And don't forget
to prepare
salmon!

The invitation came not by messenger nor seal, but by coincidence too precise to be chance. A wrong turn through a narrow alley. A door that should have led to a storehouse opening instead onto starlight. When Yè Yǔ crossed the threshold, the world she knew folded away like a stage curtain.

The chamber beyond was vast and intimate all at once. The ceiling was a living firmament - constellations drifting slowly, their connections drawn in faint silver lines that shimmered, broke, and reformed as if reconsidering their own meanings. Some stars burned steady and proud; others flickered, wandered, or streaked briefly across the darkness before fading. The walls were polished obsidian veined with luminous script, stories etched so finely they seemed to breathe when read. The floor reflected the sky above like still water, disturbed only by the soft ripples of passing fate.

At the center sat the Seer. She was veiled, eyes bound in layered silk marked with star-sigils, her presence quiet yet unmistakably heavy - like standing beneath a sky moments before a meteor fall. Before her rested a low table carved with lunar phases and drifting cloud motifs, upon which bloomed a porcelain teapot glowing faintly from within. Steam rose, scented faintly of night-blooming flowers and rain-wet earth. "Shooting Star," the Seer said gently, her voice neither loud nor soft, but perfectly placed."Drifting Cloud. Evening Rain." She inclined her head- not as one greeting a superior, nor an inferior, but a fellow traveler whose path had briefly intersected her own. "You have walked many roads without binding yourself to any. You carry stories lightly, and let them go just as easily. That is why Heaven does not clutch at you… yet." She poured two cups.

Ye Yu blinked several time right after she, unexpectedly, arrived in this room, as much to adjust to the change of light as to make sure she was fully awake. "Snap" she said with surprise, looking at the place, incredulous. "This is definitely not the inn I was looking for but...". She took her wine gourd from her belt, bringing it at eyes level, inspecting it with a frown. "... but maybe I should calm down on drinking, this one seems really strong".

She jumped when hearing a voice, scanning the so eerie place before finding its origin. With a slightly wary look, she carefully approaches removing her hat to see better. "Oh hem... Hello... Do... I know you? You seem to know me but... I don't remember your face?". She continued looking around, still not sure in which state she was. "This looks like a waking dream... Someone offering me a free drink?" she mumbled for herself.

Her veiled face turned upward, as if gazing into the stars despite the cloth. "Welcome. I am Lady Sun Li. Come, sit with me. Cast aside your inhibitions and have a taste of what the heavens will show. What I have to offer is better than any drunken stupor...I will sober you to the world."

"You will see the colors of Qi within souls - the warm glow of honest hearts, the muddied hues of regret, the sharp flashes of desire and fear. You will see how luck clings to some like perfume, and how misfortune stalks others like a shadow." The tea's surface rippled, reflecting stars not present in the ceiling. "And more than that," the Seer said softly, "you will bear witness to the celestial threads - the fine, luminous lines that bind all living things together. Some are taut and straight, anchored to duty and destiny. Others fray, knot, or wander freely… brushing against countless lives before moving on." A faint smile touched her lips. "You will recognize your own."

The Seer folded her hands within her sleeves. "This sight will not bind you. It will not command you to stay, nor force you to choose a path. It will only show you the sky as it truly is - vast, uncaring, and vast, uncaring, and filled with stories yet to be told." She inclined her head once more. "Drink, Shooting Star. Let your eyes rest… and let your journey, for a moment, look back at you."

Ye Yu pouted doubtfully, squinting at the tea cups as she could see if poison had been poured in or not. She hesitated for some more seconds before casting her doubts away with a shrug. "Fine. Whatever you're having, I'm curious to have some too, it looks... promising, to say the least" she commented with a soft chuckle. "If I am dreaming or dead, then it won't cause me more harm and if this is real... well... I guess a free beverage isn't the worse event I could face today. But... Where are we?" she asked, sitting in front of her host, still looking at everything around her like a child in awe.

