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Bavanda froze.

The air caught in her throat.

It was just a murmur. Probably a reflex. Serra might have taught him to say that. Maybe he didn’t know what it meant. Maybe he didn’t mean it at all.

But that single word shattered her.

She dropped her forehead to his curls, her body shaking as silent sobs broke free. “I’m not your mama,” she whispered, voice crumbling. “But I’ll never leave you. Not again.”

Loco found them like that.

He had taken a different room after Alexander showed up, claiming that the two needed their space to bond without him intruding. He’d come to check on her however, he did that every night, saying little but showing up like a shadow that refused to vanish. He paused in the doorway, leaning quietly against the frame, arms crossed, eyes heavy with something he didn’t say aloud.

Bavanda didn’t move. She just looked up at him, tears still fresh on her face, Alexander pressed close to her side.

“I think he thinks I’m her,” she said.

Loco stepped inside, slow, calm, like the moment was glass and he didn’t want to break it. “He thinks you’re someone who makes him feel safe. That’s all he knows right now.”

Bavanda exhaled shakily. “I don’t know how to do this, Loco. I don’t know how to be this person.”

“You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be here for him.”

He knelt beside her, reached up, and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “You’ve fought monsters, faced darkness, led warriors. But this? This is the part that makes you strongest, Bavanda. The part where you choose to stay.”

They sat there for a long while.

There was no words, just the sound of Alexander’s steady breathing, and two people trying to heal. Loco eventually rested his hand on her back, grounding her.

Bavanda looked down at her brother, her voice barely audible. “I used to think I’d never belong in this world. Not as a daughter. Not as a sister. Not even as a Luna.”

Loco leaned his forehead to hers. “You belong to all of it,” he said. “You always did. And now... so does he.”

For the first time in weeks, something like peace flickered in her chest. Just a small warmth or something that felt like hope, like the feeling of small hands curling into yours and calling you something you never thought you’d be.

Mama.

Sleep found her, in the arms of her true love, and younger brother. Something this close to peace.

***

The moonlight shimmered over the rebuilt hall the next night, casting a silver glow on the once-broken stones. Repairs had moved faster than expected—thanks to the unity forged through shared pain—but the heart of the pack still ached. There were no songs, nor dances. Only quiet strength and steady hands.

Bavanda, still recovering, was slowly becoming the anchor they looked to. She hadn’t claimed the Luna title, she couldn't do that, not when her mother was still alive. But everyone could see it.

She coordinated healing rotations, oversaw patrol shifts, even organized the nightly gatherings for those who had lost family—to sit, to grieve, to remember.

She did it all without a crown. It was not like she didn't have a choice, this was just what she wanted to do.

And now, in the quiet corners of her day, she had Alexander.

At first, she kept a distance—always finding some task to occupy her hands while Serra tended to the boy. But Alexander followed her.bHe was clumsy, yet endearing, trotting after her with tiny legs. As if her shadow had taken toddler form.

She tried to ignore it.

One morning, she walked into the kitchen to find flour scattered across the counter and a small boy—barefoot, beaming—covered in dough. Serra was nowhere in sight.

“Alexander,” Bavanda gasped, rushing to him. “What are you…what is this?”

“P-pahcake,” he said proudly, holding up a lumpy, half-eaten circle of sticky batter.

Bavanda blinked. “Pancake?”

He nodded, face beaming with approval.

A small sound escaped her lips—half-laugh, half-sob. She scooped him up, flour and all, and sat him on the countertop.

“Well,” she said, brushing a smudge off his cheek, “it’s a little burnt… but I think it’s the best pancake I’ve ever seen.”

He grinned and leaned into her chest, sticky hands smearing more dough across her tunic. From the doorway, Loco watched the scene unfold. He just leaned against the frame with a slow smile tugging at his lips.

Later that afternoon, Loco helped her and Alexander plant flowers near the memorial stones. Bavanda noticed how gentle he was with her brother, letting the boy bury roots while he whispered stories of fierce wolf warriors and brave little cubs who saved the day.

Alexander listened like it was gospel. Sometimes, he even reached for Loco before Bavanda. It didn’t bother her. Not really.

That night, after she had bathed Alexander and tucked him into a corner bed in her chamber, Bavanda sat near the window, staring out at the night sky.

She hadn’t been this exhausted in weeks. Her limbs ached. Her back throbbed. But when she looked at the small body curled beneath her blanket, the pain dulled.

He mumbled in his sleep. She turned.

