The village shimmered like someone had brushed starlight into every corner and forgotten to sweep it up.
Lantern frames now wore paper skin—soft whites, golds, sky-blues. Painted moons. Running foxes. Wolves curled as if guarding sleep. Ribbons braided light from house to house. A smell like cinnamon and evening breeze lifted from street ovens.
Tonight, fire would be given to paper, and wishes to sky.
"Too bright?" Yuna asked.
"Yes," I whispered.
But my tail flicked once—not dread, just large feeling needing space.
"We can leave anytime," she reminded.
I nodded. I liked that she didn't say "if you need to." She said we.
Hana tied a thin thread of silver cloth around both our wrists—not binding, but linking.
"So you don't lose each other in the crowd," she said.
I didn't tell her I had lost myself long before crowds existed.
Instead I whispered, "…thank you."
She kissed our hair each in turn.
Mother-gentle.
Not mine, but home-shaped.
"Back before second bells," she said. "And remember—joy is not a command. It's an option."
Her words settled like warm stones.
Among Lanterns
Crickets practiced their festival chirps. Children darted like fireflies, their laughter stitched through dusk. Bells chimed from Elyren's hair as she strung lanterns onto tall bamboo poles. Lila dragged a bee-decorated basket filled with honey cookies and shouted at everyone to eat joyfully or else.
The drum began—a heartbeat low and unhurried, asking feet to remember earth.
I held a lantern Yuna had helped me fold. Inside, the ink I'd written waited like a sleeping bird:
I will learn to be gentle with myself.
Yuna nudged my shoulder. "When you're ready, we light them near the river."
"When I'm ready," I echoed.
We walked among people who glowed—not from magic, but from choosing to be kind to night.
A group of older children ran shrieking with sparklers. The sound hit me like a bucket-clang; my shoulders jumped.
Before fear could swallow me, a sleeve brushed my wrist.
Not a grab. A reminder.
"I'm here," Yuna murmured.
I breathed.
The world softened again.
Then someone called, "Yuna!" and a girl ran up, waving a torn sleeve and a scraped knee.
"Help?"
Yuna blinked tiredly. I saw it—the small tremor behind her smile. Healing Ren yesterday had frayed her edges. "Just a little salve," she said. "Sit."
She pressed her palms to the girl's knee. A faint glow. A too-long breath.
I felt her energy thin beside me like stretched silk.
"Stop," I said, not meaning command—meaning care.
"I'm fine," she whispered, trying to be sunrise when she needed to be night.
She finished the spell, gentle but pale as a cloud after rain. The girl hugged her and ran off, leaving gratitude like petals.
Yuna swayed.
I caught her elbow before she fell.
A warm shock ran up my arm: instinct + worry + something like… claiming?
"Sit," I said softly, echoing her own healer voice.
She didn't argue. That scared me more than if she had.
We slipped away from lantern chatter into the quieter part of riverbank. Kaji pressed against Yuna's knee, ears flat with concern.
"You used too much yesterday," I murmured.
She gave a small, tired smile. "Good things cost."
"But you are a good thing," I said, fierce without volume. "Should you cost too?"
Her breath hitched—surprise, soft and startled.
"I'll rest," she promised, not because she wanted, but because she heard the fear behind my voice.
At the River Again
Lanterns gathered at the water's edge like little moons waiting their turn.
People sang—low, steady, the kind of song that strokes shadows instead of chasing them.
I knelt. Water lapped at my fingers. The river recognized me.
Stream. Stone. Memory.
My tail brushed earth; a ghost-tail shimmered faint like silver breath.
Yuna leaned against a tree, half-sleeping upright. Kaji stood guard.
Lamp-light turned the edges of her face to tender geography I didn't have names for yet.
Moonlight spilled on the river in broken ribbons.
Master Iri appeared beside us silently, like she was woven from dusk.
"Try again," she said to me. "Not to make light. To listen to it."
I placed my hand above the water.
Not forcing.
Attending.
The river whispered a wordless song.
The moon answered in silver hush.
I didn't try to create. I let the river's seeing pass through me.
A shimmer formed above my palm—water-light folding itself into shape.
Slow. Breathing.
It became a trembling band of pale silver—not moon, not river, something between.
