She kissed him. It was clumsy. Her lips were too warm, her heartbeat a frantic drum against his chest-plate. He did not have a mouth the way she did—he tasted her through the membrane of his throat, a burst of salt and lightning and terrifying now .

He pulled back. “I will watch you grow old and die before I finish one thought.”

Finishing grieving , he thought. But didn’t say.

And for the first time in a millennium, Kaelen did not think about the past. He thought about tomorrow. About the Aethervine she would re-pot. About the human word for the ache in his core: hope .

– A Xerathi elder, his species lives for roughly 1,200 Earth years. His skin is the color of dusk—deep violet fading to silver. He has witnessed the rise and fall of three galactic empires. His emotions, long ago, calcified into wisdom. He doesn’t love anymore; he curates memories.

One night, under the double eclipse, she asked him, “Don’t you get lonely?”