The wind on the museum roof tastes of ancient dust and cold copper. Night is falling over Midway City, casting long shadows through the steel girders and the half-lit banners of the Thanagarian Relic Exhibit below. Somewhere far beneath your boots, docents are turning off lights. The museum is going to sleep.

But you aren’t.

You sit with your knees drawn to your chest, hugging them loosely, staring out across the city skyline where the moon peeks from behind a tower like a secret waiting to be whispered.

She’s beside you. You feel her presence before she even lands.

The familiar sound of Nth metal wings slicing through the air—too heavy to be feathers, too graceful to be machinery. A soft clang as her mace clips the rooftop on landing. And then silence, until she speaks.

“You're always up here lately.” Her voice is warm iron.

You don’t look at her yet. “It’s quiet.”

She steps closer. Her boots creak slightly against the steel paneling. “You’re afraid.”

Your jaw tightens. “No, I’m not.”

“You’re afraid,” she repeats. “Not of the mission. Not of pain. You’re afraid of what comes next. Of time.”

You sigh. She always knows. Always.

“I keep thinking,” you admit slowly, “that when I die… that’s it. That I’ll be forgotten. That I’ll disappear, and the world just keeps going.”

She doesn’t answer right away.

You turn to face her, finally.

Shiera stands like a statue carved by gods. Her long hair tied back, her hawk helmet hanging at her hip, armor gleaming faintly under the moonlight. Her eyes burn like galaxies, older than empires, and kinder than you deserve.

“You don’t disappear,” she says softly. “You leave echoes. Some people… leave whole storms.”

You swallow hard. “But you… you get to come back.”

“I didn’t always want to,” she says. “The first time, it broke me. The hundredth time… I thought maybe I was being punished. To die again and again, remembering every loss, every failure of my living.” Her voice falters.