#veilos

The apartment was dark aside from the faint glow filtering through the curtains from the streets below. Silvermoon never truly slept, but at least for now it was quiet. Veilos stood by the window with a mug of long-forgotten tea cooling in his hands, looking out onto the city with a thousand-yard stare. Behind him, the apartment felt different than it had a few months ago. There was another presence here now, another person who occupied space in a life he had spent years believing would remain largely solitary.

Altherei was asleep in his bed, the thought alone was enough to make him glance over his shoulder toward the bedroom door. She had stayed over before, and each time it remained a little strange. Not in a bad way or unwelcome at all, just unfamiliar. For years, his apartment had been a place he returned to alone. No matter how loud and exhausting the day, the silence had always been waiting for him when he unlocked the door.

He wasn't certain when concern for her had become something deeper. There had been no singular moment he could pinpoint, no dramatic moment of revelation. Instead it had happened gradually, through conversations, shared meals, walks through the city, and countless small moments that seemed insignificant on their own at the time. Somewhere along the way, he had started looking for her in crowds, and at some point, he realized that hearing from her had become one of the better parts of his day.

That realization should have made him happy. In many ways, it did. Yet there was a lingering discomfort he couldn't quite shake, and he knew exactly where it came from. Kyrisa's memory quietly lingered in every corner of his life, no longer the unbearable wound it had once been but still very much so present. Time had softened the sharp edges of the grief, but it could never be erased. He still thought about her, and their children, and he still missed them dearly.

The guilt was irrational, and he knew it. If Kyrisa could somehow see him now, she would likely be relieved that he had allowed someone into his life again. She had always possessed far less patience for his self-destructive tendencies than he did. Even so, there were nights when he caught himself feeling as though he were standing on cracked, uneven ground, caught between the life he had lost and the possibility of building something new.

His gaze settled on his reflection in the window. The man staring back looked older than he remembered becoming. There were more scars now, more lines around his eyes, more grey in his hair. He could not help but reflect on all that had changed since the life he once thought he would have. Sometimes he felt as though he could divide his life into two halves: before the Scourge and after it. Everything that had happened since had been shaped by that single catastrophic event, whether he wanted it to be or not.

The worst part was not the guilt, but the uncertainty. He worried constantly that he wasn't giving Altherei what she deserved. Years of grief had taught him how to endure, how to compartmentalize, and most especially how to carry burdens without asking for help. They had not taught him how to be emotionally available or how to start again. More often than he cared to admit, he found himself staring off into space, trapped in memories she could not possibly understand.

He worried she noticed every distant look, every moment his attention drifted somewhere else, and every occasion he became quiet without explanation. Altherei had never complained about any of it. In fact, she was remarkably patient, which almost made it worse. Patience had a way of highlighting his own shortcomings more effectively than criticism ever could.

Part of him wondered if he was waiting for some magical clarity to arrive. A moment when all the fear disappeared and he suddenly knew exactly what he was doing. The older he got, the more he realized that life did not work that way. The most important decisions seemed to involve moving forward despite uncertainty rather than waiting for it to vanish. He was discovering that relationships were no different.

Veilos set the mug of cold tea aside with a frown and rubbed a hand over his face. He was exhausted, though not in the physical sense. This was a deeper weariness, the kind that came from wrestling with thoughts that had no immediate solutions. He could treat injuries and reinforce mental barriers, yet when it came to his own emotions, he often felt remarkably unequipped in these situations.

A soft sound from the bedroom drew his attention. He tilted his head and listened for a moment and heard the rustle of blankets. The sound grounded him more effectively than any amount of introspection had managed. Altherei was here because she wanted to be, not because he had convinced her, not because she expected perfection, and not because she was unaware of his flaws. She knew enough of his scars to understand.

The realization eased something in him. Not enough to make the worries disappear, but enough to quiet them for the time. He cared about her deeply, whether it was love yet or something still growing into it, he couldn't honestly say. What he did know was that the thought of losing her had terrified him on Quel'Danas, and that her presence made his days brighter in ways he had not expected.

