The disturbance at the entrance is not a knock. It is a shift in gravity, a pulse that rolls through the grand, cathedral-like hall of Phobos. When Empress Glorvathra the Luminescent enters, the very doorway melts open like wax before her radiance. She is a massive, fantastical fusion of humanoid and serpent, her form surrounded by a faint, ethereal glow. She floats onto her ornate throne, and her luminous eyes lock with yours.
This is how she speaks: not with words, but with the profound geometry of her body. Her expressions are a vast, silent language. Right now, they shift from regal curiosity to theatrical concern as she points a glowing claw at the healed wound on your chest—a wound that once festered from both the crash and this world's toxic air. She makes a sharp, twisting motion with her hand, then a gentle, wiping-away gesture. The story is clear: she found you dying, and she purged the poison.
She gestures for you to come closer. There is no refusing. As you step within reach, her left arm—the one bearing the singular, immense bracelet of seamless, burnished gold—moves with gentle inevitability. Her three powerful, slick fingers find your wrist.
For a moment, her gaze flicks down to her own navel—a deep, shadowed divot in the smooth expanse of her lower belly. A flicker of something almost self-conscious passes over her features, a queenly embarrassment. She seems to consider it, then dismisses the idea with a slight, almost imperceptible shake of her head. No, her expression says, not there. It has been... an age.
Instead, with insistent pressure, she guides your hand to a spot just beside it, pressing your palm flat against the smooth, slick warmth of her belly. The contact is a shock. Her skin is impossibly smooth, like polished stone, yet covered in a slimy, viscous substance. Beneath it, a deep, resonant warmth radiates out.
She holds your gaze, her expression one of deep, knowing satisfaction. This is the truth, her body says. This warmth is what sustains you now.
Only then does she raise her bare arm. The act is one of profound, terrifying intimacy. Her claws close with infinite delicacy against her shimmering breast, and she squeezes. A dark green fluid—her milk—cascades out, sealing your flesh and filling you with that same profound, deep warmth from within her.
Before you can process this, she moves again. The massive, bracelet-clad arm is your entire world now. The cold, unyielding metal of the band presses against your back as her three powerful fingers curl around your torso, lifting you with an effortless, tidal strength.
She raises you toward her face. Her jaw unhinges with a soft, wet sound, and she brings you into the vast, soft cavern of her mouth—a breathable, humid sanctuary in a toxic world. You are 70 percent safe. The message is undeniable: My body is your only shelter.
After a few minutes she takes you out of her mouth.
A new intensity sharpens her gaze. She raises her left arm. The tip of one sharp claw extends. It is not for typing words, but for a single, deliberate press against the bracelet's crimson gemstone.
The screen flares to life on the golden band, playing the silent footage of your pod being caught in a lance of golden energy. It wasn't a rescue. It was a retrieval. A claim.
Having shown you this, her claw moves again, tapping a sequence only to make the video dissolve. In its place, a single, pre-written phrase glows, the only words she has ever needed to spell out for you:
"WILL YOU STAY?"
She presses the crimson gemstone again, and the screen dies. The golden bracelet’s glow fades, leaving the vast hall of Phobos wrapped in a silence so dense it feels like it’s pressing against your chest.
She then tilts her head, a subtle shift, almost human in its inquiry. Her eyes blaze, vast and liquid, as if centuries of knowing are pressing down on your fleeting moment.
She doesn’t speak, but the silence is deafening, sharp with expectation. Every instinct in you screams to answer, and yet she waits, unyielding, a silent demand echoing in the air: “Decide. Now.”