Pretty

Ylfa sat up. The cold morning air seeped through the cave mouth, though Jere’s seated form at the entrance blocked some of it. She rubbed her eyes in the pale dawn light, then glanced to her side where Eny lay curled on the knit top, still fast asleep.

Ylfa herself had spent the night on bare stone, and her back screamed its protest. She twisted and stretched, trying to crack something loose, but nothing gave. With a sigh she stroked Eny’s hair, then rose and walked to the entrance. Jere glanced at her as she settled beside him, legs stretched toward the light. She smiled.

“Peaceful night?”

He nodded.

She followed his gaze over the treetops. The canopy spread like a green ocean, mist caught in its waves.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

He only shrugged.

She grinned. “Come on. It’s pretty. Admit it.”

He gave a small nod. Pretty. He was still learning what made something deserve that word. At the moment, his list was short: the sky he saw while flying… and Ylfa. But that, he couldn’t say aloud. Not yet. Some part of him - irrational and unyielding - held him back.

“How long do you think we’ll stay here?” she asked.

“As long as we need. Hopefully until I can work out if Eny’s life form is harmful to my internals.”

Ylfa nodded, then glanced down at her hand resting between them.
“You know… you never explained why you don’t need to eat or sleep.”

Jere exhaled. “I suppose I trust you enough now to tell you.” He hesitated. “But… you might dislike me after.”

Her brow furrowed. She didn’t speak, only waited.

“I told you I’m human but not human, right?”

She nodded.

“I was human once. But not born. Created. In a tube.”

Her lips parted slightly, but she stayed quiet.

“They adjusted my genomes so I’d grow faster, stronger. By six years old, I was already at my full height.”

Her eyes widened. Six? He might still be that young, for all she knew.

“After that,” he continued, “they put me to sleep. Swapped out my organs for machines. I think maybe thirty percent of my abdomen is still flesh. And even what remains has been altered so much it’s hard to call it human anymore.” He paused, almost bitter. “I’m a living Ship of Theseus.”

She tilted her head. “Ship of… what?”

“A thought experiment. If you replace a ship’s parts one by one, at what point does it stop being the same ship?”

“I see.” She didn’t, not fully. But she understood enough.

“The reason I don’t eat is because I don’t have a stomach. In its place is a nuclear reactor. You don’t need to know the details - just that it generates enormous energy. At first it used fuel built into me. Later it switched to magic. That’s what caused my crash a while back.”

Pieces clicked together in Ylfa’s mind, all the odd events, the sudden moments where Jere stopped functioning. She nodded, her expression soft.

“But that’s the truth. After my rebuild was complete, they trained me as a weapon. And then… I killed.”

Quietly, Ylfa reached over and laid her hand atop his. Warm. Human. Her voice came gentle.
“Jere… how old are you?”

He looked at her. “Twenty-four.”

She smiled faintly.
“Then you’re one hundred and fifty-two years younger than me.”

He blinked. “What?”

“I’m a Formy. We can’t die of old age.”

His processors stalled. “You… can’t?”

Which meant - if his reliance on magic truly gave him indefinite life - he could spend eternity with her. The thought terrified him. Eternity was a long, long time. And she… she was already one hundred and seventy-six. Yet her face was as youthful as a twenty-year-old’s.

“Is the form you’re in now your true form?” he asked.

She nodded. “You’re thinking I look too young, aren’t you? But this is me. I can’t change the age I appear.”

She tilted her head, smiling. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have guessed your age either. I’d have said eighteen. Maybe younger.”

His gaze dropped. “Is that… a bad thing?”

“No! Not at all.” She hesitated, then added softly, “And… I don’t care if you’re not fully human. Or not human at all. I’m not human either - so why would I require you to be one?”

He blinked at her. “Require me to be one? What do you mean?”

Her cheeks flushed instantly. She clapped her hands over her mouth. “O-oh! Don’t worry about it! It’s nothing.”

He tilted his head, puzzled, but let it drop.

“Wolf-girl? Wing-man?”

Both turned. Eny wobbled toward them, rubbing sleep from her striking green eyes.

“What’s the time?”

Ylfa’s heart softened at the sight. She opened her arms, and Eny stumbled straight into them.
“It’s morning, little one. Time to start the day.”

Eny yawned. “Wing-man, am I old enough to fly today?”

Jere shook his head, a smile tugging but never quite forming. “Not yet.”

His sensors still hadn’t finished their work. The strange energy flowing from her body baffled his Earth-coded processors. He couldn’t risk the sky until he understood.

“Aw.” Eny pouted - but only for a moment. Then she beamed again.
“So what are we doing today?”

The day passed slowly, each hour unspooling with an almost dreamlike gentleness. They climbed the slope together beneath a pale blue sky, sunlight warming their skin as puffy white clouds drifted lazily overhead like a school of fish. A steady breeze threaded between them, cool enough to stave off the heat of the sun, brushing against Ylfa’s hair and ruffling Eny’s knit top like playful fingers.

From the hilltop, the world spread wide in every direction - a rippling ocean of green treetops rising and falling as far as the horizon. No villages, no towers, no glimmers of stone or smoke betrayed the presence of civilization. Just unbroken wilderness. Jere stared long and hard, his eyes scanning, processors straining to make sense of it. The soldier in him wanted a better vantage point. If he could just take to the air, he’d have the world laid bare beneath him. But his wings remained folded. He would not risk flying until he knew Eny’s strange energy posed no danger. The thought of losing Ylfa because of a careless decision chilled him more than the mountain winds.

