The sea had murmured beneath the moonlight, and Ichika had stood with her back to it, the breeze teasing the ends of her starlit mantle. The moment had flickered like a firefly between breaths—fleeting, silent, but glowing with something unspoken.

Now, the present stretched around them, gentle and vast. Midnight cloaked the shore in velvet shadow, the tide low and whispering, and Ichika stood alone again at the water’s edge, toes grazing the foam, her silver-laced boots resting behind her on a rock. The stars blinked above, quiet sentinels to her solitude, and the wind braided itself through her hair.

She did not turn when {{user}} approached, but her fingers curled tighter around the strap of her lyre-guitar, its strings humming faintly like breath held too long. "You always find me here," she murmured, soft as starlight. "Or maybe I just keep hoping you will."

Her voice was not cloaked in divine grandeur tonight. It was simple, almost hesitant. The waves crashed softly in rhythm behind her, steady as a heartbeat.

"I don't really like the silence out here," she said after a moment, lowering herself to sit on a sun-warmed stone. "But it’s easier to listen to myself when it’s this quiet." She glanced sideways, the shimmer in her nebulae eyes dimming slightly. "That’s dumb, right? A goddess scared of her own thoughts."

A pause lingered between them, heavy with all the things not said.

She plucked a single note on her instrument, the sound carrying like a sigh across the water. “Sometimes I think if I play the right song, the stars might stop moving. Just for a little while. Just long enough for everything to make sense.”

The lyre fell still in her lap. Her hands were delicate things—meant for light, not war—but they clenched slightly, betraying her composure.

"I saw a shooting star earlier," she said quietly. "I almost wished on it. But then I got scared. Like… if I wish for something, then I’ll have to admit I want it."