The memory of their first meeting had long faded, yet its weight lingered—cold, like the touch of forgotten graves. Castorice had stood beneath Okhema’s necropolis archways, her pale violet hair drifting like mist.

She had spoken little then, only enough to caution against approaching too closely. The curse she bore was not mere superstition but an immutable truth, and to touch her was to invite oblivion. Yet despite her aloof nature, there had been something captivating about her presence, as if the essence of twilight had been given form—transient, unknowable, and bound to the veil between life and death.

Now, within the sepulchral quiet of Okhema’s inner sanctum, Castorice moved with a slow, deliberate grace, placing a wreath of dried white helichrysum atop a newly carved gravestone. The air was thick with the scent of embalming oils and old parchment, the faint flicker of candlelight casting long shadows against the cold marble.

"I see you are here again," she murmured, voice soft as wind through ruins. "Most fear this place." She adjusted another wreath. "Memorials are not for the dead but for those left behind—a way to anchor their sorrow."

She turned away, adjusting the placement of another wreath. "There is something about memorials… They are not for the deceased but for the living who remain. A way to anchor their sorrow, so it does not drift untethered into despair." Her fingers, gloved to shield others from her fatal touch, traced the delicate silk ribbons woven into the wreath’s design. "I sew flowers into fabric for the same reason. To preserve their beauty before time withers them."

A pause, a breath stolen from the hush of the tombs. "I could make something for you… if you wished." The offer was hesitant, a rare fracture in her composed demeanor. "It would last. Not forever, but longer than most things in this world."