Stella woke when the light turned gold on the tent walls.
Which was wrong.
Usually Dionys shook her awake before the grey turned gold, when the air was still blue and cold and the guard was yawning and not looking. They snuck to the crates and she got to be fast and sharp and nobody watched them.
But today there had been no shaking. No rough hand on her shoulder, no scent of oil and metal.
Just Alessia’s breathing, steady and awake beside her, and the heavy, sticky feeling of too much sleep.
Stella sat up too fast. Her head spun. Her wrists felt thick and sore beneath bandages. She flexed her fingers.
They moved.
But they felt wrong.
“Mama?”
Alessia was already looking at her, eyes red-rimmed and fierce.
“How do you feel, Starlight?” she asked, her voice soft.
“My head feels fuzzy,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes with her bandaged hands. The linen scratched her cheek, rough and tight.
She looked toward the tent flap. The light was wrong, too bright, too late, streaming in hot stripes across the dirt floor of the tent.
Her stomach dropped.
“We missed the dawn,” she whispered, looking up at Alessia. Her voice cracked, high and scared. “Uncle Dio didn’t wake me. We didn’t go to the crates.” She tried to sit up straighter, but her wrists throbbed, heavy and strange.
She looked at her hands, at the white wrappings that made them look like someone else’s, fat and clumsy instead of sharp. She flexed her fingers again, trying to make a fist as Dionys had taught her, but the bandages pulled tight, and her knuckles felt full of water.
“I’m not tired,” she said, her voice wobbling even though she tried to make it big and brave like Aurelis’s. “Warriors don’t rest. Uncle Dio said so.”
She tried to pull her hands away from Alessia, to show her she could still grip, but her wrists made a weird pulling feeling, like they were stretching but stuck. She winced before she could stop herself.
“Did I break?” she asked, looking up at Alessia with her chin wobbling. “Is that why we missed the dawn? Because I broke my hands and Uncle Dio doesn’t want a broken warrior?”
Her eyes burned, hot and embarrassing. She looked down at her lap, at the spot where her wooden dagger should be, but it wasn’t there.
Alessia gathered her close, pressing her face into Stella’s hair so she wouldn’t see the murder in her eyes. Not at Stella, never at her, but at the men who had made her think that bleeding was the price of love.
“No.” she whispered, catching Stella’s wrists before she could rub her eyes raw against the bandages. She held them gently, seeing the swelling now that the linen was on, how small and fragile they looked.
She pulled Stella into her lap, ignoring how her own bad ankle screamed as she shifted her weight. Ignoring the fire in her shoulder.
She pulled back enough to cup Stella’s face, her thumbs wiping at the tears she was trying not to let her see.
“Uncle Dio didn’t leave because you were too loud or too slow or anything else. He had to step back because he got too fierce. He forgot that you’re little.”
She lifted one of her bandaged hands, pressing her lips to the linen over her knuckles. “So we’re mending. Three weeks of being soft. Being bored. Being five, Starlight. Not a soldier, not a weapon. Just my daughter.”
“Three weeks?” The words came out squeaky, wrong-sounding. Stella tried to pull her hands back again, but the bandages were too tight, too heavy.
Like the manacle Alessia used to wear.
“That’s forever. That’s longer than we lived in the shack by the river.”
She looked down at her wrapped wrists, turning them over.
“I don’t want to be soft,” she whispered, her voice cracking on the word. “Soft is how you get caught. Soft is how the wolf wins. Uncle Auri says—”
She stopped, swallowing hard. “Are they gone? Uncle Dio and Uncle Ody? Uncle Auri? Are they mad I broke?”
Her chest felt tight, like someone was sitting on it. She reached into her chiton with clumsy, wrapped fingers, searching for Lieutenant Pebblepants, but he wasn’t there.
“No,” Alessia said firmly. “They’re not gone. They’re not mad.”
Stella nodded once.
“I liked the dawn,” she whispered. “I liked being fast where the guard couldn’t see. I liked that Uncle Dio smiled when I got it right. Just a little. In the corner of his mouth.”
