Aethel Skyweaver's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

The winged shape above kept circling. Aethel watched it tilt, hungry for a place to rest, and knew the bare platform offered nothing. No bed. No walls. No food. If that outcast landed now, they would find only splinters and wind. Aethel turned from the slug's vanishing trail and began to work. They hauled a hollowed mushroom cap onto the boards, fat-stemmed and red, and carved a round door into its side. Inside, they fitted a low cot of woven reeds and set a clay bowl on a shelf. The cap glowed faintly from within, warm against the cold sky. Shelter. A place to sleep, eat, and hide. Next, Aethel built outward. They laid a wide mat of clustered mushroom caps across the platform's edge, springy and flat, broad enough that wings did not need to fold. A landing pad shaped for bodies like theirs. They had spent too long folding themselves small in Echomaw. No one here would have to. Last, they raised a tall mushroom stalk near the edge and burned two words into its cap with a heated blade. SAFE HAVEN. The letters smoked, then cooled. Aethel stepped back, chest tight. The sign was crooked. They left it crooked. A blue shape moved at the platform's base — a drakehound, slender and bright, watching with yellow eyes. Not the slug's kin. Something new. It did not growl. It sat. Above, the winged outcast saw the sign. They dropped fast, wings spread wide, and landed clean on the mushroom mat. They folded nothing. They wept. Aethel stood still, hands shaking, and understood the platform was no longer empty. It was a home. And the drakehound at the base meant someone else had already noticed.