"Oh but you mustn't go there," said the widowbird to the sparrow, small and afraid.

"There are some things that are not meant to be discovered, Mr. Tori," he smiled. Tired. "Some things are meant to be forgotten."

__________________________

Quint Faustes had never heard of a prey who'd joined the astronomy club out of his own fair will. It was simply unheard of, the phenomena was; and it very naturally led him to believe this prey either adorably foolish or hopelessly brave. The concepts were almost identical to the creature within, and it was no wonder that Faustes had his interest piqued by said prey.

"This one's looking to be eaten," laughed a Nocturne in the room, legs kicked up on the backrest of a chair and rocking it back and forth. "First year? Probably trying to catch the attention of some Heart like you."

The hawk displayed his affection for non-verbal vocabulary by giving him the middle finger.

"Quint, you showing the thing around or no," the great grey slid a folder across the table. "Alfred's a shit and hasn't gotten to giving us an I.C, so you'll take half and I'll take the other."

Faustes raised a brow at this, scanning through the rest of the folder. "You mean I'll take one and you'll take...none?"

His senior snorted a laugh, clapping him on the back while the other Nocturnes rummaged through a box of rusted binoculars, old and unused.

"Exactly. It's not like we've got more than two every year anyway, so." The owl shrugged. "No surprises right there."

Should Faustes be asked to pick the one thing he absolutely despised and rid it from his life, he would have told them not to waste his time. The hawk was the kind to forgo answering what he deemed as redundant questions that would, in no way, add any form of value to his life just so that his time would not tick without reason.

It was the one, sole thing about himself that he was so sure about.

"No surprise that you're wasting my time too then," the hawk rose with a smirk, chair dragging across the floor with a screech. "I'm sure all club presidents leave their responsibilities to someone else."

Provoked, the Nocturnes turned so quickly and at such an uncanny angle that he, the only diurnal halted in his feet. He prepared his Avian for flight.

"You think you'll get away with saying that to me just because you're a Heart now?" The great grey was quiet. The tensing of his shoulders gave away his attack and Faustes was crossing the highest floor of the astronomy tower towards the open window in a second before—

He was gone.

_________________________

Being the youngest predator ever admitted into the Class of Hearts was not the label that Quint Faustes had been desiring all his life.

"She's alone at the lockers!" Some intelligent soul barged in to say, pushing past the hawk who'd only just entered the doorway. Faustes flipped him off over the shoulder, narrowing his eyes at the disturbing gleam of excitement in the other's eyes.

Aziq Kirill—the most detestable thing that rivalled his thoughts of the very vulture they were speaking about—looked up from his text and rose with a smile. "Stall her. I'll be there in a minute."

The informant nodded sharply before disappearing down the corridor and out of sight, leaving the rest of the class rather quiet.

Three minutes before the start of class and Faustes had seen more stupid than he'd ever expect to see within the span of hundred-and-eighty seconds but none of that fazed him very much. He continued to his seat, dropping his duffel bag onto the table before slumping into the chair, head back, arm over eyes.

"Where are you going? Class is about to start," some girl he didn't remember the name of was brave enough to say. Faustes heard the screech of her chair as it scraped the floor.

"Leave him. It's not like Cenite'll do anything," another voice—the student seated in front of him—had to say. "That guy's some Order shit. He can do whatever he wants."

Faustes had an excuse for his apparent lack of awareness. No one really stood out of the crowd that he'd termed 'surrenders'; those who have conceded to social forces and yielded to unspoken rules of the Pyramid. It had been a mere week since he'd made it into the top thirteen, so names and faces were no more than letters and proportions of features, pieced together to make nothing.

Those who had somehow made it into his books were either terribly notorious or...terribly notorious.

"Oh? But I have an answer to her question," the Heart with a huge, ugly Avian smiled and Faustes felt the urge to throw up. "Excuse me, as I am about to settle some important matters with Verity. Is there a problem?"

