Orla Wildstride cradled the wounded creature against her chest and had nowhere to run. It was a pink butterfly the size of a hawk, its body scaled like a small dragon. One wing hung torn. Orla wanted to build a sanctuary where beasts like this could heal, but she owned no safe ground. Every clearing she knew flooded, burned, or crawled with hunters. The little drakewing shivered, and its light was fading. She carried it deep into the grove, following the sound of running water. She had no plan except to find somewhere the thing could rest before it died in her hands. The trees opened onto a ruin. Sunken stone arches circled a pool, and thin waterfalls slid down mossy pillars. Pale flowers drifted on the surface. Standing at the water's edge was Lyra the Stream Weaver, her hair falling in clear streams that glinted blue. The two women knew each other from seasons of shared work: Lyra cleaned the springs, Orla kept the animals. They were not close. Lyra kept to her water and her silence. "You brought a dying thing to my basin," Lyra said. She did not sound angry. She sounded certain. "It has nowhere else," Orla said. "Neither do I." Lyra looked at the torn wing. Then she knelt and cupped water in her hands. The pool glowed faintly, lit by a single moon-pale bloom floating near her knee. She poured the water over the drakewing's wing. The creature stilled. Its color deepened from ash to rose. "This place is walled by stone and fed by clean water," Lyra said. "No hunter finds it. No flood reaches it. I have kept it hidden." "Then hide us too," Orla said. "I need land no one can touch. This could be the first safe place. Give me a corner of it and I will fill it with the hurt and the hunted." Lyra studied her a long moment. The waterfalls hissed. The glowing flower turned slowly on the surface. "The basin is not mine to hoard," she finally said. "But it is not yours to flood with wounded beasts either. Share it with me. My water, your creatures. We decide together what enters." Orla nodded before she could weigh the cost. "Together." Lyra guided her to the old shelter set into the far wall, a low house of weathered stone under a roof of thick moss and herbs. Its door frame was carved with faded runes. Inside, the air smelled of green growth. Orla laid the drakewing on a bed of leaves. Its wing was already knitting closed. She had her sanctuary. She had a partner she barely knew and a promise to share every choice. That night, three more creatures crept from the trees to the water's edge, drawn by the light. Sick, thin, and watching her. Orla had space for one. She counted six pairs of frightened eyes.