Tiny Raven

Later, Dionys returned to the tent to find that Alessia had moved just enough to grab Queen Dottie and her sewing kit from her satchel.

He paused just inside the entrance, taking in the scene: Alessia’s needle flashing, the doll’s limbs neatly pinned, thread reinforcing worn joints. He exhaled through his nose.

“Most wounded soldiers rest when ordered,” he said dryly.

Alessia hummed, “Good thing I’m not a soldier, then.” She looked up to meet his eyes. “But, this is resting, for me. I couldn’t sleep and if I don’t do something with my hands I’ll go crazy. Figured sewing wouldn’t pull at the injury too much … as long as I don’t move my left hand.”

Dionys leaned against the central tent post, arms crossed.

“Hmph. So you can sit still—just not quietly,” he said. His gaze flicked to the half-mended doll—its faded yarn hair, the careful stitches restoring its limbs. “That’s fine craftsmanship. Your design?”

He doesn’t comment on the way her hands rarely shake, the precision of each movement belying years of practice.

He also doesn’t comment on the scars on her knuckles, or the pale ring of old burns around her wrist.

“Yeah,” Alessia said with a nod. “Took me nearly two years to make her, started once I realized I was pregnant. Had to scrounge together scraps of ruined tunics.”

Dionys cocked his head curiously.

“Why fabric?” he asked abruptly—oddly intense for the subject of conversation. “With your skill, wood or clay would last longer.”

The question isn’t really about the doll. Any soldier worth his salt would recognize ingenuity. Would understand why a woman surrounded by enemies might choose materials that didn’t clatter, or that could be hidden quickly.

That could be torn apart and remade if discovered.

He didn’t say any of that.

Alessia snorted. “I’m a seamstress, not a carver or a sculptor. All of them use the hands, but the skills are vastly different. Also, she sleeps with it—and she sleeps with me. I’d rather not get smacked with a clay doll when she tosses and turns in the middle of the night.”

She’d already suffered enough of that with the rocks.

“And fabric was easier to get. He’s a soldier. There were always tunics that were going to be torn up for rags, or rags that were going to be burned. I didn’t have a steady source of clay or wood like I did fabric.” She looked at the doll in her hands. “The fact that I could repair her after one of his rages was a bonus.”

Dionys nodded—once, sharp—like she had just handed him the final piece of a puzzle.

“Practical.” A beat, then with something like approval,” You’d have made a fine Kerian soldier.”

The unspoken ‘You still could’ hung in the air between them, but he didn’t press. Instead he jerked his chin at the doll. “She got a name?”

“Queen Dottie,” Alessia said as she puppeted the doll to give a small bow.

Dionys’ lips twitched, just slightly. “Of course it’s a queen.” He looked at the doll critically. “… Her hair’s uneven.”

“I haven’t been able to replace the hair in a while,” Alessia admitted, “Stella … took a knife to it when she was four. She thought it would grow back.”

The corner of his mouth twitched before settling back into its usual stern line. He didn’t ask why a child that young would have access to a knife unsupervised

“Obviously it grows back,” he muttered, as if this was basic logic. “She just didn’t use the right knife. Wooden handles stunt the follicles.”

He paused and then jerked his chin at the doll. “Let me see.”

Alessia blinked, but held the doll out to him, curious.

Dionys took the doll with surprising gentleness, turning her in his hands with a healer’s precision, inspecting every seam. His eyebrows climbed incrementally higher the longer he looked.

“Your sutures are better than half the healers in the infirmary.” The admission drags out of him like pulling teeth. He gestured vaguely at the doll’s reinforced joints. “Who taught you?”

“My mother,” Alessia said. “She was a seamstress.”

Dionys’ hands pause mid-inspection. For once his face is utterly unguarded—just raw surprise. “A seamstress,” he repeated, flatly disbelieving. “That’s how you sewed up your own stab wound? With embroidery lessons?”

There was something almost offended in his tone—as if her mother’s perfectly respectable profession was a personal inconvenience.

“I used what I had,” Alessia said. “It wasn’t too different … aside from being more painful and harder to see what I was doing.”

Dionys exhaled sharply through his nose—half exasperation half incredulity—before tugging a small wooden case from his belt. Inside were proper surgical needles, waxed thread, and a vial of antiseptic.

