It was raining when I arrived in Cindrel. Not a dramatic, sky-tearing rain—just the kind that made cobbles sigh and roofs perform their quiet percussion.
I stood under the awning of a potter's shop. The scent of wet clay clung to everything. A little boy ran past barefoot, laughing. A woman cursed at the sky. Two dogs fought over a fishbone like it held divine secrets.
Then I saw it: a chipped, flower-patterned pot in the window. Red glaze. Three rings around the rim.
I've only seen pots like that once before. And the last time, it wasn't raining.
It was the 4th Year of the Bronze Concord, in a village no one remembers now.
The locals had a superstition: if your roof collected five broken rain pots in a year, you'd be blessed with triplets. That year, the potmaker's wife gave birth to six.
He made fewer pots after that.
I lived in a hut near the orchard. Wrote poems on bark. No one bought them, but they made good kindling.
The potmaker—his name might've been Roan, or Rael, or something with an R—used to bring me cracked seconds. Said the flaws made them more useful. "Holes let the truth breathe," he'd say.
He once made a pot shaped like a duck. It didn't hold water. It did hold the attention of every child in a ten-mile radius.
He sold thirty.
One afternoon, he invited me to his workshop. Showed me a new glaze: red, with three rings.
"For luck," he said. "The first is for birth, the second for purpose, the third—well, I haven't figured that one out yet."
I asked if it was supposed to represent death.
He laughed. "I'm a potter, not a priest. I make containers. Not meanings."
Still, he carved a tiny symbol beneath each one. A circle, a flame, a crack. Never told anyone what they meant.
Years later, after the village flooded and the people moved uphill, I found one of his pots in the ruins. Intact. The red was still bright.
I left it there. It didn't feel like mine to take.
In Cindrel, I bought the chipped pot for three silver coins and a copper button.
The potter's daughter eyed me strangely. "You're not from here," she said.
I nodded. "Most people aren't, if you look far enough."
She asked what I saw in the old thing.
I told her: "It reminds me of a duck-shaped lie and a man who tried to explain life in rings."
She didn't press.
I carried the pot in my satchel as I wandered the town. Watched the rain. Let it tap on roofs like it was asking old questions.
In a quiet square, a boy pointed at the pot and said, "That's a lucky one. Three rings."
I nodded. "One for birth, one for purpose, and one still waiting."
He looked confused. "Waiting for what?"
I smiled. "That's the fun part."I do find it amazing that techniques like this show up again and again. Age after age. Is beauty subjective or is their a pattern to it.
Sam, on a Rough Day
It wasn't the worst day I've had.
The worst day involved a collapsing tower, a jealous lich, and three goats possessed by a god who'd forgotten why he was angry. But this day came close.
I was halfway between Hollow Pike and wherever the map had smeared into oblivion, trudging along a trail that had once dreamed of being a road. My pack was light—too light. I'd just traded my last proper supplies for a cracked lantern and a loaf of bread that had the personality of a brick.
The sun was doing that thing it does when it realizes it's late to a funeral—slinking down behind the hills with an apologetic glare.
Then came the rustle.
I heard them before I saw them. You learn to pick up on these things after enough decades—or centuries—of wandering roads where courtesy wears thin and steel comes easy.
Three of them stepped out from the brush.
The first was young and jittery, holding a rusted knife like it might turn into a sword if he wished hard enough. The second had more scars than teeth. The third was a woman with sharp eyes and no weapon, which made her the most dangerous of the lot.
"You lost, old man?" the scarred one asked.
"Not anymore," I said. "Now that I've found such polite company."
The boy snorted. "He's got a tongue on him."
"Not the only thing I've got," I replied, gesturing to my bag. "Though I should warn you, my treasures tend to disappoint."
"Drop it," the woman said, finally speaking.
I did. Slowly. Carefully.
They pounced like wolves on a limp rabbit.
The boy dug through the satchel first, pulling out a blackglass tooth, a half-burned sky-map, and a tin spoon bent at the neck.
"What even is this junk?"
"Memories," I said.
Scarface held up a dented frying pan I'd used to cook mushrooms three towns back. "You rob a kitchen?"
I sighed. "Look, if you're after gold, you'll be more disappointed than I already am. But if you need a pan that doesn't stick or a kettle that doesn't leak, I might be able to help."
The woman squinted at me. "What are you, a peddler?"
"Among other things," I said, easing to the ground. "Today, perhaps, a tinker. If you'll stop waving that knife around, I could fix your cooking gear. Maybe reinforce it. You'd be amazed what a bit of silverthread and iron patience can do."
They hesitated.
Silence is a language. And in that moment, theirs spoke of hunger, caution, and just enough curiosity.
"We don't have coin," she said.
"Don't need it," I replied. "You let me be, and I'll patch what you've got. Call it a fair trade."
Scarface eyed the pan, then the cracked pot slung over his shoulder. "You think you can fix this?"
"I've stitched back a shattered war-forge with pine sap and fishing wire," I said. "A pot is child's play."
They let me work.
I unpacked a small leather roll—thread, hooks, a little fire-powder, and one enchanted file I'd salvaged from a collapsing city two centuries ago. I didn't explain what anything did. People like mystery. It makes them trust you.
The boy watched every move like I might disappear. Or explode.
The pan was easy. A little heat, a little oil, a press of the file against the metal's memory. It sighed back into shape with a grateful sizzle.
The cracked pot took longer.
I tapped the fault lines with a whisper, drew a rune inside with soot and water, then sealed it with a broken whisper from an extinct tongue. Not magic, exactly. Just a suggestion to the world that maybe this pot deserved another chance.
When I handed it back, it was whole.
Scarface gave it a shake. "Feels solid."
The woman looked at me like she'd finally found the puzzle in front of her. "Why help us?"
"Because tomorrow you might rob someone who can't talk their way out of it," I said. "And I'd rather you had a decent meal instead."
The boy grinned. "You're weird."
"Very," I agreed.
They offered me a scrap of dried meat before I left. It tasted like regret, but I chewed it with gratitude.
"Name?" the woman asked as I slung my pack over my shoulder.
"Sam."
She nodded. "I'm Rey."
The other two didn't offer names. That was fine. I'd forget them soon anyway.
By nightfall I'd made camp under a crooked birch, the stars poking holes in the dark.
I warmed my hands by the little fire and thought of the boy's grin, the way the pan hissed like it remembered its purpose, and the strange, brief mercy of not being hated.
Not every story needs a grand villain. Some just need a moment of not being broken.
Some days, survival is enough.
Some days, fixing a pot is victory.
I laid back on my bedroll, fingers laced behind my head, and listened to the fire crackle.
Tomorrow would come. It always did.
And I'd meet it the same way I always had.
With tired eyes, open hands, and the faint hope that someone, somewhere, might remember me as more than a ghost with good timing.