My Wife Is Pretending to Be a Caged Canary Again

This is my moonlight, my most cherished love. My writing isn't good enough, and I don't have a backlog of chapters, so I won't start posting it. Otherwise, it would be desecrating my moonlight.

With the election approaching, Edgar had just won a defensive war, yet he abandoned thirty million voters and traveled a thousand miles to the snowy frontier.

He was going to bring back an orphan, a little bird lost among the snow-covered monuments of the vast wilderness.

For that canary, he missed the national election and even earned a reputation as an incompetent, absurd ruler, all to save the last surviving heir of Rhine.

Rhine, the allied nation that had helped them time and again, had vanished from the map forever.

His feelings for the little canary were complicated and full of regret, much like his feelings for the once-poor but loyal empire.

He gave the little bird the finest food, clothing, and home, along with all the love he could offer. The bird had a delicate throat, so even the baking of his desserts had to be carefully controlled. His clothes had to be tailored from the finest silk, because his feathers were so fine...

The little bird's eyes were like glaciers shattered at the world's edge. He was more fragile and tiny than any frost bird, and suffered from severe war trauma. Even his language faculties had been damaged to some extent, and he could hardly speak, but every night he needed Edgar to gently coax him to sleep.

He was also an Omega with damaged glands, and had lost his pheromones forever.

Edgar's heart ached for him. He could just marry him himself, Edgar thought, and spare him the pain of love.

Edgar raised the little bird like a child bride, hoping only that he would live a safe and happy life.

Those feelings were also an expression of his longing for the allied nation that had passed away.

Then the northern defense line collapsed once more. On that stormy night, the little bird came of age.

Only then did Edgar realize how terribly wrong he had been.

The little bird had shed his fine feathers. One wing had transformed into an arm, while the other was still a feathered wing tucked into his wide sleeve, making him look pitiful and adorable.

He spoke coldly. He was going home.

Edgar's vision went dark, and the wineglass clutched in his hand trembled uncontrollably.

Rhine had long since fallen. The home he spoke of was nothing more than a ragtag mercenary corps.

Edgar could not bear to see the child dragged into the vortex of war again.

"No." His tone was firm.

"You seem to have misunderstood, Edgar. I'm just telling you, not asking your opinion." The little bird furrowed his delicate brows, his voice cold.

At some point, the baby fat had disappeared from the child's face. His round eyes had turned into downturned eyes with visible whites beneath the irises. Those icy eyes, devoid of warmth, looked like a pair of artificial eyes implanted in his sockets.

They were not gentle, kind eyes. But all along, Edgar's regrets had layered them with a thick filter.

Only then did he realize, to his sorrow, that he had been the one played and toyed with all along.

The boy was no orphaned heir of a moonlight love. He was a beautiful con artist who had used a show of weakness to seize Edgar's sympathy, only to coldly abandon him and leave him with nothing but a distant silhouette.

Three days later, a snowland strike force repelled an invasion at the border.

Three months later, the Rhine Empire reappeared on the map. They said its leader was a beautiful saker falcon, wild beyond measure and bloodthirsty, who had swallowed up the surrounding lands with ruthless force.

Everyone said the Federation would be invaded by Rhine too, since the empire's ruler had once been captured by the Federation and subjected to the utmost humiliation...

Everyone said that an antisocial creature like the saker falcon would only hate and resent anyone who showed him love.

He did not belong in society. He belonged only on a bloody battlefield.

But Rhine's borders stopped abruptly at the frontier, and everything remained peaceful, as if nothing had happened.

"An Omega that vicious and ill-tempered, with ruined glands on top of that. What good is being strong or beautiful? He'll never find a spouse."

"Exactly. An Omega like that is useless. All he can do is fight. Rhine is barely clinging to life under his rule..."

"Ha! A cripple like him must only be able to find pretty Omegas to fool around with in private..."

Edgar read the news. In the end, he couldn't bear to let public opinion poison the boy.

"He has an Alpha husband. They're very much in love."

A few short words, and the whole world was rocked.

That night, after the interstellar peace conference ended, the cold-faced little bird pinned him to the bed.

"Very much in love? What kind of relationship do we have? And what does 'husband' mean?" The little bird's voice was soft, as hard and cold as ice, but he used no force. Edgar even thought that the cool hand gripping his shoulder felt soft.

"It's nothing. They just... said some awful things." Edgar turned away in embarrassment, but the little bird seized his chin and forced him to look straight into those cold eyes.

"What does that have to do with you?" His gaze allowed no evasion, like a knife thrust straight into Edgar's heart.

"...Nothing." Edgar clenched his teeth.

The feelings he could never put into words were, in the end, an ethereal rain that left not a trace once the skies cleared.

"How can it have nothing to do with you? Aren't you my husband? You never admitted it, so I thought..."

A cool, soft touch landed on his lips, and the little bird calmly loosened his tie.

"You're not satisfied with me."

Edgar's eyes widened. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

That child was like the Rhine Empire of old, which had risked life and limb for its allies and people: innocent, direct, and full of passion, yet different in some way.

Through the light, delicate frame of his chest, Edgar felt the soft warmth of his heartbeat.

His hard edges and his softness did not contradict each other.

The familiar people and homeland of old had come back to him.

Emotionally stable, gentle, fatherly human top, a calculating schemer who always stays three steps ahead in public

Ruthless, taciturn, straightforward, beautiful saker falcon bottom, a violent weapon of war in public

Traditional top-bottom dynamic, mutually devoted

This story is entirely fictional and takes place in a completely imaginary world. Any similarities are purely coincidental.

Inspired by the line:

"Forget the old homeland and those who've passed, and try the new fire with fresh tea."

Theme: Love does not belong to individual "people" alone. It is part of the liberation of all humanity