The instant the Moonlit Flower Tea finished its work and the last vestige of mortal sight slipped from Yè Yǔ's eyes, the chamber answered. The constellations overhead dimmed - not extinguished, but drawn inward, as if some deeper gravity had asserted itself. The reflected sky beneath their feet darkened into a polished void, rippling faintly like breath held too long. Then the Seer's Qi unveiled itself. It did not erupt. It unfurled. Around her form bloomed an incandescent radiant raiment, woven of voidfire that neither burned nor chilled, but pressed against the senses with profound weight. Its hues were layered and alive - deep imperial purple smoldering at its heart, crimson brilliance tracing its edges like embers along torn silk. Light bent inward toward it, swallowed and returned distorted, as though the raiment existed half a breath out of alignment with the world.

From the Seer's back, her shoulders, her shadow itself, tendrils of crimson Qi grew. They were not thin threads like those of ordinary fate, but thick, living conduits, branching and splitting as they extended - each one dividing again and again until they resembled the writhing crowns of a many-headed hydra. Every tendril moved with slow, deliberate intent, tasting the air, responding to the Shooting Star's presence with unmistakable curiosity.

Ye Yu gasped, felt backward and cough heavily, choking on the last sip of tea. She was expecting lots of things but definitely not this! "Thousand gooses, what the-" she exclaimed, stepping away from the table. "What did I just drank...?"

They did not strike. They reached. The temperature of the chamber shifted - not hot, not cold, but alive with tension, like the moment before a meteor tears the sky open. The air carried the faint scent of scorched incense and rain on stone, layered with something deeper: the metallic tang of destiny. The Seer rose, her feet never touching the mirrored floor. "The concoction of the cosmos that opens your eyes to true sight. Do not shy away," she said, her voice now layered, echoing softly as if spoken by the chamber itself. "These threads do not bind. They invite."

The crimson tendrils hovered before Yè Yǔ, close enough that she could feel them tugging—not at her body, but at something looser, lighter, endlessly moving within her chest. "Harness your Qi, Shooting Star," the Seer instructed gently. "Not the Qi you use to perform. Not the luck that follows you like a rumor." Her veiled face angled toward Yè Yǔ with impossible precision. "I want the Qi that moves when you wander. The current that carries stories from mouth to mouth, place to place. The Qi that refuses to settle, yet never truly vanishes." One tendril extended farther than the rest, its tip splitting into fine, luminous filaments that shimmered like falling starlight caught mid-flight. "Reach out," the Seer said. "Do not anchor. Do not resist. Tether."

"Yeah, no, no, please, stop it, stop it, it tickles" she laughed, incapable of being serious nor afraid anymore. Taking deep breaths, she cleared her throat, trying to focus on that mesmerizing and surreal experience she was living.

"You want... my Qi?" she asked, repeating the Seer's words. "Why don't you get your own?" she wanted to reply. The words -fortunately- stayed in her mind. There was no reason to be so aggresive, was it? "You want my.... wandering Qi..." she repeated, now uneased with all those tendrils floating around, like menacing or too curious magical tentacles.

The Seer's lips curved, not quite a smile, as the crimson tendrils slowed, their motion softening. "Child of drifting light," she said evenly, "I have Qi enough to drown constellations - what I lack is motion."

"You wander where fixed stars cannot, brushing lives I am forbidden touch, carrying stories the heavens would otherwise never hear. This bridge is not theft; it is acknowledgement - so that when you pass, the Loom knows you were there."

"Mhh mhh". It wasn't really an mhh-mhh of acknoledment, rather a skeptical one. The kind of sound someone overwhelmed by events would do to simply accept or dismiss more information they cannot comprehend anymore. "You miss... touching people?" she asked, more and more suspicious, only retaining bits of Lady Sun Li prophetic words.

