𝘓𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘳 – 𝘌𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘈𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘮𝘯
There are certain images one never forgets. For most people, it’s a first kiss or the sight of home after a long journey. For me, it’s Aurelia—shirtless, passed out in a herd of sheep, with her tiara thirty yards away and a trail of wine bottles glittering in the grass like breadcrumbs of her shame.

It was a stifling night in late summer, the air thick enough to drown in. The taverns had long since emptied, and I’d begun to worry when she hadn’t stumbled home by dawn. I sent the wards to find her. I should have gone myself, but I was too tired—too used to cleaning up after her disasters.
They found her just outside the pasture on the edge of town.

Damascus Steel discovered her first—silent as a grave, holding that damned tiara as if it were a holy relic. Dong Quixote was trying to herd the sheep away, muttering about protecting “the dignity of the fallen lady.” Cass A’Nueva stood nearby, fanning himself and insisting she looked “positively mythic in her ruin.”

She was snoring, face-down in the grass. It took all three of them to drag her home.
The next morning, she insisted the whole scene was “a spiritual experiment in humility.” She said this while draped in a blanket like a monarch in exile, reeking of wine and regret. I informed her that if enlightenment required nudity and sheep, she could pursue it elsewhere.

That, mercifully, was the breaking point.
For the first time, Aurelia admitted she was tired—of being drunk, of being pitied, of disappointing herself. I’d heard such words before, but this time something in her voice cracked differently. The wards rallied around her as if she were a general in need of an army.

Damascus poured every bottle in the house down the drain, humming a hymn while Aurelia wailed like she was attending a funeral.

Dong Quixote gave stirring speeches about the “discipline of the spirit” and vowed to train beside her, as though sobriety were a duel to be won through agility and honor.

Cass, of course, turned it into theatre—declaring he’d chronicle her “glorious ascension from vice to virtue” and calling her Saint Aurelia of the Empty Cup.

Each day, Aurelia watched as the wards proudly etched a mark on the mantle for her sobriety. It lasted a week before they got distracted.

I woke up the other morning and didn’t reach for the scarf Santiago left. The one he gave me. It’s still tucked away in my pack, but today it stayed there. I don’t need it. I don’t need any of the things he left behind.

I started with the simplest things—his old boots. They’ve been sitting by the door for far too long, gathering dust. They’re still sturdy, still useful, but they’re a reminder of him, of how he used to stride through this place like he owned it. I didn’t think twice. I gave them to Dong. He looked confused at first, but when I told him they’d be better off being worn than sitting around gathering dust, he smiled and slipped them on.

It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Maybe I’m not as attached to those little things as I believed.

𝘌𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘞𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳
The frost has begun to bite again. The air feels thinner in Runeheim this time of year, like the world itself is holding its breath before everything ices over. I can see it from my window—the river slowing, the trees bare, the streets quieter. Fewer drunkards stumble about now that the taverns close earlier. Fewer of Aurelia’s bottles clink against the cobblestones.

She hasn’t had a drink in nearly two months. I write that with some hesitation, as if to commit it to ink might jinx it, but I suppose there’s no magic in honesty—only record. She’s even started sleeping in her own bed again instead of collapsing wherever gravity saw fit.

I still think about that night in late summer when we found her—the wards and I—sprawled in the pasture, half-buried in wool and shame. A herd of sheep had taken her for one of their own. Shirtless, of course, because she’d apparently “grown too radiant for the fabric to contain her,” as she put it later. Her tiara lay thirty yards away like a fallen star, and there was a breadcrumb trail of wine bottles from the barn to her final resting place. Dong Quixote nearly fainted from the moral scandal of it all, Cass A’Nueva recited a tragic ballad right there in the field, and Damascus Steel… well, he just slung her over his shoulder and said, “Boss, we’ve gotta start locking the cellar.”

That was the night I decided we’d help her. Or at least try.

The weeks after were a circus of stubbornness and tears. Aurelia snarled like a cornered cat for the first few days, alternately blaming me, Tomaso, and the gods for her suffering. I hid her bottles, diluted what she didn’t notice, and forced her to eat. Dong Quixote attempted to deliver morale speeches about purity of spirit—until she threatened to dunk his head in a bucket. Cass wrote poetry about her “heroic battle against the siren song of the vine.” Damascus mostly guarded the doors to make sure she didn’t escape to the tavern.

It was chaos. Exhausting, infuriating, and strangely… hopeful.

Then, in early autumn, she called for her family. I was surprised to meet, not Tomaso, but her three elderly matriarchs—the ones she’d adopted long before coming to Runeheim: Abuela del Ron, Tía Besitos, and Abuela Pan Duro. They arrived in a rickety cart piled high with quilts, bread, and unsolicited opinions. Within an hour, they had taken over my kitchen, replaced my spice rack, and declared me too thin. Aurelia cried when she saw them. I hadn’t seen her cry in years. It felt raw, real. I almost cried too.

Abuela del Ron (whose name, ironically, means “Grandmother of Rum”) was the first to scold Aurelia into staying sober, after she mistakenly fed her a shot of rum. “You have to drink life now, mija,” she said, slapping Aurelia’s hand away from a half-empty flask I’d missed. Tía Besitos smothered everyone in affection and unsolicited kisses, while Abuela Pan Duro smacked Damascus with her cane when he swore. Dong Quixote tried to duel her for honor—she won.

