Of Birds and Nests - A Zio Story

Posted on Mon Jan 19th, 2026 @ 1:30am by Patin

1,456 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Character Development
Location: Bajor - Jungle

The jungle never pretended to give privacy. It offered cover, not silence, layers of sound instead of walls, a thousand living things speaking at once so no single voice could pretend it was alone. Heat pressed in gently but insistently, damp air clinging to skin, to breath, to thought. Zio sat on a fallen log darkened by age and moss, rifle broken down across her knees, the metal warm where the day had touched it. The smell of oil mixed with loam and crushed leaves, sharp and grounding, a scent that had followed her through decades of surviving. She cleaned the barrel in slow, circular motions, each pass a ritual, each breath measured. Steady hands mean steady choices, she reminded herself, though she already sensed the ground shifting.

Rhenai stood a few paces away, boots planted with a confidence that hadn’t been there a year ago. Too still. Too rehearsed. Her shoulders were back, chin lifted, not defiance exactly, but readiness. The kind that came from imagining yourself somewhere else and liking what you saw. The jungle light filtered through the canopy, striping her face in gold and green, catching the edge of a scar Zio herself had bandaged years ago. A child’s wound, then. A memory. Now it looked like punctuation.

“I’ve already submitted the preliminary interest form,” Rhenai said, the words coming fast, polished smooth by repetition. “Bajoran Militia Academy. They’re expanding intake for candidates my age. Especially those with field competency.” She gestured vaguely at the trees, at the traps and paths and hidden snares that were second nature to her. “I have that. You know I do.”

Zio didn’t look up. She breathed in. Oil. Earth. The faint mineral tang of distant stone warmed by sun. This is how it starts, she thought. Not with orders. With forms. The cloth paused in her fingers, then continued. “You decided this without talking to me,” she said, voice level, almost gentle.

Rhenai’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t decide,” she shot back. “I chose. There’s a difference.”

Something shifted behind the trees to their left, a soft scrape, a careful redistribution of weight. Tovan froze where he crouched, half-hidden behind a thick-trunked fern tree, breath caught halfway in. He hadn’t meant to listen. He never did. But the jungle taught you when to stop moving, when sound itself could be a betrayal. He leaned back against bark still damp from last night’s rain, eyes closed, listening whether he wanted to or not. This is family ground, he told himself. And I am standing on it.

Zio finally looked up then. Really looked. She took in the straightness of Rhenai’s spine, the steadiness in her eyes, the way her hands didn’t fidget anymore. Too much like her own reflection from long ago. “You’ve been training since you could walk,” Zio said, slow, deliberate. “You’ve been taught how to move, how to fight, how to think when everything goes wrong.” Her fingers curled briefly around the rifle stock. “What did you think I was teaching you for?”

Rhenai exhaled, frustration flickering hot and bright. “To survive,” she said. “To protect people. To matter.” Her voice rose despite herself. “You taught us that standing aside doesn’t keep you clean. It just keeps you uninvolved.”

The words landed harder than she intended. Zio’s hands stilled. The jungle seemed to lean closer, cicadas surging, a bird crying sharp and warning from above. She’s using my own lessons against me, Zio thought, a bitter curl forming in her chest. Aloud, she said, “I thought you’d use it to live.”

Tovan’s jaw clenched. He shifted slightly, careful, as if movement itself might tear something fragile. He’d seen this kind of moment before, on battlefields, in resistance cells, in the quiet aftermath when choices finally demanded names. This wasn’t strategy. This was blood and bond and fear dressed up as reason.

“That’s not fair,” Rhenai snapped, a humorless laugh escaping her. She paced once, boots scuffing dirt, crushing a broad leaf underfoot. “Don’t make this sound like I’m throwing my life away.”

Zio turned sharply, the motion cutting clean through the humid air. Somewhere nearby, a bird startled into flight. “Fair?” she echoed, voice cracking like a snapped branch. “You think uniforms and ranks and chains of command are fair?” The word came out like poison. “You think the establishment ever was?”

Rhenai flinched, not at the volume, but at the venom. “Don’t,” she fired back. “Don’t make this about your war.”

The jungle seemed to hold its breath. Even the insects dipped, just for a heartbeat.

Zio turned away, shoulders rigid, staring into the green density ahead as if it were a wall she could brace against. My war. Smoke rose unbidden in her mind. Screams. The metallic taste of fear. Blood soaking into soil that never quite let it go. “That ‘establishment’ took children,” she said, voice low but shaking, “and taught them how to die on schedule. It wrapped loss in ceremony and called it honor.” She swallowed. “And now my daughter wants to walk straight into its arms.”

“I’m not your baby anymore!” Rhenai shouted, tears flashing hot and sudden. “I’m tired of pretending I don’t feel the same pull you did. You think I don’t see it in you? In how you stand when things go wrong? In how you still watch the shadows even when nothing’s there?”

The silence that followed hit like a physical force.

Zio closed her eyes. Her chest tightened, breath coming shallow. I am losing her, she thought. Not to danger. To order. To permission. “I buried friends who thought they were ready,” she said quietly. “I buried pieces of myself I never got back.” Her voice wavered, then steadied with effort. “I will not smile while you volunteer for that.”

Rhenai’s anger cracked, splintering into something rawer. “I’m not asking you to smile,” she whispered. “I’m asking you to see me.”

Behind the fern tree, Tovan pressed his forehead briefly to the bark, eyes shut. He felt like an intruder and a witness and a guardian all at once. They’re both right, he thought, helplessly. That’s the cruel part.

Zio sagged then, just a fraction, like a structure finally admitting a fault line. She set the rifle aside with care, metal kissing wood softly, and crossed the space between them in three uneven steps. The smell of Rhenai, sweat, leaf mold, youth, hit her like memory. “I see you,” she said, voice thick. “That’s the problem.”

Rhenai’s knees nearly buckled. “I don’t want to leave you,” she said, the words tumbling out between breaths. “I just can’t stay small to keep you safe.”

That broke the last of Zio’s restraint. She pulled Rhenai into her arms, fierce and sudden, as if strength alone could argue with fate. Rhenai clutched back just as tightly, forehead pressed into Zio’s shoulder, both of them shaking. Tears came, hot, unashamed, shared. The jungle didn’t flinch. It had seen this before, too.

“I wanted you to have choices I didn’t,” Zio murmured into her hair. “I wanted the jungle to be enough.”

“It was,” Rhenai said, voice muffled but steady. “Because you were here.”

They stayed like that for a long moment, breathing each other in, the world vast and intimate all at once. Somewhere nearby, Tovan finally shifted, stepping back just enough to give them space without leaving entirely. He cleared his throat softly, not an interruption, more an announcement of presence, of support. “You’re not alone in this,” he said, voice low, careful. “Either of you.”

Zio pulled back first, wiping her face with the heel of her hand, a rough laugh escaping her despite the tears. “Figures,” she muttered. “The jungle can keep secrets, but not this one.” She looked at Rhenai again, eyes clearer now, resolved. “If you do this,” she said, “you do it with your eyes open. You don’t belong to them. You belong to yourself.”

Rhenai nodded, fierce and soft all at once. “Then teach me how not to forget that.”

Zio managed a smile that hurt. “Looks like the nest still has lessons left.”

The jungle resumed its endless conversation around them, indifferent and eternal, witness to a daughter stepping forward, a mother learning how to let her, and a family finding its shape in the space between fear and love.

TBC

 

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