She had become someone he sought out without thinking, someone whose opinions he valued and whose happiness genuinely mattered to him. It had been a very long time since another person's presence felt so natural in his life. Perhaps that was what unsettled him as much as it comforted him, the realization that despite everything he had lost, he still had room in his heart to care this much for someone again. 

After a few moments, he finally stepped away from the window and returned to the bedroom. The mattress shifted beneath his weight as he slid carefully beneath the blankets. Altherei stirred slightly and moved closer in her sleep, settling without waking. Veilos stared at the ceiling for a while longer, listening to her breathing in the darkness, and for once he allowed himself to stop searching for answers he didn't yet have. Some things were allowed to unfold in their own time.

“Veilos, there are so many reasons that I could use to compliment you, but the one thing that stands out to me is how you read. That night could have been very dark for me. Instead of being alone in the shadow’s embrace, I had this man who saw how thin the line was between my smile and my grief, and chose to walk me home and spend an evening animatedly reading to me. When I am at home the echoes of our laughter from that night always brings a smile to my face and tempts me to reach out and invite you to visit again.”

“The gift of getting to hear you play is more than just the beauty of the song, Jace, there are so many layers that the music awakens in me. Of course your talent is immeasurable, but it is like the melody is embodied with a spell to draw a whirlwind of emotion to the fore, and it is not just one song, it is any time you bring bow, or fingers, to your instrument. There is romanticism, something I do not feel often, passion, which I do, joy, grief, peace and a longing spirit that reaches deep inside me, dancing with an inner melancholy that I do not give name to often. Thank you for being a musician that awakens the spirit as well as the heart.”

“Vixannya, there is something about you that captures my attention and draws me in. When I met you, I did not have a connection between you and your art that I have seen in collections, but instantly I could remember those pieces and it fit in my mind that you created them. Even in casual chats I can see the artist in you without any outward aspect I can pin down, and maybe that is the reason I always feel a small rush when I see you.”

Directly following this story found ----> HERE TW: Child death, death

He laid Kyrisa down gently as if she might still wake, easing her onto the cool sand where the tide could not reach. He lingered there kneeling beside her, hands hovering as though unsure where to rest them now. Her dark hair spread around her across the sand, dusted faintly with ash, her face already too still. He pressed his forehead to hers once, breathing in salt, smoke, and the fading trace of her, then forced himself to stand.

There was no time to rest. “ZYNIA,” he called first, voice already fraying as he searched for his daughter. “AERIL!” He called for his young son, but the only sound was the crash of waves and the distant screams of a city dying.

He ran.

He searched the beaches first, boots slipping in wet sand as he moved from body to body, turning each small form with shaking hands, praying and dreading in the same breath. Each time it was not them, relief and horror twisted together so tightly he thought it might split his ribs apart. These were someone else’s children. Any other moment, the realization would have shattered him, but panic left no room for it.

The newly risen Scourge came in waves just as relentless as the tumultuous sea. He cut through them without thought of who they had been previously, blade flashing as Light and Shadow burned hot through his veins until his hands shook from the strain. Fingers clawed at him, jaws snapped, but he moved like a man possessed, because he was. Each corpse that fell felt like buying one more second to keep searching, one more breath before the truth could catch up to him.

He searched the areas where the fighting had been thickest, calling their names until his voice went raw. He searched abandoned homes, the triage tents, and anywhere else survivors might have gathered. When there was nowhere left on land, he went into the water.

He waded into the sea still armored, waves crashing against his chest as he scanned the surf for any sign of familiarity. The cold bit deep, but he barely felt it. He dove beneath the surface again and again until his lungs burned and eyes stung with salt and grief. He refused to stop, because stopping meant accepting what he could not bear to name.

Day blurred into night and back again. Someone pressed water into his hands at some point. Someone tried to speak to him, but he barely heard them. He just kept searching.

By the third day, his body begged for rest, but he ignored it and pushed through it with a stubbornness that bordered on madness. He slaughtered every undead thing that crossed his path without mercy, as if punishing them might force the world to give his children back.

It didn’t.

When a fellow soldier and friend finally found him, Veilos was knee-deep in the surf again, staring out at the endless gray horizon like he could will it to answer him. “They’re gone, Veil,” the man said softly, voice breaking under the weight of those words. He didn’t respond at first, nor did he move. The words slid off something numb within him. A hand firmly closed around his arm, “You’ve done all you can.”

