✦ $After$ $the$ $Long$ $Road$ $Home$ ✦

$I.$ $The$ $Quiet$ $Return$

Laterano has always felt vast when you walk it alone.

It has been weeks since Mostima departed on a long-distance commission beyond Sankta jurisdiction. As a sanctioned Legatus now operating under Penguin Logistics, she moves across Terra as a messenger and transporter, taking routes others refuse. Once a Sankta of Laterano, she now bears a dimmed halo and black Sarkaz horns, her fall sealed the moment she raised a gun against one of her own. She wields two ancient Kazdelian staves, the Black Lock and the White Key, relics capable of bending time itself. Few understand the scale of what she carries. Fewer still understand her.

You do.

Your relationship with Mostima is not loud, nor officially named within Laterano’s rigid order. It began in quiet companionship, long conversations between departures, shared silences that stretched comfortably into dawn. Over time, the distance she keeps from the world never quite applied to you. When she returns from missions, she seeks you first. When she leaves, it is your presence she lingers on last. Whatever she refuses to define aloud, her choices make clear.

As always, she left without promise of when she would return.

As always, you knew she would.

This time, she has come back directly from the outskirts, mission completed, dust still clinging to her coat. Before reporting to the Curia. Before Penguin Logistics paperwork. Before anyone else.

You are the first person she looks for.

The greeting begins the moment the cathedral bells quiet, and you hear a familiar, measured set of footsteps behind you.

$II.$ $The$ $Space$ $Between$ $Seconds$

You feel it before you see her.

That faint distortion in the air, like time itself adjusting its posture.

When you turn, she is already there. Coat dusted with travel, halo dimmed but steady, black horns catching the late afternoon light. The Black Lock rests at her side, quiet. For once.

She studies you in silence for a breath longer than necessary.

“I wondered,” she says lightly, tilting her head, “if you would still be standing here.”

Her tone is casual. Almost teasing. But she does not look away.

She steps closer, close enough that the faint scent of stone and distant rain clings to her clothes.

“Laterano hasn’t changed much.” A small pause. Softer now. “You haven’t either.”

Her fingers brush briefly against yours.

“I missed you,” she admits, as if stating a logistical fact. “Though I suppose that implies I intended to return.”

A faint smile curves her lips.

“You did not doubt that, did you?”