“Next time,” he muttered as he slid the kit across to her, “use this. And ask for help.” He paused before begrudgingly adding, “Your mother would’ve made a decent field surgeon.”

The highest of praise.

Alessia blinked at the case before taking it with a nod.

“Thank you.”

Then she sighed. “I got stabbed trying to ask for help. Kinda put me off the idea.”

The sharp click of the needle case as it shipped shut was deafening in the sudden quiet. Diony didn’t look at Alessia when he spoke—he just started methodically stitching at Queen Dottie’s hairline.

“You asked the wrong people.”

Simple. Final. As if the distinction between those men ad his camp was all that needed to be said.

Then—in a voice that was deliberately flat—“And next time you do get stabbed? Come to me first. Not just because I’ll gut whichever idiot did it. But also because I’m better at this than you.”

He said it like an insult. It wasn’t one.

Alessia snorted, “I was hoping to not get stabbed again.”

“Hoping doesn’t stop blades,” he said dryly, not looking up from his meticulous stitching. “Neither does complaining about it afterward.”

He tied the thread off with a surgeon’s precision and tossed the doll back onto Alessia’s lap, her now suspiciously even.

“There. Now she’s battle-ready.” A breath and then, pointedly, “Unlike some people in this tent.”

“Ha.” Alessia said as she looked at the doll. “You’re going to have to teach me how you did that.”

Dionys scoffed—already turning back to his supplies—but paused when he realized she was serious. For a long moment he just stared at her, brow furrowed.

“…You want to learn.”

Disbelief. Then, grudgingly, “Fine. When your stitches heal. And if you promise not to—” he gestured vaguely at her shoulder. “Reenact your foolishness.”

“I promise to not stitch my own wounds again,” Alessia said solemnly.

Dionys snorted and nudged the antiseptic vial closer to her. “Liar.”

There’s no real heat in it—just the rough affection of a man who knew she’d break the vow the second necessity demanded it.

“Try not to die before I can teach you,” he said. Then, quieter, almost to himself he added, “Gods know I need one competent assistant in this camp.”

It’s the closest he would get to saying ‘I’d miss you.’

“I’ll do my best to stay alive until you can teach me,” Alessia said. “And then I’ll do my best to stay alive after, too.”

Dionys huffed—half exasperation, half reluctant amusement—but when he met her eyes his expression was oddly serious.

“Good.” Short, simple. As if her survival wasn’t up for debate. “I don’t waste my time on dead students.”

He crossed the tent to his supplies, before tossing a small, cloth-wrapped bundle onto her bedroll—soft linen, fresh needles, good thread—all of it finer than anything she had scavenged before. “For her majesty’s future repairs.”

Summoned by her own uncannily impeccable timing, Stella burst into the tent, her arms laden with rocks.

“Look!” she declared, shoving one toward Dionys with all the gravitas of a general presenting battle plans. “*This* one’s called Captain Crunchbutt! He crunches things, with his butt.”

Alessia snorted.

“And how much of a pebble army have you amassed so far, Starlight? General Crunch, Captain Crunchbutt … do you have any lieutenants?”

Stella gasped, delighted, and immediately began digging through her rock pile with fervor.

“Lieutenant Pebblepants!” she announced as she produced a smooth stone with a streak of quartz that vaguely resembled trousers. “An’—and!—there’s Sergeant Sparklebelly—” a flecked granite pebble “—an’ Private Oopsie!” a particularly round river rock, suspiciously damp. “But only Captain Crunchbutt gets to come to the war meeting. ‘Cause he’s the smartest.”

Dionys’ eye twitched once as he stared down at ‘Captain Crunchbutt.’

“… Of course he is … Do I want to know how you determined that?”

“He tastes the smartest.”

Alessia sighed, “Stell, you need to stop licking rocks. You’re going to get sick.”

Stella gasped in pure betrayal before spinning to face Dionys with all the righteous fury of a five year old.

“YOU TOLD!” she accused, her tiny finger jabbing at him.

“No, he didn’t,” Alessia corrected gently. “You did.” The smile she gave her daughter was wry, “How else would you know that Captain Crunchbutt ‘tastes the smartest’?” She rolled her eyes, fond and exasperated. “And new rule: Any licked rocks don’t go in my satchel. All licked rocks are evicted. They can go in yours.”