Yuna's eyes opened to witness it. She smiled tiredly, reverently.
"You're mirroring night," she whispered. "That's… beautiful."
The illusion broke, drifting away like mist—graceful in its ending.
Master Iri touched my shoulder with grandmother-soft fingers.
"Some magic isn't meant to last," she murmured. "It is meant to arrive."
Lanterns Launched
When the drums hushed, villagers lit their lanterns.
Yuna managed to stand. I stood beside her so she wouldn't fall alone.
She placed flame into my lantern, hands shaking.
I guided her wrist without thinking—our movements a braid.
"Ready?" she whispered.
"I think yes."
We released our lanterns.
Mine rose clumsy and earnest—like something learning to be sky.
Yuna's drifted slow, tired, stubbornly rising anyway.
Children cheered.
Old men wiped eyes when they thought no one looked.
Wish-light lifted until the river wore stars of its own making.
And for a moment, I felt something impossible:
I belonged in a moment people chose to make gentle.
My throat tightened.
Yuna leaned, head falling to my shoulder, exhausted trust.
"Akira…" she breathed.
"Yes?"
"You don't have to carry me. Just don't leave."
"I won't."
It wasn't a vow.
It was truth already growing.
When the World Trembles Quietly
The walk home was slow.
Lanterns bobbed overhead like little tired souls.
Yuna stumbled once. I caught her.
"You are safe," I said.
It surprised both of us.
At Hana's threshold, she opened the door with a face that saw everything at once—festival joy, healer fatigue, and my heart beating too loudly.
"Bed," she told Yuna gently but firmly.
Yuna didn't argue.
She curled under blankets before breath finished leaving her chest.
Hana warmed broth. I held the bowl and spoon; she raised her eyebrow once—permission to care granted.
I fed Yuna small sips until her breathing steadied into healing sleep.
Kaji rested his head on her ribs, guard and pillow.
Hana sat near the hearth, stirring herbs.
Fire painted her face warm.
In the quiet, she spoke.
"When I was young," she said, voice low, "I believed love meant giving until you vanish. It took years to learn love also means letting others carry warmth to you."
Her gaze settled on me, soft as dusk.
"You don't need to vanish to belong."
Something inside me shook.
Not fear.
Recognition.
"…I don't know how to be needed," I whispered.
"You don't need to know," Hana replied. "You only need to stay."
Writing the Thing I Didn't Yet Know
When Yuna slept, I sat with parchment and clumsy ink.
My tail curled protectively around my knee.
I wrote slowly, letters uneven as baby feathers:
Today I saw the moon inside water.
I touched kindness without breaking it.
My chest hurt and did not kill me.
I want to stay.
The last line startled me.
It stared back—bolder than I meant.
I whispered it aloud.
"I want to stay."
A tear slid down my cheek.
Not tragedy tear.
Something else.
A beginning tear.
The Shadow At the Window
Just as the candle burned low, a chill brushed the back of my neck.
Not cold from wind.
Cold from memory.
Outside the window, across the field, a shape stood too still to be animal and too thin to be tree.
Hands by its sides.
Head tilted.
Watching.
Not Yuna's world.
Mine.
Glass. White light.
Containment.
My breath caught.
Kaji lifted his head, ears rigid, a growl like distant thunder rolling in his chest.
Hana's hand touched my back—steady, ancient, grounding.
Not alarmed. Prepared.
"Do not fear shadows that watch," she murmured. "Fear only the ones that believe they own you."
The figure lingered three breaths.
Then vanished like a bad thought swallowed by night.
My heart shook.
But I did not hide.
I turned back to my parchment and wrote one last line, small and steady:
I am not theirs.
The ink dried like truth settling into bone.
That night, I lay beside Yuna on the floor, our hands close, not touching, breathing the same warm air.
Her lashes fluttered.
Dream murmured her name through her lips, then mine half-formed:
"Aki…"
I closed my eyes and let the night wrap me like river water.
Sleep came not as surrender
but as choosing to rest in a place not trying to break me.
Before I slipped under, I felt it again:
a faint shimmer at my tail's base—silver as early frost, soft as second chance.
Not a tail yet.
The idea of one.
Becoming.
Slow.
True.
Mine.