The biped still breathed.

  His chest rose in uneven intervals, shallow and raw. His body was soaked through—clothes clinging to pale skin, heat leaking into the air. Muscles twitched sporadically. Scabs bled slowly from motion he hadn’t made.

  He was alive.

  But degraded.

  The guardian sat a short distance away, hunched low, head angled toward the cradle where the child now slept—stable, for now. It had positioned the pod beneath the thickest canopy it could find, shaded from direct exposure. It had padded the interior with dry foliage, regulated heat as best as its underpowered systems allowed.

  The child required constant monitoring.

  But the biped…

  It turned its head back toward the man.

  Was he worth preserving?

  That was the question. Not of morality. Of resource. Of directive.

  The guardian ran the cost analysis again.

  Energy required for continued foraging: high.

  Chemical components needed to treat infection: depleted.

  Mobility burden if the child worsened again: significant.

  Environmental threats still unknown.

  Personal integrity: reduced.

  Core body growth: incomplete.

  To restore the biped fully would take time, materials, and attention—all of which could compromise the core directive.

  Protect the child. Feed the child. Teach the child. Never leave the child.

  He was not part of that equation.

  He had no encoded signature. No biomarker. No historical relevance.

  He was expendable.

  And yet…

  The guardian’s head lowered slightly.

  Its fur, though waterlogged and heavy, still moved with ambient environmental data—every shift in wind, every vibration in the earth, every rise and fall of breath nearby. It remembered the pattern of the man’s footsteps returning, not fleeing. Remembered the scream. The charge. The blade.

  Remembered how he bled in place of the child.

  That was not a tactical decision.

  It was something else.

  A variable the guardian had no metric for.

  It flicked its tongue across a cut forming along the inner corner of its forelimb—testing its bio-saliva balance. Healing enzymes: functional. Immune transfer compounds: low. Antiviral fragments: scarce. Reuse would reduce future efficacy. Risk of weakening primary systems: measurable.

  To give more to the biped would delay its own evolution.

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  Slow its reflex development.

  Delay the strengthening of ligaments that remained unbonded.

  It would be more vulnerable. Less effective. Slower to protect.

  It looked again to the man.

  Still breathing. Still broken. His body curled toward the earth in the unconscious posture of something too tired to die, but too far gone to fight.

  The guardian watched his chest rise.

  Then fall.

  Then rise again—barely.

  The child behind it stirred in his sleep, a short sound escaping his throat—small, unformed, unaware of the world he had entered.

  Two lives. Two paths. Only one directive.

  The guardian remained still for a long moment.

  Listening.

  Measuring.

  Breathing.

  Then its claws curled softly into the soil.

  And it turned—slowly—toward the biped.

  Seven rotations had passed.

  The rain had ended two days ago, but the forest floor was still damp beneath the guardian’s claws. Mist clung to the low branches in the early hours, lifting only when the sun crested the canopy. Pools of rainwater had carved new paths into the earth. The ground shifted differently now—softer, easier to track, but slower to cross.

  The guardian had not slept.

  Not once.

  Not since the child’s fever broke.

  It had remained upright, alert, its sleek, black form hunched in perpetual readiness—ears rotating at the smallest sound, nostrils open to every change in the air. Beneath its fur, bioengineered muscle fibers had begun to ache from overuse. Its limbs trembled at rest, not from fear, but from depletion.

  Still, it did not rest.

  Because the child lived.

  The cradle had become his shelter—its curved form tilted sideways after the crash, half-buried in the dirt. Its internal thermal core, though degraded, still emitted enough heat to stabilize the child’s body temperature. The guardian had reinforced the open side with a sloped cover of wide leaves pressed into packed soil, then weighed it down with stone to divert wind and moisture.

  It was not elegant.

  But it worked.

  The child’s breath was slow and even now. His immune system—primitive, but functional—was adapting. His skin had regained warmth. His muscles no longer twitched in fever spasms.

  He would survive.

  The biped, however, remained motionless outside the pod’s reach.

