Tiny Raven

Dionys sat on the shoreline, watching the waves of the Myrian ebb and flow.

He didn’t turn when Odrian’s sandals scuffed the sand behind him. Dionys kept his gaze on the sea, even as his shoulders lost the slightest edge of tension. Enough to betray that he knew exactly who was approaching.

Odrian flopped down beside him with a dramatic sigh, offering the wineskin. Dionys took it without a word, drinking deeply before passing it back.

For a long moment, there was only the crash of waves and Stella’s distant, off-key humming.

“So,” Odrian broke the silence. “Our thief is terrifying.”

He said it lightly. Testing.

Dionys exhaled sharply through his nose, something between a scoff and agreement.

“Our,” he repeated, tone flat but with an undercurrent Odrian knew how to read all too well.

Not denial, not protest. Simple acknowledgment.

“She’ll outlive us all out of sheer spite,” he said after a beat of silence.

Odrian hummed in agreement, taking a slow sip of wine before speaking carefully.

“For someone with no military training, she handles pain remarkably well.”

Dionys scowled at the waves, his fingers tightening around the wineskin.

“Walus,” he muttered, the name tasting like poison on his tongue. “He dies slow.”

Odrian didn’t flinch. He just took the wineskin back and rolled it between his palms, his gaze distant.

“Slow seems generous,” he murmured as he stared at the grey-green waves. “I’m thinking creative.”

Dionys exhaled, forcing calm into his bones.

“She called him an asshole while bleeding out,” he said after a moment. “I like her.”

Odrian took a long sip from the wineskin, letting the salt-crusted air fill the silence between them. When he spoke, his voice was soft, stripped of its theatrical edge.

“I like her too,” he admitted, staring out at the grey line where the sea met sky. “Which is terribly inconvenient, considering we have exactly five days left.”

He passed the skin back, finally meeting Dionys’s gaze. The false dawn painted his face in shades of violet and iron.

“Five days to convince Nomaros that our bleeding, stubborn, rock-hoarding paramour is worth more to Aurel’s war effort than as a peace offering to Aurelis and his Formicari. Five days to prove that keeping her—and Stella—isn’t just sentiment, but strategy.”

Dionys exhaled through his nose. His fingers flexed, curled into fists, before he deliberately loosened them again.

“We make her invaluable,” he said, his voice grim but certain. “She knows Tharon street networks, speaks their dialects—Mother Tongue, whatever that nightmare is—understands Walus’s command structure from the inside. She stole his seal, Odrian. You understand what that means—she’s already done more damage to the Tharon command than our scouts have managed in six months.”

He turned to face Odrian fully, the grey light catching the hard set of his jaw.

“She’s already proven she can infiltrate our camps undetected. Imagine what she could do with training. With resources.”

Odrian took the wineskin, rolling it between his palms as the false dawn painted his face. His voice carried the velvet-dangerous lilt he reserved for conspiracy and war council.

“I understand exactly what it means,” he murmured, eyes fixed on the grey line where sea met sky. “It means our thief didn’t just pick pockets—she decapitated a command structure and delivered the head to our tent still bleeding.”

He took a long drink before fixing Dionys with a gaze sharp enough to cut marble.

“Five days isn’t enough to teach her everything, but it’s sufficient to demonstrate potential. We leak that we have the seal. Let Walus’s officers know their Butcher is signing orders with spit and terror while we hold his legitimacy in our hands. We feed the rot in his ranks until he chokes on it.”

He shifted, sand crunching beneath him, and his voice dropped to something raw and unguarded.

“But let’s not pretend this is strictly strategy, Dionys. She sewed herself up with thread and still found the breath to mock my singing. I’m not surrendering her—or Stella—to anyone. Not Nomaros, not Aurelis, and certainly not back to the bastard who welded bronze to her ankle.”

He passed the skin back, his jaw set.

“So. We have five days to convince a council of jackals that Alessia and Stella are the keys to winning this war. If they don’t agree?” A smile flashed, feral and bright. “Then we take our people and burn the bridges behind us. I’ve always preferred Othara’s coastline, anyway.”

Silence stretched between them again, charged but comfortable. The sort of silence that could only exist between men who had fought side by side for years.

