What Your Breath is For - A Zio Story pt III

Posted on Sun Jan 18th, 2026 @ 12:55am by Patin

987 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: Bajor - Jungle

The air felt wrong before the storm announced itself.

Zio noticed it the way she noticed everything else, not as a single sign, but as a stack of small betrayals. The humidity pressed heavier against her skin, turning sweat slick and insistent. The birds called too often, overlapping, correcting themselves mid-note. Even her prosthetic leg resisted a fraction longer than usual when she shifted her weight, the internal stabilizers compensating for ground that had begun to soften before the rain arrived.

It’s coming, she thought, adjusting her pace without signaling the change. And it’s watching.

She stopped at the edge of a clearing she hadn’t planned to reach today and realized, with a quiet acceptance, that the jungle had planned it for her.

The children moved up beside her, not in formation, not awaiting instruction. Rhenai stepped forward first, bow balanced loosely in her hands, eyes scanning the far treeline where the canopy dipped low and dark. Tovan lingered half a step back, plasma hatchet secured but powered, his attention split between the ground beneath their feet and the way the air vibrated just enough to suggest something large had passed through recently.

Zio didn’t correct them.

“This is yours,” she said instead, her voice calm even as thunder muttered somewhere far off, the sound deep and distant, like a giant clearing its throat. She adjusted the strap at her prosthetic knee, feeling the reassuring pressure settle into place as she added, “I’ll watch.”

Rhenai turned, surprise flickering across her face. “You won’t...?”

“I won’t lead,” Zio said, meeting her daughter’s gaze steadily. “And I won’t save you from a choice. Only from death.”

That landed. Zio felt it in the way Rhenai’s shoulders stiffened, then eased, and in the way Tovan’s jaw set as if something inside him had finally clicked into alignment.

They moved into the clearing together, the ground open and scarred with old marks, claw gouges in stone, broken brush pressed flat and left that way. The smell hit them next: iron, old blood, and something dry and animal that carried age with it.

Tovan crouched, fingers hovering over a deep scar in the earth without touching. “This isn’t a pack,” he said quietly, eyes narrowing as the first drops of rain struck the leaves overhead. “It’s alone.”

Rhenai nodded, already raising the bow, the compound limbs flexing with a familiar whisper. “The Low-King,” she murmured, awe threading her voice despite herself.

Zio felt the name settle into her bones.

Ancient, she thought. Scarred. Survivor.

The jungle shifted as if responding to the thought, branches parting just enough for the Threxan Low-King to step into view. It was massive, its hide layered with old wounds that told stories of battles it had outlived. One eye clouded white. The other fixed on them with an intelligence that made Zio’s fingers itch for her rifle despite her vow.

Rhenai’s breath steadied as she drew, the bowstring tightening, her muscles locking into practiced alignment. Zio watched the minute adjustments, elbow lowering, wrist angling, the moment when her daughter found stillness not by force but by acceptance.

She’s ready, Zio acknowledged, pride and fear tangling together. Too ready.

Tovan stepped forward just enough to put himself in Rhenai’s peripheral vision, rain beginning to slick his hair and darken his clothes. His hand hovered near the plasma hatchet, not lifting it, just acknowledging its weight. He watched the Low-King’s stance, the subtle favoring of one leg, the way its breath rasped unevenly through old damage.

“If we kill it,” he said quietly, without looking at either of them, “this place changes.”

Rhenai hesitated, the arrow trembling for the first time since she’d drawn. “Everything changes when you don’t,” she shot back, frustration bleeding through her control.

Thunder cracked closer now, sharp and immediate, the sound rolling through the clearing and vibrating up through Zio’s prosthetic into her spine. She felt it there, the echo of old choices, of shouted orders and desperate plans, of a man who had stood unarmed and believed words could still matter.

He would have liked this moment, she thought, the realization sharp and sudden. And that terrifies me.

The Low-King shifted, paw scraping stone, muscles tensing. This was the moment. The point of no return.

Rhenai exhaled, finger tightening.

Tovan reached out and caught her wrist.

Not hard. Not pleading. Just enough.

She looked at him, anger flaring, then faltering as she followed his gaze, seeing what he saw: not a monster, not a trophy, but a survivor choosing whether to fight or fade back into the jungle.

The rain came down harder, drumming against leaves and armor alike, washing scent and sound into chaos.

Rhenai lowered the bow.

The Low-King held their gaze for a long, electric second, then turned, vanishing into the trees with a heavy, deliberate grace that shook water loose from the canopy.

Silence followed, broken only by rain and breath.

Zio released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, her chest aching with it as she stepped forward at last. She placed a hand on Rhenai’s shoulder, then on Tovan’s, grounding them both as the storm washed the clearing clean.

“Your breath,” she said softly, voice almost lost beneath the rain, “is your loyalty, to who you decide to be.” She met their eyes in turn, pride and grief braided together. “Your aim is your truth. And truth doesn’t need blood every time.”

They stood there together until the storm eased, until the jungle accepted the choice and moved on.

When they finally turned toward home, the path was changed, muddied, uncertain, real.

Behind them, the jungle remembered.

And this time, it remembered mercy.

TBC

 

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