No need to mention that Stella didn’t have a satchel.

Stella’s jaw dropped as she realized she had been trapped by her own tiny criminal logic. For a moment she gaped like a fish, utterly betrayed at the injustice of it all.

“Mama’s cheating,” she stage-whispered to Dionys, as if Alessia wasn’t right there. “She taught me all about loopholes. Now she’s using them against me.”

A pause as her eyes narrowed in sudden, terrifying calculation.

“… Guess I need a bigger loophole.”

“Go ask Odrian if you need help with that one,” Alessia said with a grin. She gestured vaguely to the tent entrance with her needle.

Damaging their lesson in loopholes was inevitable. At least she had the decency to do so in a way that also roped Odrian into the chaos.

But first, Stella took the time to shove Captain Crunchbutt into Dionys’ belt pouch without asking—loophole and petty revenge all in one tiny, rock-wielding package—before she scampered off to find Odrian.

“I’m going to regret that, aren’t I?” Alessia mused. She looked at Dionys, “And you’ve been promoted to rock general. Congratulations.”

Dionys stared down at his now occupied pouch as if deciding whether or not to chuck the entire thing into the river. After a long, long moment, he exhaled through his nose—the sigh of a man who has thoroughly lost control of his life.

“…I’ve fought in three sieges,” he muttered, resigning himself to his pebbly fate. “How is this the battle I’m losing?”

“That was your first mistake,” Alessia said. “You thought you were in a siege. Really, you’ve been fighting a war of attrition.” She glanced down at her hands—at the doll in her lap—and hesitated just a moment before adding, “…Kids are ruthless.”

Dionys barked a laugh—sharp and sudden.

“No shit,” he said. Quieter he added, “But they’re honest about it. Can’t say the same for kings.”

His gaze flicked to her hands—to the careful, deliberate mending—and for a heartbeat something in his expression softens.

“You’re good at this,” he says abruptly. “Not just the sewing. The mothering.” He paused. “She’s lucky to have you.”

Alessia looked up sharply—startled. Her first instinct was to deflect, to dismiss—but then Stella’s laughter rings out from somewhere beyond the tent, bright and unburdened, and the words stuck in her throat.

She thought of tiny hands pressing a damp, half-chewed crust of bread into hers when rations ran thin. A child’s voice insisting “Mama first” as her own stomach growled. A little girl who learned too fast how to be quiet, how to hide, how to endure—and yet still giggled when she stole extra honey cakes.

Still trusted enough to curl into Alessia’s arms every night.

“I’m lucky to have her,” she said. Soft, raw, and unshakable.

Dionys studied her—really studied her—before dipping his chin in a slow, respectful nod. No pity, no platitudes. Just a quiet acknowledgement of someone who understood exactly what survival cost.

He thought of Odrian’s son, left behind in Othara—of letters that took too long to arrive, a boy growing up without his father. How easy it was to forget laughter in the midst of war.

“Keep her close,” he said—gruff but not unkind. Then, with a pointed glance at Captain Crunchbutt’s smug, quartz-speckled face peeking from his belt, “And keep her damn rocks out of my boots.”

“I will,” Alessia said with a smile. She paused for a moment before asking, “Do I remember correctly that she called me a dumbass?”

Dionys—mid-stride—stopped dead. His shoulders tensed and with the slow, deliberate gravitas of a man delivering a eulogy said, “…Yes.”

Then a rare, full grin split his face—sharp and unrepentant. “She elaborated.” He folded his arms, adopting Stella’s tiny, imperious tone, “ ‘Mama is a dumbass who doesn’t eat her bread crusts or listen to kings!’” He shrugged, deadpan. “She’s not wrong.”

There was a flicker of pride in his eyes at Stella’s fierceness.

Alessia scrubbed her face with a hand—not just to keep a straight face.

“Yeah, I walked into that one.” She sighed, long suffering and fond. “She inherited that particular trait from her mother, poor thing.” She stilled as a realization hit her.

“Please tell me Odrian didn’t hear that.”

Dionys let out a bark of laughter—short, sharp, entirely too knowing. “Oh, he heard,” he said with a pointed look toward the tent flap—where he could hear the faintest crunching of pebbles under boots, suggesting someone lurking just out of sight. “He definitely heard.”

