EPILOGUE
LAINA
We’d been together for four months, and I still woke up tangled around Brovish, like my body hadn’t gotten the memo that he wasn’t going anywhere.
Morning light hit the carved snugglethorns on the nightstand. Mine and his, sitting side by side. My tablet charged next to his notebook. My jacket hung by the front door. My favorite mug sat on the counter, the chipped one Dad had given me, positioned where I’d left it last night.
Home.
The word still felt new enough to make warmth unfurl in my chest.
Brovish’s arm tightened around my waist. “You’re awake.”
“How can you tell?”
“Your breathing changed. And you’re planning something.”
I tilted my head back to look at him. His hair fell loose across the pillow, and he watched me with an expression that said he’d been awake longer than I’d realized.
“My mother’s coming today,” I said.
“She is.”
“I invited her this time.”
“I’m glad you did.” His hand slid up my spine, settling between my shoulder blades. “What’s troubling you?”
“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know.” I pressed my face against his chest, breathing him in. “The last time she visited, I was ready for her to leave by the end. This time I asked her to come, and I’m nervous.”
“Nervous that she’ll disappoint you, or nervous that she won’t?”
He’d hit it exactly. If she disappointed me, I’d have confirmation that nothing had changed. If she didn’t, I’d have to accept that maybe we were actually rebuilding something real.
“Both,” I said.
He shifted, rolling me onto my back. His weight settled over me. “She’s walked significant distance across the tavresh-mora since her last visit. You’ve walked toward her as well. That deserves recognition.”
“What if she stops walking?”
“The journey is a continuous thing. It’s alright to stop and rest along the way, as long as you keep going.” He kissed my forehead. “You’re not responsible for her choices. Only yours.”
My hands found his shoulders. “When did you get so wise?”
“I’ve always been wise. You’re only now recognizing it.”
I laughed, and he kissed me again, deeper this time. Sofia peeped from the windowsill where she’d been dozing, her body silhouetted against the morning light.
“Breakfast,” Brovish said against my mouth. “Before we become distracted.”
“We’re already distracted.”
“More distracted.”
He rolled off me and stood, offering his hand. I took it, letting him pull me up.
Brovish gently encircled my left wrist and turned my arm over, tracing the kavresh symbol on my skin that had appeared when we’d declared our love in the garden.
It was a permanent part of me now, a fated mark I wore with pride.
His gaze searched mine, and the world fell away.
Leaning over my arm, he kissed the mark.
The heat of his lips sent a surge of belonging through me, bringing tears to my eyes.
“My kavresh,” he said against my skin.
I wrapped my arms around him, holding this male who’d brought peace, joy, and love to my life. I couldn’t imagine a world without him.
Finally, we pulled apart, sharing a smile.
“Breakfast?” he asked.
“Yes, please.”
In the kitchen, we moved around each other like we’d been doing this for years instead of months. He cracked eggs while I toasted bread I’d cut into points. I poured tea while he added butter to the pan. When I reached for the honey, he was already handing it to me.
Small things. Easy things. Things I’d never thought I’d have after Dad died.
He set our plates on the table and I sat, picking up my fork.
The eggs were good. Rich and warm and exactly what I needed.
We finished breakfast and cleaned up together. When I reached for my jacket by the door, Brovish caught my wrist, turning me to face him.
“I’ll be nearby if you need me,” he said.
“Thank you.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my jaw. “You’re not alone in this.”
He kissed me once more before we headed outside.
My mother’s rental pulled into the lot just before noon. I met her near the main building, my hands shoved in my pockets to keep them from fidgeting.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetie.” She smiled and gave me a quick hug. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“Thank you for coming.”
She eased away, and we stood there, two women who still didn’t quite know how to navigate this but were trying anyway.
Sofia launched herself from my shoulder and to my mother, who laughed. The emberkit settled, leaning against Mom’s neck.
“Hello to you too,” she said, stroking Sofia’s spine. The emberkit purred.
“She missed you,” I said.
“I missed her too.” Carol’s fingers traced the spikes along Sofia’s spine. “I’ve been reading about emberkits. Did you know they bond for life once they choose someone? That’s quite a commitment for such a small creature.”
