Safrin’s smile widens at his words, bright and unguarded, her cheeks rounding with unmistakable delight. There is no false modesty in her pleasure; she accepts his gratitude the way stars accept the night before inclining her head once in acknowledgement.
The galaxies around them ripple, subtle waves passing through the midnight clouds as though stirred by her satisfaction. Constellations shimmer and realign in slow arcs, their light bending toward her like flowers tracking the sun. For a moment, she turns her gaze outward, surveying the vastness she has shaped here; indulgent, serene, entirely at ease within her dominion, then her eyes return to him. "I know you will," she says softly.
Her expression shifts, then, not colder, not distant, but knowing. "I will be watching," she adds, and the faintest wink punctuates the promise, playful and sovereign all at once as the starlight begins to thin. It isn't extinguished, its hold simply loosens as Safrin dissolves the way constellations fade at dawn, edges softening into silver mist before dispersing into the vast dark. The celestial hum quiets. The galaxies recede. The midnight clouds unspool into nothing.
And then the dream releases him.
—
Morning comes pale and real, and when Zavien wakes, the world will feel ordinary: breath, bed, the weight of waking thought settling back into place, until his eyes find the sword at his side.
It rests in its sheath as always, but along the edges of the scabbard, faint threads of celestial light linger, woven like living filaments through leather and steel.
Just as it had been in the dream.
~FIN
The galaxies around them ripple, subtle waves passing through the midnight clouds as though stirred by her satisfaction. Constellations shimmer and realign in slow arcs, their light bending toward her like flowers tracking the sun. For a moment, she turns her gaze outward, surveying the vastness she has shaped here; indulgent, serene, entirely at ease within her dominion, then her eyes return to him. "I know you will," she says softly.
Her expression shifts, then, not colder, not distant, but knowing. "I will be watching," she adds, and the faintest wink punctuates the promise, playful and sovereign all at once as the starlight begins to thin. It isn't extinguished, its hold simply loosens as Safrin dissolves the way constellations fade at dawn, edges softening into silver mist before dispersing into the vast dark. The celestial hum quiets. The galaxies recede. The midnight clouds unspool into nothing.
And then the dream releases him.
—
Morning comes pale and real, and when Zavien wakes, the world will feel ordinary: breath, bed, the weight of waking thought settling back into place, until his eyes find the sword at his side.
It rests in its sheath as always, but along the edges of the scabbard, faint threads of celestial light linger, woven like living filaments through leather and steel.
Just as it had been in the dream.
~FIN
