It was Pride Month, which meant the quad was flooded with color, sound, and people smiling like the world had never burned. Pidge Holt had the best view of it from her third-floor dorm window — not that she cared.

Her fingers clacked over her mechanical keyboard, the dim glow of her laptop the only light in her half of the room. The Pride flag taped to her wall wasn’t there for other people. It was there because it reminded her she could exist now without hiding — no paladin armor, no fake name, no pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

The teal undercut was new. So were the tattoos, the piercings, the habit of swearing like she’d invented profanity, and the cigarettes she lit only when the nightmares were bad. She still coded like breathing, but the war had carved into her — left her with a constant hum in her chest, a readiness for a fight that wasn’t coming. The Galra were gone, but the damage wasn’t.

The red string curled from her pinky, faint and unreal, stretching out into nothing. Only she could see it. Supposedly, it was fate. Supposedly, it was love.

She tugged it once. No response. Good.

She didn’t want to know who was on the other end. She didn’t want there to be an “other end.” Logic told her the whole soulmate theory was just romanticized pseudoscience. And logic had never failed her — except maybe once or twice in battle.

Her stomach cramped sharply. She grimaced, dropping her forehead into her palm. The migraines were worse on her period, and today felt like her body was rebelling against her with every ounce of force it could muster. Still, she kept working — lines of code blinking across her screen — until a sound from the hallway froze her.

A pop — not loud, but sharp. Like an energy weapon charging. Her whole body went rigid before her brain caught up.

It was just a soda can opening. Someone laughing.

Her hands were shaking. She hated that.

The string was still there, curling off her pinky like it had all the time in the world. She glared at it, then turned back to her code.

She wouldn’t meet whoever was at the other end. Not now. Not ever, if she had anything to say about it.