“She takes everything seriously.”
“She does.” Mom peered around. “Could you show me the progress you’ve made?”
“I’d love to.”
We walked around the building and toward the enclosures, Sofia riding Carol’s shoulder. Brovish fell into step behind us, close enough that I knew he was there but far enough to give us space.
Abagail’s twins had grown. They romped near the fence, their wool sleek and their horns starting to show the first hints of a curve. The larger one spotted us and bounded over, bleating.
Mother crouched, extending her hand. The twin sniffed her fingers before butting her head against her palm.
“They’re so much bigger,” she said.
“They grow fast. Another few months and they’ll be ready for adoption.”
“Will it be hard to let them go?”
“Yes, but that’s the point. They’re here to find their forever homes.”
My mother stood, brushing dirt from her knees. “Your father would be proud of what you’ve built here. I’m proud of what you’ve built here, of the life you’re living.”
The words landed hard in my chest. I’d been bracing myself for criticism, not this.
“Thank you,” I said, all choked up.
We kept walking. She asked questions about the fizzlings’ discharge patterns, whether the mirrormoose had adjusted, and if I’d seen Cooper. By the time we reached the garden sitting area, my shoulders had dropped from where they’d been hovering near my ears.
We sat on the bench in the garden where Brovish and I had claimed each other four months ago. A full circle moment. The bloombacks grazed nearby, their flowers shifting from pale pink to soft gold.
Carol reached into her bag and pulled out a worn leather journal and held it out to me.
My hands recognized it before my brain did. Dad’s field journal, the one I remember him writing in when I was little.
“I took this when I left,” Carol said. “I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t mine to keep.”
The leather was soft from years of handling, the pages yellowed on the edges. Dad’s handwriting covered the inside, his familiar scrawl that always looked like he’d been in too much of a hurry to finish forming his letters properly.
“Why did you take it?” My voice came out hoarse.
“Because I couldn’t let go of him completely.
I needed to be able to read his words. He talks about me in a way he never said out loud.
About you. Even after everything fell apart between us, I still…
” She stared down at her hands. “I kept it because it reminded me of who he’d been before things got complicated.
The man I’d fallen in love with, the one who wrote about animals like they were friends. ”
I opened the journal to a random page, finding an entry about a difficult calving.
Another about a dog who’d been hit by a car and survived.
Mom baking bread and them eating hot slices slathered with butter, laughing while they did it.
The three of us having a picnic in the meadow behind my old house.
Page after page of his life, work, and voice.
“You should have it now,” Carol said. “You’re the one carrying his work forward.”
I flipped through more pages, my vision blurring, and stopped on an entry dated about twenty years ago.
Took Laina on the Buford farm call today. She’s old enough now, though I had to lift her to see into the stall. She asked the best questions. She’s going to be a vet someday. I know it the way I know my own name.
The words swam. I blinked hard but that made the tears spill over.
Me following in his footsteps wasn’t about the building I worked in but the way I cared for life, whether it was a farm mare or a clatterwing.
Only now could I finally see that.
“Laina?” My mother touched my arm.
I sat there with my father’s journal open on my lap while my chest cracked apart.
Brovish walked over and sat on my other side, his arm going around my shoulders.
I pressed my face into his shirt and cried for a father who’d known me before I knew myself. I’d spent the past three years trying to fill the space he’d left. And I cried for the journal hidden away by a mother who’d needed it more than me.
My mother’s hand covered mine where it gripped the journal. Tears trickled down her face.
Eventually my breathing steadied. I wiped my face with the back of my hand.
“He was right,” I said, my voice rough. “I did become a vet.”
“He usually was about the things that mattered,” my mother said.
I closed the journal, holding it against my chest.
Brovish’s hand found mine, his fingers weaving our hands together. His thumb traced a slow circle across my knuckles, his version of breathe.
I did.
We were heading back toward the main building when a familiar metallic chime cut through the air.
Cooper landed on the fence near where we stood, his feathers catching the afternoon light. His healed wing tucked against his body with no hesitation, as if it had never been broken at all.
