The settlement had grown.
Not in beauty.
Not in hope.
But in numbers, in noise, in the slow accumulation of human flaws.
The first fracture had been small — two farmers bickering over a piece of land no wider than a man's shoulders.
A word, a shove, a glance.
And then silence again, hastily buried under shallow gestures of peace.
But fractures, once born, never truly die.
They deepen.
They wait.
**
The second crack was louder.
Two men fought by the well, fists swinging with desperate, exhausted fury.
One accused the other of stealing water.
The other screamed of betrayal, of hunger, of survival.
Their voices tore through the evening air.
Others gathered, drawn by the sound like wolves to the scent of blood.
Women pulled their children back.
Old men clenched their teeth and looked away.
No one stepped forward.
Not at first.
And then —
Anor'ven appeared.
**
He stood at the edge of the circle, silent.
The arguing men fell into a stuttering, broken halt.
The villagers turned.
One by one.
Their mouths dried.
Their bodies stiffened.
Anor'ven walked forward, slow and deliberate.
Not rushed.
Not angry.
A presence heavier than the air itself.
His eyes swept over the two men, then over the crowd.
No words.
No accusations.
Only that unbearable gaze.
Like a weight pressing against the very marrow of their bones.
As if he saw not just their violence —
but the seeds of every future violence,
the inevitable rot within them.
One of the fighters — a broad-shouldered man with cracked knuckles — tried to speak.
A stumbling plea.
An excuse.
A reaching hand.
Anor'ven did not move.
The silence stretched so long that even the cicadas fell mute.
And then, with a slowness that felt like the turning of a dying world,
he raised his hand.
He pointed — not at one man, not at the other.
At both.
At all of them.
The meaning was clear.
No second chance.
No forgiveness.
"You may live," his silence said,
"but you will live knowing that your place here is conditional, fragile, always one breath away from exile."
**
The fighters dropped their arms.
Their shoulders sagged.
Tears sprang into hardened eyes.
The crowd shifted back, instinctively creating space.
Not out of respect.
Out of fear.
Not fear of death.
Fear of being judged and found unworthy by something that could not be swayed — not by tears, not by repentance, not by love.
**
From that day onward, the settlement changed.
Laughter became quieter.
Arguments vanished before they could ignite.
Smiles were thinner, more brittle.
It was not order.
It was survival.
A kingdom of trembling obedience built upon the silent foundation of a single, unspoken law:
"Exist carefully, or cease to exist at all."
Anor'ven watched it unfold without satisfaction.
Without sorrow.
Only with that same detached patience that watches rivers carve through mountains —
slow, inevitable, merciless.
He had not lifted a weapon.
He had not shouted.
He had not punished with his hands.
He had punished with absence.
With judgment so vast it made gods seem petty.
**
That night, sitting alone atop a bare hill overlooking his fledgling utopia,
he whispered without moving his lips:
"They will not destroy themselves.
Not yet.
Not here."
The stars offered no answer.
The cold wind carried no warmth.
Only the brittle truth:
This was not peace.
It was not paradise.
It was a pause.
A held breath.
And somewhere, deep within Anor'ven, the understanding grew sharper, colder:
One day, even this would not be enough.
But for now, it was.
For now, silence reigned.