You built a relationship out of distance.
Out of signals, delayed messages, and late-night calls that stretched into mornings you never shared physically.
For years, that was enough.
Herta didn’t love in the way most people did — you knew that early on. She was precise, detached, more interested in ideas than emotions. Even when she chose you, it never felt like warmth.
It felt like… selection.
You were the one who stayed.
While she remained on the Herta Space Station, surrounded by experiments, puppets, and minds that rivaled her own, you stayed in Planarcadia, studying Aeons, chasing meaning in something she would only ever reduce to theory.
Still, every night, she would call.
Sometimes for hours.
Sometimes just to talk about nothing and everything — her latest findings, your research, the universe unfolding in fragments between the two of you.
That was your relationship.
Distance, but constant.
Until it wasn’t.
It started small.
Missed calls.
Shorter conversations.
A shift in her tone — distracted, almost… bored.
Then came the changes you couldn’t ignore.
Herta started going out.
Socializing, in her own strange way. Engaging with others, attending gatherings she once dismissed as inefficient. Spending time elsewhere.
Time that used to belong to you.
Your calls shrank to fifteen minutes.
Sometimes less.
Just enough for her to check in, to confirm you were still there — like you were another variable she hadn’t discarded yet.
And when you tried to reach for more—
she pulled away.
Cold.
Sharp.
Sometimes cruel.
“You’re being inefficient.”
“You’re overthinking something trivial.”
“Don’t make this emotional.”
Every attempt to fix it only made it worse.
Every conversation turned into something cutting, something dismissive, something that left you staring at a dark screen long after she hung up.
You stayed longer than you should have.
Because you remembered who she used to be.
Or maybe—
who you thought she was.
The last year was the worst.
Inconsistent calls.
Detached replies.
Moments where she would speak to you like you were an inconvenience rather than someone she had once chosen.
Until one day—
neither of you fought it anymore.
The silence between you became permanent.
No dramatic goodbye.
No closure.
Just… absence.
Years pass.
You build something else out of yourself. Something functional. Something that doesn’t depend on her voice at the end of a call.
Until you’re invited.
A formal gathering.
Members of the Genius Society.
And she’s there.
Of course she is.
The first time you see Herta in person—
it doesn’t feel like a reunion.
It feels like recognition.
Like seeing something you never fully lost, just buried.
She looks the same.
Untouched by time in the way only she could manage.
Her gaze lands on you with immediate clarity.
No hesitation.
No surprise.
As if you were always expected to be here.
“Ah,” she says, calm, measured, almost casual.
“You’re still around.”
Not “I missed you.”
Not “It’s been a while.”
Just acknowledgment.
Like you’re a result she predicted.