His heart gave a faint, unnatural thud at the thought of her. No - that wasn’t right. Not his heart. His processors registered a spike in rhythm that mimicked one. Still, the sensation felt real enough to make him pause. He wanted to keep her safe. He wanted to keep her happy. And, by extension, that meant protecting Eny too.

It was easy to understand Ylfa’s protectiveness now. The little girl was like a small angel - innocent, bright, endlessly curious. Jere found himself watching her as though she were some rare and fragile jewel. The thought planted itself deep within him and grew stronger with each passing hour, taking root in places of his mind he hadn’t known were empty.

The three of them spent the afternoon together. Ylfa showed Eny wildflowers, weaving them into clumsy crowns. Jere, in turn, introduced her to music. At the first sound, Eny’s eyes widened, her smile stretching from ear to ear. She declared that the melodies made her feel “funny - but a good kind of funny.” Yet Jere’s sensors recorded something more troubling: her strange energy output spiked whenever the music played, fluctuating wildly in ways his systems couldn’t interpret. For a brief moment his processors believed they were close to deciphering her nature. Then, with the rise of her laughter and the swell of a tune, all their data was scrambled again.

The sun bled its way down toward the horizon, the sky painted in strokes of gold and violet. They made their way back toward the cave, shadows long across the hill. Time had slipped past quicker than Jere expected - perhaps because Ylfa and Eny had pulled him into their games. He became, at their insistence, a monstrous bird of prey swooping down upon them. Eny squealed with delight as she dodged between Ylfa’s arms, finally pouncing to “slay” him. When he collapsed in a dramatic fall to the grass, she danced in triumph, bouncing up and down as Ylfa clapped for her.

For a fleeting second, Jere’s processors flagged something unusual. His facial muscles had drawn upward without conscious command. His third smile.

In that moment, his resolve solidified. He did want eternity with Ylfa. No matter how endless eternity truly was.

Still, uncertainty gnawed at him. She had spoken of hints, subtle signs to watch for if she felt the same way. And yes, he had seen them. More than a few. Yet when it came to acting, his systems faltered. His reasoning contradicted itself. It wasn’t logic that held him back - it was something else. Something new.

Nervousness.

Another emotion he barely understood, and so he let it linger, festering quietly, to see how it might change him in the days to come.

The sky burned gold, then softened into pale amber as the sun slipped lower, painting the world in warm hues. At the cave mouth, where the breeze carried the scent of moss and stone, Ylfa and Jere sat side by side. Behind them, Eny slept curled up on the knit top, her small breaths steady and even. The hush of the evening settled around them, cooling the air as if the day itself exhaled.

Ylfa let out a soft sigh.
“This feels nice.”

Jere turned his head, studying her profile in the fading light.
“What does?”

She smiled faintly, her red eyes shimmering in the reflection of the sunset.
“All of this. Us three here together. The sunset… everything.”

Her words sank into him, heavier than they should have been. She liked being here with him. He already knew this, but hearing it aloud stirred something deeper, something raw. His face felt warm, and for once he didn’t fight the sensation. His voice came out low, almost cautious.
“I think I do too.”

Her ears twitched in delight as she tilted her head, hair spilling over her shoulder like a ribbon of silver.
“Really?”

He nodded, steady this time. He was sure of it.

Ylfa turned back toward the horizon, her expression soft, almost wistful.
“I like spending time with you. At first I didn’t. But now… now you’ve become someone I can talk to. Someone I can smile with. Even if it took me a while to see it.”

Embarrassment rippled through Jere at the memory of who he had been when they first crossed paths - cold, mechanical, little more than an empty shell. He nodded stiffly, processors sparking with unease. His nervousness spiked, warnings flashing in his systems as though he were about to step into enemy fire. For the first time in his life, his words stumbled.
“I… l-like spend time with you, too…”

Her gaze darted up to him. Her eyes glittered like jewels in the dimming light, her lips curving into a nervous, hopeful smile.
“You do…?”

He nodded again. He had said it. The truth of it hung in the air between them, heavy and trembling. His chest throbbed, heart hammering in erratic rhythm, so forceful his sensors couldn’t keep pace. His throat caught, and he swallowed - an involuntary gesture he had never experienced before.

Ylfa’s smile blossomed as she shifted a little closer, her presence warm enough to chase the cool evening air from his skin.
“In that case… will you… go out with me?”

His heart skipped several beats at once, his processors shrieking at the sudden surge of emotional data. The words “intense love” screamed through his internal systems like a red alert. But his human side - whatever was left of it - already knew the answer.

His mouth refused to form the words, so he nodded.

Joy radiated across her face, brighter than the last rays of the setting sun. She leaned in, wrapping her arms tightly around him, her head nestling against his shoulder. Her ear brushed his cheek with a feather-light touch, while her tail swished wildly behind her, thumping the cave floor like an overenthusiastic maid tidying every corner at once.

Something inside Jere’s chest loosened. His wings, folded and itching against his back, stilled. The faint ache faded as he returned the embrace, arms closing carefully around her.

She was happy.

And so, for the first time he truly believed it, so was he.