"Yes," the Seer answered without hesitation, the voidfire around her dimming to something almost tender. "To touch a life without altering it, to listen without the weight of destiny pressing down - that is a privilege wandering stars still possess. I watch all paths, Shooting Star, but I am forbidden from walking them."

Ye Yu tilted her head, as much confused than intrigued. "Pardon me, Lady Sun Li, but what you're saying sounds illogical. Aren't you altering my life right now, by sharing this tea and... very... hem... special moment with me?" she retorted, now going into some deep debate over the See's words while still monitoring with a wary face the numerous Qi tentacles flowing from the mysterious host, as if they were dancing snakes.

Sun Li's lips curved into a knowing smile, gentle rather than amused, as the voidfire around her softened to a slow, breathing glow. "I am not altering your life," she replied quietly, "only drawing back a curtain you were already walking toward." The crimson tendrils stilled, no longer pressing, merely hovering like attentive constellations awaiting recognition. "The tea does not choose your steps, Ye Yu. It lets you see the crossroads you would have reached regardless, and whether you turn, linger, or keep wandering remains yours alone."

Ye Yu was very lost and skeptical, not sure whether she was drunk hallucinating, having some weird dream or if she was experiencing something truly magic.

"I... I don't understand. What are you waiting or willing from me? And... If I am already on some paths, be them good or bad, why would I need your... Huh... Improving sight tea? Who are you, Lady Sun Li ? Why are we... Here?"

Sun Li's gaze softened, ancient and patient, as if Ye Yu's confusion were a familiar refrain she had heard across countless lives. "I am not waiting for anything from you," she said gently, "nor demanding - only offering a lantern in a fog you already wander." The voidfire dimmed, and the crimson threads recoiled slightly, no longer reaching. "The tea sharpens sight because some paths only reveal their shape when seen from above, and some truths refuse to be felt blindly." She inclined her head, voice calm and absolute. "But if you wish to know who I am, why you are here, and what roads coil beneath your feet… then you must choose, freely, to tether your Qi to mine - otherwise, we part, and the fog remains mercifully thick."

"Alright... But yet, I wonder: why would you offer me such... gift? Why not just offering me a simple green tea with biscuit? Why giving me light when I asked for none?"

She moved again, removing the instruments from her back and carefully putting them down next to her, grazing the strings before returning her attention on the Seer, shifting her position to sit cross-legged.

"Is it... is it something related to your... unusual condition? Not being able to touch lives. It resonates like forced solitude and... I see no one here, beside you and me. I still don't know who you are, Lady Sun Li, not who we are, but I am sure you still want something from me -or, if willing isn't a verb you like, hoping may be more appropriate?-. Otherwise... Why me? Unless your actions are guided by pure randomness, yet, I don't think so: you've told me you were carefully watching all paths. So you did choose me, didn't you? Then, something motivated your choice."

She smiled, leaning her head again, trying to unfold the curious mystery of this encounter.

"Don't misunderstand me, I don't say I don't like your offer, nor I am against the fact that you have your own plans. But I am curious to understand your deep motives. I am not really used to being in people's schemes."

Lady Sun Li listened without interruption, her head slightly inclined, as though each of Ye Yu's words were being weighed on invisible scales. When the Shooting Star finished, the Seer's smile did not fade- but it softened, the way moonlight does when clouds drift across it.

"You mistake the light for a gift," Sun Li said gently. "It is not. It is a mirror. Green tea soothes the throat; this tea merely allows you to see what has already been following you, whether you wished for it or not."

She shifted her staff so the sun-and-moon crystal rested between them, its glow dimmer now, less imposing. "As for my condition-yes. I cannot walk into lives and stay there. I cannot grasp destinies and bend them with my hands. I can only stand at crossings and ask questions the world is too afraid to voice. That is my solitude."