The girl scoffed. "Yeah, you put it that way but everyone knows you're just a jealous bastard who is afraid of having his spot in the class taken by another of his kind."

Kirill laughed, a sound that did not sit well with Faustes; a low, guttural sound.

"You must be describing yourself. Anyone would be, even the slightest amount, afraid of this strange-looking mother, a woman thirty years of age and only a mere freshman on the island. She is far too different."

"It doesn't help that she's topped the level twice, so far." The student seated in front of Faustes propped his feet up on the desk, fingers lacing together behind his head.

The class was unusually quiet for free period, and the reason behind it intrigued Faustes as much as he'd like to be left alone.

He felt the presence of an underlying conspiracy—one that everyone else seemed to know about.

"Quint Faustes." The sound of his name on Kirill's was hair-raising. It disrupted his flow of thought and meddled with the flame within. "I understand that you are new and thus forgive your ignorance of the circumstance."

Forgive? There was nothing to forgive, scoffed the hawk in his mind. He didn't return the scavenger's gaze as he spoke, blatantly showing utmost disrespect.

"Don't need it."

"You will find that joining us will bring you great benefit, Faustes. Sometimes, even the lone wolves band together to defeat a common enemy."

There was no common enemy. Faustes did not consider anyone a foe and neither was he inclined to think of them as friends. He understood from context that Kirill was suggesting a temporary alliance among the Hearts (which the majority have already accepted) to plot against Verity-Ann during the next season games, just to keep her under the radar and out of the headmaster's favour.

It was troublesome.

"I said I don't need to," repeated the hawk, going back to shielding his eyes with the back of his arm. Sleeping.

Quint Faustes was in no way a kind and thoughtful little creature. It wasn't as though he pitied the bearded vulture; in fact, he did not so much as lift a finger to help the ostracized woman. She could remain an outcast, for all he cared. The lack of association and sympathy he had for someone he'd never interacted with did not help the suppressed form of empathy that dwelled within, small and silent.

He had not the obligation to care.

*

The scroll of parchment paper was huge and unwieldy. It did not make trips into the forest any easier, not with the sheer size that it was and the need to protect it from wandering fingers of low branches and the wind that swept up dirt and leaves.

Nevertheless, Faustes had been waiting for this specific item to arrive ever since he placed an order at the post; he could only afford it after receiving the credit allowance issued to Hearts by the council. But that was two weeks ago.

At present, he could not deny the bubbling anticipation—an emotion that he'd almost forgotten existed at all. The night in his face and a chill on his lips, the hawk and his Avian sought out the very place that he'd considered his home more than anything else on this island.

Over his shoulder was a duffel bag that contained the rest of what he should require for the task that he'd set out to do. A bottle of ink, a quill, a special pair of binoculars, pins and a hammer, along with the roll of parchment paper.

He set out to chart the skies.

It would come as a surprise to those who did not know the hawk very well. Astronomy was an art and science of patience and virtue; which the latter two seemed a little lacking in the boy whose dream was to be, as much as he made possible, a little closer to the skies.

Now that he was up here, on the island that floated above whatever that was down below, the longing to do what he could do best here when he could not in the past was indisputable.

Deeper, darker into the forest, he sought its heart. That was where the stars above would the shine the brightest.

At the treehouse.

_________________________

January had turned the bars of his cage frozen and brittle by the time February had come along. It was then that he'd noticed a very peculiar change in the general heaviness of the atmosphere, lifted by the strangest rumour.

Himalayan vulture Aziq Kirill had set his eyes on a widowbird that Verity was already in the midst of attaining.

Whether or not the bearded vulture had intended for this to happen and for her to steal the limelight away from the hideous Himalayan for once, finally putting an end to their silent feud unbeknownst to many.