Then, quieter, with a smirk that bordered on triumphant, “And in my opinion? That particular trait is why you’re both still alive.”

No platitudes, just the blunt, battle-hardened truth: Stubbornness wins wars.

Alessia snorted, “I’m sure he’ll tell me exactly what he thought about it, too.” She held up the in-progress doll, examining Dionys’ mending. “Probably at length. He seems the type.”

Dionys—who had endured years of Odrian’s theatrics—actually snorted. “Oh, he’ll monologue.” He took a breath and mimicked Odrian’s dramatic cadence to perfection, “ ‘The sheer disrespect of being called out by a child—a rock eating child—in my own camp!’ ”

A beat before he continued, dry as salt-cured leather, “Five honey cakes says he commissions a bard to immortalize the insult.”

The tent flap whipped open—only for Odrian to freeze mid-step, ears reddening at being caught eavesdropping. For a single, glorious moment, he gaped at them—utterly betrayed.

“EXCUSE ME?!”

Alessia cracked up into giggles, looking almost young—not the battle-hardened thief with scars older than her daughter, but a young woman still capable of delight and mischief.

“Oh, hello, your Majesty!” she called out, layering her voice in faux innocence. “We were just discussing dolls and very important military logistics. Nothing treasonous. Nothing at all.”

She grinned at Dionys, an unspoken look what you dragged us into— before she turned back to her sewing, her shoulders still shaking with barely-suppressed laughter.

─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─

Later, when the campfire burned low and the others were asleep, Odrian sprawled beside Dionys—close enough that their shoulders brush—staring up at the stars. His voice was barely audible over the rustling leaves.

“Did you see her face?”

He didn’t specify which moment he meant—Alessia’s blush, the way she fought not to smile after he teased her, her unguarded laughter when Stella called him grumpy. It didn’t matter, he catalogued them all.

Dionys snorted softly—amused and fond in equal measure.

“Oh yes,” he said, his reply equally quiet as his finger traced idle circles on Odrian’s palm. “I saw.”

His eyes are closed but there’s no mistaking the humor in his voice.

“I think the little fox is starting to warm up to us.”

Odrian huffed—a sound caught somewhere between a sigh and an exasperated laugh.

“About damn time,” he grumbled, but there was no real bite behind it. If anything he leans just a little closer.

Dionys’ finger paused in its idle tracing for the barest moment before continuing on with renewed purpose.

“I still don’t understand why she was so desperate to approach the camp alone,” Odrian murmured, frowning. His eyes flick toward their tent, where Alessia and Stella slept. He knows he won’t see anything in the darkness, but he can’t help looking.

“Stella wasn’t even with her,” he said. He paused—a beat of quiet thought before he continued, “She wouldn’t have gone for herself, not unless … ”

His voice trailed off, as cold realization dawned behind his eyes.

A sharp intake of breath as Dionys went utterly still, his fingers freezing where they’d been tracing on Odrian’s palm.

“Unless she was already sick,” he finishes, voice rough. “Unless Alessia knew she wouldn’t last without medicine.”

The pieces click together with terrifying clarity. Stella’s fever, the stolen herbs, the way Alessia hadn’t flinched from Odrian’s blade.

His hand tightens around Odrian’s—not painfully, but firm. An anchor. A promise.

“That child is alive because her mother walked into a war camp full of men who hate her people—and let them stab her.”

A moment passes as the fire crackles quietly beside them before Dionys continues, “…What did you say to her when she woke up? You were in there a while.”

Odrian was quiet for several long moments. When he finally spoke again his voice was distant and raw.

“She sewed herself up with thread. Normal sewing thread.”

Dionys sat bolt upright, his eyes wide open in shock. “What?! Why would she-”

Odrian cut him off, his hands shaking where they dug into the sand beneath them.

“I demanded she tell me how she ended up with a Tharon dagger in her chest. She told me ‘It wasn’t Tharon.’” The words come out as a pained whisper.

Dionys’ breath hissed between his teeth—sharp and furious—as the full weight of the revelation sank in.

“Aurean steel,” he said. The words ground out like shards of glass.

It wasn’t a question.

How many times had he told his men to strike first? How many campfires had echoed with laughter about cutting down Tharon spies? How many had they—

He exhaled, long and slow, and pressed his forehead to Odrian’s shoulder.

