A few months had passed since that first morning of shouting and boots against bars.
Long enough that the labor didn’t wreck my body the way it used to, long enough that I’d learned to keep my head down without even thinking about it anymore, long enough that I’d traded a few whispered words with the dragon curled up somewhere in the back of my own head — not friendly, not hostile, just…
aware of each other now.
Baby steps.
Progress.
Slow, miserable, five-year-old progress, but progress.
It was an evening like any other — bread that was mostly bread-shaped, Rob telling some story about a wyvern that got bigger every time he told it, Millianna trying to pet a rat she’d apparently named — when the door at the end of the block groaned open and a couple of guards came down dragging two more kids between them.
One was a boy, dark-skinned, bald, looked to be about five years older than me.
The other— There she is.
Red hair, tangled and dirty, one eye swollen shut from something that had clearly happened recently.
Older than me too — four years or so, by the look of her.
She didn’t cry.
When the guard shoved her forward and she hit the floor of the cell, she looked more startled than hurt, like she still hadn’t quite caught up to the idea that this was her life now.
She got back up anyway, brushing dirt off her knees with the kind of stubborn effort “Get comfortable,” the guard sneered, locking the cell behind them.
“This is home now.” Footsteps faded back down the corridor, and then it was just us again — six kids in a cell built for slaves, staring at two new additions to the collection.
Rob was the first to move, easing himself down beside them with the careful, unhurried air of a man who’d apparently decided grandfathering strangers was his life’s calling now.
“You’re safe here, for now,” he said.
“Well — as safe as anywhere in this place.
I’m Rob.
That’s Jellal, Millianna, and the quiet one over there is Jack.” Thanks, Rob.
Real flattering introduction.
The boy spoke first, quiet but steady.
“Simon.” The girl didn’t answer right away.
She was looking around the cell with wide, uncertain eyes, taking in the other kids like she wasn’t quite sure yet whether any of this was something to be scared of or not.
“Erza,” she finally said, a little shy about it, like she wasn’t used to being asked.
Erza.
Okay.
There she is.
The one who actually gets out of here.
I didn’t say anything yet.
Didn’t reach out, didn’t try to make friends on the spot like Millianna was already halfway to doing, cheerfully informing Simon about her rat named after some noble she’d invented.
I just watched, the way I’d been watching everything since I woke up in this body — quiet, careful, filing details away.
She’s trying so hard not to cry it’s almost painful to watch.
Doesn’t seem like she’s been through this kind of thing before — no walls up yet, no guard raised.
Just a scared kid trying to hold it together.
Bad childhood, good heart.
Story of everyone in this cell, really.
The vague scraps the god had tossed my way echoed back at me while I sat there pretending to be as unremarkable as a five-year-old was supposed to be.
Give her a last name.
Be kind to her.
Actually mean it.
Not tonight, though.
Tonight she’d just been thrown into a cell with strangers after whatever had happened to close that eye of hers.
Tonight wasn’t the night to come at her with anything.
Patience.
This isn’t a sprint.
She’s not going anywhere — well.
Eventually she is.
But not tonight.
Jellal, for his part, had already scooted a little closer, offering half his portion of bread to Simon without being asked.
Typical Jellal.
Kind in that quiet, earnest way that made it obvious why everyone in this cell had already decided to like him.
I pushed that thought down before it could spiral anywhere useful.
Wasn’t the time for that either.
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” I said instead, finally speaking up, keeping my voice as unthreatening as I could manage.
“Rob makes the food sound worse than it is.
It’s still terrible.
Just, differently terrible than you’re imagining.” It wasn’t much.
Barely a joke.
But Erza’s good eye flicked toward me for just a second, curious rather than wary, before she ducked her head and looked away again without a word.
Rob chuckled and went back to his wyvern story, now somehow involving three wyverns instead of one, and the cell settled back into its usual noise.
Erza sat with her back against the wall, saying nothing else for the rest of the night, and I let her be.
Alright.
Slow burn it is, then.
Guess I’ve got the time for it.
Outside, the tower groaned the way it always did at night — stone shifting,and none of us paid it any mind anymore.
Just another sound to sleep through.