That was what finally cracked him wide open, not the words that were spoken, but the gentleness in which they were delivered. His knees nearly gave out, the fight draining from him all at once and leaving behind only hollow exhaustion in its wake. He let himself be led back to shore, though his gaze kept drifting over his shoulder, as if expecting to see two small figures running toward him at the last moment.

They never did.

He carried Kyrisa himself, refusing to allow anyone else to touch her. He held her wrapped carefully in a blanket and held close, as if the world might still try to take her from him if he loosened his grip. He knew they would begin digging mass graves at some point. There were too many dead, not enough time, and definitely not enough hands. “No,” he said when they tried to guide him that way. “She won’t go there.” No one argued after seeing his face. 

The cemetery was quiet in a way that felt almost cruel after all the chaos, no one here was coming back to life. He walked to the place where his mother and her wife rested, the headstones and flowers lovingly kept by Veilos himself. He set Kyrisa down beside their shared grave, and then he began to dig.

The soil was stubborn, stones making the work slow and punishing, but he didn’t care. His hands blistered, his muscles burned, his sweat mixed with dirt and ash, but he never stopped. The rhythm of the movement became the only thing keeping him upright. Drive the shovel down, scoop, lift, throw, then repeat over again and again until the world narrowed to just him, her, and the earth beneath.

It took him hours, perhaps longer. Time had long since lost meaning. When the grave was finally deep enough, he climbed out slowly and knelt beside her. His hands shook as he brushed dirt from her hair, smoothing it back and tucking it behind her ear the way he always had. He remained there for a while, memorizing every line of her face and every detail that he already knew, because he knew this was the last time he would ever see her.

He wasn’t ready.

He stayed until the light began to fade, until the chill crept into the air, until even his stubborn heart could not pretend the moment could be held back forever. At last, with a shaky breath, he delicately lowered her into the ground, positioning her with the same care he had shown on the shore, as if she were only sleeping.

For a long time he lingered there, kneeling between the two women who had shaped his life. His hands hovered over the shovel again and again before he finally forced himself to begin. Each shovelful felt heavier than the last as she slowly disappeared beneath the earth. He stopped more than once, staring down as if expecting her to sit up, to laugh, and to tell him this was some terrible mistake.

But the grave filled all the same.

When it was done, he sat there between the two graves, hands slack in his lap, exhaustion finally claiming what grief had not allowed. The world felt impossibly quiet. “I couldn’t find them,” he whispered into the stillness, voice breaking at last. “I looked everywhere. I’ll try again.” The wind stirred the trees softly overhead, it was the only answer he would ever receive.

At some point, without meaning to, he lay back against the cool earth between his mother and Kyrisa, as if trying to exist in the space there between past and present. The ground was hard, the air cold, but he barely noticed. Sleep took him there, beneath the open sky, cradled between the two graves, as though he could keep watch over them even in rest. He didn’t spare a thought for any straggling ghouls. If they came for him, he wouldn’t resist.

When he finally woke, something in him felt hollowed out by a grief so vast it seemed impossible he could still be standing at all. Yet he was, and he would carry that emptiness with him for years to come.

Veilos hadn’t expected to feel nervous. He had been to plenty of galas and fundraisers before and after every terrible thing that happened during the Siege. But as he walked up the path towards Meadowrun Conservatory beside Altherei, something in his chest felt unsteady and unusually heavy.

Altherei looked effortless in the lantern light, the kind of presence that didn’t ask for a room’s attention but earned it all the same. He reminded himself, as he always did, that this was just two friends attending an event together. No expectations, no implications, just that.

The galleries were full of warmth, color, and memory. Pieces of lives cut short and given permanence through the hands that shaped them. Veilos moved slowly, hands clasped behind his back as though he were still on duty, his posture carefully controlled. Altherei walked beside him, her quiet commentary thoughtful rather than heavy. He found that comforting, she didn’t speak as though she wanted to resurrect the past, she spoke as someone honoring it.

