As they approached, each extended both hands clasping over Elijah’s hand and wrist in a gesture of respect and connection.

Elijah returned the greetings with quiet nods, gripping their forearms in turn, a faint smile flickering across his face despite the exhaustion. There was recognition in their eyes, not just of shared labour, but of something harder earned: survival, and perhaps something like belonging.

The village had arrived like a quiet tide but strong, coordinated, unyielding.

Nyah walked forward and began explaining what needed attention.

Where the animals were safe, where the fence line had been breached.

Wilson listened closely, then turned to his people. With quiet authority, he began issuing instructions; measured, steady, and clear. No sharpness was needed. His voice alone carried weight, and the others moved without hesitation.

From the women’s group, an older woman stepped forward. Her frame was slight beneath layers of cloth, her back curved with age, but her movements were sure. She approached Bette without hesitation, holding a small gourd and a folded cloth. Her eyes, milky with age but still clear with purpose, scanned Bette’s arms. Without asking, she reached gently for the scrapes that ran across Bette’s forearms, already beginning to scab under the ash and grit.

She spoke in Maa, her voice low and rhythmic, like a chant woven with comfort. Though Bette knew the language well enough, she couldn’t understand every word but the tone was unmistakably kind grounded in care, in the simple act of offering peace where she could.

Bette blinked, the memory surfacing slow and uninvited: years ago, tending to the same woman’s injured goat after a lion attack, wrapping the animal’s leg in gauze and handing the woman an antibiotic ointment. She remembered the woman’s gratitude, her hand resting briefly over Bette’s heart as thanks. Now, those same hands, aged but steady, pressed cool herbal salve into her raw skin.

“I remember you,” Bette murmured. “Ashe Oleng.”

The woman smiled softly, her fingers never pausing in their work.

Bette let out a slow, trembling breath, soothed not just by the salve, but by the memory, by the circle of life and care that now, even after all this, had not been broken.

A shout rose from the edge of the slope.