The Ariakan estate was quieter than most noble villas in Suramar. Its gardens hummed not with the chatter of guests but with the slower music of leaves, bees drifting heavy with pollen, and the rustle of pages turned in steady rhythm.
On a soft spring afternoon, Zoya moved among her flowers with hands both practical and reverent. She murmured to the soil as though it might answer, trimming herbs, loosening roots, humming as she worked. The air was fragrant with foxflower, lavender, and the faint metallic tang of tilled earth.
At a small table set beneath a trellis of jasmine, Lucien read aloud from the volume Lytavis had chosen that morning—a scholar's study of Tel'anor. His voice carried the rise and fall of ritual, describing terraces lined with moon lilies and an observatory where astronomers charted unnamed stars. More than once he glanced over the edge of the parchment to smile at the seriousness with which his daughter had insisted on this book over the lighter tales stacked nearby.
Lytavis herself stood on the grass a short distance away, skirts muddied, curls tangled with petals and leaves. She listened with one ear only, her body turned toward the hedge, her small frame taut with attention. Something had flickered there, a whisper of motion. She tilted her head. Waited.
A sound came—soft, pained.
Without hesitation, she dropped to her knees and wriggled beneath the branches. The garden dimmed into a world of roots and damp soil, of beetles scurrying from her breath. There, pressed against the earth, was a fox kit no larger than a loaf of bread. Red-gold fur bristled, its eyes too big for its face. One small leg bent at an unnatural angle.
The kit yipped, a high keening note, but Lytavis reached out slowly, her hand small and sure. "It's all right," she whispered. Her voice was thinner than a prayer, but it carried all the gravity she owned.
When her fingers brushed its fur, warmth spread through her palms, tingling like sunlight caught in water. The kit's cry faltered, then softened. Light shimmered faintly—no more than fireflies—and the crooked leg eased. Not perfect, not untouched, but no longer shattered.
Lytavis's breath caught. Her wide blue eyes filled with wonder and a hint of fear. The fox nosed her cheek, damp and ticklish, before curling into her lap as though it had always belonged there. Within heartbeats, it was asleep.
When she emerged from the hedge—grass-stained, radiant, a ball of fur pressed to her chest—Zoya straightened at once, wiping soil from her hands. "By Elune," she breathed, half-wonder, half-fear.
Lucien set aside his book. Kneeling, he examined both child and kit with a scholar's careful touch. His fingers traced the small leg, brows lifting at what he felt there. Not whole, not flawless—but mended. He looked up, meeting his daughter's anxious gaze.
Lytavis clutched the fox tighter, as if fearing he might send it away.
But Lucien only shook his head, voice sure. "We'll keep her, Little Star."
Zoya touched the kit's fiery coat, then brushed her daughter's cheek. "Ginger," she decided softly. "For the flame in her fur."
The name fit at once. The kit yawned, shifted, and burrowed deeper into Lytavis's lap as though it had been waiting for the word.
The garden settled again into its rhythm: Zoya humming at her beds, Lucien's voice resuming its measured cadence, and Lytavis cross-legged in the grass with Ginger nestled against her. Before long, both child and fox were asleep, their breathing folded into the spring afternoon, as natural and necessary as sunlight itself.
Notes in the Margin - Lucien Ariakan
She crawled beneath the hedge today and returned with more than scratches and dirt. I have studied healers, their hands precise, their craft learned in steps. But this was different. Her hands glowed faint as fireflies, and the fox no longer limped. I called her Little Star without thinking. Zoya smiled, though her eyes held both pride and unease. We waited so long for her, and she already outruns us, shining in ways we cannot yet name.