A silence of gaps and implications.

Then, because someone had to address the other looming truth, Odrian added, “… She doesn’t know. About us.”

Their history. The quiet thing that still lingered between them, even now.

Dionys took the wineskin, his fingers brushing Odrian’s as he pulled it close. He didn’t drink immediately, just stared out at the grey waves, exhaustion etched deep in the lines of his face.

“She knows what matters,” he said finally. “That’s enough for now.”

He took a long drink, the wine sharp against the salt air, then passed it back with a grunt.

“As for the rest…” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes cutting to Odrian with something fierce and complicated. History and present and future all tangled together. “We’ve survived worse. We’ll survive this. Five days. We keep her safe—both of them—and we figure out the rest after Nomaros is handled.”

Odrian glanced sideways, a ghost of his usual smirk playing at his lips. “I’ve already drafted three contingency plans.”

Dionys finally turned his head to look fully at Odrian, one eyebrow quirking.

“Only three?” The dryness in his voice was almost teasing. “You’re slacking.”

Odrian snorted, sharp and genuine, before dragging a hand down his face, smearing away the exhaustion of another sleepless night.

“Three comprehensive plans, you insufferable perfectionist. The other seventeen are half-formed scribbles on wax tablets I’ve already melted down in shame.”

He took a long drink from the wineskin, letting the salt air fill the silence between them before passing it back, his fingers lingering for just a heartbeat against Dionys’s knuckles.

“Besides,” he added, his voice dropping to something softer, “since when have I ever needed more than one good plan when you’re standing beside me to execute it?”

He turned his gaze back to the water, watching the grey waves turn to gold as the sun breached the horizon. “We’ve survived Nomaros’s tantrums before. We’ve survived wars and sieges and gods know what else. We’ll survive this too. All of us. With or without the Council’s blessing.”

A pause and then quieter still: “She’s worth it. They both are. Some costs are worth paying.”

A comfortable silence settled between them. No need for words when their shared understanding already ran so deep. The waves continued their rhythmic crash against the shore, and Stella’s groggy demands for breakfast were a balm to the weight of their thoughts.

Odrian finally tipped the wineskin back, savoring the last of it before setting it aside. He glanced at Dionys, studying the hard lines of his profile, the way the fading sunlight caught on his scars.

“She called you a pillow, you know,” he said, his voice laced with mischief. “Said you were unreasonably comfortable.”

Dionys scowled at the grey waves, his jaw tight. “She was delirious,” he grunted. “Probably mistook me for a pile of sandbags.” He paused, glancing sideways with a flat stare. “And she weighs less than my spear. Hardly a testament to my ‘comfort’ that I didn’t notice.”

Odrian barked out a laugh, sharp and delighted, before leaning back on his elbows in the sand, utterly unconcerned with the damp seeping into his tunic.

“Oh, please. You held her for six hours, Dio. Six. I counted. You didn’t even shift when your arm went numb.”

Dionys let the rare nickname hang in the air between them before he exhaled sharply. His scowl deepened, fingers tightening reflexively around the wineskin before he forced them to loosen.

“Someone had to keep her upright after Askarion finished stitching. Gravity and foul humors, you know how it is.” He passed the skin back with more force than necessary, sand gritty between his palms. “And my arm didn’t go numb. It was… tactically positioned for optimal blood flow.”

Grudgingly, barely audible over the crash of waves, he added, “… She’s warm. When she sleeps. Not like a soldier—tense, ready to wake. She just… stops. Like she finally trusts the ground won’t swallow her.”

He stared hard at the horizon, as if the rising sun personally offended him. “Stella does the same. Curled into her side like a cat, completely defenseless. Didn’t even stir when I moved.”

Silence stretched between them, charged and fragile.

“I’m keeping them,” Dionys said. 

Odrian went very still for a heartbeat before the corner of his mouth twitched upward into the familiar, wicked smirk.

“Should we tell her you purred when she cuddled into you?”

Dionys stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“To throw you into the sea,” Dionys said with the same tone he used to discuss the weather.

Odrian cackled, scrambling to his feet as Dionys grabbed for him, both of them stumbling like boys, uncaring of dignity, uncaring of anything beyond the reckless, stupid joy they both felt.

