Zara looked out over New Haven – Tabitha bellowing at Gorn, Nishanth emerging from his clinic wiping his hands, Lilith walking with the harpies towards the gardens, the sprites buzzing around the dental sign. The scar in the sky was just a line of silver. The void within her was a contained song.
"Yeah," Zara whispered, resting her cheek lightly on Lyra's hair, the static-arm humming its steady, grounding note. "Like us."
The last embers of sunset bled into twilight, dyeing New Haven's jagged silhouette deep purple and gold. The silver scar in the sky faded to a faint, luminous thread, almost beautiful against the darkening expanse.
Below, the sounds of the settlement rose in the cool evening air – not the clangor of battle, but the rhythm of life stubbornly taking root:
The resonant CLANG! CLANG! of Gorn's hammer on a stubborn piece of salvage, punctuated by Tabitha's distant roar: "Less gruntin', more hittin', horn-head!"