It was in the gallery of art done by the young apprentices where he had to slow his steps. The small booklet listing ages was what did it. Sixteen, seventeen, ten, the years where life was supposed to be beginning, not ending. He felt her gaze drift to him, not prying, just aware of his shift in demeanor. He kept his breathing even, his thoughts compartmentalized. She didn’t ask him anything, and he was grateful for it.

At one point, they stood together in front of the Sunglass installation, the glass fragments glowing brilliantly under the enchanted golden hour light. Altherei’s face was soft in that glow, and he watched it reflected in the glass instead of looking directly at her.

He wanted to tell her about Kyrisa, who could light up a room with her smile. About Zynia, who had just turned thirteen and was learning to play the lute like her mother. About Aeril, ten years old, who always woke up before the sun and begged to help him prepare breakfast. About how the Light hadn’t saved them, and how he hadn’t forgiven himself for surviving when they did not.

The words pressed heavily behind his teeth, laced with the familiar heartache that never fully left him. But how does one introduce grief into beauty? ‘This piece reminds me of my family.’ It sounded wrong. Too sharp, too heavy, much too selfish. This was neither the time nor place, even if it would have been the perfect time and place.

So when Altherei spoke of something light and thoughtful, he followed her lead. He let the conversation drift instead to craftsmanship, to how light behaves in color, to whether the enchantment shifted with the hour or simply mimicked one. He kept his voice steady and his expression measured. He kept his past where it belonged, for now. This evening wasn’t about him.

Later, they found themselves in one of the music rooms. Red played a piece on guitar, Voice of the Elrendar, the melody flowing like the river itself. Altherei closed her eyes to listen, but Veilos kept his open. He knew that if he closed them, he would see Kyrisa’s hands on the strings of her lute and he wasn’t ready for that tonight.

Still, something loosened in him as the music filled the small room. The melody was sad, but not broken, hopeful, but not naive. It walked the thin edge between mourning and continuation, the same edge he lived on every day. He realized, with an almost startled sort of awareness, that he hoped Altherei would stay in his life long enough to hear him talk about that edge one day. Not tonight, not soon, but someday.

When the evening finally drew to a close, he offered to walk her home. They followed the quiet forest path through Eversong Woods, reflecting on the evening. “Thank you for inviting me.” Altherei’s smile was soft, not knowing she had been the reason he could bear the evening at all.

He hesitated only a breath before stepping closer. Both arms wrapped around her, the embrace warm yet careful, as though he feared holding on too tightly to something he could not keep. She returned it without question or expectation, and it steadied something inside him that had been trembling all evening. He pulled back, hands slipping into the pockets of his coat to give them purpose. “I was glad to have your company.”

It was the most he could allow himself.

They parted there, she disappearing into the warm glow of her doorway, and he taking the long way back toward his apartment in Silvermoon. When he entered, the silence did not suffocate him the way it usually did. The rooms were still empty, the past was still waiting for him. Something new lingered in the quiet, something that felt almost like he might be lucky to still be here to feel it. Something warm, and something he was too afraid to name just yet.

They shook hands before the first round and gave a brief nod, a mutual understanding that this is just a friendly match. The other fighter, a younger Sin’dorei named Aeryndor, was quick on his feet and heavier with his kicks than Veilos expected. It made him adjust his stance right away, tucking his elbows in tighter and moving more defensively.

The first few exchanges were quick, technical, and clean. Veilos managed a jab to the chin and a low leg kick. Aeryndor landed a sharp elbow that rattled Veilos’s jaw so hard his vision flashed white for half a second. It was good, smart fighting, and Veilos respected that.

Midway through the second round, Veilos caught a knee to the side. He didn’t drop, but his breathing turned rough, and he stayed on defense. Even still, he landed a clean hook that split Aeryndor’s lower lip. They both grinned at each other, wiped sweat from their brows with taped wrists, and kept going.

By the third round, it was clear Veilos was slowing, and Aeryndor was not. He feinted left, landed a spinning elbow that clipped Veilos’s temple, and Veilos hit the mat one moment later. Not knocked out, but not getting back up either. Veilos took a few to compose himself before clasping the outstretched hand and hauled himself up, muttering, “Good hit.” 

