The infant lay in a woven basket at the base of what remained of Petra's old form. She hovered above it, wings beating fast enough to hum, small enough to rest on the baby's thumb. The child would die by morning without milk, without warmth. Petra had stood as stone for a thousand years, never bending, never learning what it meant to need. Now she was fragile as glass and this tiny human needed her. She landed on the basket's rim and gripped the woven straw with both hands. Her old body sat in two halves behind her, cracked down the middle, moss growing in the seams. People still left offerings there sometimes, expecting a guardian who no longer existed. Tonight someone had left this child instead. Petra flew to the scattered stones near her broken form and began dragging moss toward a clear space. Each clump was heavy as a pillow in her small hands. She worked until her wings ached, building a circle of stones and packing it thick with soft green moss and dried leaves. A bed small enough for an infant, sheltered by the very rocks that had once been her chest. The baby's cry grew weaker as she worked. Petra lifted the child from the basket, cradling the warm weight against her tiny body. She settled the infant into the cradle of stone and moss, then pressed herself against the baby's cheek. Her wings spread wide, catching what little warmth the night air held. By morning she would need milk, but for now she could offer this: the patience of stone and the fierce determination of something that had learned, too late, how to bend.

Petra woke with the baby's breath warm against her cheek. Dawn light filtered through the cracks in her old stone body, casting long shadows across the moss-lined cradle. The infant slept, for now. But the child would wake hungry soon, and Petra had nothing to give. Something glowed near the baby's hand. A small crystal, no bigger than Petra's thumb, pulsed with soft light. The infant must have been clutching it when she was left here. Petra reached for it, but stopped. The two halves of her broken stone body had shifted during the night. They sat closer to the cradle now, angled toward the crystal like dogs waiting for a command. She watched as a piece of stone the size of her fist scraped forward an inch, then another. The fragments were moving on their own, drawn to the glowing gem. Petra grabbed the crystal and pulled it away from the baby. The stone pieces followed, grinding across the earth. She flew higher, lifting the gem above her head. The broken halves of her old body groaned and tilted upward, reaching. For a thousand years that stone had been fixed in place, immovable as the earth itself. Now it answered to something smaller than her hand. She dropped the crystal into a crack between two rocks ten paces from the cradle. The stone pieces ground to a halt, then slowly turned and began their patient crawl toward the new location. The baby would be safe from the shifting stone, at least for now. But Petra landed beside the crawling fragments and pressed her hands against the cold surface. She had spent millennia as stone, standing firm against wind and rain and time itself. Now her old body moved without her, pulled by forces she didn't understand. She picked up the crystal again and carried it back to the cradle, setting it in a ring of smaller stones arranged in a circle around the sleeping child. The fragments followed, settling into place like pieces of a wall. They formed a barrier between the infant and the wider world, close enough to protect but not to crush. Petra found a chunk of her old chest piece, carved with marks she'd made centuries ago. She plucked one of the stone strings that ran through it like a lyre, and it sang a low, clear note. The baby stirred but didn't wake. Petra had learned something new: her old strength could still serve, but only if she was willing to give it away piece by piece.