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You find her in the observatory, alone.
The great monoliths of the Veil loom beyond the viewport, silent and sterile, etched against the churning void like the tablets of a dead pantheon. Their surfaces bear no scripture, no revelation. Just emptiness. A mirror to what has begun to fester within her.
She does not turn as you enter. The subtle creak of the meteor’s bones is the only sound, a rhythmic groan like the breathing of some unseen beast. She sits before the glass, her arms wound about her knees, staring outward as though searching for something she has long since ceased to expect.
Rose has always been an amalgamation of contradictions. You have admired this about her. The delicate tenacity that allows her to wield devastation with the same grace she applies to embroidery. The recalcitrant poetry of her existence, shaped as it was by an upbringing of veiled contempt and silent wars waged across fine crystal and vodka-stained doilies.
But this is something else.
There is a stillness to her now, one that does not suit her. A sterility that makes her seem less like Rose Lalonde and more like the hollow remnant of her.
“I have been thinking,” she murmurs at last, “about the contingency of gods.”
You take a step closer, your own voice measured. “Have you.”
She hums, tilting her head as if listening to some distant, imperceptible hymn. The dim glow of the meteor’s artificial lighting pools along her cheekbones, catching in the hollow spaces beneath her eyes, painting her in pale relief. A saint cast in chiaroscuro.
“They require faith, don’t they? A god is only as real as the belief that sustains them. A tautology, but an effective one.” A pause. She exhales, slow and deliberate. “It follows, then, that divinity is mutable. If the pantheon can be rewritten, if their roles are contingent on our belief, then surely one can be—” a sharp breath, laughter like the scrape of broken glass— “installed.”
You say nothing.
You do not need to.
Her fingers twitch against the fabric of her sleeve, knuckles gone white from the force of her own grasp. She is holding herself together through sheer will, a body stitched by vehemence alone.
“I think I have gone mad,” she says. The words are smooth, polished, as though she has rehearsed them. “And I think I am all the better for it.”
She finally turns to you, her eyes bright, fevered, alight with something perilously close to revelation. “Kanaya,” she says, “I would like to believe in you.”
Something cold lances through you.
“You do.”
“No.” She rises, her movements slow, deliberate. “Not as a friend. Not as a—” a flicker of something unreadable crosses her face, then disappears— “companion.”
She takes a step forward. “I want to believe in you as the architect. The lightbearer. The mother of a world.”
Her lips part, tongue darting briefly to wet them, a flicker of buccal movement that should be mundane, but in this moment, in this context, becomes something weightier. The space between you contracts, condenses. Her voice is softer now, nearly reverent.
“You took a dead husk and rendered it fertile. You saw the bones of a ruined planet and from them carved renewal. The sun follows you. The Light follows you. And I—” she exhales, trembling— “I was made in your image, wasn’t I?”
Your throat tightens.
Because she is right.
You have never considered yourself divine, but you were a creator. You were meant to be. The last of your species, the sole inheritor of a grand and ancient charge, the one who must make a future. A mother before you were ever allowed to be a child.
Is that not godhood?
The light aspect has always tangled itself around you, a thread weaving through the ones you have loved and lost. First her, the thief who stole light only to be consumed by it. And now Rose, the one who bends it to her will, who sculpts it into something beautiful and terrible and true.
“You do not need a god,” you say, though your voice wavers.
She smiles, small and knowing. “I think I do.”
And what can you say to that?
She is a girl made of scripture and ruin, of revelation and fire. And you—
You were always meant to bring forth a new world.
Even if it is only for her.
You have loved her for some time now.
Even now, with her eyes burning in the dim, with her body drawn taut beneath the weight of something you are still learning how to name, she is radiant. You do not think she knows it. That is part of her tragedy. Or perhaps her divinity.
You sit beside her. The cot gives slightly under your weight, a subtle shift that brings you closer, though you do not yet touch. Not yet. You are careful with her. She does not demand it, but you have learned that love—true love, not the selfish hunger you once mistook for it—is an act of patience.
For a time, there is silence.
And then:
“My period has stopped.”
You blink. “… What?”
She laughs, dry and mirthless, but not unkind. “My period. You know, menstruation. The monthly trauma that comes with being cursed with a uterus. Or, in my case, used to come.”
You hesitate, measuring your response with the kind of caution reserved for disarming bombs. “… I do not believe I follow.”
That earns you a look, sharp and bright with something you cannot place. Then, abruptly, she leans forward, folding herself against her knees with a huff of wry amusement. “You don’t know what a period is.”
“I am familiar with the concept,” you defend, though you feel—what is the phrase? Out of your depth. “It is a human biological process. I am uncertain of its relevance to this conversation.”
She exhales through her nose. “It stopped because of stress. Or malnutrition. Or both. I don’t know. The point is, it’s gone.”
A beat.
And then:
“Honestly, I don’t miss it.”
You tilt your head. “No?”
She shakes her head. “It was an inconvenience. A painful, grotesque reminder of expectations I had no intention of fulfilling. And yet, now that it’s gone, I find myself…” She trails off, thoughtful. “Mourning it.”
You study her, silent.
Then: “Why?”
She considers this. The answer comes slow, deliberate, each word balanced carefully before leaving her tongue. “Because I grew up believing it meant something. That it made me something. That it was—” she gestures vaguely— “intrinsically tied to the feminine experience. But you—” she turns, eyes glinting with something sharp and knowing— “have never had one. And yet, you embody it.”
You frown, caught off guard. “I do not understand.”
She shifts toward you, closing the space between you by inches. You can feel the warmth of her now, subtle but present, a gravitational pull that tethers you in place.
“Look at you,” she says. “You are, by all definitions, alien. You have never bled like I have. Never been given the cruel gift of biology dictating what you are. And yet, you are motherhood incarnate. You are genesis. Creation. The very act of bringing forth.”
Her voice drops, barely above a whisper. “If you, who have never known a period, can be all that, then what does that make me?”
You do not know how to answer her.
She has always had this effect on you. She asks questions that leave you unraveling, that demand you lay yourself bare and examine what it is you think you know.
But you do know this:
She is warm beside you.
She is alive and whole, and her eyes are on you, searching, knowing.
So you reach for her.
You do it slowly, carefully, allowing her time to pull away. She does not. When your fingers brush against hers, she exhales, soft and trembling, but does not move. You take this as permission.
Her skin is warm beneath your touch. You trace the line of her knuckles, the ridge of her wrist, mapping her like something sacred. And then, gently, you cup her cheek.
She leans into it.
Something shifts.
The space between you contracts. The air grows heavy, charged with something too vast to name. She tilts her chin, and you follow, drawn forward as though by some unseen force.
You do not know who moves first.
It does not matter.
Your lips meet hers, and for the first time in what feels like eons, you understand what it means to be divine.