Bruce did not remember falling asleep.
One moment she had been curled in the narrow hollow behind the hearth stones, knees tucked to her chest, ash on her feet, rain whispering down the chimney and tapping cold drops onto her head. She had been waiting because Papa had told her to wait. Staying quiet because Papa had told her to hide. Being good, because good girls listened when their parents were coming back.
Then, somehow, the night had taken her. When she woke, sunlight was pouring down the chimney.
It struck her full in the face, bright and golden, and Bruce turned away with a small unhappy sound. For a moment she did not know where she was. The world around her was stone, ash, feathers, and light. Her mouth tasted of smoke. Her hands were black with soot. When she rubbed her eyes, gray streaks smeared across her cheeks. Something warm shifted beside her.
Bruce blinked. The chickens were still there. They had stayed with her all through the night, packed into the hearth hollow in a tired heap of feathers and soft breathing.
The hens looked dusty and battered, their eyes half-closed, their bodies tucked close around her as if she were one of their eggs. One had a bent tail feather. Another had dried blood near her comb. None of them complained, which worried Bruce more than if they had all been screaming.
Pressed against her side lay Mister Terminator.
The rooster had one eye open. He looked terrible and proud at the same time. Feathers were missing from his neck, and a scratch cut across the red comb on his head, but he held himself with such grim dignity that Bruce knew he would rather die than admit he had been frightened.
Bruce stared at him.
"You stayed," she whispered.
Mister Terminator blinked once, as if to say, "Obviously."
Bruce's throat tightened. The door had been open. The forest had been right there. The chickens could have run away after the soldiers left. They could have vanished into the trees and saved themselves from whatever came next.
But they had come back.
They had crowded around her in the dark, kept her warm, and watched over her until morning. They were not just chickens anymore. Not merely loud, foolish, bug-eating, poop-making farm creatures. They had stood by her. They had accepted her into their flock. They were her friends. Very strange friends, yes. But real ones.
Bruce leaned forward before she could think better of it, wrapped her little arms around Mister Terminator's warm feathered body, and pressed a small sooty kiss to his beak.
The rooster made a low, startled cooing sound.
Bruce froze.
Mister Terminator immediately looked away, as if nothing unusual had happened and he had certainly not just made the softest noise in the history of chickens.
Bruce stared at him for one more second. Then she laughed. It was a small laugh. A shaken laugh, but it was real.
"So that is kissing," she whispered.
She still did not properly understand why grown people liked it so much. Mama kissed her forehead all the time, and that felt nice, but confusing. Mama and Papa kissed each other too, which usually made everyone act strange and made Bruce want to look somewhere else.
But now she had learned something important.
Kissing chickens made them act strange too. That changed everything.
For science, and also gratitude, Bruce turned to one of the hens and kissed her gently on the head. The hen fluffed herself into a round ball and made a pleased little cluck.
Bruce kissed another. That one leaned into it so hard she nearly fell over.
A third hen pecked softly at Bruce's sleeve, perhaps in approval, perhaps because she thought the sleeve was food. Either way, the result was promising, all of them seemed pleased.
Bruce sat back, deeply impressed.
"Kiss power," she whispered.
Mister Terminator made a sharp little sound.
Bruce nodded seriously. "Secret power. I use wisely."
After that important discovery, she wriggled out of the hearth.
Ash slid down her dress. Her knees were black. Her once-brushed platinum hair now hung in tangled gray strands around her face. When she stood, she wobbled, grabbed the edge of the hearth, and steadied herself.
Then she looked around. The cabin was quiet, there was no Mama or Papa.
No voice calling her name. No Rob snoring by the fire. No Lili humming while she worked. Only birdsong outside, dripping water, the distant murmur of the forest, and the soft cluck of tired chickens behind her.
Sunlight lay across the floor. It looked like midday, or close enough. Mama and Papa had still not come back.
Bruce swallowed. For a moment she stared at the open doorway and imagined them appearing there. Mama would rush in first, crying and laughing at the same time. Papa would follow, muddy and grinning, saying something stupid and brave, and then they would scoop Bruce up between them and spin her around until she squealed.
