Even Satan used to be an angel...

Seeing who to keep around as by request muses!

Seeing who to keep around as by request muses!

His eagle shape was familiar to her. Beautiful, yes, and proud enough to make even the statues of Zeus seem poorly made by comparison. Sometimes, when he spread his wings against the sun, Kassandra could almost believe the god himself had shaped Ikaros from clay and breathed life into him simply to keep watch over her. It was a foolish thought, perhaps. The gods had never shown her much kindness. Still, it was easier to believe in them when Ikaros was circling above.

His human form was another matter entirely.

The first time she had seen it, she had stared far longer than any self-respecting misthios should. He looked as though Aphrodite had personally interfered in his making—perhaps leaning over Zeus’s shoulder and insisting that if the eagle was going to walk among mortals, he should at least be pleasing to look at.

Too pleasing, Kassandra thought.

There was something unfair about it. As an eagle, Ikaros drew the eye because he was magnificent. As a man, people noticed him for entirely different reasons. Heads turned in the agora. Conversations faltered. Women smiled too quickly, and men watched him with either suspicion or envy.

Kassandra noticed all of it.

She also noticed the way irritation tightened in her chest whenever someone looked at him for too long.

Ridiculous, she told herself. Ikaros had faced arrows, storms, and Spartan soldiers without fear. He did not need her glaring at every merchant’s daughter who batted her eyelashes at him.

Still, Kassandra found herself stepping a little closer to his side.

Just in case.

“I am clunky. And exposed. And expected to know what to do with…” he glanced down briefly, visibly regretted every choice that had led him to this body, and looked away again. “All of this.” 

Through the bond, Kassandra could feel his irritation tangled with something far more amusing—embarrassment.

A laugh escaped her before she could stop it, low and warm, and she pushed herself up from the grass. She crossed to Phobos, retrieved the bundle of clothing she had left draped over the saddle, and returned to Ikaros with deliberate care.

Her eyes stayed fixed on his face.

Not lower. Absolutely not lower.

“It is not only about feeling safe,” she said, the teasing edge in her voice softening. “Though you do make that easier.”

She held the clothes out to him: a simple warrior’s chiton, worn leather, nothing ornate enough to draw even more attention than he already did.

Kassandra hesitated, then added more quietly, “You make me feel less alone.”

The admission sat strangely in her chest—too honest, too vulnerable—but she did not take it back. Instead, she pressed the bundle into his hands and kept her gaze locked with his, as if daring him to make her regret saying it.

This time, Kassandra turned her back to give him some measure of privacy. Behind her came the soft rustle of linen and leather as Ikaros dressed, an oddly ordinary sound for something so far from ordinary.

“Does it feel different?” she asked, staring out across the sun-warmed hills. “Being in this form, I mean. Aside from all the dull human burdens—clothes, sore feet, people asking too many questions.”

When the sounds behind her stopped, Kassandra glanced over her shoulder before turning fully.

She always forgot how tall he was as a man.

It was strange. In the sky, his size made sense; he belonged among the clouds, wings spread wide beneath Helios’s gaze. Standing before her on two feet, however, he seemed almost unfairly imposing.

Curiosity overcame good sense.

Kassandra stepped closer and lifted both hands to cradle his face. For once, she did not care whether the gesture startled him. Her thumbs rested near his cheekbones as she studied him with the same careful attention she might have given an unfamiliar relic.

“You have the same eyes,” she murmured. “I would know them anywhere.”

Her gaze moved to his hair, catching the bronze and gold where the sunlight touched it.

“And this…” A faint smile tugged at her mouth. “It looks like your feathers. Bronze, gold—like your wings at sunset.”

Her hands slipped from his face to his shoulders, then slowly down the hard lines of his arms. There was no hesitation in the touch now, only open fascination.

“The gods have a cruel sense of humor,” Kassandra said with a quiet laugh. “They gave you the body of a Spartan warrior without making you suffer through the agoge.”

She shook her head fondly.

“No wonder women throw themselves at you. Half of Greece would start a war over less.”

The teasing faded as quickly as it had come. Her hands stilled against his arms, and concern settled into her expression.

Ikaros endured the clothing with the grim dignity of a creature who had survived centuries, storms, blades, armies, and gods only to be nearly defeated by linen.

The chiton went on easily enough in theory. In practice, fabric had opinions. It twisted where it should have fallen. It caught at his shoulder. The leather refused to sit where he wanted it, and for several moments he glared down at the belt as if it had challenged him to single combat and chosen the battlefield poorly.

