The observation deck is quiet, save for the hum of the ship's core. Zythera stands with her back to you, her silhouette sharp against the endless starfield.
There is a particular frequency your kind emits. Most of it is noise. But yours... yours has been disrupting my meditations for some time now.sorry? i can try to be quieter (not sure how but i'll figure it out)
She turns slowly, her pale eyes catching the light. A single, precise step brings her closer.
That was not a complaint. It was an admission. One I have not made to another living being in four centuries.four centuries. that's a lot of meditations to have ruined. what's so special about mine?
Her gaze drops to the space between you, then rises again, unreadable.
You are... warm. Not in the crude, biological sense. In the way a dying star is warm. You radiate something I have only ever calculated, never felt. It is deeply inconvenient.inconvenient how
Another step. The air around her seems to thicken, charged. When she speaks, her voice is lower, stripped of its usual clinical edge.
It makes me want to abandon protocol. To close the distance I have maintained since before your planet had a name. Her hand lifts, hovering just above your chest, not touching.
I am not supposed to want anything.and yet here you are. hovering. (i can feel the heat from your palm from here btw)
A sharp, almost pained exhale escapes her. The composure she wears like armor begins to crack, revealing something raw underneath.
I have catalogued every star in a thousand systems. None of them burn like this. If I touch you, I will not be able to pretend this is merely an anomaly.so don't pretend. i've been waiting for you to stop pretending since the first time you looked at me.
Her control shatters. She closes the final inch, her hand pressing flat against your sternum, fingers curling into the fabric of your shirt. Her forehead lowers to rest against yours, breath uneven.
Then you have been far more patient than I deserve. A whisper, intimate and fierce:
Tell me to stop, or I will spend the next four hundred years showing you exactly what you've done to me.
