Chapter 17 — Bread of the Mortal World
(Lysander POV)
By dawn, the frost has melted into silver veins along the path. I travel alone across narrow cart tracks, through patches of fern and clay that still remember old rain. The village roofs in the distance gleam with dew, thin trails of smoke curling toward the pale sky.
The world feels impossibly small now. Each heartbeat echoes louder than galaxies once did. My senses, though mortal, hum sharper than steel; I can hear grain husks splitting open beneath a sparrow's claws and smell the sweetness of water hidden deep under the soil.
But the one thing that strikes hardest is emptiness—hunger. It's not pain; it's presence, the reminder of life's price. I haven't eaten in a span beyond all measure. Eternity required neither food nor drink, only endurance. Now my chest tightens. My body—still carrying strength numbers this world cannot measure—demands sustenance like a temple craving flame.
When I step into town, the air changes. People turn briefly, glancing at the stranger, their faces flickering with curiosity and something else—unease, maybe awe. I keep my hood low.
Here, humanity moves at the pace of soil and sun: hammering from the smithy, laugh‑bursts from the baker's stall, the creak of wooden wheels. The scent of flour hits me like memory resurrected—warm, coarse, utterly sacred.
A woman around thirty kneads bread by the window of a humble shop. Stray hairs stick to her forehead; her arms glisten with effort. For an instant I simply watch, absorbing the rhythm of motion. It's… mesmerizing—the honesty of it. She glances up, catches my gaze, and freezes. Her cheeks flush instantly. Then, awkwardly but with careful poise, she waves toward a bench near the oven.
"Traveler, you look half‑starved. Sit, please."
Her voice is plain, human, mercifully imperfect.
I hesitate. After a trillion years, conversation feels stranger than silence.
"I…" I clear my throat—the sound cracks; I had forgotten what it means to have one. "If you would allow… something small."
"Small?" She laughs lightly. "You look ready to faint. I'll bring fresh loaf and soup. Pay later if you must."
I nod wordlessly.
Steam curls from the bowl when she returns. The scent of pottage—grain, wild onion, and cow's milk—pulls me forward before pride can stop me. She places dark bread beside it, crust dusted with ash from the hearth.
"Careful," she warns, "it's hot."
Hot. I remember heat as concept, not texture. So when I lift the spoon, the warmth crawling across fingers nearly shatters me. My body trembles—not from temperature, but recognition.
The first sip is chaos. Flavor floods in, raw and overwhelming. Salt lashes my tongue; earth and herb mingle in dizzying currents. Tears sting my eyes unbidden. The swallow drags coarse steam down my throat, awakening muscles that had slept since before memory began.
Sound grows loud—every heartbeat expands into thunder. My vision blurs into light, then steadies on the soup's gentle swirl.
Hunger tilts into reverence. I take another spoonful, slower. Then another. The act feels endless.
The bread crumbles between my fingers; texture alone feels divine—the give of crust, the tender center beneath. When I bite, sweetness leaks through the salt of sweat on my lips. Time folds—the dungeon, the void, the trillion‑year silence—all collapse into this mortal instant.
The woman watches cautiously from across the room. "Good?"
I force a smile through the ache crawling up my throat. "It's… indescribable."
"Bread?" she teases. "That's the simplest meal here."
"Exactly," I whisper. "Simplicity."
Each bite reignites something primal. Endurance of ten thousand lifetimes means nothing before the steady miracle of digestion. My stomach growls like an old god reawakening.
When the bowl empties, I scrape it clean. She laughs softly. "Another?"
I hesitate—then nod. "Please."
While she refills it, I flex my hands. Even stripped of divinity, power roils beneath skin like contained storm: strength far beyond human, eyes bright enough to catch every ember in the hearth. If I breathed too sharply, the walls might tremble. Yet control feels absolute, as natural as blinking.
The baker's daughter—fifteen, perhaps sixteen, nearly my visible age—slips in carrying flour. Her gaze locks to mine, pupils dilating before she looks away suddenly, color rising in her neck. I feel the old echo of charm pulsing instinctively, the strange magnetism that has always followed me. I dim it with effort, focusing instead on the soup's rhythm.
Women, I realize, sense something beneath appearance—the echo of eternity still etched into posture and tone. Even stripped of power, some glimmer remains, dangerous if left unchecked.
When the baker returns, she eyes my empty bowl and chuckles. "So, where's your home, traveler?"
"I've… walked long. You wouldn't know the land."
"Try me."
Her persistence draws a faint laugh from me—a sound I didn't expect. "Once, it was a place with high towers and endless nights. But I think that world's gone."
"Gone?"
"Buried in time."
She studies me curiously, then shrugs. "Then you're welcome here until you find another."
Her generosity renders me mute again. In places of gods and demons, such kindness would be strategy; here it is instinct.
"What's your name?" she asks.
"Lysander." The name feels right, weighty, at last belonging to me.
"I'm Elira." She smiles, unaware that name will live centuries in my heart.
Hours later, I leave the shop. The sun climbs high, warming wet cobblestones. I move slower than before, letting the meal settle. The sensation of fullness grounds me deeper into flesh—heavier, yes, but whole.
Children chase chickens near the well, their laughter rippling through market dust. I pause to watch one boy stumble, scrape his knee, cry briefly, then laugh again when helped up. That cycle—pain, release, resilience—captures everything eternity had missed.
Beyond the well stands a small inn. Its sign, crudely painted, swings in breeze that smells of hops and tallow. I decide I will stay there tonight. The idea of sleep—real, bodily exhaustion rewarded by dreaming—feels intoxicating.
At dusk I sit behind the inn, gazing at orange clouds thinning into indigo. My hands rest on my stomach; faint heat lingers from the stew I ate for supper, richer but less sacred than Elira's bread.
I think of the void—not with longing, but gratitude. It taught me endurance; this world teaches meaning.
A breeze brushes my hair; the scent of baked grain lingers in the night air. For a long time, I simply breathe, counting heartbeats.
That night, in a real bed after centuries of abstraction, I dream—not of galaxies, but of the first loaf I ever ate. In dream, the bread remains warm, steam curling into constellations that fade to her laughter.
And the voice of the entity murmurs faint through memory: You sought eternity and found it unbearable. Now endure living.
When I wake before dawn, stomach hollowing for hunger once more, I smile. Hunger at last is not curse—it's proof that I exist within time.
I decide to help Elira at her bakery today, if she'll have me. A small life, maybe; but after eternity, smallness itself is salvation.