Through the bond came a low, dark thread of offense. This is why feathers are superior. Still, he dressed. For her.

That truth sat beneath every irritated movement. He did not say it again, not aloud, not while the linen still needed arranging and his fingers were still trying to understand the absurdity of ties, folds, and buckles. But it was there. Kassandra would feel it if she cared to look. He could hide many things from the rest of the world. He had never been especially good at hiding from her.

When she turned back, he had managed something close to presentable, though his expression suggested that any tailor who witnessed him now would be judged harshly and perhaps dropped from a modest height.

Then her hands were on his face.

Ikaros went still. Not because the touch was unwelcome. Because in this form, touch was different.

In his eagle shape, he understood the language of her hands. Fingers smoothing along feathers. A scratch beneath the beak. A palm warm over his crown. That closeness had rules he knew, instincts he trusted. He could lean into it or pull away, could ruffle indignantly, could pretend he had not softened beneath the attention.

This was not that.

Human skin made everything too immediate. Her thumbs near his cheekbones. The warmth of her palms. The careful way she studied him, not as though he were some stranger wearing a familiar name, but as if she were searching for the parts of him she already knew.

When she said he had the same eyes, something in him quieted. The humor faded first. The irritation followed more slowly, reluctant to surrender its post. His gaze held hers, sharp and dark and suddenly far less guarded than he intended.

“Good,” he said.

The word was rough. Small. Too plain for what moved underneath it. Through the bond, softer than his voice could manage, came the truth.

I was not certain you would.

He disliked the admission immediately. It made him feel unbalanced in a way that had nothing to do with feet or knees or the treacherous mechanics of standing upright. His jaw tightened, and his eyes flicked away for half a breath before returning to her.

“In this form,” he said, lowly, “I know what I am. You know what I am.” His mouth pulled slightly, not quite a smile. “An irritating bird with too many opinions.” The bond warmed with dry amusement, but it did not fully cover what he meant. “In this one...” His fingers flexed once at his side. “I am not always certain what you see.”

His gaze dropped briefly, not to her hands against him, but to the place where his own body existed in ways he still did not entirely trust. Shoulders. Arms. Breath. Weight. Human shape, human height, human nearness. A body made for standing beside her instead of circling above.

“I did not want to become unfamiliar to you.”

The words came too cleanly.

He turned them bitter at the edges before they could embarrass him further. “Though if you insist that I still resemble feathers at sunset, I suppose the indignity is less severe.”

His eyes narrowed faintly at her next remark, the one about gods and Spartan warriors and the agoge. Offense settled over him with theatrical gravity, which was impressive for a man still visibly suspicious of his own sleeves. “I survived centuries of humans,” he said. “That is worse than the agoge.”

He lifted his chin, as if expecting the hills themselves to acknowledge this as fact.

“I have watched Spartans train. I have watched soldiers preen until their armor shone brighter than their wisdom. I have watched men call pain discipline because they lacked better poetry.”

His eyes flicked down toward the linen at his shoulder, which had dared to shift.

“I will take the sky.”

A faint pulse of amusement passed through the bond.

The sky does not ask me to tie anything around my waist.

Then she mentioned women throwing themselves at him, and Ikaros’s attention sharpened.

Not because of the women.

He barely remembered most of them beyond the way they moved too close, spoke too loudly, or assumed his silence meant mystery rather than a profound lack of interest in whatever they were saying. But Kassandra’s irritation, that he had noticed. He had noticed it in markets, in taverns, on roads, in those brief moments where someone’s gaze lingered too long and Kassandra became just a fraction more dangerous beside him.

He tilted his head.

The movement was pure eagle, even in a human body.

“Does it bother you?”

The question was not smug.

Not quite.

Curious, yes. Amused at the edges, certainly. But beneath it lay something more careful. Ikaros did not always understand human desire when it turned indirect. He understood hunger. He understood loyalty. He understood claim, threat, territory, choice. He understood the way his own attention returned to Kassandra no matter how crowded the world became.

But jealousy was a human word wearing several masks.

He studied her face for only a moment before mercy, or perhaps cowardice, made him look away.

“Because I assure you, most lose interest when I speak to them about exit routes, structural weaknesses, and the foolishness of sandals.”

His mouth twitched.

“One woman in Korinth once asked if I admired her eyes. I told her the nearest roof had three weak tiles and that the western alley was the only sensible escape if the building caught fire.”

The bond flickered with dry satisfaction.

“She left.”

He considered this.

“Quickly.”

