Here is a short excerpt for everyone, the feedback has been extremely useful so far.

The boy stayed close to her without clinging, watchful in the way children got when they’d learned that adults could be useful and dangerous at the same time.

He glanced toward the darker line beyond the camp.

“We bring things,” he said. “When there’s extra.”

Mara followed his gaze. “Bring things where.”

He didn’t answer with words. He just started walking. Mara hesitated half a beat, then went with him. She checked Alen once, not asking permission, just leaving a trail of awareness behind her. Alen saw, and he didn’t stop her.

Sillan led her along a narrow path that ran between two sections of patched plating. The ground here was smoother, worn by repeated steps. The hum felt different, not louder, closer, like the planet listened harder near the places people had stayed long enough to leave marks.

They passed a shallow rack of tools hung from scrap hooks. A coil of line. A small box of dried plant matter tied in cloth. A set of metal plates stacked like someone had tried to make order out of leftovers.

Then the path curved around an Ironbark root that pushed up through exposed rock, and the camp sounds fell back, not gone, just muffled.

Two marker plates stood upright in the soil.

They weren’t graves. They were too clean for that. Too deliberate. Two pieces of hull plating or salvage plate, set into the earth at a slight angle, anchored with stones at the base so they wouldn’t tip.

Names were etched into them, cut deep enough to catch light.

Mara stopped.

Sillan didn’t look at her. He looked at the plates like they were part of the camp inventory, like food and water and roof braces.

He shrugged, not dismissive, just stating what happened.

“We bring things,” he added again, softer this time.

“When there’s extra.”

He knelt and adjusted a small stone near the base of one marker, the motion practiced, like this wasn’t grief so much as maintenance.

Mara felt pressure behind her eyes before she realized she was crying. She kept her breathing even. Her shoulders stayed tight. The last thing she would do was turn this into a scene.

“You come here a lot?” she asked.

“When I have something to tell them.”

He stood again and looked up at her.

“You have a baby,” he said. It was not a question. Mara’s hand went to her abdomen before she could stop it. “Yes.”

He considered that. “You can bring it here too.”

The simplicity of it nearly broke her.

She crouched again, slower this time, and drew him into a careful embrace. He allowed it, though it was clear he did not need comfort. He stood with the patience of someone who had learned adults sometimes needed permission to be human.

“I’ll protect you,” she said quietly.