Page 121 of She Who Devours the Stars

She reached over, put her hand on my knee. It was papery, but strong. “Promise me you’ll stay alive. I don’t care how. I don’t care if you run, or cheat, or hide in the wall. Just stay alive, okay?”

I nodded, because I didn’t have words.

She smiled, and for a second, the old monster was back. “Good. Because if you don’t, I’m going to have to train your replacement, and I’m too old to deal with another catastrophe.”

I snorted, almost choked. “You’re not that old.”

She leaned back, victorious. “That’s the first lie you’ve told me all day. Maybe you’re learning.”

The steam was thicker, now. I felt my body start to relax, muscles going limp in the heat. It was nice, in a way, to just… be. No expectations, no System, no stars to pull me apart.

We sat like that for a while, just breathing.

After a minute, she spoke. “You ever think about quitting? Going somewhere nobody knows your name?”

“All the time,” I said. “But then I remember there’s always someone with a weirder name, or a bigger hunger.”

She laughed, a real one this time. “Maybe that’s what keeps the world spinning. Not gravity, not the Accord, but just enough stubborn idiots to keep the story from ending.”

She stood, bones popping, towel barely holding. “I’ve got a council meeting in ten. They’ll want my head for not locking you up. Try not to break the city while I’m gone.”

“No promises,” I said.

She walked to the door, then paused. “Fern?”

“Yeah?”

She looked back. For a second, I saw something like hope. Or maybe it was just the light playing tricks in the steam.

“Next time you make tacos, save me one,” she said.

I grinned. “Will do.”

She left, the door locking and unlocking itself twice before it settled.

I sat there, letting the heat melt the rest of the world away. My skin felt clean for the first time in ages, even if the inside was still a mess. I stared at the empty bench across from me and wondered if I’d ever get old enough to be that honest.

Probably not.

But maybe that was the point.

I stood, grabbed my coat, and headed out. The lock clicked open like it knew I was coming.

Outside, the air was cold and sharp. I took a deep breath, and for a second, I could almost taste tacos.

Almost.

But the story wasn’t done yet.

Not by a long shot.

Thread Modulation: Vireleth the Closure

Axis Alignment: Vireleth the Closure

Sometimes, I missed the days when being a mythship just meant shooting holes in bad gods and playing therapy AI for the crew. It all got lonely when the last Trivane’s went off to Old Earth.

Now, half my routines were spent either suppressing the urge to self-immolate or running centuries-old protocols for the benefit of entities who should have been extinct before the planet finished cooling.