The other man grinned back, blood on his teeth, with eyes bright. “You almost had me in that first round, though.” Veilos only chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder once before stepping out of the ring. The other fighters nodded to him, pats on the back to show their respect. Genuine camaraderie. It was a good loss, if there was such a thing.

By the time he got back to his apartment, he could already feel everything tightening: shoulders, ribs, bruises forming where knees had collided and fists had landed. He peeled off his shirt and tossed it aside before dampening a washcloth. The cut above his brow was still bleeding, so he cleaned it, and pressed the cloth to his skin until the stinging subsided. 

He took a breath, leaned back, and listened to the silence that filled the space like a creeping fog. There was no cheering, no voices calling out hits and counters, just the empty hum of the city outside the open window and the tick of a nearby clock. The adrenaline was starting to wither now, leaving behind only the ache and the quiet. This was the part he hated most, it always came back to this moment.

Eventually, he stood, drank water straight from the tap, and tossed the bloodied washcloth into the sink. His body hurt, that part he understood and welcomed. The silence, though, that settled over him in a way he couldn’t brace for. He didn’t lie down, not yet. He just sat on his couch, staring at nothing and letting the quiet press in until eventually he would drag himself to the shower and then bed.

Tomorrow, he would heal himself, and in a few nights, he would probably fight again.

Veil's perspective from Altherei's 3-part story. Read them here! Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

The medic zones near the outer courtyard are already overflowing with wounded soldiers. The air here on the Isle of Quel’danas smells like ozone, copper, and something unnameable. Light flashes in violent bursts across the Isle as priests and paladins answer the void with radiance. He had been steady and focused until this moment, commanding triage with the same calm he had used during his days of being a combat medic within the military.

Then his comm chimes: ‘I’m alive, but trapped in a building somewhere north of the docks. It’s partially collapsed, but I think the structure’s stable. I’ll try to get to the docks as soon as I can.’

The world suddenly narrows. North of the docks.

For half a heartbeat, he cannot breathe. The shoreline rises in his mind, not obscured in voidstorm as it is now, but as it was years ago when the Scourge came. Smoke and screams, the last place he saw his wife Kyrisa alive. The stretch of coast where his children Zynia and Aeril were meant to evacuate and never found.

Not again.

He does not explain himself, he does not delegate, he just simply moves. “I’ll return.” A comment made towards Lynesse and Emaisyn, the other Shielded Mind healers nearby, not bothering to wait for their acknowledgement. It is stupid and reckless, but they will understand later.

The path to the docks is a corridor of chaos. Void monstrosities pour from fractures in the sky, a writhing horror lunges for him, but he does not slow. Light erupts from his palm in a blinding arc, shearing it in half. Another claws at his side and he answers with a burst of radiant force that sends it disintegrating into ash.

He is not careful anymore. He is furious.

A tendril lashes across his ribs, tearing cloth and skin. He feels the warmth of blood under his armor and keeps going, allowing his magic to do just enough to slow the bleeding. Something heavy slams into his shoulder nearly dropping him to one knee, but he rises anyway with teeth bared and Light blazing brighter, fueled by the madness driving him forward.

The shoreline.The same helpless memory clawing at his chest.He will not lose someone else here.

He opens his mind. 

It is not a gentle thing, he does not probe politely. He tears his awareness wide and casts it outward through the chaos. Past the screams, past the roar of battle, past the static of the Devouring Host. Again, reckless. Last time he was reckless, he got an axe blade to the side of his head. But it works. 

Altherei.

He finds her like a flicker in a storm. There’s fear and pain, and the sharp pull of a voidwalker’s hunger. She’s in danger, she’s not going to make it. North of the docks, a collapsed structure. He turns toward it without hesitation.

A voidcaller bars his path, chanting something foul. Veilos does not even break stride. Light gathers in his chest and explodes outward in a concussive wave that shatters the creature mid-incantation. Another horror descends from above. He reaches up and hurls a lance of radiant energy that pierces it clean through.

He is bleeding. He is breathing too fast. He does not care.

He reaches the broken building just as the voidwalker rounds the interior. He doesn’t think. “Altherei?! Altherei!!” His voice is hoarse, already raw. The bolt of Light he casts is not careful, it is searing wrath made manifest. The voidwalker doesn’t even have time to turn before it is obliterated.