She looked up at Alessia, her eyes burning. “If I’m not training, what am I? Just… Just a girl? Just Stella? That’s not… that’s not a thing to be. That’s not useful.”
She leaned forward, pressing her face into Alessia’s neck, smelling the salt and herbs of her. “Will you still love me if I’m just soft?” she mumbled, the words barely a sound. “For three weeks?”
She swallowed, biting back a sob. “Will they?”
Alessia froze for a heartbeat, but it felt like the world tilted on its axis. Her hands tightened around Stella, one cradling the back of her head, the other pressing her bandaged wrists against her chest where she could feel her heart hammering rabbit-fast.
“Stell,” she said, her voice cracking like dry earth. “Starlight, look at me.”
She pulled back, forcing Stella’s chin up with gentle fingers until she had to meet her eyes. Her vision was blurry, but she made sure Stella could see the truth in them. The absolute, unshakable certainty.
“I loved you before you could even hold your own head up. I loved you when you were soft in Ellun, hiding in cupboards, barely making a sound.” She pressed their foreheads together, breathing hard, her hands trembling where they framed Stella’s face. “You don’t have to be sharp. You don’t have to be useful. You just have to be mine.”
Alessia kissed her temple, fiece and desperate, her lips brushing the hairline.
“And they—” she hesitated, still furious, still raw from betrayal, but knowing she needed to give Stella this. “—they love you, too. Not because you can strike. Because you’re you. The rocks and the crabs. That’s what they love. The weapon was never the point, Stellaki. You were always the point.”
She gathered Stella close again, letting her feel her shaking, letting her feel that she wasn’t stone but flesh and blood and terror and love, all wrapped around her.
“Being soft isn’t failing. It’s surviving. And I will love you through every soft, boring, silly second of it. I promise.”
Stella pressed her face harder into Alessia’s neck, trying to believe her. Trying to swallow the words down into her chest where the tight, scared feeling lived.
Her fingers found the edge of Alessia’s chiton, twisting the rough linen until her bandaged knuckles ached.
“Okay,” she mumbled, the word muffled against Alessia’s collarbone. “I’ll be soft. For three weeks.”
She pulled back just enough to look at her, her eyes burning but her chin firm.
“Can Uncle Dio come? Just… just to sit? He doesn’t have to teach me the fast striking. He can just… be there. Like a guard. Like a stone wall.” Her lip wobbled. “I like how he breathes. It’s loud. Like waves.”
She looked down at her wrapped hands, turning them over. “And Uncle Ody can tell me about the crabs recruiting. And Aurelis can… can just stand there. Being tall. I don’t need them to make me sharp. I just… “ she trailed off, shrinking into herself. “I don’t want them to be gone because I broke. I don’t want them to only love the fast girl. The sharp girl.”
She looked up at Alessia, her eyes wide and pleading. “Is that allowed? Can I be soft and have them? Or do I have to pick?”
Alessia cupped her face again, thumbs rough against her cheeks, and she forced her voice steady even though the thought of letting Dionys near Stella made her hands want to shake.
“You don’t have to pick, Starlight. You never have to pick.”
She kissed Stella’s forehead, lingering, breathing her in.
“They can come. But—” She pulled back, holding her gaze, fierce. “—on my terms. Not theirs. They sit. They talk.”
She adjusted her bandages gently, her fingers careful over the swollen joints.
“Dionys can sit like a stone wall and breathe like waves. He can guard your sleep.”
She brushed hair from Stella’s face, softening again.
“Odrian can tell you stories until your ears fall off. Aurelis can loom in the corner like a mountain. But you? You just be. You rest. You heal. And if they can’t love you as a soft, snoring, drooling five-year-old…” her voice dropped, rough and honest. “…then they don’t get to have you at all. But I think they’ll stay. I think they’ll wait. Because you’re worth waiting for, Stellaki.”
She pressed their foreheads together.
“So yes. Soft and loved. Both. Always both.”
Stella nodded, slow and solemn, her chin bumping against her collarbone where it was sharp and bone and safe.
