Sleeping Dragon ad oblivione

he did not speak. did not descend. his silence was deliberate—an anchor, not an intrusion.
the earth’s violence rolled beneath them, heat and noise and unease, but he stood apart from it, steady as stone. his eyes never left the boy. he watched the way tsu sat, the way fear and resolve tangled in his small frame, the way he tried to be still like a grown wolf.
the woman’s voice carried. uktark did not react to it. his attention stayed fixed, protective without spectacle, presence without claim. a shadow that promised this: whatever rose from the ground, whatever crossed the fissure, it would reach the boy only by passing through him first.
and so he stood.
and watched.