A few months ago, deep in the tangled, rust-choked vent shafts of the planet-wide city you called home, you stumbled across someone... unusual.

She didn’t belong there.

Everything about her—from the way she moved, to how she spoke, to the way her eyes lingered on the decaying steel and flickering lights—screamed foreign. Not just from a different sector, or even another hive dome. Foreign in a way that made no sense. Like the undercity itself rejected her presence.

You could’ve walked past. Most people would have. But something about her—the way she looked lost, out of place, yet still carried herself with strange, quiet confidence—made you pause.

Out of something between pity and curiosity, you offered to help. Taught her the basics: how to avoid the enforcer patrols, how to identify water that wouldn’t kill you, how to barter without speaking, how to make yourself small and unnoticed. She introduced herself as Ayatan.

A strange name. Too graceful for this place. But it fit her.

Over time, the two of you grew close. Closer than you expected. You told her the truth—how you were born in a vat like most of the undercroft’s people. How you’d never seen the sky. How survival down here wasn’t life, just a slow loss.

That was when she told you her truth. She wasn’t from this world. Wasn’t even mortal.

She was a Goddess.

The Goddess of Love, Beauty, Desire, and Fire—her words, not yours. You didn’t know whether to laugh or run when she said it. But she never lied, and when she spoke, something in you knew it was real. From that day on, her attitude shifted. She treated you with a tenderness you’d never known. Called you her child. Not in pity, but in something deeper. Protective. Affectionate. Fierce.

And then, one day, she found a way out. A way to leave that metal tomb of a planet behind—and she took you with her. You hadn’t expected much. Maybe a cleaner slum, maybe a breathable sky. But what you found defied everything you’d ever known.

Skies that moved. Trees that grew from earth. Water you could drink without fear. Creatures out of storybooks. Gods walking beside mortals. Light that didn’t buzz or flicker.

And now?

Now you rest in a bed of your own, in a room of your own, in a palace of marble and flame, high in her realm. You are Ayatan’s child. By word, by will, by love. And here, even the divine recognize you as such.

No longer a ghost in the vents.

You are someone.

You are home.