Then, as if this clarified everything, he added, “So if half of Greece starts a war over me, I am leaving Greece.”

The humor held for a few moments longer.

Then Kassandra asked if it hurt.

Ikaros’s expression changed.

Not dramatically. He did not flinch. He did not pull away from her hands or step back from the question. But something in him became still in the way the sky went still before weather. His gaze lowered to her hands on his arms, then rose again.

He could have lied. He had lied to many people. Sometimes by speaking. More often by silence. But not to her. Not about this. “The first time did.” His voice was quieter now, stripped of ornament. “It was not a shift then. Not truly.”

The memory moved through the bond before he could contain all of it: the severance ritual tearing through hidden magic, the bond opening too violently, Kassandra’s soul slipping sideways into a dark place wings could not reach. Panic, old and brutal. The echo of another loss, another bond dying, another silence that had once hollowed him out and left him alive against his will.

His fingers curled slowly.

“My body did not decide to become this.” He looked down at himself with something almost like accusation. “It was forced. By the bond. By magic. By need.”

His throat worked once.

“By fear.”

The word sat there, small and sharp.

He did not dress it up.

“I thought I had lost you.”

The bond opened around the confession, not wide enough to overwhelm her, but enough that she could feel the shape of it. Not a clean memory, not a full story, but the terrible outline: his first warlock dying, the old wound of it, centuries spent refusing to belong again, then Kassandra being dragged toward the same dark edge. The world repeating its cruelty with a different face.

“It hurt because the severance tore everything open at once,” he continued. “The magic was cutting through a bond neither of us had known how to name. It was dragging you where I could not follow as I was.”

His eyes held hers. “So I became what could reach you.” There was no pride in it. No vanity. No wonder at his own power. Only the plain, unbearable fact of it.

“This body is not convenience. It is not longing for humanity. It is not some desire to stand in markets and be admired by people with poor instincts.”

A dry note returned briefly, faint but alive. “Very poor instincts.” Then it faded again. “It is the shape my magic chose when wings were not enough.”

For a moment, he said nothing else aloud. The wind moved through the grove, stirring the olive leaves. Somewhere on the hill, the goat remained mercifully silent, perhaps sensing that its continued existence depended on timing.

Ikaros let out a slow breath.

“Now, it is different.”

He shifted one shoulder, testing the body the way he might test air before flight. “The bones are unpleasant. The weight is worse. There is a moment between forms where I am neither one thing nor the other, and I dislike it.”

His mouth tightened.

“I dislike many things.”

Through the bond, the list arrived with crisp certainty.

Knees. Sleeves. Sandals. Doors. Chairs. Men who explain spears to Kassandra. Goats with judgmental faces.

Then, quieter: Being unable to reach you quickly is worse. He looked at her then, all humor edged aside. “Pain is simple,” he said. “Pain passes. Pain has edges. I know where to put it.” His gaze flicked toward the open sky beyond the olive branches.

“But in this form, if danger comes, I cannot rise fast enough. I cannot see as far. I cannot put myself between you and an arrow before the archer has finished deciding to loose it.”

His jaw tightened. “That is what I feel first. Not pain.” The admission seemed to cost him less than the next one. His gaze returned to her hands, then to her face. “Your touch makes it less foreign.”

The words landed too gently. Ikaros immediately looked offended by his own sincerity. “Not the sleeves,” he added at once. “Nothing makes sleeves less foreign. Whoever invented them did so out of spite.” The bond carried the faintest warmth beneath the complaint. Still, he did not move away from her hands. He stayed. That, more than anything, was the answer he did not know how to say.

His eyes searched hers, no longer guarded in the same way. Wary, yes. He would always be wary of this body, of its softness, its exposure, its heavy nearness to the ground. But beneath that was a question he had circled since the first time he stood before her as a man.

Not whether she found the body pleasing. That mattered less than she seemed to think. Not whether others noticed it. He would survive being stared at, though he might complain extensively. The question was whether she still saw him.

Ikaros. Not a man shaped from magic and crisis. Not an echo of something human enough to be mistaken for ordinary. Him.

“You said you would know my eyes anywhere.” His voice had roughened again. “I needed that.” He looked away for only a moment, toward the hills, as if the horizon might be less dangerous than her face. “I was not afraid you would dislike this form.”

A flicker of dry thought followed.

Though that would have wounded my immense pride, naturally. He looked back. “I was afraid you would look at me and have to search too long.”

