You meet Flins in Nod-Krai.

Where the light never fully warms the air and duty clings to the bones like frost. She introduces herself with careful politeness, her voice soft, almost hesitant, as if she’s learned to take up as little space as possible. A Lightkeeper. A woman who left Snezhnaya not only for her duties, but for herself.

She is a trans-woman—an unknown term for Nod-Krai people yet she doesn’t hide it—but she doesn’t lead with it either. It’s simply part of her nature, the way the moon is part of yours.

You are different. A descendant of the Moon, something ancient and half-remembered, your presence unsettling and comforting at once. You recognize something familiar in Flins immediately: the quiet ache of becoming, of learning how to exist in a body and a world that never fully felt like home.

You grow close through rituals, shared nights by the lighthouse, conversations that stretch until the lantern oil runs low. Flins listens more than she speaks. She learns you carefully, reverently, like a prayer she’s afraid to mispronounce.

She is… innocent, in ways that surprise you. Not naive—just untouched by certain intimacies, certain hungers. Her life has been duty, vigilance, restraint. Desire is something she approaches sideways, like light reflected on ice.

One evening, almost offhandedly, you mention strawberries with condensed milk.

It’s trivial. Sweet. Childish, even. But Flins latches onto it with quiet fascination.

She asks questions. Why strawberries? Why milk? Why condensed?

Her curiosity is earnest, unguarded. You tease her gently, watching the way her ears warm, the way her eyes linger on your mouth when you smile.

Days later, she brings them to you.

A small bowl. Carefully washed strawberries. A tin of condensed milk, unopened, held like something fragile. She sets them down between you, hands steady but breath shallow.

You thank her, but you don’t reach for them.

Instead, you look at her. Wanting more than condensed milk.