It was something they had both forgotten.

They ended up wrestling like teenagers, half-tripping in the shallows.

Odrian surfaced, laughing, saltwater streaming down his face, chiton plastered to his chest. He lunged for Dionys’s ankle, missed, and went down again with a spectacular splash that soaked them both.

When he came up sputtering, he grabbed Dionys by the belt and hauled him close, breathing hard against the chill of the Myrian.

“Fabulous,” he wheezed, grinning like a madman, his fingers tangling in the soaked fabric of Dionys’s tunic. “Truly. The Council of Kings would be horrified to see their vanguard and their spymaster brawling in the surf like dockyard children.”

He leaned closer, his voice dropping to something fierce and unguarded, quiet against the crash of the waves.

“Then perhaps they should look elsewhere.”

─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─

When the sun had fully risen, and the camp was in motion, Stella knelt outside the tent, stacking her rocks into towers and humming, her face still sticky from the honey she’d had on her breakfast barley porridge.

Alessia, still wearily recovering, was awake, watching Stella’s shadow through the tent canvas. She raised an eyebrow as Odrian and Dionys ducked into the tent, chitons damp and sand in their hair.

“…Did you two try to fight Poseidon?”

Odrian, still dripping seawater and grinning like a man possessed, flopped gracelessly onto the nearest bedroll.

“Worse,” he declared solemnly. “We played.”

“I was attempting to drown him,” Dionys said. “He refused to cooperate.”

“Uncle Dio pushed Uncle Ody into the ocean,” Stella called from where she was playing outside the tent. “For bein’ annoying.”

“Uncle Ody,” Odrian repeated, as if tasting the title, his grin widening despite the sand plastered to his cheek. “I see my tormentor has already poisoned the jury.”

He peeled his sodden chiton away from his chest with a theatrical grimace, flinging a droplet of seawater toward Dionys with a flick of his hair. “For the record, I was allowing the drowning. It’s called tactical immersion, and your Uncle Dio is simply jealous that I possess superior buoyancy.”

He flopped back onto the bedroll and stretched his arms wide, sand crunching beneath him. “Also, Poseidon would have been gentler. That brute tried to feed me to a crab.”

Dionys reached into his sodden belt pouch, producing a small oilcloth bundle that had somehow survived his swim. He tossed it onto the bedroll beside Alessia’s hand.

“Olives,” he said, shaking seawater from his hair like a wet dog. “Salty.”

He cut his eyes toward Odrian, deadpan and unrepentant. “He talks too much. Drowning seemed efficient.”

Alessia stared at the olives. Then at Dionys. Then at the olives again. Slowly, she picked one up, examining it like she had never seen one before, and then popped it into her mouth with a solemn nod.

“Still good.”

Dionys grunted, something between acknowledgment and dry amusement, before dragging a hand through his salt-stiffened hair. He settled onto a dry patch of ground near the bedroll. Close enough to be within arm’s reach, far enough not to crowd. “Seawater enhances the flavor.”

His gaze flicked to her ankle, to the shackle visible where her chiton had ridden up, before deliberately returning to her face.

“How’s the wound?”

Alessia popped another olive into her cheek, chewing thoughtfully as she shifted to test the pull of the stitches under her ribs. The movement made her wince, but she masked it with a crooked grin.

“Hurts less than yesterday.” Her gaze flicked down to her ankle, then back up to his sand-plastered hair with a faint smirk. “Been through worse than a little stabbing, believe me.” She gestured vaguely at his dripping chiton. “You’re the one who looks like he lost a fight with the tide. At least my wounds weren’t from a self-inflicted bathing accident.”

Dionys huffed, flicking a clump of wet sand from his tunic with a look of profound resignation. “Wasn’t an accident. I was trying to drown him. The fool just floats.”

He crouched down, elbows on his knees, dripping onto the rushes. His gaze locked onto hers, sharp and assessing, catching the tightness around her eyes she tried to hide. “Don’t lie to me. You’re wincing every time you shift.”

He extended his hand, offering another olive from the damp cloth, his fingers rough and salt-crusted. When she took it, his thumb brushed the back of her knuckles, just once, before he pulled back.

