Chapter 99 : Small Joys

Chapter 99 : Small Joys
Nadya POV

I find laughter on a Tuesday.

Not the rusty, surprised sound that sometimes comes out when San and I are talking. Real laughter. The kind that bubbles up from somewhere deep inside and bursts out before you can stop it.

It happens in the healing hall. One of the pups is in for a scraped knee. Name of Lily. Six years old. Too old to be afraid of a healer. Missing her front teeth. Absolutely fearless.

The scrape is nothing serious. Standard healing. Routine.

She doesn’t want to sit still.

“What if I wiggle my toes?” Lily asks as I clean the scrape. “Does that make it heal faster?”

“No, but it makes it harder for me to—”

“What if I held my breath? Does that make it heal better?”

“Please don’t hold your breath—”

“My brother says if you think really hard about butterflies while someone’s healing you it helps it heal faster. Is that true?”

“That’s not—Lily, I need you to stay still for just—”

“BUTTERFLIES!” she shouts, squeezing her eyes shut with all the concentration she can muster. “I’M THINKING ABOUT BUTTERFLIES!”

I laugh.

Not a little laugh. Not a controlled chuckle. A big, body-shaking laugh that startles me so badly I almost drop the healing salve.

Lily stares at me, amazed. “You laughed! Mama said fire girls never laugh. But you did!”

“I guess I did.”

“Does that mean the butterflies are working?”

I look down at her scraped knee. Still bleeding. Completely unhealed because I’ve been too busy interrogating her about butterfly magic to actually do my job.

“The butterflies need a little more time,” I tell her solemnly. “Maybe just think about them quietly while I finish.”

She nods seriously and closes her eyes again. This time, blessed silence while I work.

Done, she hugs me. Throws her little arms around my waist and squeezes with all the six-year-old strength she can muster.

“Thank you for healing my knee,” she says. “And for laughing. Mama says laughter is good for people. Especially people who’ve been sad for a long time.”

“Your mama sounds smart.”

“She is. She’s the smartest.” Lily pulls back, looking at me with a critical eye. “You should laugh more. It makes your face pretty.”

Then she’s off, skipping out of the healing hall like scraped knees and fire mages are two equally mundane facts of her daily life.

I stand there for a long moment. Touching my face. Feeling the unfamiliar burn of muscles I haven’t used in years.

Mira finds me still standing there.

“Lily?” she guesses.

“She made me think about butterflies. Said it made me heal her faster.”

“Did it?”

“No. But it helped something.” I look at Mira. “It made me laugh. Really laugh. I didn’t know I could still do that.”

“Joy is like any other skill. You forget it if you don’t practice.” Mira’s eyes crinkle with a smile. “But it comes back. Sometimes when you least expect it. Sometimes because a six-year-old forces you to think about butterflies.”

That night, I tell San about Lily. About the butterflies. About the laughter that just bubbles out of me.

His expression does something complicated. “I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that. Really laughed.”

“Maybe you need a Lily of your own.”

“Maybe I need to be open to one.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Vera—the mind-healer—she says I’m so focused on processing trauma that I forget to let good things in. That healing isn’t just about learning to deal with the pain. It’s about making space for joy.”

“Butterflies.”

“What?”

“Joy. It’s butterflies.” I grin at him—actually grin, another expression my face is learning to make again. “We should think about butterflies more.”

He stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. Then something breaks in his expression and he laughs. Rusty. Surprised. But real.

“Butterflies,” he agrees. “We should think about butterflies more.”

That night, instead of our meditation forms, we sit outside under the stars and try to remember what we used to dream about before the war took over everything.

“I wanted to explore,” San says. “See new places outside pack territory. Learn about other cultures. The training texts talked about ancient ruins in the northern mountains. I used to imagine finding them.”

“I wanted to paint.” The memory pulls up from somewhere deep and dark. “Mama showed me once—before the Ancient Court. Colors on canvas. Creating something just because you could.”

“We could do those things now. The war’s over. Nothing stopping us.”

“Except we don’t know how. Don’t know who we are outside of fighting and surviving.”

“Then we figure it out.” San’s hand snakes out in the darkness to find mine. “Same way we figured out everything else. Together. One butterfly at a time.”

One butterfly at a time.

I hold onto that through the night. Through the next day. Through patients and healing and the slow work of building a life with others even as I try to rebuild myself.

Lily returns two days later. Different scrape. Same endless questions. Same insistence that I keep thinking about butterflies.

This time, I laugh sooner.

It’s getting easier.

Joy, I find out, is just another skill.

And I’m finally ready to practice.

When I get home that evening, Mama’s waiting for me with something in her hands. Wooden box, old but well-preserved. Faded flowers painted on the lid.

“I kept these,” she says, opening it to reveal brushes and small pots of dried pigment. “From before. Thought maybe... if you wanted to try again..."

My throat closes up. She remembered. After everything—the war and the separation and the years of violence—she remembered that her daughter once loved to paint.

“Teach me?” I whisper.

Her smile is like sunrise. “I thought you’d never ask.”

We spend the rest of the evening at the kitchen table. Mama showing me how to mix the pigment with water. How to hold the brush. How to let the colors flow instead of forcing them. My first attempts are sloppy. Hands trained for combat decades fighting against gentle, careful brush strokes.

By the third attempt, something clicks. A simple flower comes to life on rough paper. Imperfect. Wobbly. Beautiful in its way.

“There,” Mama says, touching my shoulder. “There’s my girl. Creating something just because she can.”

I stare at the flower through tears that blur my vision.

Butterflies and paint and laughter.

Small joys, making a life worth living.