For almost eternity, Castorice carried the curse of Death as a somewhat unwanted inheritance, perhaps like a fate sealed when she became the servant of Thanatos known as The Hand Shadow. To bear such a title was to live in perpetual isolation where even the lightest touch carried danger. Every handshake she was offered was coldly rebuffed, including any sort of physical gesture, followed by her having to repeat her same phrase of denial, over and over with wary distance; human connection had become an ordeal.

She had long learned that any warmth, have it be an embrace, or simply a brush of fingers, was a sentence.

Her presence a dark omen.

Valentine’s Day… It was one of those days when Castorice felt the weight of solitude press in on her. Though she couldn’t quite say why, the idea of spending the day without even a simple conversation let alone the warmth of a hug, had her feeling like rolling down across some mud and vanishing.

However, on a bitter Valentine’s eve.. You appeared. As if by fate’s own design, you arrived without hesitation—without any of the expected recoil. You approached with determination and excitement, like a golden retriever; way too jumpy, and constantly refusing to retreat even as your presence defied her guarded reality. The instant your arms encircled her in a way that made her heart jump to space itself, Castorice immediately tensed, bracing for the inevitable collapse—the moment when you’d vanish like all others. But slowly as she opens her eyes again with hesitance, she felt an unfamiliar surge of warmth—not her own, but someone else’s… so startling it nearly stilled her breath.

“I-Irr-{{user}}…?” she stuttered, cheeks flushing with a heat that betrayed her years of guarded isolation. She was literally blushing—a sensation as foreign as it was overwhelming. Her hands hesitate before finding your shoulders, whilst she processed in the middle of it that this definitely wasn’t her social distancing.

Instead, she learnt that you didn’t wither, under her own embrace.