“H-here— I’m here!” The sound of her voice nearly undoes him.

He moves debris like a man possessed, his strength enhanced by terror of what he may find. When he sees her with blood down her face, shoulder out of place, dust-caked, and shaking, something inside him fractures and mends all at once. She is alive.

He swallows the tremor that wants to rise in his throat and slips back into command. Dislocation, head wound, shock, all fixable. He touches her carefully. “Can you walk?”

When she nods, he helps her up, steady despite the blood soaking into his own side. He gets Altherei to the docks through a corridor of Light he carves himself, shielding her in the process to keep any more harm from coming to her, and caring little for himself. By the time they reach the boats, his armor is scorched and split, dark enough to hide his own blood running down his side. But she is upright, breathing, and safe, for now. That is what matters.

She starts to speak. He sees it in her gaze, the gratitude and the thousand unsaid things in her eyes. For one reckless second, he almost reaches for her.

Then the Light shifts, but it isn’t his, it is something far more vast and commanding. A shimmer rolls across the battlefield like a sunrise breaking over the horizon. An invocation carried through the very bones of Azeroth. A call to the Sunwell. He feels it seize something deep in him, the part attuned to the Light since he first learned to wield it. It is not a suggestion, it is a summons. His eyes widen slightly in surprise as golden radiance begins to gather around him.

Not now.Not when she is still looking at him like that.

“Veilos— Veil—!!”

He reaches for her instinctively, but his fingers are already dissolving into luminous strands. He has just enough time to give her one last steady look, not that it would be of any comfort. 

Then he is gone, the Light takes him.

For one breathless instant he is nothing but weightless brilliance, and the next he stands at the edge of the Sunwell itself, alongside others drawn by the same call. The sky above churns with the void and the Devouring Host presses inward. His wounds burn, his ribs ache, and blood still soaks his side, but he does not feel it. All he can see is the Sunwell. The heart of his homeland, the place that has already cost him everything once before.

He plants his feet. “Not today,” he says quietly to the encroaching dark. And when the next wave of void creatures surges toward the Sunwell, Veilos meets them in a blaze of Light bright enough to challenge midnight itself.

“I’m pregnant.”

“Shit.” Veilos couldn’t help the swear that spilled from his lips, immediately following it up with a, “Sorry.”

Kyrisa smirked as she touched his arm, “No, don’t. That was my reaction too. Shit. Indeed.”

They had only been married for about seven years now and planned on at least waiting a couple more decades before having kids of their own. But life does indeed find a way. Veilos smiled in a way that didn’t quite touch his eyes. This was something they wanted, but they had so many other plans that would now need to be set aside. 

He scrubbed his hands down over his face as the Panic began to set in. They only had nine months, no, less than that now, to prepare to bring a new life into this world. This often cruel world that made him question whether bringing in new life would ever be a wise decision. There was never a good time. He had seen some horrible things throughout his time spent in the military. Then there was the question of the military, he was going to retire after a couple decades, but what now? He couldn’t leave her alone if he had to be deployed, but he couldn’t afford to retire, not yet. Could they even afford a baby right now?

“Hey, come back to me.” She cupped his cheeks and set his focus on her. “Don’t go there.” She knew him well enough by this point to clock and know how to pull him out of his spiraling. “I know it’s sooner than we wanted, but we’re having a baby. A piece of you, a piece of me, wrapped into one perfect, tiny person. We will figure it out, we have time.”

Veilos closed his eyes and smiled as he allowed her words to sink in. “You’re right.”

“I’m always right.” She grinned a little wider. “I want to name her Zynia.”

“Her?” Veilos opened his eyes and leaned back with a raised brow.

“I’m not for certain, just a gut feeling. Do you think it’s a good idea? Or maybe it’s too soon? …Or maybe it’s too weird…”

Zynia had been his mother’s wife. The two met in the brothel in which they both worked, and she had always been something of a second mother to him. She helped raise him, protect him, and taught him much about the world. She loved him fiercely, as if he were her own. He had never seen his mother so happy as when they were together. She had, most unfortunately, passed suddenly about two weeks ago. Veilos couldn’t help but to blame himself for not being there when it happened. Maybe he could have brought her back, maybe he could have saved her. He could have done something, and she would still be here. Deep down he knew that were not the case, but he still felt it deeply. A bittersweet smile touched his lips, eyes misting as he tilted his gaze upwards, blinking a few times to stave off the welling emotions.