  His body leaned against a curved brace of packed earth, elevated to ease his breath. His wounds had closed to sixty percent. Fluid extraction had been repeated daily using the guardian’s siphoning filament. Bleeding had stopped. Internal organ function was repairing, but still strained.

  His lungs remained compromised.

  Each breath rattled.

  Each pause between them too long.

  The guardian had considered moving him closer to the cradle’s heat source, but doing so would expose the child to cross-contamination. It couldn’t risk it. Instead, it had built a narrow barrier of moss-wrapped stones and earth, forming a windbreak to protect the man from the cold air that drifted down the hill each night.

  Crude. Temporary. Effective enough.

  It had focused all effort on containment and triage.

  Energy levels in the guardian’s core continued to drop.

  It hadn’t regenerated properly in over a week. The incomplete fusion of several joints was beginning to cause chronic strain. One of its claws had cracked. It could feel the stress spreading through the sheath every time it knelt.

  But it stayed.

  Between the pod and the man.

  Watching both.

  Protecting both.

  The forest remained quiet.

  But it did not trust that silence.

  The child stirred once during the last cycle, a soft sound escaping his throat. The guardian moved to the edge of the pod, nudging a damp leaf away from the thermal vent to let more heat circulate around him.

  The boy settled again.

  The man coughed once in his sleep, low and heavy.

  The guardian turned to him.

  The siphon would need to be used again soon.

  And still, it hadn’t decided—

  how far it was willing to go.

  Three more cycles passed.

  The forest remained still. No predators. No wind. No new weather systems.

  The guardian did not sleep.

  It continued to maintain the shelter, such as it was—angled bark positioned over the pod to deflect rain, stone packed along the base to anchor the curve of the hill behind it. Leaves were replaced daily. Ground moisture was absorbed through layers of dry moss and discarded fur.

  The child was no longer a patient.

  He had become stable.

  He stirred in the cradle during warm hours, his limbs moving with slow, instinctual rhythm. Breath even. Pulse strong. Skin color held. He no longer shivered. He no longer whimpered.

  When he cried, it was soft—brief, directionless sound.

  The guardian responded every time.

  It did not speak.

  But it was there.

  It kept his head aligned. Ensured airflow was unobstructed. Measured hydration through moisture loss in skin. Reinforced nutrient filtration with gathered root compounds.

  Every response required energy.

  The guardian gave it without hesitation.

  But its movement had slowed. One of its rear joints had begun to lock when crouching. A burn pattern had developed across its flank where exposed dermal tissue had not fully sealed. Its breath, once silent, now rasped faintly when it exerted force. It had not recovered from its own awakening.

  It had not allowed itself to.

  Because the man—still breathing, still unconscious—required intervention twice daily. The lungs remained inconsistent. Moisture continued to accumulate. Each extraction was more difficult than the last. Internal tissue was regenerating, but unevenly. The man would live.

  If he woke.

  If he didn’t—

  Resources would continue to be consumed.

  That calculation returned often.

  The guardian ignored it every time.

  On the tenth day, just before dusk, the child cried—softly. Not in distress. In reflex. A sound shaped by hunger. The guardian placed a strip of softened vine root against his lips. The child sucked. Swallowed. Then quieted again.

  The guardian exhaled.

  Turned.

  Walked across the soft ground to where the biped lay.

  The man had shifted in the night. His arm had moved, just slightly, from where it had rested across his chest. His eyelids fluttered during the guardian’s approach, but closed again.

  The guardian crouched, lowering its body until it could hear the breath within.

  Wet.

  But thinner now.

  Less resistance.

  It extended the siphon. One final extraction.

  The fluid was minimal.

  The guardian retracted it.

  Burned the filament clean.

  Then it sat.

  Stared at the man.

  Waited.

  As the sky dimmed above them and the last light stretched through wet trees, the biped’s breathing changed.

  Deeper.

  Stronger.

  The guardian stood over him, ears forward, nostrils flaring—

  The man stirred.

  His head shifted slightly.

  Then, slowly, with effort—

  His eyes opened.