The blanket was still there when Aki woke. That was the first betrayal. In the grey, pre dawn light filtering through the cracks, she expected it to have vanished like a dream, the salve's lingering coolness nothing but a fevered illusion. But it was real. The weight of it was real, a gentle, woollen pressure that held the night's chill at bay. She touched it with swollen knuckles. The fabric was too fine for her fingers, they snagged on threads as if the blanket itself was a delicate creature resisting her rough touch. Ghosts don't accept offerings, she thought, the mantra a brittle prayer against the warmth seeping into her bones. But her body was a traitor. It curled into the heat, pulling the foreign comfort closer.
Shiro was already up, seated on his pallet with a fresh plank of scavenged wood across his knees. The chisel was in his hand, but he wasn't carving. He was staring at the wooden medallion Kuro had given him, turning it over and over in his fingers, tracing the chaotic, caged star at its heart.
"They'll come today," he said, not looking up. His voice was quiet, a statement worn smooth from repetition. He didn't know when, or for how long, but the certainty was there, a new set of anchors in his daily sea of uncertainty.
Aki didn't answer. She watched the dust motes dance in the feeble beams of light spearing the gloom. They moved in chaotic, beautiful swirls, like constellations being born and dying in the space of a breath.
The boots came just before noon. A single pair, measured and firm. Valeria pushed the door open and stepped inside, a satchel slung over one shoulder. She surveyed the shack with a practical eye.
"He's trapped at the academy," she announced by way of greeting, answering the question she saw forming on Shiro's face. "Exams. A full day of tutors droning about stellar declinations and political genealogies. I left him to his fate."
She dropped her satchel. "So you're stuck with me. If you'll have the company."
Shiro blinked, setting his chisel down. "Just you?"
"Is my presence insufficient?"
Valeria marched straight to him. Before he could react, her hands were in his hair, ruffling it with a vigour that sent a cloud of dust and wood shavings into the air. "Gods, Shiro, you're a walking midden. Do you bathe in the mud or just use it as a hair spray?"
"The water's cold," Shiro shot back, ducking away with a scowl. "And the soap's more grit than lather. It's a trade off: clean or skin."
"A poor negotiator, then." She pinched his cheek, hard enough to make him yelp. "You'll negotiate with a blade one day, and it won't care about your delicate skin. Now, heat water. Not boiling warm. And find a cloth that doesn't stand up on its own."
Shiro opened his mouth, a retort about the impossibility of finding a clean anything in Higaru clearly on his tongue, but Valeria had already turned to Aki, uncapping the salve. He shut it, muttering under his breath about "bossy silk types," but moved to the hearth.
Aki watched, the bemused feeling rising again as Valeria commanded the space. She directed Shiro with the brisk efficiency of a sergeant, her orders leaving no room for debate but also, curiously, no sting of contempt. It was simply how things would be. As Valeria's steady fingers worked the salve into the knotted terrain of Aki's back, she spoke softly.
"He's got a sharp tongue. Good. A dull mind agrees with everything, especially its own oppression."
"He's got a smart mouth that'll get him hit," Aki held her head in her hands.
"Then he'll learn to be smart and fast," Valeria replied, her tone implying this was an obvious life lesson. "Better than being quiet and slow. Now, Shiro!" she called over her shoulder. "Is that water contemplating its existence or is it getting warm?"
"IM TRYING"
"Then Try harder", Valeria said flat as a board.
The morning unfolded in this new, strange rhythm. It was a rhythm of purposeful friction. When Valeria taught Shiro to steep the last of the tea, he grumbled about "ceremony for ceremony's sake."
"It's not ceremony," she said, rapping his knuckles as he reached for the cup. "It's respect. For the leaf, for the time, for yourself. You rush everything. As if the next moment will be worse. Sometimes, you have to believe the next moment might be worth waiting for."
"In Higaru, the next moment is usually a fist or a bill," Shiro retorted, but he pulled his hand back, watching the leaves swirl.
Her critiques of his carving were merciless. He'd present a star, some defiance in his eyes, and she'd dissect it.
"That's not Vega," she stated, pointing at a cluster of lines. "That's a spider that lost a fight with a boot. Where's the lyricality? The point of Lyra is the music in the lines. You've made it a scribble."
"Maybe my stars don't sing," Shiro snapped, irritation flaring. "Maybe they scream. Ever think of that?"
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"Then make them scream beautifully," Valeria fired back, unimpressed. "An ugly scream is just noise. A beautiful one is a warning. Try again."
And he would. The snarl would die in his throat, replaced by a grinding of his teeth, and he'd scrape the wood clean. The defiance became fuel, not a wall. He'd lean into the task, his earlier retorts fading as the challenge itself became the only conversation that mattered. When he corrected the line, finding a cleaner curve, Valeria didn't praise him. She'd just ruffle his already disastrous hair. "Less boot, more spider, Finally some progress."
Around midday, as Valeria shifted a candle, Aki saw it again, that prismatic fracture deep in her eyes, a flash of buried colour. She stored the mystery away. As the afternoon sun thickened the air like miasma. Valeria moved behind Shiro, her hand closing over his on the chisel to demonstrate a pulling cut for a long, clean line. He stiffened initially, the unfamiliar contact a shock.
"Relax," she murmured. "I'm not going to steal your precious blunder. Feel how the grain guides you? You're fighting it. You fight everything. Sometimes surrender gets you further."
"Surrender gets you dead," Shiro muttered, but his grip eased under hers. He let her guide his hand, and the wood yielded a perfect, smooth groove.