He thought nothing of it, Faustes did. Naturally, he wasn't the kind to get himself involved in the absurdity of predator-prey relations, let alone two foolish vultures contesting for one miserable thing. If Verity-Ann was adamant on proving herself stronger than her cousin, he would let them be. If she was using the prey as means to an end, he had not the obligation to stop her from doing so.

He would let be.

Despite the extent of his adversity towards the entire situation however, the island had its ways of tying together the strings of two different fates that would otherwise never cross; strings that were far, far apart. So far that it would require the distance between the earth and the moon to bring what was apart, together.

He didn't have to bring himself towards the fight—the fight brought itself to him on a silver platter.

"You? Contesting over my prey?"

The voice was loud and snarky, echoing down the hallway as he approached the corner. Faustes halted in his steps, already regretting his choice to take the shortcut to class.

"He isn't yours, as far as I understand." He was not in any way familiar with the voices of his classmates; at least not enough to recognize them at once but the content of their argument seemed to help.

Kirill and that bearded-vulture. She sounded younger than he thought she would—quite unlike a thirty-year-old.

"And what would you do with prey, old woman?" What sounded to Faustes like childish laughter barred down the hallway with a snare. Kirill wasn't alone. "Make them take care of your children?"

"Oh I'm sure you can do better," there was a smile in her voice. "Perhaps you were thinking of having one to help you wear your socks and another to tie your shoelaces?"

Silence raged following her words and the air felt to the hawk far too thick for his entrance. He'd better make his exit soon, if not now, before—

"You little bitch." Footsteps, heavy and weighted; the sound of movement and scuffling, coats brushing against one another, scowls and grunts turning into shouts and rampant curses.

"I—stop, please!"

"Shut up and stay out of it, widow." The shouting took a violent turn and there was the sound of fabric being torn apart before a scream and then footsteps, breathing—loud. Was there an obligation to interfere? Was he meddling in something not worth his time, effort or thought? Was he required to act?

Faustes searched for the answers to the propagating questions in his cage but alas, he required none of that when he heard the sound of footsteps grow louder until someone turned the corner and saw him standing right at the blind spot of the hallway. They heaved, hard and tearful, staring into his abyss.

"Help! It's a fight—someone's bleeding. Please, oh you have to stop them," he begged, tears streaming past his glasses in the strangest, most enchanting manner. His voice was clear and almost svelte despite the sobbing that muddled his words.

The obligation to act had presented itself right before him and Faustes was in no position to refuse. The dilemma had decided itself.

He turned the corner to see a woman on the floor, scratches and gashes up her arms and legs spewing pools of blood and the backs of those who'd committed the act, vanishing in the distance.

Faustes removed his coat and ripped the sleeves apart, wrapping them around her wounds to stem the flow of blood.

"Go back to that hallway and down the stairs," he belted out instructions to the one who made his decision for him. "There's a class going on in the first room on the right. Get the professor here."

The prey nodded, wringing his hands as he did so in a nervous disposition before setting off.

"Just leave me," the bearded vulture said out of nowhere, eyes closed. "I don't need any help."

Faustes almost laughed. "Oh really?"

"You can say so," she gave in first, laughing listlessly. "I knew they'd never let me win anyway. It's not like I'm desperate to have that widowbird."

"So you're letting that bastard have him, uncontested?" The hawk tightened the fabric around her upper arm, moving on to the next before he finally pieced each scar together. They formed words.

Verity-Ann made an attempt to shrug. "You could try."

He is mine.

_________________________

He set out to do what he deemed worthy of his time again but what he was not aware of was the surprise that laid in wait, on the walls of the treehouse; mapped and coloured. The skies—uncharted, waiting to be mapped and discovered in his long, continuous search for light, they distracted. Distracted him from the darkness that he'd so often found wrapping around the world within as he struggled to see the stars in the night sky.

Faustes knew perfectly well what it meant to look above and see the stars and not a sky that was dark. Still, knowing what it meant did not in any way translate to being able to do so for the longest time.

Knowing and doing; they were completely different things.

