Morning light. Cool enough to think.
Another day, again.
Rhaenys sits at the table, tongue out, charcoal in fist. Elia draws letters on a slate. Slow, patient lines.
"Straight," Elia says, soft. "Then belly. Then tail."
Rhaenys copies. The line bends like it changed its mind halfway. She sighs.
"It looks wrong."
"No. it takes practice," Elia says. "Practice grows right. Again."
I perch on the window sill and supervise like a judgmental paperweight.
Rhaenys peeks over, conspirator voice: "Velmir, watch me do 'R.' It's for me."
She tries. The loop fights her. She scowls. She is small royalty at war with a curve.
I hop down to the table edge and press my beak to the slate's corner. Motivational bird. Certified.
She laughs, tension gone. "All right. One more."
The next 'R' is cleaner. Not perfect. Honest.
Elia's smile lands warm. "Good. Hands after."
Rhaenys does the basin routine like it's a ritual that keeps the world polite. Because it does.
Lesson break. Ribbon time.
Rhaenys holds up the bright strip like a challenge. "Want it?"
Why not.
I snatch, pivot, and bolt along the back of the chair. She gasps, delighted, and chases. Tiny feet. Light steps. Elia pretends not to watch and absolutely watches.
We do three laps of the room. I keep the pace just slow enough that she believes she's close, just fast enough that she knows she has to earn it.
At the window, I fake left, dart right, and tuck behind the curtain rod.
Rhaenys plants fists on hips. "Thief."
Elia, amused: "You are one little special bird."
Guilty. Sentence accepted.
Rhaenys tries negotiation. "One fig seed."
Low offer.
"Two," she says quickly. "And you return it nicely."
Progress.
I hold firm because even birds understand market value.
She thinks. "Three. Last one."
Deal.
I drop and lay the ribbon on her palm. No snatch. No yank. I make it ceremonial.
She blinks. The serious kind. "You…trust me."
I do. For someone who set rules on Day 0, I am a menace now.
BondStable:Rhaenys- L2(Trust)
Elia ties the ribbon back in Rhaenys's hair. "Thank him."
"Thank you, Velmir."
I preen like a hero and pretend I didn't almost fly into the curtain rod earlier. We respect the narrative.
Outside, the garden is all lemons and gossip.
Bored guard flicks his straw. Alert guard checks the latch on the side gate twice. Mean guard has the day off, replaced by a man with kind eyes and bad boots. Promotion: morale.
I make my rounds anyway. Wall. Tree. Back to sill. No stunts. Just a metronome of safety checks.
Rhaenys draws again. Letters, then shapes. She makes a bird. It looks like a potato with beak. I love it.
"Like you," she says, beaming.
Rude. Correct.
The cat arrives to supervise and immediately tries to sit on the slate. Rhaenys nudges it off with all the authority of a ruling council. "Later, Balerion."
Elia sets the slate aside and rubs at her side. The pain's quiet today, but not gone. She hides it behind tasks. I clock it, store it, hate it.
A knock at the door. A maid with the city's rough accent pokes in. "My lady, the cook asks if the little one will take honey water. It's a hot day."
Elia nods. "Half a cup. Thank you."
The maid's eyes find me. "Still here, little bird?"
I give her one clean chirp. She grins and leaves like she just won a small bet.
Rhaenys drinks. She offers me a wetted fingertip. I sip because the gesture matters, not the water.
Then work. Real work.
Elia lays out a square of cloth, a needle, and thread that will tangle just to feel alive. She shows Rhaenys how to start a stitch and how to undo a mistake without cursing.
Rhaenys stabs the cloth like it owes her answers. It ends up crooked and proud. Elia kisses her hair. "Perfect enough."
I memorize the sound of that sentence. People survive off less.
We go back to ribbon-thief.
Round two is not about the ribbon. It's about proof.
I glide down, grab, flutter just out of reach, then on purpose land on the table and place the ribbon in Rhaenys's palm without a bribe.
Her mouth opens in a small O.
"You gave it back."
"Because you asked," I think. "And because you will ask again and I will still be here."
She wraps the ribbon around my middle like a silly sash and giggles at how offended I look.
Elia laughs under her breath. "He wears it well."
"I am a weapon of war," I tell no one, ribboned like a gift.
------
Afternoon heat settles. The air wavers. The garden goes slow.
I nap in the window's shadow and dream of streetlights on wet pavement again. The red glow. The siren note you feel in your ears. I wake with my heart knocking and no language good enough to pin it down.
Rhaenys is drawing on my feathers with a finger. "You have a secret map," she whispers.
"I have three," I think. "And a spare."
I practice Ember once at the far trough. A dot. Then stop. Fuel's for when it matters.
She fetches the ribbon and holds it up. "Last game."
We play. I steal. She chases. I return. No payment. Just trust.
Elia pretends to mend and absolutely stores the pattern of that exchange in her heart.
By evening, the garden cools. The kind-eyed guard trades a joke with the cook's boy. The bored guard finds a new straw. The alert one counts a different set of steps, shift changed.
Rhaenys leans on the sill and points at the first star. "That one."
"Good choice," I think. "Reliable brand."
"Hands," Elia prompts. Rhaenys washes with the little hum she uses for chores she's decided are holy.
She comes back, ribbon straight, chin up. "Velmir will be here tomorrow."
"Yes," Elia says. "He will."
They both look at me like they dare me to disagree.
I don't.
We close the day with small victories: a cleaner 'R,' a ribbon returned without a bribe, a cat that did not die from being itself.
It's not glory.
It's a scaffold.
BondHolds:Rhaenys—L2.Bond
Tomorrow, we build another plank.