Chapter 4 - Mitha

I watched the boy after that.

 

Not only did he come to the shelter with stolen food tucked into his clothes and mud on his knees, but I also watched him through cracks in the old boards and thin spaces between weeds, preferring to keep my distance. Watching was safer than trusting; it kept my instincts sharp.

 

Zeno moved differently around his brothers. With me, he was slow and careful, as if my fear mattered more than his urgency. With them, he folded smaller.

 

Damon, the oldest, stood straight and solid, earning nods from adults. Theron walked chest-first, always loud and ready for a fight, while Lykos was sharp-eyed and alert.

 

Zeno was the one between them—not because they made space, but because he slipped through the gaps they overlooked. Smaller than Damon, softer than Theron, and slower than Lykos, he often went unnoticed. He learned to hide hurt quickly, just as I learned to conceal blood.

 

Theron shoved him once near the goat pen, not hard enough to break anything, only hard enough to remind him. Zeno stumbled, caught himself, and smiled like it did not matter.

 

It mattered.

 

I saw the way his mouth went tight after. I saw the way he looked toward the sea when no one was watching.

 

His mother touched his hair and called him something soft. “Little fish,” she said gently. Her voice had love in it, but pity too, and pity was only another kind of cage. His father gave him small tasks that could not ruin anything important. His brothers gave him names that were not names—strange, weak, soft.

 

I understood names used like stones.

 

Soldiers did not hunt the boy. No one raised a spear when he breathed. No one saw claws where his hands should be or wings where his back should lie flat.

 

But he was not safe either. Not truly.

 

His danger was quieter than mine. It wore familiar faces and laughed at the dinner table. It did not chase him through fields, but it followed him anyway, whispering that he was less, less, less until even he started to believe it.

 

That made him more confusing to me.

 

Prey should run from danger. Threats should bring danger.

 

Zeno did neither.

 

He came back every day with bread in his tunic and fear in his hands, and somehow, he made both offerings.

 

Continuing with Mitha, letting the first real thread of trust show:

 

For many visits, I gave him nothing. Not my name, not answers, not softness.

 

I took the food after he backed away, and I drank water only when he looked at his hands instead of my mouth. I let him leave cloth and bitter green paste near my wing, but I did not let him touch the torn place where pain still lived hot and deep beneath my feathers.

 

Zeno talked anyway.

 

He talked about goats that escaped, brothers who shouted, a mother who worried, and a father who forgot to look at him unless he needed something small done. He spoke like words were stones he was placing between us, one by one, trying to build a path I could choose to cross or leave empty.

 

One afternoon, he brought honey on bread.

 

I smelled it before he pushed it through the net, thick and sweet and golden. My stomach made a sharp sound. His eyes lit, and I hated that he noticed, so I glared.

 

“You like that,” he whispered, pleased.

 

I snatched the bread and turned away.

 

He laughed softly, not teeth-laughter but warm laughter, the kind children made in fields.

 

I chewed slowly, watching him from the corner of my eye. He sat farther away than usual, knees drawn to his chest, a bruise yellowing along his jaw. Theron had given it to him that morning. I had seen.

 

“Zeno,” I said.

 

He went still.

 

I almost swallowed my tongue.

 

His name had come out rough, scraped raw from a throat that did not know how to make gentle sounds. I expected him to laugh, to mock the broken shape of it.

 

He only blinked.

 

“Yes,” he whispered, as if the word mattered.

 

I licked honey from my thumb and looked away. My heart beat too fast. A name given could be used. A name given could become a rope.

 

But he had given me his, again and again, until it felt less like bait and more like a hand left open.

 

“Mitha,” I said.

 

His lips parted.

 

I bared my teeth at him because fear rose too quickly and needed somewhere to go. “Mine,” I snapped.

 

“I know,” he whispered.

 

Then he said it.

 

“Mitha,” he said carefully, slowly, not like a warning shouted across a field, not like spawn, not like vermin, not like harpy spat from a soldier’s mouth.

 

Mitha.

 

Like it was something worth holding without breaking.

 

I looked at him then, really looked, and for the first time, my name did not feel like a thing I had to defend with claws.

 

After that, the shelter changed.

 

Not all at once. Nothing safe was built all at once; safe things grew slowly, like weeds through cracked stone, stubborn and quiet and hard to kill.

 

Zeno brought pieces of the world to me in stolen handfuls.

 

A blanket first, rough wool that smelled like sun and smoke and his house. He shoved it through the net with both hands and backed away before I could decide whether to scratch him for it.

 

“It gets cold at night,” he said quietly.

 

I knew cold. Cold bit; cold climbed under feathers and gnawed at bone. I waited until he looked away before dragging the blanket close.

 

The next day, he brought salve, then dried figs, then a strip of leather he said might help hold my wing still. I hissed at that for a long time, and he set it down without arguing. The leather stayed in the dirt for two days before I touched it, three before I used it.

 

Food came in scraps: cheese wrapped in leaves, bruised olives, crusts of bread, stolen fruit warm from his hands. I liked honey best. Zeno learned that quickly, the sneaky little shit, because after the first time, he watched my face every time he brought it.

 

“You look less murderous when there’s honey,” he told me once, amused.

 

I snapped my teeth at him.

 

He smiled.

 

The shelter became ours in ways I did not understand how to stop. He cleared old dung from one corner, muttering apologies to every goat that had ever lived there, dragged in dry straw, and patched a crack in the wall with flat stones. He hung the fishing net better, so from outside it looked like forgotten junk, but from inside I could still see the field.