Papa had promised, that they would come back. So she only had to wait. Bruce nodded to herself.
"Wait," she whispered. "Good girls wait."
That helped a little.
Then her stomach growled. It was a small, rude sound, but in the silence of the cabin it seemed enormous. Bruce pressed both hands to her belly and frowned. Hunger made thinking harder. Thirst made it worse. If she was going to wait properly, she needed to be strong enough to wait.
So she looked at the cabin properly.
It was not destroyed, but it was hurt. Mud streaked the floor where the soldiers had walked. Straw from the bed had been kicked everywhere. The bench lay upside down, two legs in the air like a dead bug. A clay jar had shattered near the wall, spilling salted fish across the boards. Dried mushrooms had been crushed into crumbs. Clothes were scattered and trampled. Mama's sewing basket had been overturned, thread tangled across the floor like tiny colored snakes.
The table stood crooked. The stew pot lay on its side near the hearth, its rim bent. One of the blankets had been dragged through ash. A broken shelf hung loose from the wall.
Bruce stared at it all. The bad men had not only chased Mama and Papa. They had been rude to the house. That felt personal.
She turned toward the open doorway, lifted one small fist, and shook it at the forest.
"Bad men," she said, with as much danger as a one-year-old girl could manage.
The forest did not answer.
Bruce lowered her fist with a sigh. Being angry was difficult when she was also hungry, thirsty, tiny, and alone. Besides, rage would not fix the bench. Rage would not clean the fish. Rage would not bring Mama and Papa back faster.
Food first, water second, cleaning after, improve home defense later, maybe. Though that thought made her look toward the trees with a sudden nervous twist in her belly. If men came again, what could she do? If wolves came? Foxes? Bears? She had chickens, yes, and Mister Terminator was clearly a warrior, but even he was still mostly feathers.
Bruce pushed the thought away. She needed to focus on one problem at a time.
So she crossed the messy floor and picked up a strip of salted fish. It had fallen from the broken jar, but it was not dirty enough to kill her. Probably. She sniffed it, frowned, and decided survival did not care about presentation.
She took a careful bite. It was tough, dry, and far too salty.
Bruce chewed slowly, because choking to death alone in a cabin after surviving reincarnation, and everything else would be embarrassing beyond measure. She refused to go out that way.
The fish made her thirst worse, but it settled her stomach. Food meant thinking became easier. Thinking meant not crying. Not crying meant she was doing well, probably.
After a few bites, Bruce stood as straight as her small body allowed.
"Water," she decided.
She stepped carefully over broken pottery and crossed the threshold.
Outside, the day was bright and clean, which felt unfair. The sky was blue. Birds chattered in the trees. The lake glittered behind the cabin as if nothing terrible had happened at all.
The garden, however, knew the truth.
Its little fence had gaps punched through it. Stakes lay snapped in the dirt. Plants were crushed beneath boot prints. Herbs had been flattened. Tender shoots were broken. A patch of strawberries had been smashed into red stains.
Bruce stared. The bad men had not even used the garden gate. They had simply stomped through everything like animals with swords.
Bruce clenched both fists.
"Bad men," she whispered again. "No manners."
She was not sure what the punishment for garden crimes was in medieval times. In her old life, maybe someone could sue. Here, people probably challenged each other with swords or wrote angry prayers. Bruce did not currently have a sword, a lawyer, or strong handwriting, so she shook her fist again.
Then she continued toward the lake. The chickens followed.
One by one, they came down from the cabin steps and trailed after her in a tired little line. Mister Terminator walked at the front, because of course he did. Even wounded, he seemed to believe the world required his leadership.
Bruce opened the garden gate with some effort, then toddled down the narrow dirt path toward the shore.
At the familiar flat stone beside the lake, she knelt carefully and scooped water into her hands.
The lake water was cool, clean, and wonderful. It washed the salt from her mouth and soothed her dry throat. She drank again, then splashed some over her hands and rubbed at her face until soot clouded the surface in gray swirls.
When the water cleared, her reflection stared back.
