There were days when Starling could forget the ache in his chest.
Days when Riven's voice made the world soften , when every ugly thing the humans said melted away, just for a few moments.
But those days were growing fewer.
Since they had been separated into different divisions ... Riven into the Y-Bloodline corps and Starling into the T... it was like being torn in half and forced to smile about it.
He told himself he was fine. That he could manage. That the world wasn't cruel but just… confused.
He told himself a lot of things.
That afternoon, the sun hung low over the glass towers of Unity Academy, painting the hallways in faint gold. Laughter echoed through the corridors that were sharp, mean laughter.
Starling's wings ached. They had tied them with wires to the ceiling fans, the feathers twitching helplessly above him. Ink scribbles stained his uniform. The smell of cheap marker filled the room.
"Hey, wing boy," one of the human boys sneered. "Can you fly home from up there?"
They laughed, taking turns throwing paper at him.
Starling tried not to cry. Tried to hold it all in. But when he whispered — "Why? I didn't do anything to you…" they hit him again.
When they were done, they left him there.
The room emptied, quiet except for his breathing and the soft hum of the fan.
Tears blurred the room into colors. "Riven… please…" he whispered.
He hated how weak his voice sounded. Hated himself for it.
He cursed under his breath. "Why can't I just be strong? Why am I so… useless?"
The door slammed open.
"Starling!"
Riven's voice cracked like thunder through the classroom. His boots hit the floor hard as he ran in, eyes wide with fury first, then something worse. Regret.
"Who did this?" he whispered, unhooking the wires gently. "Who?"
Starling shook his head, trying to smile even through the tears. "It's fine. It doesn't matter."
Riven froze. "Don't say that."
He lowered him to the ground, his hands trembling. "It's not fine. None of this is."
Starling stared at him. The way his jaw clenched. But when he looked back at Starling's bruised face, that fire broke into guilt.
"I should have been here."
"No…" Starling touched his arm weakly. "Please don't cry. You… you look awful when you cry."
Riven laughed, a low, broken sound. "You're still joking?"
"Always," Starling said, smiling faintly. "Someone has to."
They sat on the floor for a long time. Riven gently pat Starling's hair, quiet between them. The hum of the fan above sounded like a soft lullaby.
Starling dug into his bag, pulling out a small box wrapped in silver paper. "I, uh… got this for you."
Riven blinked. "What's this?"
"Your favorite," Starling said shyly. "Chocolate. I thought… maybe it'd make you smile."
Riven frowned. "You shouldn't have gone through that trouble..."
Starling cut him off by unwrapping one and pressing it to his lips. "Just take it."
For a moment, Riven hesitated. Then he leaned forward slightly, letting Starling feed him the piece.
The sweetness melted slowly between them , the silence thick with something neither could name.
Starling's heart was racing. He didn't know how to stop it. The words pressed at his throat.
Now. Now or never.
"Riven…"
Riven looked at him, eyes soft. "Yeah?"
Starling's hands trembled. "I… I just wanted to say… thank you. For always being there. For… for making me feel like I'm not broken. Like I matter."
Riven blinked, caught off guard.
Starling looked down, voice shaking. "And I... I don't know what this is, but when you're around, it's easier to breathe. I don't want that to stop. I don't want you to go."
The silence stretched.
Riven sighed, his eyes heavy with things he couldn't say. He smiled faintly and reached out, touching Starling's cheek. "You're stronger than you think. But you should never thank me for caring about you."
Starling nodded, though his heart cracked quietly in his chest.
Dawn's voice pulled us out of the memory like a knife cutting through silk.
"Ah," he said softly. "That day. The chocolates, the tears, the emotions. The first and last time I ever said what I felt to someone that close."
We were no longer in that sunlit classroom.... now we were surrounded by cold light. Metallic walls gleamed, full of humming machines and glowing scanners.
Dawn stood in the center of a high-tech bunker, the floor rippling with moving shadows. Robotic arms detached the plates of his "work suit," laying them neatly into a sterilization frame.
Under the mask, his breath came steady. Too steady.
"Don't look at me like that," he murmured. "Everyone has a uniform for the world. Mine just bleeds easier."
A mechanical arm held out a glass filled with a clear, shimmering liquid. He took it, swirling it lazily before drinking.
"Cosmic water," he explained to us, his tone half lecture, half lullaby. "After the waves hit the northern rivers, some of them started glowing. Harmless to humans... or, well, mostly. But to Humarites?" He tilted his head. "It's evolution in liquid form. Regeneration, endurance, sometimes madness."
He walked toward a scanning chamber. The walls hummed, projecting his internal image , bones of black glass and light, veins pulsing with something that wasn't blood.
"You see," he said quietly, "we don't have blood like yours. We have flux. A living current. We don't just breathe air .. we draw in light, and shadow, and memory."
The scan brightened, revealing something growing inside him, twisting forms that looked almost organic, almost alive.
He smiled faintly. "No, don't ask. We're not ready for that story yet."
He moved toward a large holographic table. Photos and dossiers flickered in blue light with faces circled, names erased, coordinates pulsing.
Targets.
The mask turned toward them, silent. Then he sat, and his shadow flared faintly behind him like a pair of wings made of night.
"They think they're hunting a monster," he whispered. "But they forget… monsters remember what it means to love...which sucks honestly."
He leaned back in the chair. The lights dimmed, leaving only the faint hum of machines and the whisper of moving shadows.
"They're looking for something," he said softly. "Something even I can't name. But we'll get there… another time."
And then as if the night itself folded around him... he was gone.