Elara Starwhisper's adoption happened on a Tuesday. Terrible planning. Tuesdays are the worst day for major life changes. Everyone's tired. No one is emotionally prepared.
But cosmic bureaucracy, apparently, doesn't care about my scheduling preferences.
I was in my third year of existence (though only two in this body), sitting in the village square while Lyra talked to the adoption official. I was *supposedly* playing with a wooden toy Torvin had made. Mostly, I was just trying not to get annoyed at the official's terrible paperwork management, which was triggering my Glitch.
The girl arrived on a cart. She was maybe two. They'd packed her in a small wooden box with straw, like... cargo.
My first thought: *That's just poor logistics. The straw will itch. She's going to be hysterical.*
She was. A desperate, raw-throated wail.
Lyra, naturally, scooped her up. "There, there, little one. You're safe now. You're with your new family."
The girl kept screaming.
"What's her name?" Lyra asked.
"Elara Starwhisper," the official read from a clipboard. "Starwhisper bloodline. Minor magic, celestial connection, potential for... blah blah blah. Point is, she's traumatized. Been through three foster families."
"Why returned?" Lyra asked, her voice tight.
"Difficult. Stubborn. Refuses to sleep through the night. Throws things when frustrated."
I looked at the screaming kid. *So, emotional regulation problems. Same as me. Except hers are loud and mine break reality. She just needs someone to not try and 'fix' her.*
Lyra, of course, was exactly that person.
"She'll be fine," Lyra said confidently. "Let's go home."
Elara continued to wail as we walked.
This was going to complicate things.
Part Two: Integration Difficulties
The first week was... loud.
Elara didn't understand where she was. She didn't understand that this was permanent. She didn't understand that screaming wouldn't accomplish anything. She screamed anyway, with the kind of dedication that suggested she was trying to file a formal complaint with the entire universe.
My Glitch did *not* appreciate the noise.
Night one: Her screaming rattled a window.
Morning two: My frustration at the *continued* screaming made the kettle boil with a sudden, violent *shriek* of steam that was far too coordinated to be an accident.
By day three, I'd probably activated my power seventeen times, all in small, petty, deniable ways.
"She's just adjusting," Lyra told Torvin (while I was "napping" in my crib). "She needs to feel safe."
"She's *loud*," Torvin replied. "And why is the well pump-handle suddenly sticking? Why are the pans denting?"
"Old equipment," Lyra said, maybe a little too quickly. "Coincidence."
*She knows,* I thought. *She doesn't know 'what,' but she knows it's not 'coincidence.' She's just choosing not to investigate.*
Good. Plausible deniability was my only defense.
By the end of the first week, the constant screaming had tapered off. Elara had attached herself to Lyra like a limpet, and Lyra's bottomless well of patience was actually... working. By week two, Elara's baseline had shifted from "panic" to "cautious hope."
And then the Honeycake Incident complicated that hope.
Part Three: The Honeycake Incident
It happened on a Sunday. Master Thistle had brought honeycakes.
These weren't just *cakes*. They were *the* honeycakes. Small, delicate, glazed. The most desirable food in Lunaris.
Lyra, in a critical error, set them on a low table. Three of them. A perfect, tiny pyramid.
Elara and I were both in the room.
Elara noticed them first. Her eyes went wide. She was still operating on "see food, grab food" logic. She toddled forward, hand outstretched.
I felt... a weird mix of things.
1. Annoyance (she's going to make a mess).
2. Concern (Lyra will be upset).
3. A strange, unfamiliar protective impulse.
The protective impulse won.
I *still* say it was an accident.
Her foot caught on... something. Air? An uneven floorboard?
She pitched forward. A total yard-sale.
She didn't just hit the cakes. She *demolished* them.
And she landed, covered in sticky glaze, right in my lap.
She looked up at me, tears welling. Not from the fall. From the *loss* of the cakes. "I... I wanted..."
"You fell," I said. (Technically true.) "Inefficient. You should have asked."
"Can I... have?"
I looked at the wreckage. I looked at this tiny, traumatized girl who was just learning how to want things again. And I made a decision my efficiency-brain still regrets.
"After they're remade," I said. "This requires proper planning."
Her face lit up. "You help?"
"No. You'll ask Lyra. She'll make more. Then you'll eat them. That's the process."
She scrambled off my glaze-covered legs and ran for the kitchen, screaming "HONEYCAKE!" at the top of her lungs.
I stared at my lap.
*Was that kind? Or just... manipulative?* I genuinely couldn't tell.
Part Four: The Vow
I *really* didn't anticipate the fallout from that.
Elara apparently decided the incident was proof that I was hopelessly, fundamentally clumsy. She'd seen me stumble before (my consciousness and this toddler body were *not* always in sync). She'd seen me bump into things.
Her logical conclusion: I was an accident-prone idiot who needed protection.
She made it official a week later. We were in the village square. She physically pushed me into a sitting position on a stone bench.
"You sit," she commanded, mimicking Lyra's firm tone. "You stay. Don't fall. I protect you now."
"That's not necessary," I said.
"You. Clumsy." She sat down next to me, jamming her shoulder against mine with grim determination. "I protect. Forever. You're my brother. I protect."