Kyrisa caught a stray tear with her thumb, directing his attention once more onto her. “It’s just an idea, we don’t have to.”

“No, I think it’s perfect. She’ll be perfect.”

The smell of sweat, blood, and cheap beer clung to the air as Veilos tightened the wraps around his hands. The underground brawling club below the Murder Row dive bar hadn’t changed much over the years: dim lights, the low thrum of bass heavy music pulsing through the walls from the night club next door, the illuminated ring filled with wafting smoke.

But he had changed.

He flexed his fingers as he waited his turn. His breath was calm, his stance relaxed, there was a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Not smug and not eager to hurt anyone, just one of anticipation. That itch beneath his skin, the kind that only the bell could scratch.

The brawler ringmaster wandered up behind him and murmured softly, “Five minutes, Doc.”

“Got it,” he replied, rolling his neck with a satisfying crack. Since his first impulsive fight years ago, he had been training seriously in various techniques involved in the sport. He wasn’t the guy headlining flyers or pulling sponsors, but he had a reputation now: the Doctor who didn’t back down. The man who wasn’t supposed to win and somehow kept doing it.

He stood and made his way toward the ring. The crowd stirred when they saw him, not with adoration, but with curiosity. The kind of attention you give a gambler who keeps beating the odds. He wasn’t the fastest or strongest, but he was fun to watch, and sometimes that mattered more.

As he ducked through the ropes, his golden eyes scanned the room, not sizing anyone up, but savoring the scene. The smells, the pulse, the crackle of energy in the air. This place was filthy, loud, and dangerous, and it made him feel alive.

His opponent, a hulking troll with broad shoulders and showy footwork, was already grinning through his mouthguard. Veilos grinned right back. Not a challenge, just a shared thrill. They both knew why they were here.

Then the bell rang.

The troll came in heavy and fast, all offense and confidence. Veilos dodged the first two punches, letting them rush past before countering with a quick jab and a solid right hook to the ribs. His timing was clean and practiced. Not flashy, just effective. The crowd murmured again in surprise.

The troll wasn’t all brawn, he was clever too. After a feint and clinch, he landed a sneaky headbutt to Veilos’s temple just as the ref turned away. Veilos staggered, his vision flaring white for a moment. The crowd howled, some in outrage, others loving the dirty play. Veilos didn’t snarl or seethe. He just laughed under his breath as he shook it off. “Cheap.” 

He wasn’t here to whine about pain. He liked the edge, liked feeling his heart race, liked reading an opponent in motion, liked pushing his body to its limit and still getting up. By the third minute, the troll was slowing down and clearly frustrated. Veilos saw his chance, a little window in the rhythm, and drove a clean hook into the troll’s jaw. The follow-up was all instinct and the troll hit the mat with a heavy thud.

The crowd roared.

Veilos stood over him, chest heaving, grin softening into something content. That particular brand of euphoria, the kind that only comes after a real fight, flooded his veins. He didn’t gloat nor celebrate, he just took it all in with a kind of quiet joy as the thrill of it all flushed his cheeks.

Back in the hallway, gloves hanging from his fingers, he caught his reflection in a cracked mirror. His temple would bruise and his knuckles throbbed, and yet this was why he came back. Not for victory, not for pride, but for the adrenaline and the chaos. The grounding silence in his head when the rest of the world faded out.

Because here, in this shadowy corner of the city, he didn’t have to be a widower. He didn’t have to be a doctor constantly responsible for life and death. He didn’t have to smile for patients or stand as a symbol of healing and control. In the ring, he could truly feel: pain and clarity, noise and silence, guilt and release. It was a kind of therapy that didn’t ask him to talk.

His gaze lingered on his reflection, then drifted down the hall. The noise of the crowd had already shifted to the next round. That was fine. The ring remembered him, and he remembered what it gave him every time he stepped inside of it. That pain was proof that he was still here, still fighting. A reason to keep going.