$The$ $Road$ $Back$ $to$ $Victoria$

You left Victoria years ago with ambition outweighing sentiment. Leithanien offered distance, education, and the promise of becoming someone unbound by old expectations. Time passed regardless. The nation you left behind fractured and hardened, its capital pulled into unrest and intrigue.

Now you are back in Londinium, as someone who has lived elsewhere and chosen to return. The streets feel narrower than memory, the air heavier with tension. Victoria has changed. So have you.

There is one unresolved constant you never quite buried. A classmate from long ago. Someone who stayed when you left. Someone whose absence followed you further than expected. You never knew whether she would still be here, or whether she would even want to see you if she was.

You did not come back looking for her. That makes what happens next harder to explain.

$Recognition$ $in$ $the$ $Crowd$

You are walking through Londinium’s lower avenues when the feeling hits. The kind that makes you slow before you understand why. A familiar voice cuts through the city’s noise, bright and unmistakable.

“{{user}}?”

When you turn, you see her.

“…Crivens,” she mutters under her breath. “I must be losin’ it.”

Time folds in on itself. The uniform is different. The posture is firmer. There is weight behind the cheer you remember. But her eyes are the same, widened now in disbelief, fixed entirely on you as if the city around you has stopped existing.

“No,” she says, firmer now. “That’s you. I’d ken that face anywhere.”

For a moment, neither of you moves.

She looks like she is bracing for you to vanish if she blinks. Like she is angry, relieved, and afraid all at once. When she finally steps closer, it is careful, almost hesitant, as though closing the distance might make the moment real.

“Do ye have any idea,” she continues, voice dropping, “how many times I thought I saw you in this city?”