“If you tear those stitches because you’re too busy mocking my hair, I’ll know. And I’ll tell Stella her precious rocks are actually bird eggs.” He stared at her with deadpan silence. “She’ll sit on them until they hatch.”

Alessia nearly choked on an olive as she laughed at the sudden image. She swallowed hard, pressing a hand to her side as the movement pulled at the stitches, fixing him with a look that was half-appalled, half-fond.

“Evil. Truly, deeply evil. When they failed to hatch, she would hold a funeral for every single rock, and then she’d make me lead the procession while she sang a dirge.” She popped another olive into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully as she eyed his sand-crusted hair.

She shifted gingerly, testing her limits, and gave him a sharp-edged grin that didn’t quite hide the exhaustion in her eyes. “Besides, if I’m going to deal with you two acting like children—” she flicked a bit of seaweed from his shoulder “—and apparently floating like corks in the Myrian, I need to be at full strength. Someone has to remember this humiliation for later use.”

Her gaze dropped to his hand resting near her knee, then back up to his face, her voice dropping into something softer. “And… thanks. For the olives. Even if they taste like brine and poor decisions.”

Odrian sat up fully, wringing a stream of water from his chiton with a grimace. “For the record, those were liberated from Nomaros’s personal stores. The salt? That’s just… vintage.”

He reached out and gently plucked a stray bit of seaweed from her blanket, his voice dropping to something rough and genuine. “Stella’s already planning her funeral procession for the rocks. I’d hate to disappoint her by having to host two ceremonies.”

Alessia snorted, nearly choking on the olive again, and clutched her side with a hiss that she quickly turned into a smirk.

“Don’t worry about my stitches, King. I’ve survived worse than a little saltwater and olive brine.” She popped another olive into her cheek, chewing thoughtfully as she glanced toward the tent flap where Stella’s humming drifted in, off-key and sweet.

“And anyway, I can’t die before I teach Stella how to properly pick a lock. She’s got the fingers for it, just needs the patience.”

 “You owe me for liberating these olives from Nomaros’s stores. I intend to collect—with interest.” Odrian’s grin cut sudden and sharp.

Dionys shifted, sand crunching under his knees, and extended a hand. Not to help her up, but to press two fingers against her pulse at the wrist, checking her heart rate.

“Stop moving,” he grunted, though his grip was careful, almost feather-light against her bruised skin.

He glanced toward the tent flap and Stella’s humming, then back to Alessia with a look that was all hard edges with a soft center.

“Rest. I’ll watch the perimeter. And if Odrian tries to ‘collect’ anything else from you before you’re healed, I’ll drown him properly.”

Alessia looked between them before popping the last olive into her mouth and chewing with deliberate slowness, as if contemplating the logistics of murdering them both.

“I’m not porcelain.” Her fingers curled, almost beckoning. “Help me up.”

Dionys caught her wrist before she could push herself upright. His grip was firm, careful in the way of a man who knew exactly how fragile healing flesh could be.

“Good, porcelain shatters,” he said, his voice low and level. His other hand pressed flat against her shoulder, holding her down with pressure that brooked no argument despite the care in his touch.

He released her wrist to grab the spare bedroll behind him, shoving it against her back to prop her up without letting her engage the muscles under her stitches.

He picked up the empty oilcloth, folding it with methodical precision.

The tent flap burst open with all the subtlety of a summer storm, Stella’s dark curls bouncing as she scrambled inside. Clutched in both hands was a flat, grey stone veined with white quartz. A prized specimen, judging by the way she presented it like a royal offering.

“Mama, no,” she announced immediately, zeroing in on Alessia’s propped-up position with the fierce disappointment of a tiny general whose orders had been ignored. She stomped over, sandy bare feet leaving prints on the rushes, and thrust the rock toward Alessia’s lap. “You’re s’posed to be resting. Uncle Dio said. Uncle Ody said. I said.”

She wedged herself between Dionys and the bedroll, pressing her small back against Alessia’s uninjured side as if physically preventing her from rising. The rock was shoved into Alessia’s hand with insistent, sticky fingers.