It took my brain 2.3 seconds to process the new data.
*A two-year-old has just vowed to protect a god-tier being from 'falling down' based on a misunderstanding that I, myself, caused by tripping her.*
This was, without question, the stupidest and least efficient outcome I could have predicted.
And yet... the *conviction* in her voice. "Forever." The absolute certainty that she, smaller and weaker in every way, was my defender.
It was...
...endearing.
"Okay," I said. "You can protect me. That would be... efficient."
She seemed satisfied. She spent the next hour glaring at butterflies that got too close, as if challenging them to make me fall over.
Part Five: The Starwhisper Situation
The adoption papers had come with extra documentation. "Starwhisper bloodline," it read. "Minor magical heritage with potential for celestial power development."
So, Elara was somebody's abandoned magical prodigy. Someone had decided she was too "difficult" and dumped her in the system.
The sheer *waste* of it all, the inefficiency, made my power twitch with annoyance.
Over the next few months, Elara changed. She laughed. She stopped waking up screaming. She became obsessed with "protecting" me from imaginary threats.
And very, very occasionally... her eyes would glow.
Just for a second. A faint, pale blue. The air around her would shimmer like starlight.
It was uncontrolled. Rare. But it was *there*.
She had power. Dormant, but present.
And she had decided her life's purpose was to be a bodyguard for a god-in-toddler-form who she thought was clumsy.
Life had become significantly more complicated. And, weirdly, a little less lonely.
*This is not an efficient outcome,* I noted, as Elara declared war on a dandelion seed. *But it might not be a terrible one.*
Part Six: The Pattern Established
Over the next year, we became a... *thing*... in the village. Haru and Elara.
People saw it completely backward. I was the quiet, clumsy, vulnerable one. She was my fierce, tiny protector. It was a perfect cover, so I didn't correct it.
She'd walk everywhere with her hand on my arm, ready to "catch" me. I'd *let* her.
And in return, I began to unconsciously protect *her*.
When the village bullies started to notice her, they'd suddenly trip over their own feet. When someone was mean to her, a wasp would develop a sudden, personal, and aggressive interest in their face. When she was sad, a pretty, distraction-worthy bird would land right in front of her.
We were, in our own strange, backward way, taking care of each other.
The village just saw a quiet boy and his protective sister.
Which was, I had to admit, an efficient cover.
Part Seven: Mira's Observation
I ran into Mira again during Elara's second year with us.
She was nine now, apprenticing at the healer's office. I was at the market with Lyra. Elara, naturally, was standing next to me, "protecting."
Mira was gathering herbs. She saw me and stopped.
She just... looked at me.
I recognized that look. It was the same one from when the book fell. The "this-doesn't-add-up" look.
"Hi, Haru," she said finally, her voice way too thoughtful. "You're looking well."
"I'm looking the same as I always look," I replied. (I was four. I shouldn't be saying things like that.)
Mira smiled, but it wasn't a real smile. "Yeah. You always do. That's weird, right? You don't really change. Not the way other kids do."
"I'm efficient at maintaining consistency," I said.
"Right. Efficient." She glanced at her mentor, then back at me. "Well, see you around. I'm sure we'll run into each other. For some reason, I'm always where you are."
She walked away.
*This is going to be a problem,* I thought. *Someone's going to figure it out, and it's probably going to be her.*
Beside me, Elara glared at Mira's departing back.
"Why she look at you?" Elara demanded.
"I don't know," I said.
"I don't like it." She puffed out her chest. "I protect you. She should know you're... *taken*."
"I'm not taken. That's not how people work."
"You should be," Elara announced, as if it were a law of physics. "You're *mine* to protect."
I couldn't really argue with that logic. So I didn't.
Part Eight: The Foundation
By the end of my third year in this body, my situation was fundamentally altered.
I was no longer a solo operative.
I had Lyra and Torvin as a stable cover.
I had Elara, who had built her entire personality around a mythology where I was a clumsy idiot and she was my knight.
I had Mira, who was watching me like I was a math problem she couldn't solve.
I had Mika (the street kid), who kept having the *worst* luck whenever she was nearby. (I maintained plausible deniability, of course. My power was *definitely* not doing that on purpose.)
My quiet life was getting... crowded.
It was inefficient. It was messy. And it was, apparently, unavoidable.
Ætheria, I was certain, was loving every minute of it.
Epilogue: Cosmic Perspective
In the void, Ætheria was practically vibrating.
"Oh, did you *see* that?" she squealed at Sylvara. "He *deliberately* tripped her! He made her fall onto him so she'd be dependent on him for comfort! And then she decided *she* had to protect *him*! It's the most beautiful, backward-ass dynamic I've ever created!"
"That's... actually kind of sad," Sylvara observed. "A girl forced to be his protector when he's the one with god-tier power."
"It's *hilarious*," Ætheria corrected. "Also, that other girl—Mira—she's starting to get suspicious. And the street child he keeps 'accidentally' torturing? Oh, this is going to spiral *gloriously*!"
Valthor, from his ledger station, just sighed and updated his probability calculations.
"The Starwhisper bloodline activating," he muttered, "is going to create seventeen new causality branches. This paperwork is a nightmare."