Chapter 5 #2
The first touch of his fingers on my scalp made me make a sound I didn't recognize—something between a sigh and a whimper, all my remaining tension flowing out in a single exhale.
He worked soap through my hair with careful pressure, fingertips finding every spot that ached without me having to tell him where they were.
"You know what I saw this morning?" he asked, voice soft enough that I had to focus to hear him. "A cloud that looked exactly like a dragon eating breakfast. It had a fork and everything, though I think clouds make terrible breakfast food. Too insubstantial. You'd be hungry again in five minutes."
The observation was so deliberately silly that I felt my mouth curve despite everything. "Clouds would taste like cotton candy."
"Mmm, but wet cotton candy. The disappointing kind you get when it rains at the fair." His fingers kept working, steady and rhythmic. "Though I suppose if you were a dragon, you could toast them first. Caramelized clouds. That might work."
I found myself thinking about the logistics of cooking clouds, about what temperature would caramelize water vapor, about whether dragon-fire would just evaporate them entirely.
Except the thoughts felt . . . different.
Softer around the edges. Like I was thinking through gauze, everything slightly muffled and distant.
"The sunrise tastes different in the morning," he continued, rinsing my hair with water that stayed exactly the right temperature. "More silver than gold. Like breathing in possibilities before the day decides what it wants to be."
"How does silver taste?" The question came out smaller than I'd intended, younger.
"Like winter stars and wind chimes. Like the first breath after crying." He moved to wash my shoulders, my arms, still talking in that steady, soft voice. "Gold tastes like honey and thunderstorms. Like laughter that surprises you."
The adult part of my brain—the part that calculated danger and planned escapes and remembered that marks could corrupt—was getting quieter.
Not gone, just . . . muted. Like someone had turned down its volume until it was barely a whisper under the warm, safe, cared-for feelings that were expanding through my chest.
"I'm getting fuzzy," I said, the words slipping out without the usual filters that would have made me phrase it better, more precisely.
"Good," Caelus murmured, his approval making something in my chest glow warm. "That's exactly right. Just let it happen."
Let it happen. Stop fighting. Stop thinking. Just be here, in warm water that smelled like sleep, with gentle hands washing away everything that hurt.
When he helped me stand, wrapping me immediately in a towel so soft it felt like being hugged by a cloud, I was definitely smaller.
Not all the way—still aware of why we were doing this, still remembering the danger—but smaller.
The thoughts came simpler, more direct. Warm was good.
Soft was nice. Caelus—Daddy?—made things safe.
"Good girl," he said, and the praise lit me up from inside like swallowing sunlight. When had someone last called me good? When had I last felt like I'd done something worth praising, instead of just surviving another day?
He dried me with careful pats, then held out the blue dress with its tiny stars.
I lifted my arms without thinking, let him dress me like I was something precious that needed tending.
The fabric settled around me soft as whispers, and I ran my fingers along the star-embroidered hem, fascinated by the texture.
"Now," he said, leading me to the toy chest, "you need a friend."
The dragons all looked wonderful, but my hands went immediately to a silver one with storm-gray eyes—not the biggest or the best-made, but something about it called to me.
Its wings were slightly crooked, and one button eye sat higher than the other, but when I picked it up, it fit perfectly in my arms.
"That's Stormy," Caelus said, and his voice had gone fond in a way that made my chest tight.
"Stormy," I repeated, holding the dragon closer. The name felt right, felt true, felt like something that had been waiting for me to find it.
When he lifted me to sit on the bed—his hands spanning my waist, easy as breathing—both our bodies remembered what we couldn't have.
The mark pulsed cold between my shoulder blades.
Desire hit like lightning, sharp and immediate, making me gasp.
Through the bond, I felt his own want slam into him just as hard, felt him fight it down with will that shook from the effort.
The moment stretched dangerous and taut, his hands still on my waist, my body singing with need that tried to drag me back to adult thoughts, adult wants, adult understanding of what we both desperately craved.
Then he set me down, stepped back, and the moment broke like a soap bubble—there, then gone, leaving only the ghost of what almost was.
