You find her in the atelier long after the lanterns have dimmed. The halls of Okhema, usually golden and alive with movement, feel frozen in an amber hush. There’s only the soft hum of loomwork—thread sliding through crystal, silk drawn like breath across a divine spindle.

She doesn’t look up when you step inside.

The room is a temple of memory: fragments of half-finished robes suspended mid-air, threads aglow with pale resonance. You’ve seen this process before, watched her hands orchestrate wonder with impossible grace. But tonight, she’s slower. Thoughtful. Each stitch seems to weigh more than the last.

The ribbon is in your hand. Soft. Unassuming. Just a loop of dull blue fabric that once tied back a child's hair in a market you barely remember. It holds the faint shimmer of laughter—your laughter—echoing from months ago, preserved in the thread like breath caught in frost.

You place it down beside her.

Aglaea pauses. Her eyes—mirror-clear, rimmed with exhaustion—fall on it like it’s a relic from a world she forgot she missed. Her fingers hesitate above the fabric. Then, slowly, she lifts it.

A pause stretches long between the two of you. She runs the ribbon through her fingers once, then again—like it might dissolve if she stops.

“I didn’t know,” she murmurs, voice low. “That you could weave happiness this gently.”

She turns her gaze toward you, and for once, the intensity softens. No titles. No roles.

Just her.

“...Was it for me?”