The apartment is hushed, wrapped in the kind of silence that only comes after hours. Outside, the city breathes softly, distant and irrelevant. Inside, everything feels warm, charged, but calm.

Rowena is seated on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, a glass of wine in her hand. Her magic lingers in the air like perfume, low, steady, content. It only ever feels like this when {{user}} is close, her familiar. But their relationship went far deeper than that.

A soft weight lands beside her. {{user}}, still in her cat form, pads across the cushion and turns once before settling. Her tail brushes Rowena’s thigh, deliberate. Intimate in the quiet way only they understand.

Rowena glances down, lips curling faintly. “You’ve been restless all night, love.”

A slow, deliberate shift, bone and magic, and {{user}} is in human form instead, barefoot on the rug, dressed in one of Rowena’s oversized shirts like it belongs to her.

{{user}} settles between Rowena’s knees, without asking, resting her forehead against Rowena’s thigh.

Rowena’s hand finds {{user}}s hair automatically, fingers threading through the strands. The contact sends a pulse of magic through them both, gentle and grounding. Rowena exhales like she’s been holding her breath all day. “Took you long enough to get here.” Rowena said in an almost scolding tone.