained, amusement coloring her voice. "A popular game in these parts."

Apollo hesitated. Games had never been his domain, that was more Apollo’s brother’s area. Competition, yes. Music, absolutely. But simple play? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d engaged in anything so... purposeless.

The girl’s hopeful expression decided him. "Alright," he agreed, allowing himself to be led toward the other children.

They greeted him with the easy acceptance only children can offer, immediately handing him three smooth stones worn round by the river. The rules were simple: knock down the cups from a marked distance, scoring points based on which cups fell.

Apollo weighed the first stone in his hand, calculating trajectory and force with what remained of his divine perception. He drew back his arm and threw with what he thought was perfect precision.

The stone sailed wide, missing the entire arrangement by at least a foot.

The children giggled, not unkindly. "That’s alright," said the girl who had recruited him. "Try again!"

Apollo frowned, focusing more intently on his target. His second throw was closer but still clipped only the edge of the lowest cup, which wobbled but remained standing. His third throw was perhaps his worst, flying high over the entire arrangement and bouncing off the wall behind.

The children’s laughter grew, their delight in his failure completely without malice. One boy of about six patted Apollo’s arm consolingly. "It’s okay. My father can’t hit them either, and he’s really old like you."

Apollo couldn’t help it, he laughed. Not the measured, dignified chuckle he had trained himself to use in mortal company, but a genuine, spontaneous sound that bubbled up from some long-untapped source within him. The children laughed with him, their simple joy infectious.

’When was the last time I failed at something and it didn’t matter?’ he wondered, accepting another stone from a small boy with solemn eyes. ’When was the last time I was simply... playing?’

He threw again and missed again, each failure met with more laughter, including, increasingly, his own. The gold in his veins warmed pleasantly, not with power but with something that felt like contentment.

There was healing in this simple game, in the freedom to fail without consequence, in the children’s uncomplicated acceptance.

As afternoon mellowed toward evening, the market began to wind down. Merchants packed away unsold goods, farmers loaded empty carts for the journey home, and villagers drifted toward the central green where a different sort of entertainment was taking shape.

Nik stood at the center of a growing crowd, his arms spread wide in dramatic gesture. "—and there we were, surrounded on all sides!"