"The family we lose carves the first cracks.The family we choose fills the light back in."— Ella the Silvertongued Princess
Dove.
"Can you twist?" Raven asked, her voice low and careful, her fingers lightly probing the bruised wreckage of my ribs.
I drew in a shallow breath and tried.
Agony bloomed bright and hot across my side.
I shook my head, unable to hide the wince that followed.
Raven exhaled through her nose, sympathy clouding her features.Not pity. Never pity. Just sadness, quietly shared.
"How did this happen to you?" she asked.
I looked away.
Speaking it aloud would make it real. And I was so very tired of living in real things.
Raven didn't push. She only pressed a bit of balm against the worst of the bruising and began preparing the leaves to wrap me again.
She told me it had been eighteen days since I arrived here.Eighteen days without his hand on me. Without the cold whisper of his threats. Without waking to new wounds.
I knew better than to believe I was safe.
I would never be safe again.
But still — some stubborn, feral part of me hoped.
Hoped he had tired of me.
Hoped he had forgotten.
Hoped I could keep breathing, even if it was only in this cage.
Raven came and went now.Sometimes when she returned, bruises bloomed across her beautiful olive skin — purple and angry and speaking of things she never voiced.
I hated how powerless I was to help her.
She finished tying the final leaf against my hip, then dipped her fingers stealthily into the pot of balm again — smearing a quick line across her leg.
"You don't have to hide that, you know," I murmured, my voice rough from disuse.
Raven startled, her hand jerking away like she'd been caught stealing.
"Please," she whispered, eyes wide. "Don't tell the madame."
I shook my head quickly. "I'd never. You've been kind to me. If you need more... take more. How would she even know you didn't use it on me?"
Her shoulders sagged in relief.She offered me a tentative smile — the kind you gave when you weren't used to being offered kindness without cost.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "It... it really has helped. I think my leg's almost fully healed."
She flexed it in front of me — a smooth motion I hadn't seen from her before.
I blinked, realizing for the first time that Raven's limp might have been more mask than injury for some time now.
"The limp," I said softly.
She smiled — a real one this time, sharp-edged and mischievous. "Best not to let the madame know. If she thinks I'm good for running, she'll remind me why I'm not."
I pressed my hand lightly to my chest, miming a vow. "She won't hear it from me."
Satisfied, Raven settled back, glancing thoughtfully at the hot spring."You'll probably get a room soon," she added, almost casual. "Another ten days, maybe. You won't need the balm anymore except for your ribs."
I stiffened.
"A... a room?" I echoed, heart thudding.
Panic licked up my spine. Was I to be auctioned off? Had the madame decided I was healed enough to be sold?
Raven read the terror on my face instantly.She shook her head hard, waving her hands.
"No, no, not like that. She's said you won't take callers. I mean a real bedroom. A place to sleep that's not the bath house."
The panic ebbed, but wariness clung to me like a second skin.
Raven didn't lie — not that I had seen. Well.. for the most part.But in the Aviary, safety was always a temporary thing.
Still, I nodded.
I slid from the table to the floor beside her, settling gingerly near the spring. Raven soaked her leg, leaving the rest of her body dry, and together we drifted into the heavy, companionable silence that had grown between us these past days.
After a long while, I spoke.
"Do you have family?"
She was quiet so long that I thought she wouldn't answer.
Finally, she said, voice hushed, "I might. I don't know."
I stayed silent, waiting.
"My people... we used to travel the Emerald Isles. Nomads. No homes, just caravans and the sea."
Her voice wavered.
"I was taken in a raid. Some of them died. Some..." She shrugged, helpless. "I don't know what happened."
Grief coiled between us — old and ragged and familiar.
I tilted my head back to the glass dome overhead.A dragon's ruby wing flashed across the only clear pane, a brief blur of colour against the deepening twilight.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
Raven's gaze found mine — hollow, heavy.
"I don't think I'm the only one who knows loss."
I pressed my lips together.
"I... I can't say it," I admitted. "If I speak it aloud, I might never survive it."
That seemed to satisfy her.
We let the silence wrap around us again.
After a while, Raven spoke, voice so soft I almost missed it.
"When I was little, my mother made these meat pies.She'd season them with salt she harvested herself, wrap them in banana leaves, bake them in a clay oven."
Her voice thickened.
"I could smell them for miles. That smell... it meant home."
I reached out, my muscles screaming in protest, and squeezed her arm gently.
When I let go, I gasped for breath, but she smiled at me through a sudden wash of tears.
"When you get out of here," I said fiercely, "you'll find her again."
Her shoulders shook.When I looked up, big, silent tears were sliding down her cheeks.
"I won't," she whispered. "She died. She died trying to get me away."
I sucked in a sharp breath, my chest aching.
"And the others... they were just travellers. People we moved with. They won't remember me. It's been too long."
I shifted painfully closer, ignoring the scream of my still-healing body, and cupped her face in my palms.
Her face was blotchy, tear streaked, and real.
"I understand," I said. "And there's nothing I can say that will fix this."
She shook her head, trembling.
"So," I continued, "when we get out of here — stay with me.We'll make our own family."
"You barely know me," she hiccupped.
"Friends are family we choose for ourselves," I whispered."It's a special kind of magic. One we can build... together."
She didn't speak.But her head dropped against my shoulder, and for the first time, the Aviary didn't feel quite so heavy around us.
We sat there until the dragons circled low overhead, their wings whispering against the sky.
And somewhere inside me — the smallest ember of real hope caught and burned.
--
Raven.
I sat there, trembling, as Dove held me like I was something precious, not broken.Not ruined.
Her arms were weak. Her body was broken worse than mine had ever been.
And still, she wrapped them around me like armor.
Nobody had touched me like that in years — without wanting something, without demanding a price I couldn't pay.
I buried my face against her shoulder and let the silence say what I couldn't.
Thank you.
Please don't let me go.
I'll stay.I'll stay until the world ends, if you'll have me.
Above us, the dragons circled.
Below the earth, the island whispered and shifted.
But for the first time in so long I could barely remember, I wasn't alone in the dark.