17.Damon’s Journal – The Turning Tide & Kael’s Chronicle – From Thieves to Neighbors

It had been four months since Jack arrived in Merriton. Damon still remembered that first day—no one had come to see him off, not even a guard from the capital. He arrived with just the dust on his boots and eyes that held more past than present. Back then, everyone thought he'd flee within a week.

Damon had spent two decades as a soldier and five years as Elsa's personal guard. He'd seen lords make empty promises and abandon towns. But Jack? Jack surprised him. Not with charisma or power, but with relentless, tireless effort.

The turning point came when the bandits attacked. Damon remembered the raw fear in the villagers' eyes. Jack didn't raise a sword—he raised an offer. "Three months," he said to the bandit chief, "and I'll give you food. Just stop the raids." Madness, everyone called it. Damon had called it idiocy.

But then… Jack planted potatoes.

He brought in farmers, worked side by side with them, got his hands filthy. The man who once couldn't walk through the capital without jeers now led peasants and ex-bandits alike. Damon watched it all with cautious curiosity.

Then came the real test: when Rook, a young bandit, was caught stealing grain. Instead of punishment, Jack called him to the field the next morning. "You owe me this much work," Jack had said, handing him a hoe.

That's when Damon saw it—the spark. The ex-bandits weren't loyal yet, but they were listening.

Weeks passed. Rook became a field overseer. Grem, a one-eyed brute, opened a soup stand with vegetables Jack helped grow. Even Elna, the most suspicious villager, stopped spitting when Jack's name came up.

Damon wrote in his journal:

"Bandits now call themselves villagers. Villagers still lock their doors, but they now greet their former enemies with nods. I've seen blood feuds last generations—Jack is bridging one in a season."

Still, Damon worried. How are you jack.?

---

Kael didn't trust them. No one should've trusted them.

The so-called Blackthorns had pillaged his uncle's farm a year before. They murdered a merchant who refused to pay. When Jack offered them peace, Kael nearly resigned.

But Damon convinced him: "Watch first. Judge later."

So Kael watched. He followed Rook. Listened to Grem grumble about turnips. Observed Elna toss food to a child from the other side.

Then one day, he saw something impossible.

Rook teaching a kid how to make rows for planting. Grem saving a lamb that had fallen into the stream. Tova, once a lookout, now singing lullabies with the village children.

Kael couldn't believe it. "Why are you doing this?" he asked Rook.

Rook scratched his beard. "Because Jack didn't kill me. Figured I'd try not to kill myself either."

And that was it. No grand revelation. Just… survival, kindness, and purpose.

Kael started calling them by name. Villagers did too. Tensions remained—someone had painted "Thieves" on Grem's stall—but Jack had taught them something vital:

That hate could be unlearned.

Kael penned a letter to Jack while he was away in the capital:

"The potato fields bloom. The children play. Damon argues with chickens. Your absence is felt, but your presence remains. Merriton stands. Stronger than before."