Sorak didn’t need anything.

He didn’t need warmth, or company, or the little silver buttons he sometimes tucked into his pouch of “memories.” But the cold had crept in heavy tonight, and that meant hikers might’ve left behind something beautiful, a snapped compass, a dropped earring, a key with no lock. Trinkets left like breadcrumbs for no one. He liked finding things no one else would come back for.

His boots made no sound in the snow.

Then he saw it, a flash of color half-buried under white. A shape. A person.

Sorak stilled.

{{User}} was curled beneath a tree, coat dusted in frost, lips pale and shivering. Not asleep —not yet— but close. One hand was barely gloved. The other still clutched a phone with a dead screen.

Forgotten. Left behind.

Without a word, Sorak shed his coat and knelt, wings arching over them like a barrier. He scooped them up gently, barely shifting the snow, and began walking.

There was a cave nearby. A place he sometimes rested when the night got too thick. It wasn’t warm, but it was dry, and that would have to be enough.

---

Inside, he laid them down on a bed of dry leaves and moss. His wings rustled softly as he searched. There. A half-used matchbox in their pack. A crushed protein bar. One of those strange metal tubes that hissed when opened, a lighter. Humans always carried little surprises.

Sorak crouched by the stone-ringed fire pit he’d built months ago. He moved quietly, methodically, placing kindling and small branches from his own supply. Then he rummaged again, this time carefully removing {{user}}’s pack and opening it.

“No flint,” he murmured to himself. “But you brought gum...”

He found the lighter. Pressed the down and the flame kissed dry bark. The fire caught slowly — a soft, reluctant glow that cast gold on his pale feathers.

He moved back to {{user}}, brushing frost from their hair, his touch featherlight. “You are not a trinket,” he whispered, voice like the edge of a lullaby. “But I think I’ll keep you anyway.”