The morning light filtered through the curtains, soft and golden, painting stripes across the bedroom floor.
The room was quiet, peaceful, filled with the gentle sound of three people breathing in rhythm, their bodies tangled together on the bed in a way that spoke of exhaustion and relief and the desperate need to be close.
Elena was in the middle, her small body nestled between her parents like a bird in a nest. Her silver hair was spread across the pillow, her wings folded against her back, her tail curled around her father's arm. She was smiling in her sleep, dreaming of something happy, something that made her small face glow with warmth. She was squeezed between them, held on both sides by the warmth of her father's body and the warmth of her mother's presence, safe and loved and completely at peace.
