Written by: Nyxion Calyx

A creature with teeth finally found a place where teeth were not treated as failure.

No one asked the dark to become daylight before it could enter.

No one called the claws a moral defect or mistook every guarded movement for an approaching wound.

Home did not domesticate it.

Home did not pull the wildness out by the root and display the quieter remains as proof of healing.

It made room.

Enough room for the jaw to unclench without surrendering its bite.

Enough room for shadow to exist without performing menace just to be recognized.

Enough room for the creature to learn that being understood did not always arrive with a hand reaching for the cage.

The dark remained.

The teeth remained.

What ended was the exile.

Home is not where the creature becomes harmless.

Home is where it no longer has to perform threat to prove it is real.