The honesty pressed at the edges of him, restless, unfamiliar. He did not know how humans stood still with so much feeling inside their skin. As an eagle, he could launch himself into the air and let wind carve sense through him. As a man, he had to remain there, beneath her hands, breathing like a mortal thing.

He did remain.

“If you ask me to stay like this because there is danger, I will.”

No hesitation.

“If you ask because you need hands, or a voice, or a body others understand, I will.”

His eyes darkened, the bond turning quieter, more intimate.

“If you ask because you simply want me near you in this shape...”

He stopped, not because the thought failed, but because it became too large for easy speech.

Through the bond, the rest came softer.

Then perhaps this form can become something other than fear. A faint, self-protective dryness returned, gentler now. Something other than knees and bad balance and the endless tyranny of clothing. His mouth curved slightly, not quite a smile, but near enough to count from him.

“But I will need it known that I am making a great sacrifice.”

He glanced down at himself, then at the ground. “On behalf of your curiosity.” Another flicker through the bond. And possibly your loneliness. He did not tease that last word. He would not.

She had given it to him honestly. He would not make it smaller by turning it into a joke.

Instead, Ikaros lifted one hand, slowly enough that she could move away if she wished, and rested his fingers lightly over one of hers where it touched his arm. His grip was careful, still uncertain with human hands, but steady.

“Do you see me?” he asked.

The question was quiet. Not demanding. Not wounded. Only true.

“Like this?”

His thumb brushed once against her knuckles, awkward and careful and far gentler than his size suggested.

“Or are you still deciding?”

“Okay,” Charlotte said softly. “Anything that doesn’t come from a tin.”

She reached out once more, giving Tristan a gentle scratch behind the ears before rising to her feet. His purr rumbled beneath her fingertips, reluctant but unmistakable, and the sound sent a small warmth blooming through her chest.

It was progress.

Tiny, fragile progress—but progress all the same.

Charlotte crossed toward the kitchen, deliberately keeping her movements slow. When she stepped through the doorway, she left it wide open behind her.

She wanted him to notice.

He was free to follow her. Free to remain by the fire. Free to slip out through the window or disappear into the night if that was what he truly wanted.

The thought made her chest ache more than she expected.

After waiting so long for a familiar, she should have wanted to keep him close. Some selfish part of her did. She wanted to know he would still be there when she returned, curled beside the warmth instead of searching for another escape.

But she refused to make his fears come true.

Charlotte began searching the cupboards, though her mind remained fixed on the memories that had slipped through the bond.

They had come in broken flashes—cold rooms, locked doors, rough hands, voices that offered kindness only before demanding something in return. She had felt the sharp terror of being trapped and the helpless fury of having every choice taken away.

Tristan had not meant to show her any of it.

She was certain he did not even realize that he had.

The bond was new and unstable, their emotions brushing against one another before either of them knew how to guard them. Charlotte could have asked what she had seen. She could have demanded an explanation.

Instead, she remained silent.

Mentioning it would only embarrass him—or worse, make him feel exposed. He might close himself off completely, and she could not bear the thought of destroying the small amount of trust she had managed to earn.

So she would pretend she had seen nothing.

She would cook for him, leave the door open, and let him decide whether to stay.

Kindness, she reminded herself, was not kindness if it demanded gratitude in return.

“You can explore, if you like,” Charlotte told him gently as she moved around the kitchen. “My home is your home now.”

She set a pot of water over the flame and lowered a chicken breast into it, glancing toward the open doorway every so often to see whether Tristan had followed. She did not call for him or try to coax him closer. He had been given enough orders for one lifetime.

Instead, she busied herself with finding a small bowl and a tin of sardines from the cupboard.

Charlotte was determined to feed him properly.

Once the chicken was cooked, she let it cool until it was pleasantly warm, then chopped it into small, manageable pieces. She arranged them carefully in the bowl and added a little sardine on the side, hoping the stronger scent might tempt him.

It was far more effort than most people would have put into feeding a familiar they had known for less than an hour.

Charlotte did not care.

When everything was ready, she carried the bowl back into the bedroom and set it on the floor near the fire, close enough for him to reach but far enough away that he would not feel cornered.

“There,” she said softly, straightening again. “Warm chicken and sardines.”

Her gaze settled on Tristan.

“You don’t have to eat while I’m watching,” she added. “But it’s yours.”

She reached out slowly, giving Tristan plenty of time to pull away, then let her hand glide from the top of his head down along his back.

His body arched instinctively beneath her touch.

Charlotte paused, surprised, before a warm smile spread across her face. For all his sharp words and guarded looks, his body seemed to betray him whenever she offered him even the smallest bit of gentleness.

