SKILL: HEARTBROKEN (5/5)
Odessa froze when he smirked.
It was quick—so quick she could have convinced herself she imagined it—but something in her chest lurched all the same, a cold flutter of instinct that rippled beneath her ribs. Her breath caught and she blinked rapidly, as if the motion alone could clear away the sudden unease threading itself through her nerves.
But then he bowed his head, gentle and almost reverent, and she second-guessed herself entirely. Maybe it had been nothing. Maybe everything about her now—her new body, her shredded soul—was just too tense, too fractured to trust anything she saw.
Her eyes lifted slowly, hesitantly, drawn to his as if by gravity she didn’t understand.
You… promise?she whispered again, the word nearly breaking as it left her. And when he said it—when he spoke it without stumbling, without hesitation—her whole body sagged with something like relief… and something like fear.
The way he looked at her made her heart flutter painfully, like a bird beating itself against the bars of a cage. He was so large, so strange, and she felt so small beneath him it hurt. But his voice didn’t sound cruel. Not in that moment. Not when he offered her a home, a direction, a place to go when she had nowhere.
She swallowed, struggling to steady herself as she looked up at him.
Home…The word wavered.
I don’t know if I still have one. Not anymore.Her ears twitched back, her gaze drifting for a moment toward the treeline as if expecting something from her past to come stumbling out—her tower, her sister, her death, something. But nothing appeared. Only silence. Only this place.
Only him.
Odessa forced her trembling legs to carry her the last step forward, her fur brushing cautiously against his as though seeking proof he was real.
If you’ll show me the way,she whispered, voice soft as crushed petals.
I’ll follow.
Her eyes slipped up to meet his again, wide and vulnerable, unaware of the storm behind his own.
Just… walk slow? I don’t really know how to move in this body yet.A fragile smile touched her muzzle for half a second, the kind that tried to be brave and only half-succeeded.
And… thank you,she added, breath catching.
For not leaving me here.
She didn’t know—couldn’t possibly know—how dangerous her trust might be. But Odessa clung to it anyway, because it was all she had left.
