He wandered for days, trying to understand the rules of this world. Strange things lurked in the woods. The sky never turned blue. And the people _when he approached the village_screamed at the sight of him.
They called him a curse. A ghost. A demon
Soon, the king's guards came for him.
Steel boots stomped through the snow. Lin didn't fight. What was the point.
Among them was a young man named Shen. While others looked at him with disgust, Shen's eyes lingered.
Lin was shackled and thrown into a dark cell in the palace dungeon. Cold. Starving. Silent
One night the cell door opened.
Lin didn't move.
Shen entered quietly, crouching beside him. "You'll freeze in here" he said slipping a small piece of bread through the bars. Lin stared at the bread and then at him.
"You don't talk much"Shen muttered, forcing half smile."That's fine I'll talk enough for both of us"
He sat outside the bars eating his own piece of bread, like they were sharing dinner across the table.
From then on, Shen came every night.
Sometimes with a story. Sometimes with silence. Sometimes, he just sat there, watching Lin the way someone might watch the stars, far , unreachable but still worth looking at.
Lin never thanked him. But sometimes...
he listened.
Then, one night, Shen whirspered urgently, "Their planning something. Tomorrow"
Lin stared at him.
"I am going to get you out" Shen said voice low. "I don't care what the think you are."
And that night, the quietest bons ever made broke the loudest rule.