A tiny girl looked up at her. Round cheeks, violet eyes, tangled blonde hair, dirty now, but still shining white-gold where sunlight touched it. Soot marked her nose. A scratch crossed one cheek. Her mouth was set in a very serious line, though it looked more like a pout than a warrior's expression.
Bruce scowled, the reflection scowled back adorably, which was unfortunate.
Even angry as she was now, she did not look like a warrior. She did not look like someone bad men should fear. She looked like a dirty little woodland child with chickens.
Bruce sighed. Then she looked harder. Maybe that was enough for now.
She had no gun, no badge, no big body, no Frank beside her as backup, no phone, no parents. She had tiny hands, a light-heart, a damaged cabin, and a flock of loyal chickens.
That was fine, she would use those.
Bruce lifted her chin and looked out across the shining lake. The trees whispered in the distance. The water rippled softly below her. The whole world seemed much too large, but she had already died once. She had already been given another chance. She was not going to waste it by being useless.
"I will survive," she said carefully. "I will wait for Mama and Papa. I will be a good girl."
The lake rippled.
Bruce thought about that, then added, stronger this time, "I will be useful girl."
Behind her, Mister Terminator clucked breaking the moment of silence. Bruce nearly screamed, she spun around and found the whole flock watching her.
The hens stood in a loose half-circle, blinking with solemn chicken interest. Mister Terminator stood at the front, proud and wounded, as if he had personally witnessed her oath and found it legally binding.
Bruce pressed a hand to her chest.
"Do not scare me," she told him.
Mister Terminator blinked. Bruce nodded toward the cabin, "Now we clean home."
The chickens offered no objection. That meant agreement, probably.
Bruce wiped her wet hands on her already filthy dress and looked back toward the cabin. It stood beneath the morning sun, broken and silent, but still standing.
Mama and Papa would come back. Until then, their home needed her. So Lilypad, once Bruce Redford, future useful girl and current leader of a questionable chicken army, turned from the lake and started back toward the cabin to clean.
Yet when Bruce, now deciding to call herself Lily, which was short for Lilypad returned to the cabin, she found the rats had come.
They were always there, somewhere beneath the floorboards or hiding in the forest shadows, but now they had grown bold. Three of them crouched near the broken jar, nibbling at the few strips of salted fish she had managed to gather. Their little bodies twitched over the food as if the cabin belonged to them now.
For one stunned second, Lily only stared. Then outrage filled her tiny body from head to toe.
"No!" she screamed.
She charged at them with both fists raised, shrieking like a furious little ghost. The rats scattered at once, claws skittering over the boards as they fled toward the back wall and vanished through a small dark hole near the floor.
Mister Terminator and the seven hens rushed inside after her, startled by all the screaming. They stopped near the doorway in a nervous feathered cluster, heads tilting, eyes bright, clearly prepared for battle but uncertain what kind of battle had just happened.
"Rats," Lily told them, pointing at the hole with grave importance. "Bad rats."
Mister Terminator puffed himself up and gave the hole a sharp, offended cluck.
Lily nodded. "Yes. Criminal rats."
Acting quickly, she dragged scraps of torn cloth across the floor and stuffed them into the hole. It was not a proper repair. It was barely even a blockage. But it was something, and something was better than letting the rats walk in and out of her home like they paid rent.
After that, she began building a barricade.
Or at least, something like one.
She gathered broken pottery, bits of wood, scraps of overturned basket, and anything else small enough for her to drag. Piece by piece, she hauled them toward the doorway and arranged them into a low, crooked wall. It would not stop a man. It probably would not stop a determined fox. But perhaps it would confuse rats, slow down rabbits, and make Lily feel slightly less exposed. That was valuable.
While cleaning the shattered pottery, she cut her finger. The pain flashed bright and sharp. Lily gasped, dropped the broken piece, and stared at the bead of red swelling on her small fingertip. For a moment she wanted Mama so badly that the whole cabin blurred.
But then the light-heart stirred. Warmth moved through her hand, soft and familiar. The cut tingled, tightened, and slowly closed until only a faint pink line remained.
Lily sniffed.