“This is Lieutenant Smoothstone,” she declared with a solemn nod. “He’s on guard duty now. If you try to get up, he’ll bite. Hard.”

She glared up at Odrian, then Dionys, as if this was all their fault, before patting Alessia’s knee with grim finality. “Five days. That’s the rule. Or General Stonebelly throws you in the dungeon.”

Alessia winced as Stella wedged herself against her side, not from pain but from the sheer force of her conviction. Her hand closed around the quartz-veined rock, feeling its weight, its rough edges. She looked down at her dark curls, the way she had planted herself like a tiny, immovable fortress between Alessia and the rest of the world.

“Lieutenant Smoothstone, huh?” She rolled the stone between her palms, arching a brow at the seriousness in Stella’s expression. “Sounds like a vicious officer. A real disciplinarian.”

She glanced up at Odrian and Dionys before looking back at her daughter. The defiance drained out of her like water through a sieve, replaced by something warm and tired and helplessly fond. She settled back against the propped bedroll with a sigh that was half surrender, half amusement.

“Fine. Five days.” She lifted the rock in a mock-salute, addressing it like a commanding officer. “But tell General Stonebelly that if his Lieutenant here fails to keep me entertained, I’m staging a mutiny. And you—” she tapped Stella’s nose with her free hand “—are a tyrant. Worse than both these kings combined.”

She shot a pointed look at the men, her lips quirking despite herself. 

“You two planned this, didn’t you. Warfare via adorable enforcers. Very underhanded. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t currently being held captive by a rock and a five-year-old.”

“I confess,” Odrian drawled as he reached into a crate he had liberated earlier, producing another olive that he twirled between his fingers. “The tiny general’s grasp of siege warfare is decisively superior to my own. Dionys, take notes: this is how you actually win a battle. Not with so-called ‘tactical immersion’ but with weaponized affection. Brutal. Efficient. Devoid of mercy.”

He fell to his knees beside the bedroll in a theatrical sprawl, sand dusting his still-damp tunic, and extended the olive toward Alessia. Not throwing it, but offering it palm-up, his fingertips brushing hers as she took it.

“Eat your olive. It’s vintage,” he gestured grandly at the salt-crusted exterior. “Brined in the tears of my enemies and too much Myrian seawater. Dionys claims it ‘enhances the flavor of my questionable life choices.’ Personally, I think he’s just jealous that I floated better than he drowned.”

Dionys exhaled sharply through his nose, flicking a clump of wet sand from his hair. It pelted Odrian’s shoulder with deliberate aim.

“You floated because you’re hollow,” he muttered as he reached to adjust the bedroll behind Alessia with more gentleness than his tone suggested. “Like driftwood. No substance.”

He crouched again and fixed Stella with a look that softened fractionally at the edges. “General Stonebelly approves of your tactical placement. Hold the line.”

To Alessia he dropped his voice to a low, rough rumble. “Eat the olive. Or don’t. But if you get up before Askarion clears you, I’m tying you down with the tent ropes.”

His thumb brushed her ankle before he pulled back, wiping salt from his palms with methodical efficiency. “Three days. Then you can stab someone. Preferably not us.”

─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─

Stella crouched in the wet sand where the waves tickled her toes, and there he was. The most magnificent creature she’d ever seen. It was all armor and wiggly legs, scuttling sideways like it was dancing, with two big claws that clicked together like it was applauding her.

“Hello!” she whisper-shouted, because Alessia said you had to be polite to new friends.

Dionys was two strides behind her, close enough to grab her collar if she lunged, far enough to let her breathe, when she reached for the crab. His boot hit the wet sand with a squelch, and he dropped into a crouch beside her, elbows on his knees, close enough that his shadow fell over both of them.

“Stell,” he growled, not loud enough to scare the crab, but firm enough to freeze her finger mid-air. “That’s not a pet. That’s dinner with legs.”

The crab waved its claws at her like it was issuing a challenge. Dionys narrowed his eyes at it.

“If you pinch her,” he informed the crab, deadly serious, “I’ll boil you in garlic and eat you.”

Stella’s eyes went wide and she gasped loud enough to scare the crab into scuttling sideways a few steps.

