Hopeful Gift

The wind had settled by the time they began walking.

The street was mostly empty now, the fading light casting amber hues on the sidewalk. Emi walked beside Orion, not quite close enough to touch, but close enough that his presence felt like gravity – getting heavier with each passing day.

She didn’t say anything for a while. She kept glancing at him. His face was the usual calm, unreadable surface.

But eventually, Orion broke the silence.

“What did Terran say to you?”

Emi hesitated. Her fingers tightened around her bag strap.

She could lie. Brush it off. Pretend the conversation hadn’t rattled her.

But she knew she couldn’t really avoid this for too long. When Orion arrived, he was much… lighter, in weight. From the way he was later described, Emi thought he would be the kind of Dark Lord to shake the very crust of the planet with every step. Maybe that really was how he was back on his home planet.

But it felt like something she was not ready to confront, and she wasn’t sure if she would ever be ready.

“He said… he said you… killed people,” Emi said, finally, “and that I don’t truly know the real you. Who you are. What you are.”

Orion gave no reaction at first.

Then he said, quite simply:

“He’s right.”

She stopped walking.

Eyes wide, she stared at him – but before she could speak, he turned to meet her gaze and added:

“From his point of view, that is.”

He said it like it was fact, not as a defense.

“He has his own ways,” Orion continued, “but mine is the right one.”

His tone was calm, no hint of arrogance within. Not even pleading a case, but simply… settled – convicted.

“You don’t know the mystery of the dark,” he said, eyes turning to the sky where the sun was dipping lower behind the trees. “There is a… necessity to it. If you see my kingdom, Soluna, you’ll understand. The machines still run. The soldiers march. The lawmakers write. It all works.”

There was something strange in the way he said it. Not pride, exactly, but maybe something like purpose. As if the horror was not a side-effect, but a condition. A scaffolding for something greater.

Emi’s heart beat faster.

She looked at him again, asking him:

“So you have no regrets then?” she asked, voice almost a whisper.

He didn’t answer right away.

They kept walking.

The silence stretched, and in that quiet, the evening wind rose again, rustling leaves and sending tiny waves through the puddles on the street.

Still, Orion said nothing.

And Emi wasn’t sure if that meant “no” – or if he simply didn’t know how to answer.

They walked a little further before Emi realized they were close to home. Just a few turns from her street.

She bit her lip, fingers brushing against the inside of her bag where the small, wrapped package had been sitting all day. She’d almost forgotten it was there.

Her steps slowed.

Orion noticed.

When she stopped, so did he.

And before she could overthink it – before she could talk herself out of it – she reached into her bag and held it out to him.

Orion turned, blinking.

“What is this?”

“It’s… it’s chocolate,” she said, eyes not quite meeting his. “I made it. For you.”

A pause.

Orion took the package, slowly, like it was something fragile or dangerous. He studied it, turning it over in his hand.

He even noticed the little note attached to the bow at the top – reading simply ‘Happy Valentine’s.’

“This is… a sacrifice offering?” he asked, thinking like a god.

Which through the thickness of the air, somehow ended up making her laugh.

“No, you dummy. It’s food. To eat.”

“No ritual?” Orion looked down, then looked up again, “Is it poisonous?”

“Wha… no!” She slapped his arm lightly. “It’s for Valentine’s Day. It’s a thing people do here. You give chocolate to someone you…”

She stopped mid-sentence.

Suddenly, her face was burning red.

“I mean, not like… it doesn’t mean anything,” she blurted out. “It’s just... I made extra. You were there. So I figured… well… shut up.”

But Orion hadn’t said anything.

He was still holding the chocolate, now looking at it like it was a golden lost artifact.

“You give this to someone you care about,” he said at last, voice quiet.

Emi opened her mouth, then closed it.

She nodded.

There was a long pause between them, filled with the soft rustling of wind.

Then, to her surprise, Orion said:

“I see. It is a custom. A ritual of… bonding?”

He looked at the chocolate again, and this time... he held it a little closer, almost protectively.

“I will study it.”

That made her giggle, despite herself.

“You don’t have to study it. Just... eat it. And maybe say ‘thank you’ like a normal person.”

Orion turned to her, and for the briefest moment, his expression softened.

“Thank you,” he said.

It wasn’t a big thing. It wasn’t a confession. Emi still didn’t know how she really felt. But somewhere in the quiet, walking beside him with the taste of laughter still lingering.

There was a strange little feeling blooming inside her.

Something that could only be called hope.