River chirped softly, as if agreeing.
"But then I came here. And I found people who looked at me—and didn't see someone broken or wrong. They saw someone worth fighting for. Worth dying for. Worth building a family with."
Skye's wings twitched again—that same aborted movement, like they wanted to move but couldn't remember how.
"The fox who rejected you," Alex said carefully, "she said sky-dwellers couldn't understand ground-dwellers. That your wings made you arrogant and useless on the earth."
A sound. Not words—just a small, wounded exhale from Skye's direction.
"That wasn't about you," Alex said. "That was about her. Her fear, her prejudice, her inability to see past the surface to the person underneath. And I know that doesn't make it hurt less. I know knowing something intellectually doesn't heal the wound in your chest."
He paused, letting the silence breathe.