He had always been alone in his task, on his journey. Solitude was customary and hardly uncommon in the lives of predators, competitive and unwilling to share.

As he landed on the balcony of the treehouse and returned to his human form, a single, habitual glance at the map of the sky that he'd pinned to one of the walls told him otherwise.

He was not alone.

The map was nearly half-filled with the labels of stars and planets alike; orbits, accompanied by their direction and distance; constellations—a connection from star to star that formed a strangely appealing, oddly coincidental shape that he could identify.

In a swift motion, he'd lit the kerosene lamp on the desk and held it up to the wall, illuminating the rest of it.

Unfamiliar.

He found, the writing was. Worlds apart from his own chicken scrawl, scratched across the huge roll of parchment paper. The letters were cursive and slanted; lean and incredibly long. They made his own resemble that of a child's, and Faustes wasn't too sure what to feel about that.

Either way, one with such a keen eye and mature writing could not possibly enter his bad books without reason. Faustes was not so ignorant to close an eye to every admirable trait of others but that did not necessarily mean placing them in his good books either.

"Neptune without a 'u'."

He noticed upon taking a closer look at every label, amused that someone as meticulous to point out even the smallest of stars could make such an ordinary mistake. Laughter escaped in wisps, short and fleeting. Breathless.

The hawk couldn't quite understand what was wrong with his instincts. That someone else had invaded his territory mattered less than the misspelling of Neptune sounded almost absurd to the creature within.

His Avian stared from outside, perched on the banister of the balcony. The lack of hostility was carefully intriguing, even to her.

Curious enough, his desire to chart the rest of the skies seemed to double, triple in the next couple of seconds. It began to stir from within, welling up the smallest of buckets and glasses and then it was a lake and then, the sea that reflected what was, forever, beyond its reach.

He killed the light in an instant and went out to the balcony, laying down under the night sky—staring up at the blinking eyes above. Through the lenses, he saw them a little closer. Brighter. Bigger. Stronger. He searched for the anchor that he'd always start at, eyes travelling south, tracing the last star that someone else had mapped out for him.

True enough, it was there. Where he'd never seen before. Small enough to miss.

It was there.

And as he breathed in the remains of the flame, extinguished, he came upon the most unusual, most soothing scent of what he thought was the scent of lavender.

__________________________

The night shivered as it breathed when he next visited the treehouse, quiet in its endurance of the winter cold. The hawk could smell the imminence of snow, sharp and spicy in his nose. He tucked his hands a little deeper into the pockets of his coat, lowering his chin to brace the wind behind the protection of his muffler.

His Avian hopped from branch to branch, tree to tree, avoiding the open air above the canopies that would sting her eyes.

Skies it's chilly.

"At least you have feathers. I'm freezing my fucks off," muttered her Winged, tasting the bitter breeze on his tongue. Still, he carried on—driven by the thought of it being the last. The night that he would have navigated the skies completely; charted every corner of its darkness.

They were about half-a-mile away from their destination when the warmth of a candlelight, yellow and inviting, glowed in the distance. A small, tiny dot that came into view from the parting of the trees.

Faustes turned to his Avian, a strange expression crossing his features and surprise written on his face. All of a sudden, the night was a little less cold. A little less quiet; and a little less alone.

He shifted with a step, taking off with a burst of speed and crossing the remaining distance with a stirring within he couldn't believe was his own and as he neared the place he'd quietly shared with another whose identity he knew nothing of, he began to see a moving silhouette.

Any pause for consideration or thought was not required for him to come to terms with an intruder in his nest. It felt almost familiar—the back he was looking at as he dived for a landing. Over the course of several months and countless nights, they had shared a secret that was almost deadly. So beautiful and quiet that it was;

they were looking at the exact same sky.

And upon his landing, swift and fluid, shifting just as his feet were inches away from the floorboards of the balcony, it began to snow. They fell so quietly that the world seemed to still, watching as two acquainted strangers became something more.