Her gaze met Ye Yu's mismatched eyes, steady and unblinking. "I did not choose you because you are useful, nor because I need something taken or given. I chose you because you are already moving-between stories, between people, between truths-and such stars are rare. They see more than they realize, and when they choose to carry light, others begin to see as well."

She inclined her head, a gesture almost reverent. "I do not scheme with you, Shooting Star. I hope with you. And hope, unlike command, only works when it is freely answered."

Ye Yu thought for a time, her pouty lips moving left and right as her eyes wander on the Qi strings still floating from the See's back. Eventually, she shook her head again, massaging her temples with two fingers.

"I am still not fully comprehending what all of this is about, are you always talking in such cryptic sentences?" she asked. "You chose me -and I suppose I should feel honored or something-, but the truth is... I wasn't really expecting getting in here, wherever we are, nor to be offered any opportunity, if it's what we are discussing? This is... Too much, too fast and... Don't feel offended, Lady Sun Li, but a simple, warm tea is enough already... with some sweet treats, maybe?

Yet, if it is company you are seeking, I may play you a song if you agree to share a story of yours?"

Sun Li let out a soft, genuine laugh - quiet, warm, and very human - nothing like the voice of an oracle speaking from the heavens. The voidfire dimmed further, the crimson threads easing back until they hung like distant constellations rather than grasping limbs.

"You are not wrong," she admitted, amusement touching her eyes. "Yes, I do speak like this far too often. When one listens to fate for too long, plain sentences become… rusty."

She gently set the celestial staff aside, palms open and empty between them. "Then let us do it your way. No tethers. No bridges. Just tea that is warm, sweets that are far too indulgent, and a song offered freely instead of destiny pressed into your hands."

Her gaze softened, something older than stars but aching in a very simple way. "If you will play for me, Ye Yu, I will tell you a story - not of prophecy, not of paths - but of who I was before I learned how to see everything and touch nothing."

Ye Yu's eyes widen with surprise before her face brighten with a large smile.

"Oh, so you do talk my language! I am understanding you know!" she laughed, nodding with contentment. "To be completely honest with you, Lady Sun Li, you were a bit frightening with all the mystic decorum. But now... I can almost feel the warmth in your words. Please, make yourself at home" she invited, showing the dimmed room with a movement of her hand.

Stepping back from the table, she pulled her lacquered guqin on her lap, trying some strings to check the musicality.

"A song for a story, notes for words, tea and sweets. Let's make this trade a good one then!"

Now in her element, a world she was used to evolve in, she closed her eyes, quickly browsing in her memory the best song she could play her host. Nodding again, she smiled, exhaled deeply and began her melody.

The Seer's sternness melted entirely at Ye Yu's laughter, the celestial distance folding inward like silk drawn closed. A soft, genuine smile curved her lips as she inclined her head, dark braids shifting with the motion.

"Then forgive the frost that walks before me," she said gently, voice warm as embers beneath ash. "It is a cloak I learned to survive, not one I wear in comfort."

At the invitation, she moved fully into the room. From beneath her layered robes, she drew forth a drum - its body carved from dark wood, polished by time, its skin stretched taut and painted with faded symbols of sun and river. She settled opposite Ye Yu, resting the drum between her knees, fingertips brushing its surface as if greeting an old friend.

As the guqin's first notes unfurled like mist over water, the Seer closed her eyes. When she began to sing, her voice was low and rich, carrying the cadence of distant lands. Her hands joined the melody, tapping a steady, heartbeat rhythm against the drum.

"I was born where the sun rises fierce," she sang, the drum answering each line,
"Where red earth stains the feet of children,
And the sky stretches wide enough to hold every prayer."

Her palms struck softly, then stronger, echoing the pace of walking journeys and dancing nights.

"I learned my name from the river,
My patience from the desert wind,
My sight from elders of the Makoko tribe who read fate in fire and bone."

The rhythm deepened, layered beneath Ye Yu's melody rather than competing with it, grounding the music like roots beneath blossoms.

