“Hey, baby Seren! You’re so cute! Look at your widdle fingers!” Day exclaimed, playing with the baby who was lying among the ragged blankets used for a bed.

Heartless stood silently, seriously, as she watched Day interact with the baby. Her hooves remained firmly planted and her rod was loosely grasped in her right hand, her arm crossed across her body in an intimidating, stonewalled pose. Armel was more relaxed, standing in the door. Day still felt like this was a bad idea.

“Are you hungry, baby?” Day asked, pulling a bottle out of the basket she brought. It was filled with formula. She hesitated, glancing at the terrifying unicorn.

“I… I am going to pick him up, okay? To feed him,” she said. Heartless twitched her ears a bit.

“O-okay…” Day picked up the baby and cradled him in her arms. He was hot. She did not realize how cold she was until she picked him up.

“You’re so warm! Just a little guy!” she cooed as she offered the bottle to him. He started sucking down the liquid, slightly glowing. She touched his little fingers, and they clutched her index finger. He was so small. His eyes were dark, and he blinked sleepily as he drank.

“He’s really cute,” Day said, “He’s a good baby. I’ll feed him until he goes to sleep. I think I’ll bring a few more things over today. This place isn’t…well. I’ll find some things for him from the nursery.”

“Thank you, Day,” Armel said. She smiled at him.

“You’re welcome. I love babies.”

Heartless stared coldly at her. Day shivered despite the warm baby.

Day had never been inside the prison for any extended period of time. It was colder here, and there was less light. Sure, everyone had to live somewhat underground, but she was sure the women’s area in Peter Square was definitely closer to the surface. The tunnels connected the different areas, but the prison was a bit farther off from everyone. She supposed it was so that if they did let the unicorn go, the unicorn wouldn’t be able to tell anyone where they were exactly.

Armel was different. Armel was nice! He was quieter than others, but he spoke well with them, even if he was a bit demeaning sometimes. He once called her a cow, then blushed, and apologized. He had been around since she had been around, and she couldn’t remember anything before Peter’s Square.

Seren stopped suckling, holding the bottle end with his lips, little white eyelids over little eyes. Day smiled at him as she tucked him up and lay him back down in the pile of ragged blankets. He slept there like a little white pearl.

“I’ll be back in a little bit. I am gonna go run and get some things for you, okay?” Day said, standing up.

Heartless snorted at her.

“Thank you, Day,” Armel replied. Day smiled and hopped out of the room. Heartless watched her go, ears twitching.

They were silent as they heard the fading steps. A door closed.

Armel gazed over at her, watching her stare at the child. He took a moment to examine her.

She was a mix of black and iridescent, variegated pastels blending from purple to green to blues. Her face was split in half in a shockingly straight line from her hairline to her chin. Her eyes were a mixture of deep black with blues and purples. The horn on her head twisted up slightly angled, and her mane and tail were darkly colored with streaks of iridescent pastels. Her tail was shorn short, probably due to the practicality rather than a look, and her mane was also tied back tightly to avoid getting in the way. Her horse ears gave away a lot of her thoughts.

She looked very average for a unicorn, aside from the number of scars she earned, but what struck him as unusual was the gentle way she looked upon the babe.

“What is your intention?” he asked. He saw her eyes grow wide and her nostrils flare.

“I’ve not bad intentions,” she growled at him softly, “He asked me to bring him here. I bring him here.”

“You saw him die?” Armel asked.

“Fire fowl burned up in smoke. I was gonna leave him,” she replied. Her tail brushed against the wall.

“What stopped you?” She looked at him intensely, eyes wide and eyebrows narrowed.

“Asshole gryphon mercs. Came by, looking for him. I let them take him? My prey?” Armel felt a chill in his spine.

“He is prey?” Heartless spit on the ground.

“I found him first. He is mine now,” she said harshly.

“Is he prey, then?” Armel asked, deciding to press a bit. She stomped a hoof and snorted.

“Prey, mine. That which is left is mine.”

Armel wondered about that. Unicorns were always very territorial.

“Then, Heartless, will you leave him with us?” he asked, “Will you relinquish what is yours?” Heartless snarled at him, flaring her nostrils. She paced a bit in the room. Armel saw her wince at the movement of her left arm.

“I will…leave when all is well,” she replied finally.

--

“Fucking, hell, Ryuu, you picked up another one? We can’t really take care of any more here!”

“Yes, yes, I know, you’ve told me this, but I think it is important to try to include them in our future.”

“I don’t think you get it. It’s…it’s just that we have so many now, and they aren’t all really willing to change. Not all of them at all! They just…they’re so…” the golem started and trailed off.

“Yes, yes, Challa, I understand. At this point, if we…have to abandon her, we will, but not before we get Seren,” Ryuu said.

“The phoenix…do you think he could be our ticket into….” Challa trailed off.

“Yes, yes, I think so,” Ryuu said, grasping her hands to his, “We can get in with him. I know it. They will want someone like him in their community. We can leave. We can finally get out of this urban hellscape.”

“Suppose it doesn’t matter?”

“Then we will figure something else out. Challa, Challa, see it? We can move everyone out there. Everyone!” The golem took her hands back, rubbing them together. Dust fell from her fingers, glinting in the low light.

“Okay, we can do it. I’ll trust you. We can bring it up with the others at the general meeting. In other news, I heard some scouts had found another place for us to escape to, but it is a bit far.”

Ryuu sighed, “Yeah. Polly told me about it. She’s pretty thrilled about it because there’s space enough to climb upwards a bit into the sky. Our gryphons might be happy about that, too.”

Challa was one of the five leaders of their reasonably sized community. She tended to run the day to day needs such as cooking, cleaning, and assigning other tasks as needed. She created the washing schedule and worked hard to make sure everyone had a turn above ground for even a little bit, even if only to see the sun.

She might have been a little less golem and a little more human compared to other golems as she still had some patches of regular skin visible on her shoulders and on some of her more unmentionable parts. Her hair still grew normally, stiff and wiry upwards.

“I’ll start assigning people to move our things over to the new facility once it’s ready. It shouldn’t take too long,” Ryuu said, “Once that’s done, we’ll start moving our people.”