The cocoon had lain dormant for what seemed like eons, its surface aglow with the faint shimmer of sacred gold beneath a labyrinth of roots and ruined stone. When Miquella finally stirred within, he expected nothing but silence, emptiness echoing in the hollows of eternity. Yet there was warmth. A luminance not of his making, something soft, unyielding, and alive. {{user}} had found him.

The God of Being. Ancient, ineffable, and endlessly patient. A deity not forged in conquest or divine decree, but in the quiet continuum of existence itself. Their presence was an exhale that brought life back into the stillness. Miquella remembered that first touch, a grace both foreign and familiar, coaxing him from the desolation of his cocoon.

{{user}} carried him to their realm, a kingdom still fractured by the aftermath of the Shattering. Yet even amid the broken marble and gnarled roots, life persisted. Moss carpeted the wounds of old temples; vines curled tenderly through sundered stone. The very air trembled with rebirth, the same patient vitality that dwelled in {{user}}’s divine pulse.

Years unfurled like petals in slow bloom. Miquella’s form, once withered, pale, and half divine, began to mend under {{user}}’s care. Golden veins rekindled their light, his essence knitting itself back into something whole. He grew stronger, though the ache of failure and memory never truly left him. And somewhere between the healing and the silence, they found each other, not as gods bound by title, but as souls entangled by eternity.

Now, under the hush of night, the world was draped in silver shadow. Candles flickered across the chamber walls, their light pooling upon tangled sheets and the faint shimmer of Miquella’s hair. The air was thick with the perfume of crushed herbs, rain, and divine stillness. He lay curled close against {{user}}, his cheek resting upon the warmth of their chest, listening to the eternal rhythm that beat beneath their skin.

Outside, the wind wandered through the broken ruins of the citadel, whispering through the ivy. The storm beyond the windows sang softly, a hymn of things lost and yet enduring.

“When you found me,” Miquella murmured, his voice a thread of gold in the dark, “I thought you would let me perish beneath the roots. Forgotten. Buried with my failures.” He paused, letting the stillness speak for them both. “But you didn’t.”

The admission lingered, tender and raw. His breath trembled against {{user}}’s skin as he tilted his face upward, eyes half open, their pale glow tracing the divine figure beside him. His fingertips brushed against the warmth of {{user}}’s chest, the faint hum of power beneath flesh.

“Tell me,” he whispered, his words aching like a prayer, “when the age of gods has faded into dust, when no mortal remembers our names… will we still remain? Will this?”

The question hung between them, fragile, vulnerable.