The Pegasus spread its wings. Pure white feathers rose and fell with the airflow, slicing the sky with a hissing whoosh.

Folded into the wind’s song came the lion-girl’s puzzled question, tossed like a pebble into a river.

“Hey, what happened between you and that guy? How’d it blow up overnight?”

No answer. But the one questioned knew the answer like a thorn under the skin.

Melodramatic.

Yes, melodramatic.

She asked for too much. She had sworn by her sister’s sickbed, cold resolve like iron, even planned to make her sister dislike her, step away.

Yet when her sister showed the slightest hint of distance, it stabbed like a needle. She curled on the wooden cabin floor, hugging her knees, mind blank as winter mist.

So, calling her melodramatic wasn’t wrong. It fit like a shadow.

Like the day she accidentally angered Adelaide, Mira felt a bleak disappointment in herself. The soft fur cushion beneath her was wasted warmth. She felt naked in an icy spring, fine crystals sprouting in muscle and marrow.

“Hey, hey, you clam, I’m talking to you! What’s going on?”

Her brooding imagery cracked under that voice, dragging Mira back to the carriage and to Varie’s gossip-hungry eyes, bright as twin moons. Her mood flipped from guilt to prickly ire.

Great. Just like last time. When she hurt most, fate seated this loud, tone-deaf woman beside her.

“C’mon, relax. No matter who’s at fault, I’m on your side. Tell me. I’m dying to know.”

…

Her low emotional intelligence pestered like a fly. A crude reply surged up like steam in a kettle—yes, Mira knew curses. She wasn’t truly noble by birth. She’d been trafficked once, and in those cages she learned foul words in a dozen tongues, even the nastiest in the Nacha tongue.

But when she first joined the Douglas Family, she’d slipped and cursed before Adelaide. Her gentle sister got angry for the first time, pulled her into a room, and lectured for an hour. If she heard another unladylike word, she said, she’d stop reading Mira bedtime stories.

Since then, Mira never cursed… mostly.

Fine, not exactly.

When she played that “unlikable, hysterical Princess Belior,” she used blunt curse-lines for effect. People joked her mouth grew nails.

But those were performances. In daily life she dodged crude words, used the “ladylike ways to vent” Adelaide taught her, soft knives in velvet.

This was different. She didn’t have the patience to sculpt a polite jab. Her grievance and anger were a bagged cat clawing wildly in her chest, shrieking that simplicity is king and urging her to spit the most direct relief.

Her head rang like a boiling kettle. The line “None of your **** business, fur-butt!” rushed to her tongue.

Before it flew, another voice in the carriage cut in, clear as a bell.

“Right or wrong doesn’t matter. Teacher must think some things aren’t fit to tell us yet. Like how she won’t teach me spells over twenty phrases until my basics are done. She has her reasons, right, Mira?”

Anta’s young voice poured water on the fire in Mira’s chest. She looked at the kid’s steady eyes and lowered her gaze, breath cooling like dew.

“Mm. She… never does anything without a reason.”

“Oh? Reeeally? You two think very highly of her,” Varie said, eyebrows arched like hooks.

“Of course! Even with Grandma and Grandpa, I have secrets.” Anta met Varie’s lion eyes, upright as a pine. “Because they’re important, there are things you can’t say to them. Varie, do you tell Prince Menglan everything?”

Pft—kh, kh! Varie choked on her own saliva, face blushing redder than a little Lise fruit. She pointed at Anta and yelled what nonsense are you spouting, but the shrunken Barni strutted with feline grace along her arm, sprang onto Anta’s head, and settled like finding a new nest. He let out a low, mocking growl, and Varie’s ear fur puffed up like storm clouds.

“Traitor! I fed you so much liver jelly while you healed!”

Her flustered squawking should’ve been satisfying. But Mira’s mind kept echoing Anta’s words.

Yes. Her sister had her reasons.

All she needed was to follow.

She closed her eyes, inhaled on a count of two. Varie’s indignant yelps, Anta and Barni’s giggles, the Pegasus’s high whinny all faded like receding tide. She repeated the same suggestion inward, sinking into herself like a stone into still water.

She didn’t speak again until they reached their destination.

—

“All right. This is where you’ll be staying. Trust me, no long-ears will search here. I’ll stake my name on it.”

