Thoren
The Blackstone settlement felt different this morning.
Not dramatically. Not enough that anyone unfamiliar with fear would have noticed.
But I did.
Yesterday, every face I passed had carried the same expression. Wide eyes. Tight shoulders. The look of people waiting for the punishment to finally reveal itself.
Today…
Children played.
Not all of them.
Not freely.
But enough.
A little girl chased three chickens across the main road while an older boy shouted after her with all the authority of someone barely old enough to tie his own boots.
Two women stood outside one of the homes hanging freshly washed clothes on a line. Someone had already begun turning over the soil in one of the community gardens.
Life.
Tentative.
Fragile.
But beginning.
I walked slowly through th