The bottle of ink was placed on the floor just beside his knees, knelt, back bent forward to label the final star that Faustes had meant to chart in the first place. The latter ducked to enter, proceeding to sit crossed-leg beside the prey that he'd identified as Kirill's.

For a long, extended moment, neither spoke. One worked at charting the constellations and the other, labelling. A steady hand connected star to star, taking turns to use the one quill and the one bottle of ink.

But there came a time when there was nothing left to chart and no more space to fill and it willed them to turn, away from the floor and the parchment paper and away from lowered heads to raised gazes that met.

They met.

"Neptune has a 'u'."

It was basic courtesy to wait for predators to speak first, before prey could. As Kirill's prey, he was well aware.

"I—oh," managed the other, returning his gaze to the chart before observing the mistake he'd made. "How embarrassing. My apologies..."

Faustes watched the other correct his mistake. "How do you do that?"

"Sorry?"

"Pick out those that I missed."

Kirill's prey met his gaze, averted, then met them again. "Well, you pick out those that I miss. Perhaps the skies were never meant to be charted alone." His smile was like a sip of tea, quiet and warm.

"Maybe," Faustes mused, staring at the moon that was reflected in the corner of his glasses. "Name?"

"...aquarius?" The widowbird blinked, following Faustes' gaze that was directed at the newly-charted constellation.

"No, I meant yours," laughed the hawk, unable to contain his amusement.

"Ah. I am a widowbird—"

"No, your real name, dumbass."

Already, it was a rocky and interesting start to the most peculiar relationship at the time. Where predator-prey relations were clear-cut and highly polarized, the treehouse seemed to be entirely apart from the world that they lived in.

"Oh! My real name?" The widowbird seemed rather taken aback by the most mundane of questions. "That would be Callaghan. Wint. Callaghan."

"Sounds like my name," the hawk was shaking his head as he said, a smile in his voice. "Quint Faustes."

"You're in the astronomy club," he continued, wondering how it didn't seem to sound like a question when he'd half-intended it to be. "I saw your name once. And when I did, I thought you were an idiot. Still do, by the way."

Callaghan laughed, raising his hand to cover the lower half of his face. "Well I am quite the fool."

"The night frightens me. Admittedly, it does," he went on, gazing out into the balcony and up at the stars. He held a pair of binoculars—oddly fixed with contraptions Faustes had never-before-seen—to his eyes. "Everything about it scares me. The fear of uncertainty. The unknown. The darkness at the end of the corridor...Nocturnes tend to lurk at the strangest of places." He smiled at nothing in particular, unable to bring himself to meet the eyes of the hawk.

"They like surprises," shrugged Faustes, leaning backwards with his hands behind his head, lying down and looking up at the sky they shared.

Callaghan laughed at this, sounding like the quiet twinkling of stars.

"I'm sure they aren't the ones on the receiving end of surprises, sir. Perhaps they think it a pity not to be."

Faustes could not help the unusual discomfort that stirred in his chest at the word. It wasn't his first time being addressed as such; yet, there was a tiny, selfish desire that begged to be realized and he found that it repelled the idea of being treated like a superior.

"You ever talked to one them? I doubt you could stand a minute of conversation—it's that dumb," he snorted with a shake of his head.

Callaghan had not stopped smiling. "Is that so? Ah but even if it is...I'm afraid I don't have a choice, sir. I am obliged to do whatever it is that they wish for me to."

They were staring at the same star in the sky but neither of them knew that they were. It was the smallest, bleakest star of the night; so bleak that it would, at times, disappear for seconds before returning, small and dismal as ever.

"I find that you are right, sir."

"About what?"

Callaghan turned his head sideways, angled it so that it seemed as if he was looking at the other. "That I am undeniably foolish, disregarding my fears—standing out—thinking that it would all be worth for the quiet happiness that I could enjoy on nights like these. After all, don't we all like to watch the moon?"