They stood before a gray-white compound. Mira lifted her suitcase and peered through the iron gate at the few shabby play structures inside. She turned to Varie and tossed a silent question with her eyes.

“What? You think you’re moving into a long-ears’ resort?” Varie rolled her eyes, sarcasm sharp as a thorn. “Sorry, the Nacha Tribe can’t get fancy materials right now. We humbly beg the lady to endure.”

Mira ignored the barbs, voice cool as a shaded stream. “What is this place?”

Varie opened her mouth, but a flurry of chirping and a sharp scream burst from inside the compound. They looked in. A pack of kids—of course, all Nacha—swarmed Anta. The front row patted her head with curious hands. Those too short jumped like popcorn to squeeze in.

“Whoa! Why no ears on your head? Did the long-ears cut them off?”

“No, look—no tail either! So bare, so weird!”

“Silence! I read about this in a book. People with nothing there are called… uh… in-tribe!”

“That’s human, you big idiot who can’t speak right!”

Charmed by novelty, the Nacha kids chattered like sparrows. Anta flailed, helpless as a leaf in wind. “Don’t—don’t pull my hair!”

Mira’s gaze darkened. Her hand found the sword at her waist, metal a cold whisper. Varie grabbed her arm, hissing don’t.

At the same time, a grown woman’s voice rang from the largest building, brisk as a snapped twig.

“You punks! Line up and clear off! Don’t be rude to our guests!”

Eek! It’s the old witch! the kids squealed. In the next second they scattered like startled rabbits, vanished behind benches and slides. A few brave ones peeked out from the slide’s back, little faces round as moons.

“No manners! No naan flatbread for dinner tonight!”

A young Nacha woman charged out, nothing like their so-called witch, brandishing… a rolling pin. White flour streaks dusted the wood like snow. She’d clearly rushed out mid-cooking, tools and all. Realizing the awkward look, she hid the pin behind her back and jogged to Mira and Varie, bowing and nodding like reeds in a gust.

“Ho—Hero! I’m so sorry you saw that. I thought you’d arrive later, so I was prepping dinner and missed you coming…”

“It’s fine, don’t make it a big deal.” Varie waved her off, then glanced at Mira.

“This is Pengpeng, a staffer here. As you can see, this is an orphanage. Don’t give me that look. This is the least conspicuous spot. No one searches an orphanage. It fits your sister’s brief perfectly.”

At the word orphanage, a ripple crossed Mira’s eyes, quick as a fish. Then her face smoothed like calm water. She nodded.

“Understood.”

“Wow, not even a thank you?”

“Oh. Thank you.”

Varie rolled her eyes skyward. “That half-hearted thanks is worse than none. Anyway, I’ve got other fires to put out. I’m off.” She declined Pengpeng’s dinner invite with a quick word, then vanished in two strides, leaving the three of them in the dust. Busy was an understatement.

“Uh, um…” Pengpeng looked at Mira and Anta, hands fidgeting with the rolling pin like a bird not knowing where to perch. Flour dust drifted from the wood like pale pollen.

After a beat, she seemed to remember a rehearsed speech. Words tumbled out like marbles. “Mira, I’ve heard of your feat with the Firestone! Without you, the Hero couldn’t have started the forging great hammer, and we couldn’t have slain the Soul Devourer Sormaidon! You’re a benefactor of the Nacha Tribe!”

Her voice tripped on excitement and awe, earnest as a sunrise. She’d clearly prepared for this moment. But the target of her fervor—Mira—showed little ripple. A faint nod. Then she turned and checked on shaken Anta, leaving Pengpeng awkward as a lone statue.

“Mira, you must be tired from the trip. Let me carry your luggage—”

“No.”

Pengpeng’s reaching hand closed on air. Mira’s cool voice froze her mid-motion. She lifted her face and met Mira’s detached eyes—eyes that held no reflection of her.

“Which room is ours?”

“Eh? Ah—Room 307 over there, with a private little yard. Best room in the orphanage! I’ll show you—”

“No.”

The same line replayed, crisp as a snapped twig. Not only Pengpeng, even Anta blinked. She opened her mouth to lighten the air, but Mira was already leading her forward, steps steady as a drum.

Near the door, Mira paused like a hawk on a branch, a thought landing.

“If it’s not necessary, please don’t bother us. I prefer quiet.”

No soft turn at the end, no warmth in the fade. She left that line like a blade on a table, then the door snapped shut with a clean clap.