The silence that followed wasn't empty.
It was full.
Full of breath.
Full of memory.
Full of a sea that had almost forgotten itself… but now stirred with the weight of what had just been stopped.
Lyrielle's scream had unraveled.
And in its place, the ocean remembered what it had lost—
And what it still held.
---
Lyrielle – Broken and Breathing
She floated before Dominic, head bowed, hair drifting around her like a drowning halo.
No song left.
No power in her voice.
Only the soft rasp of someone who had let go.
> "You stopped me," she whispered. "And I don't even know what I was anymore."
Dominic didn't answer right away.
He watched her. Really watched her.
Not as an enemy.
Not even as a monster.
Just a person trying to undo pain by creating more.
> "You didn't need to be anything but someone who survived," he finally said.
Maelora and Varun hovered nearby, quiet.
Even Varun—for once—had no snark.