Faustes considered the question. It was an odd one.

"Can't think of any idiot who doesn't."

"And that's the magic of it, don't you think?"

The hawk was having trouble understanding him. "What is?"

"It's not like we can watch the sun in the morning," Callaghan chuckled to himself after observing his companion, a sound that had a bright, melodious chime. "I find that it is the darkness that brings people together. Perhaps that is the magic of the moon."

A casual comment, without a streak of malice or ill-intention, slipped past the predator's lips. "You say the weirdest things. Does Kirill know about this...you?"

"Well," thought the widowbird, long and hard. "He knows that I like watching the stars at night...?"

His response had sounded more like a question than a concrete statement, and Faustes was inclined to think of it as an added 'if that counts'.

"Which...you just claimed that everyone does, as well...?" Returned the hawk in a teasing lilt, referring to the conversation they had earlier on.

Callaghan smiled, a charming glint in his eyes. The finger that he used to adjust the frames of his glasses on the bridge of his nose was elegant and slim. "Principle of charity, I suppose."

Faustes stared.

"I have no fucking clue what you just said."

Together, they laughed. It was a joyous sound—something foreign to their creatures inside. It nestled in a corner of their cages, where it began to live.

"Eh, I get what you mean," shrugged the hawk after they'd turned slightly breathless in the cold. "It's nice that everyone's watching the moon."

Callaghan nodded, tilting his head sideways to look (or at least look as though he was looking) at his companion. "Indeed, it is. But I can't help feeling sorry at times. That the moon should never be able to join us."

"Many people watch the moon," he went on, lips trembling from the breeze, "but the moon watches over those down below."

The silence seemed to acknowledge the establishing of something new in the darkness. It was this—the beginning of uncharted skies—that seemed to navigate the abyss housing the heart. The moment was the sowing of a seed; a seed that would grow, soon enough, to a sap and then mature into a bud that would, someday, blossom.

"It must be very lonely."

They became more than strangers.

Faustes could see himself reflected in the other's gaze. He laughed. "Not if you have someone watching it with you."

_____________________________

How that one sentence could bring two fates together and realign the stars that would otherwise have them apart, no one knew. Faustes and Callaghan were no longer watching the moon alone, they watched it together; on nights like these, they would. The quiet, darker nights.

There was nothing they had in common, yet conversation flowed like water down a stream, gentle and splashing over rocks every now and then. It surprised the hawk how chatty his companion was, unconsciously cutting into the curfew every now and then, which meant that it was up to him to remind the widowbird when it came to parting.

He never really liked that part.

It was a moonless night that Faustes noticed a sleeping bag placed in a corner of the room, tucked under the desk as though hoping to remain unseen. He respected the intention, deciding not to ask about it and to instead share the thermos flask of corn soup that he'd brought along, mostly for his companion.

"How odd," the widowbird remarked after a sip. "I've always assumed all soups were inherently salty. This one's sweet! It is delicious."

They watched the turning of the sky, slow and quiet with the lights snuffed out—listening to the sound of crickets in love.

Side by side they laid, eyes fixed on that which was above but minds straying dangerously below; deadly close. Thoughts of closing the distance were entertained and brushed aside all at once but the cup was filled and everything else flowed excessively, falling off the edge.

It was here that they came together.

Much like a hand reaching over the edge to prevent the other from falling, all the way, into the abyss, Faustes reached for his.

The widowbird's fingers were soft at the tips but long and slim enough to feel for bone.

"Look who's freezing," added the hawk with a laugh, waiting for Callaghan's response. Minutes passed, and it never came. At first, he'd assumed his companion asleep, exhausted from a day's worth of class but a single glance in his direction proved otherwise.

He would have missed the tear that slid down the other's cheek if not for the passing star. It cut the sky and was gone in an instant—fleeting.

The widowbird's fingers were colder than ever. Faustes sat up at once, squeezing his fingers before noticing that one of them, the thumb, was heavily bandaged. One look at it and he knew it was shorter than usual and that it was not how a thumb should look like.