"There were drums before there were words," she continued, voice lifting, "And stories before there were stars. I carry them still - Across seas, across silence, Into rooms like this."

She began to break out into a mesmerizing and enchanting hymn, sharing her story of days amid her Makoko tribe.

As the final line faded, the drum's pulse slowed to a gentle thrum, like a resting heart. The Seer opened her eyes, meeting Ye Yu's with a quiet, knowing warmth, the trade now well and truly begun.

Ye Yu looked pleasantly surprised to hear the Seer playing drum with her song, adding more depth into it. "What is she also hiding under her robes?" she wondered, almost missing a note because of the distraction. Focusing back, she softly nodded, following the catchy rhythm while trying not to move her legs along.

"Dare to tell me a bit more?" she proposed, her fingers hovering the guqin's string, ready to continue.

The Seer's hands never quite left the drum, even as the last vibration faded. At Ye Yu's invitation, she let out a soft, breath-warm chuckle, the sound woven with memory. She nodded once, then set a gentler rhythm - measured, storytelling, meant to carry words rather than command them.

She spoke in rhyme, voice swaying like firelight:

"I was taught to heal before I learned to fight,
An Oníṣègùn child, born of herb and rite.
My mother's hands knew root and leaf and bone,
She sang to wounds until the pain was gone."

The drum answered - dum, dum - slow and sure.

"She brewed the dawn in calabash and clay,
Read sickness like a path gone astray.
From her I learned the body's quiet plea,
And how the spirit bends, but will not flee."

Her palms shifted, adding a subtle off-beat, like a second voice entering the tale.

"My father came from lands of folded steel,
Where dragons sleep in fire made real.
A smith, a trader, roads beneath his feet,
With silks and blades and stories bittersweet."

The rhythm brightened slightly now, metal meeting metal in its cadence.

"He learned the forge of Yorùbá hands,
Curved and fierce, born of earth and sand.
Spears that sing, and blades that dance
He taught iron how to take a chance."

She smiled, eyes half-lidded as memory pulled her onward.

"Chinese steel and African flame,
Different tongues, yet the spark the same.
He sold the old, he forged the new,
East and West in every tool."

The drum softened again, returning to a heartbeat.

"So I walk between the cut and the cure,
Knowing which wounds to seal, which to endure.
A healer's sight, a smith's resolve
Some fates you mend, some you must solve."

She looked to Ye Yu then, warmth steady and inviting, the rhythm poised to follow wherever the guqin might lead next - story or song, question or truth.

Ye Yu was clearly enjoying the moment, way more than the previous mystical setup -a thing our dear readers can argue over, how can one indeed not enjoy being surrounded by tentacles?-. Her fingers ran over the strings, trying to match Lady Sun Li's pace. She wasn't really used to improvising but she wasn't going to let such an opportunity to add a new story to her repertoire slip away, nor to play with a talented musician and storyteller. Was there something this mysterious woman wasn't able to do?

"Maybe she would get some roasted pork from under her robes if I suggest sharing a meal after this?" she thought, this time hitting the wrong cord. "Snap, sorry! Mhh mhh mhh" she hummed, catching the rhythm back with a new song, inviting the Seer to continue her tale without having to say a word.

The Seer laughed outright this time - a warm, rolling sound that danced atop the guqin's new melody. She tapped the drum once, twice, then leaned forward conspiratorially. Her celestial threads capturing thoughts and emotions at such a close proximity.

"If I did hide food beneath these robes," she teased, eyes glinting, "I fear the spirits would scold me for poor preservation."

As the joke settled between them, something subtle shifted. The candlelight caught her hair - and the ash-white strands began to darken, color draining as if ink were poured through silk. From crown to braid, the pale hue surrendered, turning deep, lustrous black, gleaming like obsidian in firelight.