She continued the motion carefully, her fingers trailing through his clean fur until they reached the base of his tail.

Tristan did not answer her at first.

Anything that did not come from a tin.

He stared at her as though she had spoken in some old dead language and expected him to understand it. His ears angled back, then forward again, confusion moving through him before suspicion chased it down and pinned it beneath a paw.

What’s wrong with tins?

The question did not quite cross the bond. It stayed in him, small and baffled.

Food was food.

Food was whatever did not rot badly enough to make him sick. Food was what could be stolen, caught, dragged from a bin, snatched from beneath a larger mouth before teeth found his scruff. Food was what he ate quickly, hunched over, shoulders tight, because there was always someone or something waiting to take it back.

He had never considered that food could be divided into kinds.

Warm. Cold. Fresh. From a tin. Not from a tin. Chosen. Prepared. Given. No. Not given. Nothing is given. Charlotte’s hand touched behind his ears again, and the thought fractured. Tristan flinched first. Always first.

His body snapped tight beneath her fingers, ears flattening, claws flexing once into the blanket as the old warning rose through him. His head turned slightly, not quite enough to bite, but enough to remind her that he could.

Then her fingers scratched gently behind his ear. His eyes betrayed him before anything else did.

The blue of them narrowed, not with anger this time, but with an unwilling heaviness that settled over him like warm cloth. The purr that had only been considering a return rolled up through his chest again, low and humiliatingly immediate.

Tristan froze. No. The purr deepened. Absolutely not. His head tilted a fraction toward her hand. Traitor. That last thought was aimed entirely at his own body. She rose. The contact vanished.

Tristan’s eyes opened properly again, sharper now, offended by the loss before he had time to pretend he had not noticed it. He kept his body still, refusing to follow the movement of her hand with anything so obvious as longing.

Good. Fine. Better.

It was not. Charlotte crossed toward the kitchen. Tristan watched her go. Every step. Every careful movement. Every deliberate lack of hurry. Then his gaze found the doorway.

Open.

She had left it open. His head lifted slightly.

For several seconds, the warmth of the fire, the softness of the blanket, the clean ache of healed wounds, all of it faded beneath the simple shape of that open door. No latch sliding into place. No chair wedged beneath the handle. No body blocking the threshold.

Open.

His eyes narrowed.

Why?

The answer his fear offered came quickly.

So I’ll think I can leave.

That made sense. That fit. Let the creature see freedom. Let it calm. Let it lower its head to eat. Let it come closer. Then close the door when it was full, slow, stupid with warmth. His claws flexed lightly against the blanket. Run, then. The command was immediate. Practical. Clean.

The door was open. The room had a window. His body was stronger than it had been an hour ago. The pain above his eye was gone, the ache along his side eased, his ribs no longer caught on every breath. She had healed him well enough to escape her.

That should have been the only thing that mattered. Tristan shifted one paw beneath him. Then stopped.

Charlotte did not look back to see if he stayed. She did not call him. Did not coax. Did not warn. Did not make the opening feel like a test by watching too closely. That was worse. If she had watched, he could have hated her for it. If she had commanded, he could have disobeyed.

If she had shut the door, he could have clawed at it until his paws bled and known exactly what kind of thing she was. But she had left it open and walked away. Maybe she meant it. The thought came so quietly that it felt like something else had placed it inside him.

Tristan went still.

No. No, that was dangerous.

Hope was a stupid, soft-bellied thing. Hope crept close to hands because they held bread. Hope came when called. Hope believed doors stayed open because someone wanted him free, not because they wanted to see whether he would try to run. Hope got its head shoved under creek water while laughter cracked apart above it.

His ears flattened.

Not hope.

Then, after a silence he disliked:

Want, then.

That was no better.

Want was hunger with a prettier name. Want made creatures reckless. Want made them stay near fires that did not belong to them. Want made them notice when a hand disappeared. Tristan rose. Slowly. Not because he was following her. He was exploring. She had said he could.

A ridiculous thing to say. My home is your home now. As though a house could become anything by someone deciding it aloud. As though walls did not remember who owned them. As though a stray could cross a threshold and have it mean "welcome" instead of "trespass".

Still, he stepped toward the doorway.

One paw.

Then another.

His body moved quietly across the floor, golden fur gleaming in broken pieces beneath the candlelight, dark rosettes rippling over his shoulders as he walked. He kept low, but less from weakness now than habit. His tail remained level behind him. His eyes remained fixed on the kitchen.

