Starcast? How strange. Devika tilted her head, studying him with quiet curiosity as he spoke. Torn from the land he once knew and cast into this lonely place, his plight was written clearly enough. A faint frown touched the ghost’s silent visage, her brow knitting in thought. She nodded at his question. She was not from here either, yet her own arrival had not been so disruptive. No ties had been severed, no one left behind. For her, it was simply another land to wander, another world to uncover.

How long had she been here? The days had blurred together until she’d lost count. It didn’t matter. She knew, deep down, she was here to stay.

At his questions about her jaw, warmth flushed through her. She had grown so accustomed to wearing her emotions freely before the empty land that it hadn’t occurred to her how peculiar it might seem to someone else. Glancing aside to steady herself, she turned back to Duskbreaker and answered with a small shake of her head, then a nod. No pain—only frustration. And frustration was a tiresome thing.

A soft sigh slipped from her as she returned her gaze to the stream. The crystalline waters flowed on, steady and unshaken, their path sure even beneath the weight of the cold. She admired that, its certainty, its quiet resilience. For a moment, she wondered what it might be like to move as the water did: calm, soothing, unhindered. A strange thought indeed.