He’d been free for months, but he’d come back because he wanted to.
The wing that mends teaches the bird new ways of flying.
Healing changes a person. You don’t return to what you were. You become something that knows both falling and flight.
Cooper tilted his head, studying me with one pale blue eye. He made a soft chiming sound, the one that meant he was content.
Brovish knew exactly what this moment meant to me.
My mother watched us both.
“You’ve found your place,” she said.
“I have.”
“Good.” She smiled, and this time it came through without effort. “That’s all I wanted. For you to find somewhere you could grow instead of just survive.”
After we’d finished for the day, we walked home together.
My mother stayed for dinner, sitting at our table while Brovish cooked.
She asked about the next school visit we had scheduled for a week from now, whether Willa had adjusted to the front desk position, and if Drogar had finally stopped trying to teach the mossnibbles to steal on command.
The kind of questions a mother asked when she wanted to know about her daughter’s life.
By the time she was ready to drive back to my cottage where she was staying, the careful distance between us had narrowed even further.
I hugged her goodbye out front. Longer this time, less afraid that too much contact would break something fragile.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked, studying my face.
I nodded, biting down on my lower lip.
She touched my shoulder before settling inside her car, and I watched her drive away.
Later, after I’d taken a shower and put on pajamas, I found Brovish at our kitchen table with his notebook open.
Dad’s journal sat on the counter where I’d placed it when we came in.
I picked it up and sat beside Brovish, leaning into his side.
We sat together in the quiet, me reading my father’s journal, Brovish writing. Sofia purred from her perch near the window. The driftwhisps glowed softly on the windowsill where they’d relocated before I’d showered. They’d started to stay with us at night, competing with Sofia for her perch.
I found a blank page in my father’s journal, near the end, and picked up a pen Brovish had left on the table.
My handwriting looked nothing like my father’s. His had been rushed, impatient, always racing to keep up with his thoughts. Mine formed slower, more careful, each letter chosen.
Today my mother gave me back a piece of my father, and I realized I don’t need it to cling to memories of him. He’s in every exam I do, every creature I save, and every choice I make. He’s here. And so am I.
I set the pen down and held it out to Brovish for him to read.
“That’s truth-speaking,” he said.
“It is.”
“Are you at peace with it?”
I thought about Cooper returning and Abagail’s twins growing strong enough to go to new homes. And waking up every morning wrapped around the life I’d chosen instead of the one I’d inherited.
“I’m getting there,” I said.
“That’s acceptable.”
I smiled and closed the journal, setting it on the table beside Brovish’s notebook. Our histories, side by side. The present, past, and our future all tangled together in ways I still didn’t have words for.
But I didn’t need those words yet.
I had plenty of time to find them.
I’d run from my father’s clinic thinking I was running away from grief. It turned out I’d been running toward this all along. To this place and these creatures, and this orc who wrote my name in his notebook and claimed me in front of everyone who mattered.
The wing that mends teaches the bird new ways of flying.
I was flying now.
That was what kavresh truly meant.
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Next in the Creature Rescue League story is
That’s My Orc, Tusk Off,
Willa and Traig’s story.
I moved to rural Maine for a fresh start. A quiet office job at an orc-run creature rescue league. Maybe adopt a mossnibble. Definitely not develop feelings for my new boss.
Then I met Traig.
He’s seven feet of green muscle, midnight eyes, and the most organized orc I’ve ever seen. He wrote a sixty-five-page orientation manual before I started. He puts labels on everything. He brought me twenty-four cookies from the local bakery because he didn’t know which kind I liked.
And when I kissed him, he looked at me like I’d reorganized his entire world.
Now we’re co-leading a school partnership that could put the Creature Rescue League on the map. Meanwhile, two rescued creatures everyone assumes can be adopted separately have me questioning everything. I can see the bond between them. Traig sees reports and data that say they’re independent.
The adoption application on his desk is perfect. Approving it could break two hearts. And maybe ours, too.
Because some bonds can’t be measured. Sometimes, love means choosing to see what’s been there all along.
Get That’s My Orc, Tusk Off Now
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