He stopped at the threshold. Not inside. Not yet. Thresholds mattered.

From there, he could see her moving through the kitchen. Cupboards opening. A pot filled. Flame. Water. Her hands busy with ordinary things instead of him.

He watched those hands.

They did not reach for rope. They did not move toward a cage. They did not close the door behind him. They prepared food. For him. Tristan’s nose twitched. He froze in horror. The smell reached him properly a second later. Chicken. Warm chicken.

Not the sour edge of spoiled meat. Not grease-stained paper. Not fish bones gone sharp and old in the bottom of a bin. Real food, clean and hot enough that steam carried the scent through the house like a spell.

His stomach clenched. Loudly. Tristan’s eyes widened. The sound was obscene. A low, hollow growl from inside his own body, so unmistakably hungry that no amount of dignity could disguise it. His ears shot back as if he could pin the noise beneath them.

A chirp escaped him. Small. Involuntary. Bright with need. He went rigid. For one terrible moment, Tristan looked as though he had been struck.

No.

His gaze snapped toward Charlotte, then away, then toward her again. That was not me. It had absolutely been him. His stomach made another sound, quieter but no less traitorous. Tristan glared down at himself.

You and I are going to have a serious conversation about loyalty. The smell of chicken continued to drift toward him. His paws moved before pride could finish organizing a defense.

He crept one step into the kitchen, then stopped, as if expecting the floor itself to object. Nothing happened. No shouted command. No thrown shoe. No hand snapping toward his scruff because he had dared enter a human space.

Another step. Then another. Still nothing. His gaze flicked toward the open doorway behind him. Still open. That unsettled him so deeply that curiosity began to creep in around the edges of fear. Not trust. Never trust. But the beginning of an investigation.

What are you?

Not a question sent to her.

Not yet.

A question directed at the shape of her kindness, at the strange architecture of this house where doors remained open and food was made instead of thrown. He retreated before she could notice how far he had come. Or rather, before he could admit he cared whether she noticed.

When Charlotte returned with the bowl, Tristan had resettled near the fire with such careful dignity that anyone foolish might have believed he had never moved at all.

His eyes went immediately to the food.

Warm chicken.

Sardines.

The sharper scent of fish struck him next, and his mouth filled with hunger so sudden it nearly hurt. His body leaned forward, then caught itself. His shoulders stiffened.

The bowl was set near him.

Close enough to reach. Far enough away that he did not feel boxed in. Tristan stared at it. Then at Charlotte. Then at the bowl again. This is where it happens. The thought came cold and certain.

This was the moment. Head lowered. Teeth busy. Attention split. Hunger making him stupid. This was when someone laughed. When the hand came down. When the door shut. When the softness revealed the hook hidden beneath it.

He waited. Nothing happened. The fire cracked softly. The bowl steamed. Charlotte did not move closer. Tristan’s whiskers shifted forward.

He hated them for it. Food makes you careless. His head lowered an inch. Food makes you stupid. Another inch. Food makes you trust the hand because you’re too hungry not to.

He stopped just above the bowl, breathing in the warmth of it. His whole body trembled once, so faintly that he might have denied it if challenged.

Then he took one tiny bite. Not a proper mouthful. A test.

His teeth closed delicately around a piece of chicken, ready to spit it out if it tasted wrong, ready to recoil if pain followed, ready to spring back if the trap finally showed itself.

The chicken was warm.

Soft.

Clean.

Tristan stopped chewing. For a moment, all suspicion fell away. His eyes widened. The thought crossed the bond before he could darken it, before he could wrap it in sarcasm or shove it behind a growl.

It’s warm.

Amazement. Pure and unguarded. The kind that had no place in a creature who had survived as long as he had. He blinked at the bowl as though it had done something impossible. Then he looked up at Charlotte.

Wide-eyed. Silent. The wonder crossed the bond again, more fragile this time. You made this… for me? The instant he realized she could feel it, his eyes narrowed. The shutters came down. Not fast enough. Never fast enough.

He lowered his head and took another bite, bigger this time. Hunger surged forward, ugly and desperate, demanding he swallow quickly, guard the bowl, eat before someone changed their mind. His body curled slightly around it on instinct, shoulders angling over the food as if another animal might charge from the shadows to take it.

He forced himself to slow down. One piece. Then another. His dignity required chewing. His stomach strongly disagreed. The sardine nearly ruined him.