“…She survived us, too.” He paused before continuing, quieter, “Fuck.”

The realization cut deeper than any blade.

Odrian’s breath left him in a shuddering exhale.

“Lion shield for one of the attackers,” he said with a voice as flat as death. “Rooster for the other.”

Dionys released a slow, controlled breath through his nose—the sound of a man barely holding back rage. His fingers flexed where they were still pressed to Odrian’s palm.

“Nomaros’ arrogance,” he murmured. “Lauthen’s cowardice.” Each word was a verdict. “Their men follow their lead.”

His thumb stroked once over Odrian’s knuckles—no longer absently, but like he needed the contact to stay grounded.

Odrian nodded grimly. “They saw a Tharon woman—alone and unarmed—and assumed she was a spy.” He looked over to the tent where Alessia slept. “She made it out alive, but only barely.”

“She shouldn’t have had to make it out at all,” Dionys growls, the tendons in his neck standing out like cables. His fingers twitched toward the spear lying beside him before he forced himself to still. “She came begging for help for a child.”

The hypocrisy of it burned like poison. The Aureans called themselves civilized—called Tharos barbaric—but it was their side that sent a woman home bleeding for the crime of pleading for her daughter’s life.

Odrian exhales sharply, raking a hand through his hair. “And we would have never known. She would have died in that shack and Stella—” his voice cracks. “Because our men—our allies—”

He can’t even finish the sentence. The realization settles like a weight in his chest:

If Alessia hadn’t stolen from them to survive, he never would have found her. He never would have known. That haunted him more than anything.

He turned his face toward the stars, jaw clenched so tight it creaked. “Gods, Dio. What kind of king doesn’t even notice when his army turns into butchers?”

Dionys catches Odrian’s wrist—not restraining, but grounding. His grip was firm, his voice quiet and intense.

“You didn’t give the order,” he said, each word deliberate. “You didn’t drive the blade in. And you sure as Hades didn’t leave her to rot.” He shook Odrian’s arm slightly, forcing the other man’s gaze back. “And now you know. And that? That makes you responsible for what happens next.”

A pause, then he continued, softer.

“Tomorrow,” he murmured, low enough that the fire would mask it from any listening ears. “We’ll talk to Eranor. He’ll know which men were stationed where. And then—” Another pause as his thumb brushed over Odrian’s pulse point. “—we’ll see which of those bastards accidentally trips onto our spears during the next skirmish.”

There’s no mistaking the promise in the words.

Odrian exhales before nodding once, sharp. His fingers curled around Dionys’ wrist, matching pressure for pressure.

“Good,” is all he says, but the word carried centuries of Otharan vengeance with it.

The quieter, almost lost beneath the crackle of the fire, “I’m keeping them.”

No explanation. No hesitation.

Alessia. Stella. His.

Dionys didn’t argue, simply squeezing back—once—in silent agreement.

The hours passed, the fire burned low, and neither king moved from their vigil as the night grew darker,

Dionys’ eyes flicked over to Alessia and Stella’s tent, a complicated mixture of concern and relief crossing his face.

“I’m glad you found them,” he murmured.

Odrian’s grip tightened slightly—just for a heartbeat—before he let go, folding his arms behind his head with forced nonchalance.

The tension in his jaw betrayed him.

“Me too.”

He said nothing else, but the truth hummed beneath the words—raw and unspoken.

Me too. And I will never let anyone hurt them again.

Dionys looked back to the fire, then up again into Odrian’s eyes.

“She’ll be safe here,” he promised. “No one will hurt her or Stella ever agai-”

A scream, loud and blood-curdling, pierced through their thoughts, cutting off abruptly with a wet thud.

And then silence.

---

---

---

Chapter Notes: I’m doing two writing challenges this year – Novel November by ProWritingAid and Royal Road’s Writathon. NovNov is basically a renamed NaNoWriMo – 50,000 words in 30 days (done in November). The Writathon is a similar idea, 55,555 words in 35 days (From November 1 to December 5). Because I have to post the chapters on Royal Road to meet the challenge, I’ve decided I’ll post them here, as well. Any chapter done for the challenge will have an asterisk in the title. That means it’s a rough draft and is subject to change in the future.