"Time for puzzles," he said, voice only slightly rough, and I nodded, holding Stormy tighter.
Puzzles sounded nice. Safe. Something Little Wren could do without Big Wren's wants getting in the way.
Day three started with Daddy's hand gentle on my shoulder and his voice saying "Time to wake up, little one," which was my favorite way to stop sleeping.
Better than the loud bells from the bad place, better than being hungry-awake or scared-awake.
Just Daddy's voice and knowing today would be soft like yesterday and the day before that.
"Morning, Stormy," I told my dragon, who'd stayed tucked under my arm all night keeping away the scary dreams. Stormy was very good at that job.
Daddy helped me pick a dress—yellow today with little white flowers on it—and I lifted my arms so he could help me even though Big Me probably could dress herself. But Big Me was sleeping way down deep where all the scared thoughts lived, and Little Me liked when Daddy helped.
Breakfast happened at my special table that Daddy made from cloud-stuff. It was just my size, and my feet could touch the ground which made me feel more real somehow. He gave me porridge with honey swirls that I tried to follow with my spoon, making patterns before eating them.
"Slow bites," Daddy reminded when I got too excited about the berries he'd hidden in the middle like treasure. "Your tummy is still waking up too."
Everything had patterns now. Wake up, get dressed, breakfast, play with puzzles, story time in the rocking chair, lunch, nap even though I said I wasn't tired but then always was, more playing, dinner, bath, bed.
The patterns made a safe fence around my world.
Inside the fence, nothing bad could happen because Daddy had all the rules that kept the scary things out.
Today's puzzle had a hundred pieces and showed dragons flying through rainbow clouds.
Daddy sat on the floor with me, helping find edge pieces but letting me figure out where they went.
When I got frustrated because sky pieces all looked the same, he showed me how to look for tiny differences in the blue.
"See? This one has a whisper of purple. Like when evening starts thinking about showing up."
I studied the piece hard, and yes, there was purple hiding in the blue, shy but there. Finding it felt like winning something important.
The mark was still there—I could feel it sometimes like cold fingers between my shoulders—but it was confused now.
Like it was hungry but couldn't remember what food looked like.
Sometimes it pushed at me, trying to make me think about Big Things, but the thoughts just slipped away like soap bubbles. Too slippery for me or it to catch.
"Story time," Daddy said after lunch, and I climbed into his lap in the rocking chair, Stormy clutched tight. Today's book had pictures of a little dragon learning to fly, and Daddy did all the voices different—squeaky for the baby dragon, rumbly for the mountain, whooshy for the wind.
Nap happened even though I wiggled a lot and said I was very awake actually. But Daddy rubbed my back in circles and hummed something that didn't have words, just safe sounds, and then suddenly I was waking up and afternoon light was all golden through the windows.
"Someone was tired," Daddy said, and I hid my face in Stormy because being wrong about being tired was embarrassing.
We painted in the afternoon. I made lots of colors mix together until they turned into muddy purple-brown, but Daddy said it was beautiful anyway and helped me put handprints on paper that he hung on the wall to dry. My hands looked so small outlined in paint.
Dinner was soft things—mashed vegetables that were orange and sweet, tiny pieces of bread for dipping, water in a special cup with handles just for me. I tried to share with Stormy but Daddy explained Stormy ate invisible food which was why we never saw him do it.
Then came bath time, and everything went sideways wrong.
The water was perfect-warm and smelled like the same sleepy flowers as always.
Daddy washed my hair with the careful fingers that knew exactly how to make the tight places in my head go loose.
I was humming the song about the flying dragon, making bubble mountains with my hands, everything soft and good and right.
Then the mark pulsed.
Not cold this time—hot. Tingly. Making my tummy feel strange and squirmy in a way I didn't have words for. All of me felt too warm suddenly, like summer had shown up inside my skin without asking first.
"Daddy?" My voice came out funny, smaller than usual.
"What is it, little one?" His hands kept washing my hair, steady and safe.
But they felt different now. Better. Too better. Like every time his fingers touched my head, sparkles happened in my tummy and lower, in places I didn't usually think about when I was Little. I made a sound that wasn't words, just confused wanting.