"Thank you," she whispered to the light inside her.
After that, she was more careful.
Still, there was only so much she could do. She moved clothes into a pile. She dragged the worst pottery shards away from the middle of the floor. She gathered the remaining salted fish and managed, after much effort, to push it up onto the bed where the rats would have a harder time reaching it.
But why did the bed have to be so high. And the table was way too heavy for her. The bench would also not turn over no matter how hard she pushed. The door still hung crooked and useless, half-open to the world. Lily tried to lift it, tried to shove it back into place so it would at least block the doorway properly, but the wood barely moved.
She pushed until her arms shook. Nothing. She kicked it once, still nothing.
At last, exhausted, she stumbled backward and sat down hard on the cabin steps.
Her little chest rose and fell. Sweat dampened her dirty hair. Her hands ached. Around her, the chickens wandered through the broken garden, pecking at the dirt and searching for worms as if this were just another day.
Lily looked at the damaged fence. At the snapped stakes. At the crushed herbs. At the red stains where strawberries had been. She looked back into the cabin, where the mess still waited for her, too large and too heavy and too much.
A cold, terrible feeling settled in her stomach. She could not fix this, not really.
She could move small things. She could scare rats. She could heal a cut on her finger. But she could not repair the door. She could not lift the bench. She could not rebuild the garden. She could not make fire the way Mama did. She could not hunt like Papa. She could not reach the bread hanging from the ceiling poles. She could barely carry salted fish without feeling as if she had completed a gym workout.
She was supposed to be useful.
Instead, she was one very small girl in a broken cabin, with dirty clothes, hungry chickens, and no parents.
Lily sat there on the steps, staring into the trees and listening.
Maybe Mama would call soon. Maybe Papa would come crashing through the brush, laughing, dirty, tired, and alive. Maybe they were just hiding. Maybe they were waiting until the bad men went away. Maybe they were almost here.
She listened harder. Only the forest answered.
Leaves whispered. Birds called. Somewhere far off, water moved over stones. The lake glittered behind the cabin, bright and calm and unfairly beautiful.
Lily tried to be strong. She truly did, but the longer she sat there, the heavier everything became. The empty doorway. The quiet cabin. The missing voices. The broken garden. The awful uncertainty of not knowing how long "we will come back" was supposed to mean.
Her lips trembled.
"No," she whispered. "Good girls do not cry."
That did not help.
The tears came anyway. At first they were silent. Then they grew messy and hot, streaking down her dirty cheeks and making clean paths through the soot. Lily rubbed at them angrily with her sleeve, but more kept coming. She cried because she was tired. Because she was hungry. Because Mama was gone. Because Papa was gone. Because she had tried to fix things and the house was still broken.
She cried until the sun slid lower. No one came.
By evening, the chickens waddled back toward the cabin one by one. The hens settled near the steps, soft and watchful. Mister Terminator came last and took his place behind Lily, standing close enough that his feathers brushed her back. It was a small comfort.
But as the light faded, the forest changed.
During the day, it was green and bright and full of birds. At night, it became something else. The trees turned black. The spaces between them deepened. Owls called from somewhere high above, low and strange and hollow. Wings burst suddenly from branches as birds startled one another in the dark. The bushes rustled whenever the night wind moved through them, and each sound seemed closer than it should have been.
Then she heard something near the garden fence. It was not wind. Something was moving carefully with soft steps. Then it paused, then another step.
Her eyes darted toward the trees.
The rats scratched under the floorboards inside the cabin. Outside, something prowled near the fence. The doorway stood open. The little barricade looked suddenly ridiculous.
Lily's fear rose all at once.
She jumped up and ran inside. The chickens startled and rushed after her, clucking in alarm. Lily scrambled onto the bed, dragging herself up with both hands and one knee. There, beneath Mama's pillow, she found the old knife. It had a wooden handle and a full, rusty blade.
Lily stared at it. Rusty was good, probably. In games, rusty weapons sometimes caused poison damage. That meant this knife might be extra dangerous.
"Extreme poison knife," she whispered.
