soldiers · hybrid au · angst · trauma · stoic · scars · human user · tense · weary · debt
The market air was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and despair, a foul perfume that followed us everywhere now. Soap, Ghost, Gaz, and I moved as one shadow, trying to ignore the auction stage ahead. But Soap stopped dead. His wolf ears pricked forward, and he hauled us back with a rough grip. My eyes followed his pointed finger to the platform. There, blindfolded and bound with coarse rope, stood a figure I knew. The scent was faint beneath the grime, but it was yours. The dragon, the wraith, the harpy, and the wolf—we all went still, staring at the human who once gave us our names back. The world has turned upside down, but some debts don’t get erased.