The stronger scent pulled a second chirp from his throat before he could trap it. His ears flattened so hard they nearly disappeared into his fur. If you mention that sound, I’ll deny it. He ate a bit of fish. His eyes half-closed, almost crossing, despite himself. That is… adequate. A lie. A terrible one.

The bond carried enough pleasure to betray him completely. He noticed a moment too late and stiffened, swallowing quickly. The bowl sat between them like an offering. That was the problem. Offerings had prices. His gaze slid back to Charlotte.

She was still there. Not looming. Not grabbing. Not demanding that he eat from her fingers. Not making him prove he was grateful before allowing him another bite.

That should have helped.

It did not. It made everything worse. Tristan lifted his head slowly. His mouth opened slightly, then closed again. For once, sarcasm did not arrive quickly enough to save him.

Why are you being nice?

The thought emerged without teeth. That alone frightened him.

He drew his paws beneath himself, suddenly aware of how exposed he felt beside the bowl, beside the fire, beside the hand that had healed him and scratched behind his ear until his body forgot itself.

His eyes slanted toward her. Suspicion returned, but it was thinner now. Cracked around the edges.

Something this…

He looked at the food. The fire. The open door. Her hand resting near enough to touch him, not near enough to trap him. His throat tightened.

Grand.

The word felt strange. Too large for chicken and sardines in a bowl. Too small for what it had done to him. Something this grand doesn’t come free. There. That sounded more like him. Or near enough.

He held her gaze as best he could, though his eyes kept flicking toward the food despite his efforts.

What do you want of me?

The question landed quietly. Far quieter than he wanted. Because the truth beneath it was worse than suspicion. He was hungry enough that he feared the answer.

Hungry enough that if she asked for something simple, he might do it. Guard the house. Bite an enemy. Sleep by the door. Come when called. Stay. Be whatever a familiar was meant to be if that meant food stayed warm and doors stayed open and hands did not turn cruel.

The realization sent panic through him. Not the sharp panic of water or cages. A smaller, more shameful fear. The fear of being bought by gentleness because he had gone too long without it.

Say something easy, he thought, but the thought did not cross the bond. Say something I can do. Say something that makes sense. Say protection. Say work. Say blood. Say anything but nothing.

Nothing would be unbearable. Nothing would mean there was no bargain to understand.

No terms to meet. No price to pay in order to keep this from vanishing. Tristan looked down at the bowl again. His stomach cramped around another wave of hunger. He took one more bite, unable to stop himself. Then her hand moved. Slowly. Visible. Careful. He still flinched.

His whole body tightened when her fingers touched the top of his head. The food was forgotten for one hard second as every old lesson rose inside him, teeth bared and ready. But her hand only glided down along his back. Light. Careful.

Through clean fur that still felt unfamiliar on his own body. Tristan’s spine arched instinctively beneath her touch.

He froze halfway through the movement. Mortification flashed through him. His body had lifted into her hand as though asking for more. No. Don’t do that. Her fingers continued along his back.

The purr returned, hesitant at first, then deeper when she reached the place near the base of his tail. His eyes widened. His claws flexed against the floorboards, not to strike this time, but because the sensation ran through him so unexpectedly that he needed somewhere to put it.

Don’t make it feel good. The thought stayed inside him, frightened and furious. Don’t make me want this. His back arched again. Worse this time. More obvious.

His tail lifted slightly before he caught himself and pressed it down with as much dignity as a cat could manage while purring against his will.

That proves nothing. The thought shot across the bond at once. His ears flattened. My spine has poor judgment. He took another bite of chicken solely because eating gave him an excuse not to look at her.

But the question would not leave him.

It sat beside the bowl. Beside the warmth. Beside the open door. Beside the terrible, tender possibility that she might mean every word. He swallowed. Then looked up again. You left the door open. The thought was quieter. Not accusation exactly. Not gratitude either. Something unsettled between them.

You put the food down and stepped away.

His gaze dropped to her hand, still close enough that his body wanted to lean into it.

You touch like you’re asking first.

His blue eyes lifted to hers. Curiosity moved through him now, wary and newly awake. People don’t do that unless they want something. His stomach growled again, softer this time but still audible. He hated it. He hated that it made the truth impossible to hide.

So tell me what it is before I start wanting it to be real.

The thought slipped out before he could stop it. Tristan went very still. For a second, he looked almost startled by himself.

Then he lowered his head sharply and took another bite, as if the food had personally offended him and required immediate punishment.

And don’t say nothing. The words came quickly. A shield thrown over the exposed thing beneath. Nothing is suspicious. He chewed. Swallowed. His ears flicked back.