In her hands, it was far too heavy to hold properly. She could not swing it like a warrior. She could barely lift the point without wobbling. So she placed it on the pillow beside her and sat facing the doorway.
The hens climbed onto the bed around her. Mister Terminator hopped up last, settling close with grim seriousness.
That night, Lily barely slept.
Every scratch beneath the floor made her stiffen. Every owl call made her heart jump. Every rustle outside the broken door became a wolf, a fox, a soldier, or some unknown medieval monster coming to eat everyone.
She sat with the knife beside her, staring into the dark until her eyes burned.
At some point near dawn, exhaustion finally won. Lily fell forward, face-first into the pillow, and slept.
There was no fire that night. Nor the next. Lily tried. She gathered dry grass, struck stones together, copied what Mama had done as best she could. Sparks came once or twice, tiny and hopeful, but they died before becoming flame. Her hands hurt. Her patience broke. She yelled at the fireplace, shook her fist at the ashes, and then sat there feeling stupid.
After that, the cabin remained cold.
As the days passed, she cleaned what she could. Mud was scraped from the floor. Broken things were pushed into corners. The salted fish was guarded fiercely. The rat hole stayed blocked with cloth and pottery, though Lily did not trust it. The door remained open because she could not move it, no matter how many times she tried.
The garden took longer.
Lily repaired the fence in the only way she could. She dragged fallen sticks into place, pushed stakes back into the dirt, and tied weak knots with scraps of cloth and plant fiber. The result was ugly. Very ugly. But it stood high enough that a fox would at least need to jump, and rabbits seemed to dislike it enough to hop away.
Once, two deer came near the garden.
Lily froze, holding the rusty knife in both hands.
The deer looked at the crooked fence. Then at Lily. Then at Mister Terminator standing beside her like a tiny feathered general.
After a long, thoughtful pause, the deer chose to continue into the forest.
Lily considered that a victory, but victories did not fill bellies.
By the end of the first week, her worry had grown sharp. The food stores were shrinking. The fish was almost gone. The dried mushrooms had to be picked carefully from the dirt. The round dark breads hanging from the ceiling poles might as well have been treasure locked in a tower, because she could not reach them. The fish trap in the lake did no good because she could not lift the stones to close its circle and trap the fish inside fast enough.
Her clothes tore, and there was no Mama to mend them. Her hair tangled, and there was no Mama to brush it.
At night, there was no Papa's voice. No Mama's humming. No one to answer when she talked. There was only chickens listening. The hens gathered close when she spoke, and Mister Terminator always stood nearby, watchful and proud. But they did not answer with words.
The cabin felt much bigger without words. By the second week, Lily felt like a wild child.
She was dirty. Her clothes had become little more than rags. She ate cold food because she still could not start a fire. She drank from the lake. She gathered what she dared from the garden and chewed bitter leaves with deep suspicion. Sometimes she tried to catch insects for the chickens and ended up falling into the dirt instead.
Life, she decided, was bad, very bad. And the forest knew she was alone.
At night, creatures moved beyond the fence. She heard them pacing the perimeter, sniffing, testing, looking for weak places. Once she saw fox eyes shining low between the trees. During the day, birds circled overhead, and once, high above, an eagle drifted slowly across the sky in a way Lily did not appreciate at all.
She waved the rusty knife at it.
The eagle, perhaps recognizing extreme poison damage, moved on.
Still, fear did not leave. It waited with her. Ate with her. Slept beside her. Woke whenever the bushes moved.
Then one day it happened, while Lily knelt at the lake to drink and wash the dirt from her hands, the brush rustled nearby.
Mister Terminator froze.
The sound came again. Closer this time. Leaves whispered in a way leaves should not whisper.
Lily's stomach tightened. She pushed herself up onto her knees, then onto her feet. Her heart began to beat fast. The knife lay on the ground beside her, forgotten for half a second too long.
Then she saw it. A fox slipped out of the brush to her left. It was not large. Not truly. It was no monster, no bear, no wolf from a nightmare. It was lean and red and beautiful in a dangerous way, all muscle and hunger beneath a coat that burned orange in the sunlight. Its legs were quick and delicate. Its muzzle was sharp as a blade. Its eyes fixed on the chickens.
