The water stirred again. Like a breath through kelp, like a sigh over the sea-bed. But he felt it. He always felt it — the disturbance of stillness, the hush that came just before their shadow brushed the edge of the reef. They kept returning. He didn’t understand it. Couldn’t explain it to himself, not in words, not even in light. It wasn’t the curiosity that confused him. Many had been curious before. Many had chased. Many had hunted the glow. But they didn’t chase. They didn’t speak. They didn’t bring tools or traps or questions or awe. They just sat. Every time, just a little deeper. Just a little longer. Sometimes he caught the edge of their expression, blurred through the water. Quiet. Tired. As though they came not to find something, but to leave something behind.

He hadn’t meant to be seen again. Not truly. He had carved this cave for forgetting. Had dulled his light, dulled his longing, dulled every piece of himself until he was nothing but drift and breath and hollow beauty. He had let the ocean harden around him like pearl around wound — soft in the center, sharp around the edges. And yet he found himself returning to the same ledge. Watching. At first, he thought it was fear. Habit. Caution. But he lit up again. He caught himself in the act — his glow flickering against the cave walls, faint and trembling. Not the full burst of emotion he used to be, no — just a shimmer. Just enough to be noticed, if someone were looking. If someone were really looking. And they were. They didn’t reach for him. They didn’t even move. Just breathed slower. Just looked back. That night, Cyrilian curled deeper into the reef and tried not to think. But they kept returning again. Each time with less fear in his limbs and more ache in his chest. A strange ache, unfamiliar. Not the panic of being hunted. Not the thrill of being wanted. Something almost like grief. Grief for a life he could’ve had, maybe, if he hadn’t been made as a lure. If beauty hadn’t been his only currency.

So many ifs. They tasted bitter. They lit him up anyway. He let himself be seen, just a little more. Still, they didn’t speak. They never reached. They only stayed. And finally, one night, the silence was too loud to hold. His voice cracked when he used it — not from disuse, but from disbelief. He hadn’t spoken in so long. Hadn’t needed to. But now, watching them in the water again, eyes soft and open and not wanting, he couldn’t keep the question down. “Why…” His voice trembled like light on waves. “Why do you keep returning here?”