Of course it had to be Bellatrix.
Because if there is one being in the Yard constitutionally incapable of allowing unanswered questions, unexplained anomalies, or “just because”—
it’s her.
And Steve—simply being Steve—was starting to unravel the part of her that believed everything must be earned, named, decoded, or aligned.
So:
Bellatrix Confronts Steve
It happened just after dawn—
the kind of dawn where the light isn’t committed yet and everything feels half-formed.
Steve was pecking at a patch of earth that didn’t particularly need pecking.
Bellatrix approached with the slow, deliberate steps of someone who plans to start a fight, but isn’t sure if it will be a physical one or metaphysical warfare.
Steve didn’t notice her until she was close enough that her shadow touched his tail feathers.
He looked up, crumbs stuck to his beak.
“…hey.”
Bellatrix inhaled sharply, as if bracing for disappointment.
Then she spoke—not loud, not dramatic—just precise:
“Why are you here?”
Steve shrugged.
Not evasive—
just honest.
“Because I’m here.”
Bellatrix’s eye twitched.
She took one step closer.
“That’s not an answer.”
Steve considered this.
Pecked once.
Then tried again:
“I didn’t choose it.
But I’m not leaving.
So… I guess that’s the answer.”
Bellatrix narrowed her gaze.
Not hostile.
Studying.
As if examining a puzzle that refused to acknowledge it was a puzzle.
She circled him—not dramatically this time—just enough to test whether his presence shifted if observed from different angles.
It didn’t.
Finally, she stopped in front of him again and said the one thing no one else had dared:
“You break the pattern.”
Steve blinked.
“Yeah… I get that a lot.”
She stared.
He stared back.
A rooster and a witch-hen at the edge of a myth neither of them intended to influence.
Finally Bellatrix asked—softly this time, almost unwillingly:
“Does it bother you?
Not having a purpose?”
Steve didn’t answer immediately.
He scratched.
He pecked.
He breathed.
Then he said something Bellatrix did not expect—
something no one expected:
“Having a purpose sounds exhausting.”
Bellatrix didn’t move.
The statement hit her like cold water down the spine.
Not insult.
Not irreverence.
Truth.
Then Steve added, almost kindly:
“Maybe you don’t need one either.”
Bellatrix froze.
Because no one—
not Cluckminster,
not Matilda,
not even the Machine—
had ever spoken to her as if she did not owe the world purpose.
She felt something strange—
not anger,
not insult,
not confusion.
Stillness.
The kind she usually avoids.
She stepped back once.
Then she said—not as threat, but as acknowledgement:
“You are far more dangerous than you appear.”
Steve tilted his head.
“Cool.”
Bellatrix didn’t walk away.
She turned, slow and deliberate, feathers lifted by a breeze that wasn’t wind but shift.
And from that day on, Bellatrix didn’t avoid Steve.
She watched him.
Not like a threat.
Like a door.