TW: Teeth, Blood, Family Issues Blood trickled down her lips as she retreated into the garden. Palms slick with crimson and sweat, she felt the jagged end of her torn-out fang. The hole where it was once rooted gushed until all she could taste was sickeningly bitter iron. Tears pushed at the edges of Kirashi’s tear ducts but never trickled down her cheeks. Her brain wanted to break out of her skull like an egg. No thoughts filled her panging mind, drowned in the adrenaline of a fight only just finished - the rapturous sound of child laughter still echoing in the flower patches behind her. Slumping down into the Autumn vegetable garden - hidden in the quiet back of the family’s villa, only visited by servants - Kirashi let the world start to suffocate her. Existence and blood trickled down her throat and clogged her lungs until all she could do was gasp for uneven, quick breaths of air. Fingers dug into her tightly-wound curls. She pulled at her scalp until the splitting sensation overpowered the bruising on her cheek. Keeled over and stared blankly at her knees with eyes like dinner trays; the staggering punch replayed over and over in her mind. How her head spun when she fell back, how not even the grass helped to blanket her fall, how stunned she felt when she stared at the dislodged tooth that flew from her gums like a blood-coated dove. Statuesque and blank, her eyes flitted upward to the rows and rows of vegetables and fruits that lined the mini garden. The indent in the dirt in the corner of this safe place marked her hostel of tens of stays. Eventually, her siblings would tire of their might-based flexing - all too eager to please her fathers when they returned from one of their fantastic and honorable adventures for a weekend before setting off once more. Then, the servants would come to find her. Dinner would be served, and no one would fess to what happened. Kirashi would not fess to what happened. Again and again, this cycle will repeat - had repeated - until their limbs grew long and they were cast from the nest to fly on their own. Something brushed against her neck. Warmer than a leaf, it sent shockwaves through her head and had her recoiling from its touch. There, with button eyes, sat Kun - so named before his large, onyx-colored tail feathers - equally as startled by Kirashi’s reaction. The crow cocked his head to the side, looking at the Eronidas girl - barely ten years of age - and her puffed-up face. Something was in his mouth. Hopping closer, he dropped it at Kirashi’s grass-clutching fingers with an enthusiastic, crooning ‘gwah’-noise. Shaken from her curiosity about what Kun had brought, Kirashi stared down… A nail. It was bent and beginning to rust, likely taken from one of the many estates’ buildings or one of the well-oiled machines that kept the district ticking. It was not fulfilling its duty so far away, but how could it? Whatever straight hole it was first struck into had long been outgrown. Kirashi frowned lopsidedly, her lip feeling swollen and purple as an eggplant, as she projected onto the gift. “Thank you, Kun,” she responded, her shaky voice giving way to an unusual warmth in gratitude, “You’re a good friend.” Kun croaked happily at the praise as though it could understand Vasar, doing a small, circular dance that only accelerated when it heard the small girl beginning to laugh. Then that laugh became a sniffle, then a cry as the rough, stoic exterior crumbled like an overly weathered cliff. Hopping and bopping up to the girl, it took its usual spot on her shoulder, leaning into her neck and rubbing its head on the warm skin like a pillow until it felt comfortable. Together the girl and bird sat in an empty garden until the evening bell was struck for supper, and Kun had to retreat to a place beyond Kirashi’s imagination. Yet, she did imagine. She was constantly worried for her friend. Eronidas hated birds.