Ye Yu's next note rang true just in time. The Seer began to sing again, rhythm quickening, voice bright with motion and dust-road dreams:

"I followed bells of camel trains,
Where silk was weighed against the plains.
From western suns to eastern dawns,
I walked with traders, sworn and drawn."

The drum mimicked hooves now - steady, relentless.

"Through spice and jade and whispered deals,
Past counting hands and sharpened seals.
I learned the road by scar and star,
By howling wind and burning tar."

Her palms struck harder, sharper.

"Khitan riders cut the night,
Arrows screaming, steel alight.
We stood our ground, the circle tight,
Blood on sand beneath moonlight."

A pause - then a grin in her voice.

"I healed by day, by dusk I fought,
For life is dear, and death is bought.
A drum to warn, a blade to sing,
The road demands you everything."

The melody shifted, turning wondrous, almost reverent.

"I hunted tales the maps forgot,
Treasures buried where jinn once sought.
Mirrored cities, crowns of glass,
Bones of gods beneath the pass."

Her voice softened, the drum returning to a heartbeat.

"Each land took something, left a mark,
A spark of light inside the dark.
So when I reached the eastern gate,
I was not one - I was a fate."

She met Ye Yu's eyes, black hair framing her face like a curtain newly drawn back, smile playful and proud.

"And no," she added lightly, tapping the drum once more, "Sadly - no food this time. But stories? Those I carry plenty of."

Forgetting to be surprised -after a room full of stars glittering, dancing Qi strings and hair hue shifting, what was mind reading? Just a thing-, Ye Yu chuckled and sighed with a soft, fake resignation.

"No pork this time, what a pity! We should subsist from songs and tea But please, next time I got summoned Be kind as to provide salmon!"

She sang, playing a few more notes, hesitating between continuing their chanted conversation or ending there for the time being. The mood was still light and her interlocutor seemed to enjoyed her company, yet she was still aware a guest should not impose their presence too long. Her uncertainty could be sensed, even for a not gifted Seer, as her fingers were moving slower, the melody halting in a suspending note in the air.

The Seer's drumbeat softened to a gentle, lingering pulse, echoing Ye Yu's suspended note. She let the silence stretch, letting it hang like incense smoke between them before speaking, voice low and warm, carrying a rhythm of her own memory.

"My name," she said, letting the syllables roll slowly, "was Naija Mwangaza." She smiled faintly, the black strands of her hair shimmering in the candlelight. "I almost forgot it among the duties of a Seer… the countless omens, the rhythms of others' fates, and the long weaving into this land's ways. China has been patient with me, and I with it. In these lands I am known as Sun Li, the Blind Seer."

Her eyes softened as she watched Ye Yu, reading the subtle hesitation in her posture, the slowing of her fingers, the gentle pause in the melody.

"You seem… on the verge of fleeting," she said, words almost falling into the air with the same measured cadence as her drum. "A Shooting Star, still unmarked by your reading, yet poised to drift away."

She tapped the drum once, a quiet acknowledgment, not pressing, not pulling.

"But I will allow it," she said, voice steady and gentle, "for even stars must choose their own paths. And sometimes, the brightest ones must shine briefly, on their own terms, before the rest of the sky catches them."

The soft hum of the drum and guqin lingered, a suspended note in time, allowing space for Ye Yu to breathe, to smile, and to remain - if she wished - or drift.

For the first time since a long time, Ye Yu felt conflicted between two desires. No, "desires" wasn't the right word. The last time she was stuck between two true desires, she was choosing between a pork steam bun and a goose one. This time was different. Contradictory emotions? Fears and longing? One part of her wanted to stay there some more, to play that swinging song stuck in her heart and mind, cruelly itching her fingers and that only her guqin's strings could relieved... A song that would perfectly conclude the moment, giving Lady Sun Li -or Naija Mwangaza- a last couple of pages to unfold her story.