"See? Not dead. Just a better line." She released him and pinched his earlobe. "Remember that feeling."
Later, she produced the dried apples. Shiro's eyes widened, but he managed a scoff.
"What's this? Noble scraps for the gutter rat?"
"Call it tactical nutrition," Valeria said, slicing a piece thinly. "Your brain is a tool. It needs fuel that isn't just gruel and resentment. Small bites. Make it last." She popped a slice in his mouth. "Taste it. Really taste it. The sweetness is a fact. Let it be a fact in your mouth."
Shiro ate slowly, the sarcasm draining from his face, replaced by a look of pure, startled wonder. The simple, concentrated sweetness was a revelation. Valeria watched him, her stern expression softening around the edges. When he finished, he looked at the last slice in his palm.
"Kuro... does he get these all the time?"
Valeria's gaze grew careful. "He gets different things. Rich food, yes. And rich expectations. They weigh about the same, in the end."
She deftly changed the subject. "More water. And tell me, why the Eagle? Why carve Aquila so often?"
Shiro, hauling the water, shrugged. "It's got its head down, looking at the Serpent. It's not just sitting there. It's... working. Fighting, even."
"Hmm." Valeria considered him. "You see action. Kuro sees the fixed position, Aquila, forever in the summer sky. You see the story within it."
"Maybe his stars are just prettier," Shiro grumbled, but there was no heat in it.
"Pretty is useless," Valeria said. "Story is everything."
As the light began to fail, painting the shack in deep gold and long shadows, Valeria had Shiro repeating the new grip until his hand cramped.
"Again," she insisted.
"My fingers are going to fall off," he protested, shaking out his hand. "Then I'll carve stars with my toes, and then they'll really be ugly."
"Your toes are probably cleaner," Valeria quipped, but she glanced at Aki.
"Enough," Aki said, her voice cutting the air. "The point is made. You'll break the tool before you perfect the hand."
Valeria turned. The two women's eyes met in the dimming light, a silent conversation passing between them. Valeria gave a slight nod.
"Perhaps. Rest the hand. But not the mind."
She moved to Aki's pallet for the final salve application. Her touch was gentle, a stark contrast to her earlier severity.
"Your mother taught you more than survival," Valeria said softly, her fingers tracing the edge of a star shaped scar. "She taught you observation. Precision."
"She taught me to see the trap before I stepped in it," Aki corrected, but the old bitterness was faint, worn thin by the day's strange peace.
"Same thing," Valeria said. Her hands stilled. "You see the traps for Shiro. You've kept him out of most of them. But some traps... they look like paths. They look like friendship, or knowledge, or a way out. You can't see those for him. He has to learn to feel the give under his own feet."
Aki looked at her brother, now massaging his hand, a small, unconscious smile on his face as he studied the harp he'd carved.
"He's too trusting."
"He's not trusting. He's hungry," Valeria whispered. "There's a difference. He doesn't believe the good thing; he's just so starved for it he'll risk the poison. That's where you need to be strong. And where I..." She sighed. "Where I can perhaps provide a less poisonous version for a while."
The confession hung in the air. It wasn't a promise of safety, both knew better, but a statement of intent. A shared guardianship.
Valeria stood at the door, the day's energy spent. She looked tired, the kind of deep weariness that comes from emotional labour. She turned back. Her eyes found Shiro, who had gotten to his feet, holding his carved Lyra. He looked younger in the twilight, the day's defensiveness sanded away. Valeria crossed to him. Without a word, she cupped his face in her hands, her thumbs pressing his cheeks. He froze, eyes wide, all traces of his defiance had vanished.
"Listen," she said, her voice a low, warm rumble that brooked no argument. "I'm coming back tomorrow. And the next day. You're stuck with me. Consider it your new celestial alignment." She gave his cheek a sharp, affectionate pinch.
"Owwww! I get it, I get it!" he yelped, but he didn't pull away.
She ruffled his hair into ultimate chaos. "So be ready. Clean hands. A slightly less tragic attitude. And I'll drag your brother Kuro back with me. He's probably been insufferable, moaning about missing a day of losing arguments to you."
The word brother landed softly, deliberately. It wasn't a slip. It was a gift. Shiro's breath hitched. The last of his defensive shell cracked, leaving raw, bewildered hope in his eyes. Valeria's stern face softened into a smile that reached her eyes.
"Yes your brother." She gave his cheek one last, fond tug.
At the threshold, she looked back, the familiar ghost of a smirk returning. "Don't die before tomorrow. The torture is only just beginning." Then she was gone.
Shiro stood in the silent shack, one hand on his tingling cheek, the other clutching the wooden medallion. He looked at Aki, utterly lost, as if he'd been handed a map written in a language he'd only dreamed of. Aki pulled the blanket close. It was warm. It was a risk. It was, undeniably, a kind of shelter.
"She called Kuro my brother," Shiro whispered, testing the words.
"She did," Aki agreed, her voice quiet as settling ash. "Ghosts need people to haunt. And it seems... we are being haunted. Thoroughly."
She closed her eyes. The shack held the day's echoes, the sharp commands, the softer laughter, the scent of apples and wood and care. For the first time in years, Aki didn't dream of stars as chains. She dreamed of a rhythm, steadily beating: the sound of boots at dusk, the feel of a hand in the dark, the solid, relentless weight of a promise kept. The dangers hadn't vanished. But the isolation had. And in its place was something fragile, defiant, and alive.
What Did Valeria Mean He'll negotiate With a Blade One Day?