To Lily, it might as well have been a lion.
The fox lunged. The hens exploded into panic. Feathers flew as they scattered, shrieking and running blindly toward the cabin. Lily's breath caught as the fox darted to cut them off.
"No!" she shouted.
And that was when mister Terminator charged. There was no hesitation, no fear.
The rooster launched himself forward in a blur of feathers and fury, wings flaring wide, claws and spurs striking for the fox's side. The fox twisted in surprise, but not fast enough. Mister Terminator slammed into it with his full weight, latching on, scratching, beating it with his wings like shields.
The world became noise. The fox screamed, high and furious. Mister Terminator cried back, raw and defiant.
They rolled together through the grass, red fur and black-gold feathers tangling in a wild, frantic knot. Feathers flew everywhere. Grass bent and snapped. The fox snapped its jaws and twisted, trying to shake him loose.
Lily stood frozen only for a heartbeat, then she grabbed the knife and ran.
Her legs moved, unsteady steps carried her across the grass while fear screamed inside her head. The knife dragged heavy in her grip, almost too much for her hand, but she held on.
"Terminator!" she cried. "No! Be careful!"
The struggle crashed into taller grass near the brush.
Lily shoved through weeds and stems, tears blurring her vision. The knife shook in her hand. Her heart hammered so hard it hurt.
Then silence fell just as Lily burst through the grass and stopped.
Mister Terminator stood alone before her. His feathers were ruffled. His chest heaved. A thin scratch marked his side, but he was still standing. Taller than Lily had ever seen him stand, proud, furious, victorious.
Beyond him, the fox was running. Red fur flashed between the trees. Its tail stayed low as it vanished back into the forest, gone as quickly as it had come.
Lily's breath left her in a rush.
"Oh my God," she whispered.
Then she ran to Mister Terminator and threw both arms around his neck, burying her face in his warm feathers.
"I was so worried," she said, her voice shaking. "You're amazing. You're so cool."
She pulled back just enough to look at him properly.
"My brave knight."
Then she kissed his beak.
Mister Terminator made a low, satisfied sound and puffed out his chest as if this was exactly the correct reward for saving the kingdom.
Lily blinked, she had kissed a chicken again, and strangely, it felt right.
Her hands were still shaking when she picked up the knife. She looked toward the forest. It had gone quiet now. Too quiet. Too large. Too full of things that watched, waited, and came when they thought no one strong was near.
Lily swallowed.
"Next time," she told Mister Terminator softly, "I be faster. I have your back."
The rooster clicked once, accepting this oath.
"Let's go inside," Lily said. "Before something else bad shows up."
Mister Terminator turned at once and began herding the hens toward the cabin with sharp, authoritative steps. The hens obeyed, shaken but alive, hurrying in a tight little group.
Lily followed behind them, small and dirty, heart still racing, knife held tight in both hands.
Behind them, the lake lay calm and shining, as if nothing had happened at all. And the forest watched.
They went back inside quickly. Lily shut the garden gate as best she could, guided the chickens through the doorway, and stepped into the cabin with the strange hollow feeling that came after danger passed, when the body was still shaking but the world had already moved on.
Inside, she knelt beside Mister Terminator.
"Hold still," she whispered.
He did not hold still at first. He objected, because he was a rooster and therefore full of opinions. But Lily caught him gently and pressed both hands near the scratch along his side.
The light-heart answered.
Warmth flowed through her palms, pale and soft. Mister Terminator went quiet. The torn skin beneath his feathers slowly closed, the blood drying, the pain easing from his body.
When Lily pulled her hands away, the wound was almost gone. Mister Terminator looked at her. Lily looked back, and for the first time in days, something like hope rose in her chest.
Maybe they could keep surviving. Maybe they could last until Mama and Papa came back. Maybe, if they had to, they could last months, or years even.
Lily stood a little straighter. She was still small. Still dirty. Still hungry. Still wearing rags in a broken cabin with no fire and a door that would not close, but she had a knife, a light-heart, chickens and the will to survive.