Another part of her was, for some reason, pulling on her sleeve, whispering her to stand up and take leave, to do not get attached to this odd place and mysterious person she just met. "Don't let them get an hold on you", "Be careful", "Do you want to get hurt again?" her fleeting emotions distilled in her heart as she was looking at the Seer, with rasp attention this time, noticing again the blindfold on her eyes.

"Oh... True, the Blind Seer..." she mumbled, realizing she, for a moment, had forgotten everything about her host, her true or pretended abilities, her physical conditions, the place... She was just talking to another soul with music and chants for common language. She blinked, wondering how long she had been staying silent, lost in her thoughts.

"Naija Mwangaza" she repeated, like tasting those foreign sounds on her tongue. "A very uncommon name here, I'll do my best not forgetting it. Nice to meet the woman behind the Seer, you can call me.. Oh, but you do know my name already."

She hesitated a bit more, a question on her lips that could not take form.

"Roads await", "Time to go", "Expectations, again?"

"I-...".

She just froze there, her fingers still hovering her now silent instrument.

The Seer did not rush the silence.

Her hands rested on the drum, not striking it now, only feeling its skin cool beneath her palms, as if it were still breathing. The blindfold hid her eyes, yet her head tilted - precise, attentive - toward the place where Ye Yu stood frozen between staying and leaving.

When she spoke, it was without rhyme this time.

"Ye Yu," she said gently, her voice finding the name without effort, as if it had always been there. "Yes. I know it. Not because I looked ahead… but because you carry it honestly."

She shifted slightly, turning her body fully toward Ye Yu. Whatever sight she lacked, nothing about her presence felt unfocused.

"You have stepped onto many roads," Naija Mwangaza continued. "Some invited you. Some demanded you. Some pretended to be gentle and were not." A pause - careful, respectful. "It would be strange if part of you did not wish to leave first."

Her fingers brushed the edge of the drum once, producing the faintest sound - more a breath than a beat.

"I will not ask you to stay. I will not bind you with answers you did not request, nor with a reading you are not ready to receive." Her lips curved into a small, knowing smile. "A Seer who clutches is no Seer at all."

She inclined her head, acknowledging the truth Ye Yu had stumbled upon.

"You did not forget that I am blind," she said softly. "You remembered that I am a woman."

The room seemed to settle around them, the stars dimming just enough to listen.

"You go," Naija Mwangaza said, calm and certain, "You go whole. Unmarked. Unclaimed. Your song remains yours alone." Another pause—this one warmer. "And if you return, it will not be because I summoned you… but because the melody would not leave you in peace."

Her hands lifted from the drum, open, empty.

"So breathe," she finished quietly. "Either choice is true. And neither will wound you tonight."

She waited - without reaching, without seeing - allowing Ye Yu the dignity of motion, or stillness, as the moment asked.

She let out her breath she hasn't realized she was holding.

"I... Can return?" she asked, as if this simple idea was absurd, not because this place wasn't mapped and she had no idea where to look for, but because returning to someone or somewhere felt... Wrong. Forbidden. Dangerous.

"I... Don't think I will" she eventually admitted, following her intuitions. She bowed respectfully, signifying the end of their trade and, slowly, she started packing her instruments, manipulating her guqin with lots of care.

"Or, more precisely..." she eventually added, "I won't seek this place for destination... I don't think I will. But I do hope our paths will cross again, Lady Mwangaza. You seem you could use some company. And not from the usual people coming to meet the Seer, to get answers!"

A half smile on her face, she slowly got up, adjusting her guqin on her back while taking a last look around.

"Truly a beautiful place, yet a bit too still... It misses... Life? I think I start to understand a bit what you meant, saying you missed touching lives. I... I'll think of new lively tunes with guqin and drums. Next time, if next time there is, my skills will hopefully have improved, and my music will be able to accompany the rest of your stories. I look forward to hearing those future songs we would play!"

She bowed again and made a few steps toward the door she came from, stopping half way.

"Oh ! And don't forget to prepare salmon!"