 

I began climbing again when my wing hurt less—not flying, not yet, but climbing.

 

The rafters were low and splintered, but they held me. From there, I could watch everything. Zeno laughed the first time he found me above him, then ducked when I dropped a bit of straw on his head.

 

“Rude,” he whispered, half-laughing.

 

I made the clicking sound in my throat that was not quite laughter.

 

Birds came sometimes, bold little things hopping near the shelter for crumbs. I startled them on purpose because their panic made me feel bigger than I was. Zeno scolded me in a whisper, though he was smiling when he did it.

 

“Those birds did nothing to you,” he said gently, his voice laced with concern.

 

“Too close,” I replied, my tone sharp and defensive.

 

“You’re terrifying,” he said, sounding impressed, a hint of admiration in his voice.

 

“Good,” I shot back, my confidence unwavering.

 

“Yes,” he said softly, looking up at me in the rafters, a look of acceptance in his eyes. “Good.”

 

That word stayed with me longer than it should have.

 

Zeno still moved carefully. He still kept space between us and showed me his hands before he gave me anything. But I stopped flinching every time he shifted, stopped baring my teeth at every sound he made. Sometimes, when he sat with his back against the wall and talked about the sea, I listened without pretending I was not.

 

Outside the shelter, the world still had soldiers, brothers, stones, knives, and voices that could turn a name into a wound.

 

Inside, there was straw, stolen honey, salt wind, and Zeno.

 

And slowly, without asking my permission, he became part of the things my body did not fear.

 

I asked him on a rainy day when the world felt soft. The mist darkened the dirt and filled the air with the scent of wet straw. Zeno arrived soaked, hair plastered to his forehead, bread tucked beneath his tunic. He looked ridiculous, and I told him so.

 

“You look drowned,” I said flatly.

 

He grinned as if I had handed him honey. “I feel drowned,” he replied lightly.

 

He squeezed water from his tunic and sat near the wall, leaving the usual space between us. I hated how much I noticed. I tore a piece of bread apart with my claws, watching him from the rafters.

 

“Why?” I asked.

 

He looked up, confused. “Why what?”

 

I clicked my claws against the beam. “Why help?”

 

Zeno’s face changed subtly. His smile faded, brows furrowing, as he stared at the ground, searching for answers in the straw.

 

“Because you were hurt,” he said quietly, concern lacing his voice. 

 

“Others hurt me,” I replied, my tone edged with bitterness. 

 

“I know,” he responded, his eyes reflecting understanding. 

 

“They wanted dead,” I added, a tremor of pain in my voice. 

 

His jaw tightened, determination seeping into his expression. “I know.”

 

I leaned forward, wings shifting behind me. The injured one still ached when the air was damp, but it no longer screamed with every breath. “You Olympian,” I said.

 

He flinched a little at that, not because I was wrong, but because he knew what the word meant in my mouth. “Yes,” he said quietly, a hint of resignation in his voice.

 

“Olympians hurt,” I stated firmly, my expression fierce.

 

“Not all,” he replied defensively, trying to hold his ground.

 

I bared my teeth, my annoyance clear.

 

He swallowed nervously, realizing the weight of his words. “Most,” he corrected, his tone softening as he acknowledged my point. It was a sign that he was learning too.

 

The rain tapped against the roof, tiny fingers on rotten wood.

 

“Why not you?” I asked.

 

Zeno did not answer right away. I waited for big words, for lies dressed in clean clothes, for some reason that would make him sound brave or important or chosen. He only looked at me and said, “They were wrong.”

 

The words were so small, too small for what he had done, too small for soldiers, blood, stolen food, hidden blankets, muddy lies, and all the careful space he kept giving me. I stared at him.

 

He rubbed his thumb over a scratch on his wrist, one of mine that had healed into a thin pale line. “They said you were a monster,” he whispered. “You’re not.”

 

Something twisted inside me, and I turned my gaze to the rain and the field, avoiding his face. The word “monster” haunted me, thriving among thrown stones and sharp voices. Mothers pulled their children close as I approached, with soldiers’ laughter echoing around us.

 

Zeno said it like it wasn’t mine, like someone had put it on me, and he could see it didn’t fit.

 

“I have claws,” I said, my tone assertive, feeling it necessary to remind him of my capabilities.

 

“I know,” he answered calmly, unfazed by my declaration.

 

“Teeth,” I continued, emphasizing my point with a hint of challenge.

 

“I noticed,” he replied, still composed, as if my features were merely an afterthought.

 

“Wings,” I added, my voice steady but laced with a tinge of defiance.

 

He looked up, careful but honest. “They’re beautiful,” he said softly.

 

My body went still. No one had ever called me beautiful—only dangerous, filthy, or wrong. Beautiful belonged to flowers and clean children, not me.

 

Zeno’s face flushed. “Sorry, I just mean they are.”

 

I dropped from the rafter, landing softly in the straw. He startled but stayed put, close enough to see rainwater on his lashes.

 

“Not monster?” I asked, hating the thinness of my voice.

 

“Not monster,” he replied firmly.

 

The shelter felt cramped, the rain deafening, and my heart weighed down by confusing emotions. I struggled to accept kindness, my hands clawing and wings folding around pain.

 

I nodded once.

 

Zeno gave a gentle smile.

 

Outside, Olympus was full of those who viewed me as a monster, but one boy insisted I wasn’t. Slowly, I began to believe him.