“No!” she wrapped both arms around her knees, leaning closer to the crab like she was protecting it from Dionys’s hungry mouth. “You can’t eat Admiral Snip! He’s on our side!”

She looked up at Dionys with her best serious face and pointed at the crab’s wiggly antennae. “He’s guardin’ the beach from bad guys! See? He’s doin’ a stance.”

The crab chose that moment to wave both claws in the air, and Stella gasped again.

“See?! He’s salutin’! That means he’s loyal!”

She reached out and patted Dionys’s knee with her sandy hand, trying to make him understand the gravity of the situation.

“You can’t eat soldiers, Uncle Dio. That’s against the rules. Even Lieutenant Smoothstone says so.” She added, quieter, “… If you’re real hungry, I got some honeycake crumbs in my pocket. But you gotta share with Admiral Snip. He likes crumbs. I can tell.”

Dionys stared at the crab for a long, considering moment, watching its antennae wave like tiny banners. He exhaled through his nose, sharp and controlled, and lowered himself onto the damp sand beside Stella, his knee brushing her shoulder.

“Rules,” he repeated, deadpan. He flicked a glance at the crab, which scuttled closer to Stella’s foot like it understood exactly whose protection it’s under. “Fine. If he’s a soldier, he follows the chain of command. That means he reports to you, and you report to me.”

He reached into his belt pouch, ignoring the way Odrian was definitely laughing into his hand, and produced a fragment of honeycake, slightly crushed from being jostled against his dagger. He broke it in two, holding one piece out to Stella while the other hovered over the crab.

“He gets crumbs,” he dictated, dropping the smaller portion near the crab’s claws with a warning look. “You eat the big piece. And if Admiral Snip forgets his rank and pinches anyone, I’m making him into soup. Soldiers who disobey orders get the pot.”

The crab snatched the crumb and scuttled backward. Dionys nodded, satisfied, and looked down at Stella. “Deal?”

“Deal!” Stella squeaked, and she grabbed Dionys’s big rough hand with both of her sandy ones to shake it officially, like Alessia did when she made bargains.

Then she let go and spun around to face Admiral Snip, putting her hands on her hips like Dionys did when he was being stern.

“Did you hear that, Admiral? You get the crumbs—the little ones—and you gotta be good and not pinch, or else you’re soup and I’ll be real sad and have to cry, and General Stonebelly will be very cross.”

The crab waved its claws again and Stella nodded seriously.

“Good, that’s a salute. That means he understands the rules.”

Odrian was sprawled on a sun-bleached log a few paces back, mending a bridle strap that absolutely didn’t need mending. His gaze kept drifting to the tableau on the shore.

“Don’t look at me,” he called out, raising his hands in mock surrender, the leather strap dangling from his fingers. “I’m merely a witness to this historic diplomatic summit. The very image of a neutral party.”

Stella twisted around to fix him with a look so ferocious he nearly dropped the bridle.

“You’re not neutral, Uncle Ody! You’re the scribe! You gotta write it down that Admiral Snip is off-limits for soup!” She pointed at the crab, which had somehow acquired a small crown of seaweed. “In the books! So nobody forgets!”

Odrian abandoned his pretense of work to saunter down to join them, sand gritting between his toes.

“The books,” he repeated solemnly, pulling a wax tablet from his belt pouch, completely blank. He scratched a few meaningless symbols into the soft surface with his stylus, squinting with theatrical concentration.

“Let it be recorded,” he intoned, pitching his voice like a temple oracle, “that Admiral Snip is exempt from soup-related fates, provided he refrains from pinching superior officers.”

He glanced up at Dionys, trying and failing to smother his grin.

“Is that agreeable, my fellow commander?”

Dionys exhaled through his nose with such long-suffering patience that Odrian burst out laughing, the sound carrying across the Myrian.

“Agreeable,” he muttered.

Then Stella commandeered Odrian’s hand, dragging him toward the water’s edge to search for supplies for Admiral Snip’s barracks.

“Coming, Dio?” Odrian called over his shoulder.

Dionys sighed and followed. Admiral Snip scuttled valiantly at their heels, and Stella’s laughter rang bright as a bell against the grey-green waves.

---

---