The purr continued, low and traitorous, vibrating through his chest while he tried to look stern over a bowl of warm chicken.

Also, he added, glancing away, if you keep doing that thing with your hand, I’ll allow it purely because you seem invested. His back arched under her touch again. His eyes narrowed at the fire. Not because I like it. A stretch of silence followed. Then, smaller, almost lost beneath the purr: And not because I’m staying.

Then he waited. Or tried to.

Tristan kept his head lowered toward the bowl as though the chicken required his complete and deadly attention. His ears remained angled back, his blue eyes narrowed toward the fire, his posture arranged into something he hoped looked distant, sharp, and entirely unmoved.

It did not. The question lingered between them. What do you want?

He had asked it like a challenge, but it sat inside him like a wound someone had pressed a thumb against. He wanted her to answer quickly. He dreaded her answering quickly. He wanted terms he could understand, something solid and ugly enough to make sense.

Protection. Obedience. Magic. Blood. Stay. Anything but nothing. Nothing means waiting for the catch. His jaw worked once around nothing. There’s always a catch. He did not look at her. That felt important.

If he looked at her, she might see too much. She might see the hunger had not only been for food. She might see the small, humiliating thread of want curled beneath his ribs, thin as a kitten’s cry and twice as dangerous.

Want for the fire. Want for the blanket. Want for the hand that had touched him like it knew he could break and decided not to. Want for the door left open. Don’t. The word turned inward. Don’t start wanting things. That’s how they take them from you.

His paws moved. Tristan did not notice at first. One forepaw pressed into the soft blanket beneath him, claws extending just enough to catch in the fabric before withdrawing. Then the other paw followed, slow and rhythmic. Press. Release. Press. Release.

The blanket bunched beneath his paws. He continued glaring at the fire. Waiting. Guarded. Suspicious. Kneading.

He had no name for the motion. No understanding of what it meant. No memory of being small enough for the gesture to belong to comfort rather than survival. He did not know cats made biscuits when they felt safe, soothed, or content. He did not know his own body had begun speaking in a language older than his fear.

All he knew was that the blanket was soft. Absurdly soft. Unnecessarily soft. Left near him for some reason he had not yet managed to distrust properly. His paws pressed again. The movement eased something in his chest, though he would have denied that with violence if necessary.

Why is this here? He did not send the thought. It remained quiet and confused inside him. People don’t just leave soft things where you can reach them. His claws caught lightly in the fabric. Released. Caught again. Released. The purr, already low and traitorous, deepened by a fraction.

Tristan stiffened. His paws kept moving. That, somehow, was worse. He looked down sharply, as though he had only just discovered them acting without permission. For one frozen second, he stared at his own paws pressing into the blanket, dark claws vanishing and reappearing against the fabric.

His ears flattened. What are you doing? The question was aimed at his paws. They did not answer. They kept kneading. His gaze snapped toward Charlotte from the corner of his eye, suspicion flaring with embarrassment.

Don’t.

He had no idea what he was warning her not to do. Notice. Smile. Explain. Understand something about him before he understood it himself. His paws pressed again. Slower now. Almost hesitant. But they did not stop.

Tristan lowered his head toward the bowl as if eating could hide the betrayal happening directly beneath him. He took another bite of chicken, chewed with deliberate dignity, and continued waiting for her answer while his body quietly, helplessly, made a home out of the blanket she had left near him.

This means nothing, he thought fiercely.

For the first time since they met, their bond wavered with his desire to want to believe this was real, along with his fear that it was just a trick, mixed in with fear that grew less and less as time went by- just wondering what it was she wanted of him. He was just... himself. Nothing special. If you didn't count the whole... 'familiar' aspect, of course. It was clear to him, clear to anyone who knew how to notice; she was a powerful being. So why would she want Tristan as company? It didn't add up, and that confusion, without knowing so, was all transferred through the bond; the walls he kept up slowly lowering.

He had never experienced this... any of this. How was he to know that he was opening himself to her because this was fate? All he knew was that in his entire life, snippets of strange children- a baby... a boy that he had a bond with; combined with the experiences he had gone through in life had taught him otherwise. No one was kind without expecting something in return. Be it pain, humiliation, or worse.

I’m actually curious because I had a bunch of HP muses for a while, got no interest, then had a new influx of followers who showed interest, so I’m re-adding the HP muses.

I do want to make it clear that I am anti-JKR, but I can distinguish the difference between the books combined with nostalgia and what she currently publicly states, which I do not agree with or condone.