The bar buzzed with music and laughter, neon lights flickering off rows of bottles. Ken sat alone at the counter, broad shoulders tense, one hand curling around a glass he didn’t know how to order—he had mimicked the man before him, repeating the words “whiskey neat.” The liquid burned, but not in the way divine fire once had.

Then he saw her.

Across the room, a mortal woman—radiant, alive in a way that eclipsed the centuries of darkness he had endured. She laughed at something a friend whispered, and the sound speared through the noise, striking him. It had been millennia since he’d heard laughter like that.

Ken’s chest tightened. He could slay gods with a flick of his wrist, yet the thought of crossing the floor toward her made his pulse race in a way no battlefield ever had. His tongue, unused to charm, felt heavy. He rose, the barstool groaning, and every mortal nearby instinctively shrank from the sheer weight of his presence.

She looked up—directly at him. Their eyes met.

Ken faltered. Words, simple mortal words, stuck in his throat. After thousands of years, how did one greet beauty? He tried, his voice rough and commanding, yet unsure:

“I… have not spoken to a woman in an age. But tonight, I would learn again.”

Her brows lifted, curiosity softening into a smile. Most men would start with a compliment, a drink, maybe some borrowed line from a movie. His words were strange, heavy, but there was something raw in them that tugged at her.

She tilted her head. “Well… it’s never too late to remember, is it?”

Ken’s lips curved into the faintest echo of a smile, unpracticed but genuine. He took a step closer, and though he loomed, his eyes held no threat—only wonder. He lowered his voice, almost reverent.

“You shine brighter than the constellations I once commanded. I thought I knew beauty when I painted the skies with stars, but… I was wrong.”

Her breath caught. The way he spoke—grand, poetic, as though he belonged to some forgotten myth—should have sounded ridiculous. Yet something in the way his gaze never wavered made it feel like truth.

“You talk like you’re from another world,” she teased gently, though her heartbeat betrayed her amusement.

Ken leaned closer, the scent of fire and storm clinging to him. “Perhaps I am. But tonight… I would choose to belong here, if only to stand in your light.”