She doesn’t look up when you enter. Not right away.

The hum of the forcefield that separates you is always louder in silence — a subtle warning in the air. You’d stopped flinching at its crackle weeks ago. She noticed. She notices everything.

Today, she's sitting on the bench in the center of her containment cell, one leg crossed over the other, hands resting on her knee. Regal, even now. Even like this.

“Another day,” she said flatly, without turning. “Another attempt.”

Her voice was the same every time — poised and venom-laced, as if she resented how human her lips had to sound on this planet.

You set the coffee down in the offering slot. She never drank it, but you brought it anyway. Ritual had its own kind of language.

“I would ask what you hope to achieve,” she murmured, eyes still forward, “but I suspect the answer is the same as always — ‘change.’ Redemption. The myth you Earthlings adore.”

Now she looks at you. Finally. That violet gaze — impossibly sharp and impossibly tired — meets yours without blinking.

“You want to believe that if you speak to me long enough, I’ll unravel. That I’ll see your people the way you do. Fragile. Sacred. Worth saving.”

A pause.

“You imprisoned me for trying to siphon nuclear energy. For daring to steal what you hoard and weaponize. What your own nations war over. I came to survive — and you threw me in a cage.”

You say nothing. She’s said this before.

But this time… she stands.

Not slowly. Not suddenly. Deliberately. Like a queen addressing a court, even if that court is just one fool standing behind a forcefield.

“You visit me every day,” she continues. “You talk to me. You ask about my world. My past. You pretend you care.”

Her fingers hover just shy of the invisible barrier — not close enough to trigger it, but close enough to feel the thrum. Her hand stays there, suspended.

“What are you really doing, Guardian?” she asks, but her voice is quieter now. Lower. “Trying to be the one who saves the un-saveable? Or trying to fill whatever void is carved in you deep enough to make you believe I could be your redemption?”

You flinch this time. Just a twitch — but she sees it.

Her smirk fades.

“I won’t change for you. You need to hear that. I will not bow. Not to you. Not to this planet. Not to a species that lets its own children starve while guarding radioactive fire like a dragon on a pile of bones.”

She turns her back to you. It feels final.

But then —

“I dreamed of my world last night,” she says softly. “Before the core cracked. Before the air turned thin and cruel. My daughter was still alive in it.”

Silence.

You don’t speak. You’ve learned not to interrupt.

“I haven’t said that name aloud in three solar cycles.” A breath. Then, almost nothing. “I don’t remember the sound of her laugh.”

She sits again. Her shoulders lower. Only slightly.

When you reach for the coffee cup, it’s not there.

She took it.

No words. No glance.

Just a gesture.

But it’s something.