It was strange how easily Eliza had become part of Asoka's days.
There had been no clear beginning to it. No agreement, no shared confession, no moment that marked the start of friendship. Eliza had simply appeared—first as a passing presence in the market, then as a voice in the shop, then as someone whose footsteps Asoka began to recognize before she even looked up. Familiarity grew not from intention, but from repetition.
Asoka did not question it. She had lived long enough without companionship to accept it when it came, even quietly. Loneliness, after all, made no demands. It only waited.
Eliza filled the space where silence once lingered. She spoke easily, laughed often, and never pushed conversations toward places that required explanation. She asked about crops, about weather, about small inconveniences that carried no weight. When Asoka spoke, Eliza listened with the ease of someone who did not need answers, only presence.
When she helped in the shop, she did so without instruction. She reached for jars without hesitation, tied bundles with practiced hands, and remembered where things were kept even when days passed between her visits. Asoka noticed this once, vaguely, and then dismissed it. Some people learned quickly. Some people simply fit.
Life went on.
Asoka worked harder than she had before, though she could not say exactly why. It was not panic, and not desperation, rather It was a quiet resolve, the kind that formed when one realized that waiting would bring nothing. If something had been taken from her—money, opportunity, direction—it would not be the end of her plans. It would only require more effort.
She rose earlier. She stayed later. She added extra labor where she could find it, carrying loads for others, tending fields that were not her own. Her hands grew rougher, her body more accustomed to strain. Fatigue became familiar, almost comforting. It left little room for thought.
Knowledge in the settlement had its boundaries, though few could explain where they lay. Certain topics faded quickly when mentioned. Certain stories were told only halfway. Children learned early which questions earned smiles and which earned silence. The rules were not written, but they were already understood.
Asoka had learned them the same way she learned the seasons—not consciously, but through experience.
She had reached an age where her presence drew attention without intention. It was not said aloud, but women who remained unwed beyond their expected years became noticeable in ways that felt neither kind nor cruel. They were discussed gently, advised often, and watched quietly. Not as threats, but as matters unresolved.
They met when their paths crossed. Sometimes Eliza helped in the shop, sometimes she did not. There was no pattern to her visits. When she was absent, she offered no reason. When she appeared, she acted as though no time had passed at all. Asoka never questioned this. Friendship, she believed, did not require accounting.
Once, while they worked together late in the afternoon, Eliza paused and studied her for a moment.
"You're very steady," she said.
Asoka smiled faintly. "I don't have much choice."
Eliza laughed at that, as if it were a joke, and turned back to her work.
There were moments—brief, easily overlooked—when Asoka thought she caught Eliza watching her with an expression she could not quite name. Not concern. Not calculation. Something softer. Something fleeting. It always passed before Asoka could settle on it, replaced by a smile or a remark about the weather.
Asoka never dwelled on it. Life demanded attention elsewhere.
The world around her did not feel dangerous. Not in any way that could be named. It felt ordered. Restrained. Carefully maintained. Like a place where everything already had a purpose, whether or not it was visible.
At night, Asoka slept deeply. Her dreams were plain—fields, roads, familiar faces. No omens. No visions. And yet, there were mornings when she woke with the sense that something had been interrupted. Not taken. Simply paused, as though a thought had stopped mid-sentence.
She did not speak of this. There was no reason to.
If anything troubled her, it was the growing awareness that many lives in the settlement followed paths chosen long before the walkers ever noticed. Some people stepped into those paths easily. Others were guided. A few resisted without understanding that resistance itself could be anticipated.
Asoka did not yet know which she was.
And Eliza—warm, capable, present when needed—remained exactly where she had always been.
As the days shortened, signs of change appeared throughout the settlement.
It was nothing sudden. No announcement was made, no bell rung. Instead, people began to prepare in the quiet ways they always had. Cloth was aired and mended. Storage jars were checked. Children were sent to gather fallen branches, while older women swept thresholds more carefully than usual. Even the air seemed to carry a different weight, sharpened by anticipation rather than cold.
The village—long known as Vishara to travelers from surrounding lands—had grown modestly over the years, its streets lined with timber-framed homes and small workshops. Asoka had always thought of it simply as home, a place of chores and familiar faces. But now, as she observed the bustling preparations, she realized that even the oldest paths of Vishara could feel new when the people within them shifted with purpose.
The season of festivals was nearing.
They called it The Emberwake, a time said to mark the turning of the land from labor to remembrance. Officially, the church described it as a season of gratitude—offerings for harvest, prayers for protection, reflection before winter's deeper trials. Unofficially, the people remembered older meanings, passed down in half-phrases and softened traditions. Fires lit not only for warmth, but for watching. Songs sung not only for joy, but for keeping something at bay.
Asoka had grown up with Emberwake, though she had never thought much about it. As a child, it had meant colored ribbons tied to posts, spiced bread when grain allowed, and nights when the streets stayed lively longer than usual. As an adult, it meant preparation—and scrutiny. Festivals drew attention. Attendance was noted. Absence remembered.
The elders, it was said, observed more closely during Emberwake. The church doors opened wider, yet fewer were permitted beyond the inner halls. Certain rites were conducted behind closed curtains, their purpose explained only in careful, distant terms.
Eliza mentioned the festival casually one afternoon, as if it were no more than a change in weather.
"You'll keep the shop open longer during Emberwake," she said. "More travelers pass during this time of the year."
Asoka nodded. "If they do."
"They always do," Eliza replied, smiling. "They will always come."
The way she said it suggested certainty rather than prediction.
That evening, as Asoka walked home through the narrow lanes of Vishara, she noticed the first of the fire pits being cleared in the square. Old ash was swept away. Stones were reset. The space looked ordinary enough, yet she felt the faintest sense of arrival, as though the village itself were drawing breath.
She did not yet know what Emberwake would bring this year, but she kept her hopes..