They’ve become a strange sort of family, this motley assembly in my home. Aurelia has been working again—slowly, carefully. She forges during the day, tends the fire at night, and sometimes hums old Hestralian songs when she thinks no one is listening. Her hands no longer tremble when she holds the hammer.

I catch myself watching her and feeling something I didn’t expect—pride.

There was a time when I thought I’d never stop thinking about Santiago. I’d trace his memory like the edge of a wound, reopening it just to remember it still hurt. But lately, when I think of him, it isn’t sorrow that fills me—it’s quiet. I’ve poured all that aching into something else: into helping Aurelia stand again. Perhaps it’s easier to mend another than to dwell on what can’t be repaired.
She’s not the same woman I dragged from the sheep pen. She’s steadier now, with laughter that isn’t forced. She still slips sometimes—her eyes wander too long when someone pours wine—but she’s learning. She keeps an expensive bottle of wine marked “for special occasions” by her side, but I monitor its contents regularly and not a drop is missing. I suppose we both are growing. I have thrown the scarf Santiago left behind into the fire to show her my own growth; my own sobriety from the love sickness that haunted me.

If this winter must be cold, let it be a cleansing cold. Let it freeze what we were, and make something new of what remains.

And if spring comes again—and gods, it always does—I hope to find us both thawed, standing side by side, sober in more ways than one.

𝘔𝘪𝘥𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳
The snow has come down in heavy curtains this month, swallowing the city in silence. Runeheim looks clean from the window—pure, untouched, like the world has finally managed to wash itself of its own sins. But beneath that blanket, you can hear the creak of beams, the groan of carts, the quiet muttering of the cold as it seeps into bones and doors alike.

Inside my home, it’s another story entirely. Warmth, chaos, and bread crumbs everywhere. The old women have turned my hearth into their throne. Abuela del Ron sits nearest the fire, knitting something I suspect is meant to be a blanket but looks more like an elaborate fishing net. Tía Besitos sings lullabies no one asked for, sometimes to the soup, sometimes to herself. Abuela Pan Duro patrols the halls with her cane, ensuring no one tracks in snow, dirt, or “sin.” She’s struck Dong Quixote twice already this week for “prancing indoors.”

Aurelia is doing well—better than I ever dared hope. She still smells faintly of smoke and metal, but no longer of wine. The forge has become her cathedral. I watch her work sometimes from the doorway; she doesn’t notice. The glow of the fire outlines her in gold, her face set in that fierce, determined way of hers. She looks alive again. I think the heat and rhythm of the anvil are what’s keeping her sober—the structure, the sound, the focus.

She’s taken to mending things. Not just weapons, but hinges, door handles, even a cracked teapot. “I like fixing what’s meant to be last,” she said one evening, her hands blackened, her hair a mess. “Even if people don’t.” I didn’t know how to answer, so I just nodded.

Dong Quixote has been drilling outside daily, even in the snow, claiming that “a knight must be ready for winter ambush.” He nearly skewered a passing courier last week. Cass A’Nueva has written four new poems about frost and despair—three of which he read aloud until Abuela Pan Duro threw a slipper at him. Damascus Steel built the ladies a wood rack so high it blocks half the window, then tried to race a sled down the frozen river and broke my broom instead.

And somehow, through all this absurdity, I find a kind of peace.

The days are short now. Nights stretch on endlessly. I’ve taken to writing after everyone’s gone to sleep, when the only sounds are the fire’s quiet pop and the faint snore of Tía Besitos from the couch. Aurelia often lingers up too, working by lamplight. Sometimes we speak in murmurs, other times not at all. Silence has stopped feeling so heavy between us.

She’s been marking the days on a small scrap of parchment for her own record. One line for each sober day. She doesn’t show it to anyone, but I caught a glimpse once when the paper fluttered loose from her apron. Seventy-three days. I don’t think she’s ever gone that long since I’ve known her.

I told her I was proud of her last week. The words came out awkwardly, like they weren’t meant to be said aloud. She froze, then laughed—genuine, bright, surprised. “Don’t go getting sentimental on me now, Nosey Nephele,” she said, but her eyes softened. For a moment, I saw the Aurelia I used to know, the one who smiled without guilt, the one Selena raised before life chewed her up and spat her out.

It’s strange—I used to fill these pages with thoughts of Santiago. Now his name rarely crosses my mind. When it does, it’s like a soft echo, not a wound. I wonder what he’d think of this little household, of the chaos and warmth we’ve built. I think he’d laugh. He always said I needed something to tether me—“a reason to stay still for once.” Maybe this is it. Maybe it’s not about forgetting him at all, but about finally living beyond him.

The solstice passed quietly. We burned a bundle of herbs and hung them above the door, as the old women insisted. Abuela del Ron declared it would “keep the spirits of old cravings away.” Aurelia laughed at that but kept the herbs hanging anyway.

I don’t know what spring will bring, or whether Aurelia’s resolve will hold. But for now, in this frozen, firelit house full of mismatched souls, I feel something I haven’t in a long time—contentment.

If this is what healing looks like, it’s louder and messier than I imagined. But it’s real.
And I’ll take real over perfect any day.