The Baldr Experiment: Chapter 5 – The Story – Part 9

Rachel Barton
Dec 20, 2025
2 min read

Wounds & Rescue

Fantasy illustration of a cloaked rider guiding a white horse at dusk, carrying a small, weary companion in their arms, while two smaller figures and a dog follow behind near crumbling stone ruins, creating a quiet, protective moment during a difficult journey.

The climb left its mark.

Not all at once.

Not dramatically.

Just enough to realise that pushing the story forward, really pushing it had taken more than I’d noticed at the time.

Not just tiredness, but the kind that settles deeper. The sort that makes even good progress feel heavy, and turns momentum into something that needs carrying.

The direction was still right.

The story still mattered.

But continuing without pause would have been careless.

Suziedog clocked it immediately. This was no longer a press on situation. This was a stop, a sit down, a need to be looked after properly phase of the quest. Preferably somewhere safe. Preferably without debate.

And this is where Arwen appears.

Not as part of the fellowship.

Not to question the journey.

Not to understand the details of the road I’d been walking.

Arwen’s role is different.

This is a rescue. Not from the journey, but for the journey.

Creating safety, space, and passage away from the point where pushing forward would harm the journey, the story.

To receive care without interrogation and shelter without explanation.

This wasn’t a retreat. It was preservation.

Because wounds don’t mean failure. They mean the journey has become real enough to leave a mark. And recovery isn’t weakness, it’s what allows the story to continue.

Strider understood this and enforced it without compromise.

And the road waited.

The story is still here.

The journey isn’t over.

But this chapter exists so that when I walk again, I do so whole.

I wasn’t failing.

I was being carried.

And sometimes, that’s exactly what ensures the story survives.