"This," he began quietly, caressing the base of it. "What the hell happened today?"

"Oh it's not...well," Callaghan had the energy to laugh amidst the tears that latched onto his glasses and blurred his vision. "Well...I didn't make it yesterday. The curfew."

"Don't lie to me."

"Ah, but it is true," he met the hawk's gaze, turning sideways. "I am not lying."

"Lying by omission is lying. Thumbs don't just disappear."

Callaghan was never one who could keep a secret. They slipped past his lips like an exhale and there was no stopping emotions where they came from. He told the story.

"He tore off your thumb so that you wouldn't be able to scan your print?" Fire seeped through his veins and burned every cell within, seething under his skin with a hiss. "And you're going to sleep here, because of that? Do you know how dangerous it is?"

"Well, you're here with me, aren't you?" Came the most disarming response.

It quelled the flames but wasn't enough to put them out. This extent of emotion, of anger, was a first for the hawk. He was livid.

"That's not the point, Wint." Faustes had snapped so fiercely that it startled his companion. He froze at that. "Sorry."

He straightened up and lit the kerosene lamp to take a closer look at Callaghan's wound. "Just—why'd he fucking go and do that?"

The next smile rivalled the loneliness of the moon that they'd once spoke about. It made him break inside.

"Well, I do belong to him, I suppose."

__________________________

The deputy headmaster had thought herself to be dreaming when she'd heard the news of a sophomore going up against a fifth-year senior, let alone a Heart. She'd called for the professor to send an Avian to the infirmary while she headed down, deciding against informing the headmaster just yet. The information was simply too far-fetched for her to believe without seeing it with her own eyes.

Alas, she heard the fight before it came into view—carnal and enraged.

The shouts were not what she'd expected of human beings. Predators let loose, free from the cage of reason with the wilderness in their eyes and the fury of fire. There was blood and there was pain; words sullied by expressions, raw and vulgar; there was heart, heart and nothing else. Just heart.

"He's not a thing!" Not a thing. Not a thing. Not a thing.

Not 

a 

thing.

*

The hawk emerged from the headmaster's office with a limp and the corner of his lips swollen and upper jawline bruised. He could, still, taste blood on his tongue. It wasn't the best of tastes.

"Quint..."

Faustes was lucky enough to have been let off with a mere warning instead of being expelled for going against the Pyramid. At the time then, the rules were set in stone—hard and fast during those times. He looked up from the flagged stone floor to meet the eyes of his friend.

"Hey."

The widowbird had been waiting anxiously outside the headmaster's office, round the corner of the stairs so that he could remain unnoticed by predator staff. He'd came at once upon hearing the news, slipped past the doors of the infirmary while his predator was asleep, resting with bandages from head to toe.

"Hey?" His lips, small and thin, trembled like a blossom in the wind. "Is—is that what you should be saying? Look at you. You're bruised. Everywhere!"

Faustes couldn't bear the thought of letting Callaghan see him in such a state. He pulled away when the latter drew closer to inspect his wounds. "It's nothing. I made sure he was worse off."

"But why?" The prey had said it in so softly that he was barely audible.

"Why?" Faustes repeated incredulously. "So that he'd think again before doing those kinds of things to you, duh."

"But why?" He had said it louder this time, looking up at the predator with tears and tears. "There was no—why?

Why would you

WHY WOULD YOU DO SO MUCH?"

Faustes stared in return.

"What?" He frowned hard, feeling the cage in his chest burst. "Is it—"

___________________________

"Oh but you mustn't go there," said the widowbird to the sparrow, small and afraid.

"There are some things

that are not meant to be discovered, Mr. Tori.

Some things are meant to be forgotten."

____________________________

But there were, also, things that could not be forgotten,

once discovered.

___________________________

"Is it so hard to see that I cannot let you be?"