CW: implied assault and memory suppression 

Days ago, someone had come into her cell.

She didn't let the memory surface. She'd buried it in a room behind a room, locked the door, and walked away from herself entirely. Delphi existed somewhere far back now. Watching. Waiting for nothing.

A presence however, now sat near her. She assumed it was the dark. Cells had dark corners. But it didn't feel like dark. 

A suggestion. Not at her mind. At something under that. Something in the marrow, the muscle. 

Her body answered before she could stop it.

A fox. Small and red with quick feet and sharper eyes. She reached for the image the way a drowning person reaches for a hand, without belief, only reflex.

And then she was.

Her bones folded like paper. Her skin rippled, shifted. Her breath came out as a soft, startled yip. The stone beneath her felt different now, closer, sharper, real in a way her human body had stopped being.

She blinked. The world sharpened.

She was a fox. A real fox.

And somewhere, deep in that distant place she'd retreated to, Delphi felt something flicker. Not hope. Not yet. But the memory of it.