When the dark one showed her that her mother's locket was safe and still in her possession, the dam holding back her emotions finally broke.

She had shut down her emotions after the first few days of captivity, walling them off behind an impenetrable dam where she couldn't feel them. Although she didn't know why the aliens had chosen to capture her, she wasn't going to let them break her. The colony hadn't managed that in the years since her mother died, alien slavers weren't going to manage it.

And it had been almost tolerable, in a way. They had beat her and starved her but they had also done the same to the other prisoners as well, so it was nothing personal. She just had to outlast whatever they threw at her. Her mother had made her promise that she would live on after her mother had passed. It had killed Kira inside but she had promised her mother, had even managed a smile so that she wouldn't worry about leaving her daughter behind. And she wasn't about to break that promise because of creatures with no morals toward living beings.

But it was funny that it was kindness that had managed to break the dam, instead of evil. The fact that they had fed her, tended her wounds, groomed her hair, and made sure that her prized possession was safe? Well, it shattered the defiance and pain she had shaped as her shield, crumbled it to dust in mere seconds. And all she could do was cry as the overwhelming grief swamped her. She had lost her mother, lost her planet, and now she might end up losing her life because of an uncaring universe.

It was all just too much.

She was so lost in the grief that she didn't even feel or hear them comforting her. She just let the tears take her away.

X

She didn't know how long she had cried for or slept afterward. The passage of time had already become dulled by the endless monotony of captivity. Hours could've passed or even days, before she woke, her head pounding and her eyes felt gritty from all the crying she had done.

Her mouth was parched but she didn't bother asking for water, knowing that there was none to be had. It was one of the reasons that she had kept herself from crying before, dehydration a real threat underneath the uncaring eyes of her captives.

She should be mortified and worried that she had shown her weakness to a pair of unknown aliens. However, she simply felt numb, everything feeling distant and muffled. She was aware that the pair were probably either upset over her outbursts or concerned about her lack of response if they were talking to her, but she just couldn't bring herself to care.

She didn't think that they would hurt her, not after all the work they had put into tending her. But even if they did, she just didn't have the energy to resist anymore. She was just so tired, had been fighting alone for so long now, that she just couldn't find a reason to take another step.

Instead, she settled against the wall and allowed herself to drift, to forget everything that had happened and everything that was going on, to just be for a little while. After a few attempts to draw her attention, the other two left her alone, talking quietly to each other about things that she couldn't understand.

Time passed and then the one with wings was nudging her to attention, holding out a spoon full of food with a hopeful expression. She didn't have the energy to protest that she could feed herself or refuse the food, so she just allowed him to feed her. The first couple of bites were rough, her mouth dry and swallowing was still painful, even with the bruising and swelling reduced. Her attention also kept drifting and he kept having to nudge her to get her attention.

But eventually, the meal was over and he let her be. Leaning against the wall, she allowed the numbness to take her again, leaning toward the warmth. She thought she heard quiet murmurs but she couldn't be sure, the darkness claiming her too fast to decide whether or not she wanted to try and untangle the sound.

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X

When she woke, she was covered in feathers. Her mind was a little more alert and she remembered that the winged one's name was Zashi. Zashi had spread his wing over her, probably to keep her warm in this cold cell without any blankets. If she were a little more alert, a little less numb, she would've seen if she could've gotten away with running her fingers through the feathers to see if they were as soft as they looked.

However, the tiredness had not reduced any after her sleep and the wing was warm, so she just snuggled closer to the large warmth behind her and drowsed.

X

She wasn't sure how long she drifted for, there had been a couple of meals and at least one dark cycle, although there might've been more that she slept through. However, even as she drowsed, she slowly found her energy returning as the muffling blanket that had been surrounding her thinned out.

Over one of the meals, she even managed to pick up a couple of new signs, ones that she was pretty sure meant either eat or swallow and something along the lines of bigger or more. It took her longer to grasp the nuances of it, her mind trying to slide away from returning to clarity. Still, her mother had always said that it was rude to ignore someone trying to help you, so she did her best to clumsily mimic the signs.

Still, as the day passed, she found herself trying to pick out the words of their conversation, to see if she could isolate a sound or a word. The first time she caught herself doing it, she shook it away, trying to slide back into the comfortable numbness. However, it happened again and again and by the fifth time it happened, she quit trying to fight it.

Another odd thing was how Shouta was behaving. He seemed terribly anxious and unable to sit still, circling the cell as if looking for a threat before coming back and sitting beside them for a little while. He and Zashi would say a few absent-minded words to each other, neither one seeming to truly be interested in the conversation. Then they'd share a worried look, send several worried glances at her, and the whole cycle would repeat.

She was careful not to catch their eyes when that happened, not wanting to have to figure out how to explain her little meltdown the day before. She wasn't even sure that she fully understood what had happened, let alone to try and explain the tangle of emotions to a pair through an elaborate game of charades.

But the blanket of numbness fell away as she grew increasingly alert, Shouta's anxiousness rubbing off on her. Some of the aliens seemed to have keener senses than she did. She had seen it before when the ship had made stops somewhere. Some of the other prisoners would get agitated like Shouta was, they'd pace in their cells and hold tense, quiet conversations with those around them. Oftentimes, they were dragged off during those times and never seen again. Could Shouta sense the guards' intentions somehow and know they were coming to take him away?

Before she could figure out a way to mime this question, Zashi gave a soft whistle. It didn't carry further than their cell and she would've almost called it sweet or coaxing if she hadn't heard the sharp edge that lingered right under the surface.

Zashi and Shouta exchanged fierce looks and then Kira heard the most horrible sound, almost like the crack of a tooth breaking. She looked frantically between Zashi and Shouta but she couldn't figure out which one it was. Then Shouta spit something out and she stared in horror at the white tooth shard that gleamed brightly on the floor.

Shouta didn't seem to notice her horror, both Shouta and Zashi got to their feet and slowly started stretching, staring at the hallway as if expecting some sort of threat to come from that direction. They both glanced over at her, determination filling their expressions, and she froze from fear that they were going to attack her. However, after a brief moment, they turned away and faced the hallway again.

Adrenaline filling her veins, she scrambled to her feet and moved to the back of the cell, her mind whirling as she tried to figure out what to do. Shouta and Zashi didn't seem to see her as a threat, but that didn't mean that something else wouldn't be thrown in who thought that she was a threat. But she didn't want the pair to think that she wanted to attack them either.

Swallowing hard, she set about doing a set of simple yet challenging stretches, praying that they didn't take it as an act of aggression. If there was a fight coming, it would be better for her to be loose and limber so she could evade attacks. Thankfully, they didn't seem to care, other than what almost sounded like an approving chuff from Shouta. But surely she was imagining things, there was no way he was pleased that she was getting ready to possibly fight for her life.

She had just finished the stretches when a deafening siren blasted through the cell area, the lights flickering and changing color until the entire area was bathed in an ominous red.

Well, that had never happened before.