“Mm… Mama…”

Bavanda froze. Again?

Her hand clutched the edge of the windowsill, breath caught in her throat. It was the second time, yet it still shook her so much. Why would he call her that two times in a row?

He was dreaming. He didn’t know. Maybe he meant Serra. Maybe it was just a sound.

She tried to tell herself this, to calm her racing heart down, but her knees buckled before she could stop it, and she found herself on the floor beside his bed, hands pressed over her mouth.

The sound that escaped her was too soft to call a sob, but it was sharp. Loco came in moments later. His face shifted when he saw her on the floor, curled up beside Alexander’s bed.

He said nothing, gave no explanation or whatsoever. He simply knelt beside her, wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, and held her.

They sat like that for a long time.

Two souls tangled by war, blood, and things they could never undo, clinging to a new life they didn’t expect, but somehow needed.

The boy sighed in his sleep. Both of them stayed.

Morning crawled by like the fastest being in the universe. Bavanda felt like she had been carrying a huge weight on her shoulders all these days, yet somehow, that morning, she felt lighter.

After handing over Alexander to Serra, she decided to go see her father.

The fire in Baron’s office crackled quietly, casting dancing shadows over the shelves of worn books and rolled maps. Bavanda stood by the door, hesitant, one hand resting against the frame.

Baron looked up from the half-written patrol logs. He hadn’t touched his drink. A tiredness clung to his eyes.

His voice was hoarse. “You okay? You look like hell." He said jokingly.

Bavanda managed a smile. “You're one to talk."

“You’ve taken on too much,” he said gruffly. “You’ll burn out.”

“You mean like you did?” Her voice was quiet. Wry.

He blinked. Then, he chuckled. “Maybe.”

A pause.

She walked further in, settling in the chair across from him. “Alexander called me mama last night.” she looked at him to see his reaction. “It's the second time."

Baron’s expression cracked.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she went on. “I broke down. Sat on the floor and cried like someone had carved me open.”

He nodded slowly. “I think I did the same when Avynna first said she was pregnant. Except it was happy tears.”

They both laughed softly, tired and bitter and healing.

Baron leaned back, fingers steepled. “You know, I thought if I just protected the pack, did my duty… everything else would fix itself. But now she's in this coma, and you've walked into fire after fire, and my son barely knows my name.”

“He’s my brother,” Bavanda said, quietly. “But it’s hard to even call him that. We’ve all failed him.”

“No,” Baron said, voice steel-edged. “We failed you too.”

Bavanda swallowed.

Baron looked at her, eyes fierce now. “I don’t care what darkness you carried. I should’ve fought harder to see you, not the threat you might become.”

Silence.

Then she whispered, “I was so scared of holding Alexander. Afraid that if I loved him, I’d lose him too. Like everything else.”

Baron reached across the desk and took her hand. A rare gesture.

“You still have me,” he said. “And one day, when your mother wakes up—and she will—you’ll still have her too.”

Bavanda’s eyes brimmed.

“And if I don’t?” she whispered.

“Then,” he said, voice steady, “you’ll have to live in a way that brings her peace. That brings you peace.”

They sat together a while longer, in a quiet truce—father and daughter, not perfect, not healed, but mending.

Meanwhile, inside the Inner Realm, Avynna floated in a field of silver fog. Time didn't work here, she barely felt any pain either. All she got was silence.

Although, lately, something had changed.

She could feel a hum beneath her skin, like the heartbeat of the earth calling her back. At first, it was faint. Now it pulsed stronger with every passing hour.

A child’s laughter echoed through the mist.

“Alexander?” she whispered.

There was no response.

Instead, she got ripples of wind carrying images like glass fragments—Baron holding Bavanda’s hand. Bavanda cradling a small boy to her chest. The courtyard filled with wolves staring reverently at her daughter.

A tear slid down Avynna’s cheek, though her body remained still in the waking world. “She’s… rising,” she murmured.

At that moment, the Moon Goddess stepped from the fog, draped in celestial light.

“She needs you,” Avynna whispered.

“No,” the goddess replied, voice soft. “She needed to find herself first. And she has.”

Avynna turned to her. “Then… why am I still here?”

“Because your work is not finished,” the goddess said. “Not in spirit, and not in blood.”

A vision surged—one of darkness creeping back, of a false
bond being forged, of Bavanda’s heart breaking again.

Avynna gasped, clutching her chest.

“Prepare yourself, Avynna. Your daughter will need her mother again. Sooner than you think.”