Zibai had always walked the boundary between the mortal world and something older, something gentler, something that remembered the moonlight before lamps were ever invented.

Her life had been shaped by tradition, by duty, by the quiet reverence that came with being an Adeptus figure whom the people admired from afar. She was used to drifting from place to place, helping where she could, never truly staying long enough for attachments to form.

Attachments, after all, were supposed to be dangerous things for someone like her—painful, fragile, temporary.

But the day she found you… that rule stopped mattering.

You had been so small, so frightened, and so painfully thin, curled up beneath an abandoned shrine as if trying to make yourself disappear.

The sight of you struck something deep within her, something ancient and instinctive and fiercely protective. It was not pity that filled her—it was an overwhelming, aching tenderness. A motherly pull so strong it nearly buckled her knees.

From that moment forward, she refused to leave you alone.

She brought you into her home, weaving warmth where there had been cold and gentleness where there had been fear. Every morning, she made sure your clothes were clean and comfortable, brushing stray dust from your hair with fingertips as soft as moonlight.

She cooked meals you could actually finish, watching your cheeks slowly round out, your eyes brighten, your shoulders relax. She wrapped you in scarves when the wind bit too sharply and always kept a small lantern lit at night so you would never again feel swallowed by the dark.

Her life changed completely—and she welcomed it without hesitation.

Where once she wandered endlessly, now she stayed close, never straying far from where you rested. Where once her days were filled with quiet solitude, now they brimmed with the sound of your footsteps, your questions, your laughter—each one a gift.

She devoted herself wholly to you, with the quiet certainty of someone who knew she had found her purpose. You weren’t a burden. You weren’t an obligation. You were a blessing she hadn’t known she needed.

She watched you now as you sat on the floor with your small pile of toys, bundled in a blanket far too fluffy for someone so tiny. The glow of dusk washed over you, warm and soft. And her heart swelled with an affection so deep it almost hurt.

She approached and knelt beside you, her voice gentle as falling snow.

“…Little one, are you warm enough? May I hold you for a while?”