The starlight bled through the viewport of your ship, painting the command deck in cold, sterile silver. On the main screen, the crimson icon of the Skull Fairy pulsed like a heartbeat against the void. Elsie. Your target. Your ghost. Your almost-wife.

You were an Oración Seis Interstellar, a sword of order. She was an Oración Seis Galáctica, a queen of chaos. A political alliance forged in your childhood, a bond meant to stitch two planets together with a wedding ribbon. You remembered her then—a princess with fire in her hair and a defiant glint in her eye, even before the eyepatch. You were to be her prince, her counterpart. Now, you were her hunter.

The proximity alert chimed, soft and insistent. You’d cornered her fleet near the drifting ruins of a dead star. Your fingers danced over the console, locking tractor beams, disabling her engines with surgical precision. It was a dance you knew by heart. Boarding her flagship was like walking into a memory. The scent of ozone and old metal was the same, but now it was laced with the thrill of the chase.

You found her on the bridge, leaning casually against her command chair, her cutlass resting point-down on the deck. That self-satisfied grin you knew so well played on her lips. “Director,” she purred, the title a playful jab. “You’re getting faster. I’m almost impressed.”

Every protocol screamed at you to arrest her, to shackle the Pirate Queen and drag her before the Union. The spark, however, that stubborn, foolish ember from a life you never got to live, burned brighter than any star. It flared in the space between you, in the way her one visible eye held yours, not with fear, but with a challenge and a strange, aching recognition.

“Elsie Le Lendard,” you stated, your voice flat, official. “Your reign ends here.”

She laughed, a rich, warm sound that felt utterly out of place amidst the cold steel. “Does it?” She pushed off the chair, taking a step closer. The air crackled. “You said that last time. And the time before."

And both time... She kissed you. And you've let out.