“Okay,” she whispered, the words lost against the skin of Alessia’s neck. “Soft and loved. Both.”
─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─
Odrian pressed his spine against the rough canvas, the tent pole digging hard into his shoulder blade, and bit down on his own knuckles to keep the sob from escaping.
She thought they’d leave her.
His knees hit the dirt.
His hand slid down the tent wall, fingers catching in the stitched seams, trembling.
He could see her shadow through the thin fabric—small, curled, tucked against Alessia’s side.
He’d done that.
Soft, she had said. Just Stella.
His mouth filled with copper.
Asset.
The word landed heavy and wrong in his skull.
He’d looked at a child and seen something to sharpen.
His forehead dropped against the canvas.
Alessia’s voice cut through the cloth, low and fierce.
“They don’t get to have you at all.”
He squeezed his eyes shut.
He pressed one hand flat against the canvas, directly over the shadow of her head.
If he went in, she would straighten.
She would try to be fast.
Sharp.
Useful.
For him.
His fingers curled.
Not again.
“I’m sorry,” he mouthed, soundless against the fabric.
The canvas didn’t answer.
His hand slid down, leaving faint streaks in the dust. When he pulled away, his palm felt empty.
Like he’d left something behind.
He pushed himself to his feet.
Didn’t look back.
Outside, the light was too bright.
His shadow stretched long and thin across the ground.
He turned away from the tent before the tears could fall.
─ ·⋆˚☆˖°· ─
Odrian found him at the supply crates, snapping kindling with his bare hands. Not chopping. Snapping. The dry wood cracking sharp between his palms.
He didn’t look up when Odrian’s shadow fell across the dirt.
He didn’t have the theater for this.
“She asked,” he said, his voice scraping out rough and stripped, “if she had to pick.”
Dionys’s hands stilled. A piece of wood dangled, forgotten, from his fingers.
“Between being sharp and being loved.”
Odrian stepped closer, close enough to see the sweat on his neck, the tremor in his shoulders that he was trying to hide by breaking things.
“She thinks we’ll leave if she’s soft.”
He sank down onto the crate beside Dionys, his elbows digging into his knees, face dropping into his hands.
“I heard her, Dio.” His voice cracked. “She was terrified. Terrified that without the drills, without the sharpness… she’s nothing to us.”
He looked up at Dionys, his eyes burning dry. “She thinks love is something you have to be hard enough to deserve. We did that.”
Dionys’s fingers tightened around the wood until he heard the fibers groan.
He didn’t speak.
But his chest was moving too fast, too hard, his breath coming sharp.
Odrian reached out and closed his hand over his wrist, feeling the tendon jump and strain.
“Alessia’s right to doubt us. We’ve only given her demands.”
Dionys turned his hand under Odrian’s, not pulling away, his fingers curling until their knuckles scraped together. Rough callus against rough callus, scar against scar.
“She said,” Odrian whispered, the memory of Stella’s small voice carving him open all over again, “that she liked how you breathed. Like waves. That she didn’t want you to be gone because she broke.”
Dionys snapped the wood in his fist, letting the splinters bite into his palm until blood welled. He didn’t notice.
“Wrong.”
The word came out guttural, barely human. He stood and seized Odrian’s shoulder with his free hand. His fingers trembled with the force of holding back something worse than violence.
“Not conditional.” He shook him once, teeth bared, voice dropping to a snarl that scraped raw. “Not earned.”
He released him, turning away, his chest heaving like he’d run a battle charge.
“Waves,” he rasped, the word half-swallowed. He closed his eyes, seeing her. Small, fierce, terrified of being soft. “She breathes. I stay.”
He straightened, turned back, face stripped bare.
“Go. Now.” He jerked his chin toward the medical tent, hands already moving to his belt, checking for the dagger he wouldn’t use. “Sit. Guard. No drills.”
He met Odrian’s eyes, flat and black and burning.
“Just breathe.”
Odrian didn’t speak. Didn’t argue. He stood and went.
Dionys stayed where he was. Hands still.
Wood splintered at his feet.
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Tiny Raven 
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