The Seer watched her in silence as the Shooting Star gathered her instruments, the soft whisper of silk and lacquered wood echoing in the stillness. When she finally spoke, her voice carried the hush of distant constellations- gentle, but weighted with ages.

"You may return," Naija said at last, a faint warmth touching her words. "But you are wise not to seek this place as one seeks a harbor. The Heavenly Loom is not meant to be arrived at - it is meant to be encountered. Those who chase it too fiercely often lose themselves in the threads."

Her gaze softened as the Shooting Star spoke of crossing paths again, of company unbound by questions and bargains. For a heartbeat, the Seer's ageless composure wavered.

"Few come here to give rather than take," she murmured. "Fewer still notice the stillness… and what it costs. You see more than you realize."

As the guqin was lifted onto her back, faint motes of starlight stirred, as if listening.

"Bring your lively tunes," the Seer continued, a quiet smile touching her lips. "Let the drums wake the dust from the corners of this place. Stories grow truer when they are not told alone, and even fate listens more closely when music walks beside it."

When the Shooting Star turned toward the door, Lady Mwangaza inclined her head in return - an honor rarely given.

"Our paths will cross again," she said, not as a promise, but as a knowing. "Not because you will search for me… but because you move where lives are being touched. That is where I am most often watching."

At the mention of salmon, a soft, almost amused breath escaped her - something that might have been a laugh, long out of practice.

"I will prepare it," the Seer replied. "And when next we meet, perhaps it will be in a place that will remember how to breathe."

The starlight dimmed gently as the Shooting Star departed, and for the first time in a long while, the Heavenly Loom felt… expectant.

Taking a deep breath, Ye Yu simply waved without turning back and crossed the doo's threshold, returning to the noisy, animated street she was coming from. There, busy merchants were moving goods on carriages, workers were going to crowded places to grab a hard earnt meal. For a moment, she wanted to look back, to make sure this encounter was real. But she decided not to. This time, she would choose an open story end.

"Oh snap, my hat!" she exclaimed, remembering the place she left it, near the See's table. "Well... Another reason to meet again."

She shrugged and with a smile, she left, blending into a group of farmers, biting into a fresh, stolen apple.

Taking a slow breath, the Seer remained where she was.

She did not speak. She did not call out.

From behind the small table, her pale fingers reached for the abandoned hat, lifting it with a care that suggested it had always been meant to return to her hands. Dust shimmered briefly along its brim, then settled, as though the object itself exhaled.

Ye Yu crossed the threshold.

The noise of the street rushed in to claim her - wooden wheels rattling, merchants shouting prices, the low murmur of laborers converging toward warmth and food. She smiled to herself, resisting the urge to look back, letting the moment close without sealing it shut.

Then -

A sound.

Not from the street.

A sharp, clear neigh echoed behind her, resonant and impossibly vast, as though it came from a place larger than the building itself where she may have been certain she saw no horse at all. The moonlit flower tea still lingered in her veins, and because of it, the world thinned - just enough.

In the corner of her vision, reflected in a window's darkened glass, she saw a silhouette rise.

A horse.

Its form was vast and elegant, its coat not made of hair but of stars - deep blues and silvers swirling like a living galaxy, constellations shifting with each breath it took. It reared, hooves striking nothing, and when it leapt, it did not fall back down.

It caught a celestial current.

Upon its back sat the Seer, robes trailing like fragments of night, one hand steady, the other pressed firmly atop a straw hat held against a wind that did not touch the earth below. No face turned. No gaze followed.

Horse and rider ascended, higher and higher, until they became indistinguishable from the sky itself - another mystery folded into the heavens.

The street noise rushed back all at once.

Naija could only imagine what Ye Yu's expression was.

Maybe she blinked. Apple in hand, smile lingering, she exhaled a quiet laugh and continued on, blending into the crowd - certain of only one thing:

Some endings were meant to stay open.