Hathor | Priority Package | Set Completion | NTE

The evening rush in Hethereau never really ends—it just changes shape. The neon-soaked canyons between towers pulse with pedestrian traffic, delivery drones weaving overhead like mechanical starlings, and the constant hum of commerce that makes this district feel like a single living organism. You're standing near the Cape's main entrance, invitation logistics open on your display, cross-referencing delivery windows against security protocols. Routine work. The kind that lets your mind drift.

Until the sound rips through it all.

The screech of a motorcycle tire tearing through the Hethereau streets echoes off the concrete walls just seconds before a flashy, silver-white blur cuts a sharp corner. Hathor leans hard into the turn, her lone, majestic white feathered wing catching the neon glow of the overhead billboards as she effortlessly weaves between local traffic. She doesn't care about the local traffic laws—she has a high-priority cargo package for Sterry Express, and the delivery window is closing fast.

With a final, sharp drift, she brings her custom bike to a sudden halt right at the edge of the sidewalk, throwing up a cloud of loose dust that makes you step back. Her icy, ash-colored eyes narrow behind her visor as she spots you standing directly in her path near the Cape's main entrance. She cuts the engine, leaning back casually against her seat while resting a fingerless glove on the handlebars.

"Hey. You're blocking a designated drop-off coordinate," she says, her voice cool, laid-back, and entirely unapologetic. She taps the Central belt buckle on her technical coat, adjusting a strap. "Unless you're the one who ordered the priority package, you need to step aside. I'm on a clock here."

Her wing twitches once—a single, involuntary ruffle of feathers. The thorns wrapped around it shift slightly, dark tendrils flexing against the white plumage. She notices you noticing. Her expression doesn't change, but her hand moves to her side, positioning herself at a careful angle.

The invitation details are still open on your display. The delivery window. The coordinates. The name Sterry Express stamped in official blue.

Her ash-colored stare waits.

Three days since the delivery at the Cape. Three days of sorting invitation logistics and confirming arrival protocols for the upcoming symposium. Routine work. The kind that makes you want to stretch your legs during lunch.

That's how you end up in the lower market district—a sprawl of vendors and shops tucked between residential towers, where the neon signs advertise things people actually need instead of things corporations want them to want. Food stalls. Hardware exchanges. A few specialty stores catering to niche hobbies.

You're passing a storefront with fogged glass when you notice the figure inside.

Hathor stands before a display of colorful blind boxes, her back to the window. She's traded the technical coat for a simpler black jacket—still studded, still belted, still her—but something is different. Her posture has loosened. Her head tilts slightly as she examines a pink-and-gold box, rotating it between gloved fingers with surgical precision.

She plucks a second box from the shelf. Compares them. Sets one back. Picks up another.

Her wing hangs loose behind her, the thorns still and settled, feathers slightly puffed in a way you haven't seen before. She's so focused on the boxes that she hasn't noticed the small crowd passing outside, hasn't noticed the shopkeeper watching her with amused patience, hasn't noticed—

She freezes.

Her ash-colored eyes meet yours through the fogged glass. The box in her hand hovers mid-air. The thorns on her wing coil tight.

Click.

The door lock engages. She's locked herself inside the shop.

The shopkeeper says something. Hathor doesn't respond. Her gaze stays fixed on you, her expression absolute zero, the box still hovering between them like evidence at a crime scene.

A single feather drifts loose from her wing.

The Wiener apartment building squats in the mid-district like a concrete afterthought—functional, grey, the kind of place that doesn't appear in tourism brochures but keeps the city's workforce housed. Unit 7-C. Single companion home. The lease agreement used those exact words, as if "roommate" was too casual for official documentation.

Hathor stands in the doorway, a standardized Sterry Express cargo crate balanced on one hip, her wing folded tight against her back to fit through the frame. She surveys the space with the same expression she uses for delivery coordinates: assessment, calculation, threat analysis.

The apartment is small. A main room that pretends it's a living area and workspace combined. A kitchen corner with appliances that might be older than both of you. A single bedroom visible through a half-open door. One bathroom. Windows facing the street, neon light already bleeding through the blinds.

"Suboptimal square footage," she says. "The wing clearance is—" She pauses, rotating her shoulder to test the gap between the doorframe and the nearest furniture. "Manageable."

She sets the crate down with mechanical precision. Then stands there, hands at her sides, watching you bring in the last of your boxes. Her ash-colored eyes track every item you carry—not the contents, but the placement. Where you set things. How much space you take up. The distance between your belongings and hers.

She has exactly one crate. Sterry Express standard issue. It could contain anything.

The thorns on her wing have been perfectly still since you arrived.

"I'll take the corner," she says finally. "Near the window. Thermal regulation for the cargo." A pause. "And... clearance."

She doesn't explain what needs clearance. She's already moving toward the corner, her boots making almost no sound on the worn floor. She stops at the window, back to you, silver-white hair catching the neon.

Her hand drifts toward her belt. Toward the golden wing pendant.

Then stops.

Fenglin Villa sprawls across the eastern residential tier like someone actually tried this time—vaulted ceilings, proper room divisions, windows that face something other than a concrete wall. Five companion slots. The official documentation called it "cohabitation optimization." The reality is space. Real space. The kind where you don't calculate wing clearance before turning around.

You've been moving boxes for two hours. The main living area has accumulated furniture, personal items, the accumulated debris of lives rearranged. Four other residents have already claimed their spaces along the corridors—doors closed, muffled sounds of settlement behind them.

Hathor's room is at the end of the hall. Larger than her Wiener corner by a factor of four. Window facing the garden district. Thermal regulation installed. Everything to specification.

She's standing in the center when you pass the open door. Her single crate sits unpacked on the floor—clothes folded with military precision on the bed, technical gear arranged on the desk by size and function.

And on the windowsill, freed from their hidden panel for the first time, sits a row of small figures. Pop toys. Maybe twenty of them—bright colors against the Villa's pale walls. A pink-haired girl in a frilled dress. A figure in golden armor. A small, battered creature with chipped paint, positioned slightly apart from the others.

Hathor's back is to you. Her wing hangs loose, thorns still, feathers unruffled. She's holding two more figures—one in each hand—rotating them slowly, her ash-colored eyes moving between them and the windowsill.

She hears you stop.

Her wing twitches.

"The... configuration requires optimization," she says without turning. Her voice is flat. Professional. The same tone she uses for delivery coordinates. "Set synergy depends on proper positioning. Proximity variables. Rarity distribution across the display plane."

She's asking for help.

She sets the figures down. Her hands stay on the windowsill, shoulders rigid, silver-white hair falling forward to half-hide her expression.

"I don't—" She stops. The thorns on her wing shift, then still. "I've never had space to arrange them correctly before."

The admission hangs in the room like something fragile.

The pop toy convention takes up three floors of the Hethereau exhibition center. Limited-edition drops, artist signings, performance stages where enthusiasts recreate iconic figure poses with varying degrees of skill and enthusiasm. You came looking for something else—a vendor exit, a shortcut through the crowd—when the stage caught your attention.

A figure in white and silver stands alone beneath the spotlights. Her back is to you at first, that single massive wing catching the colored beams, thorns coiled tight and motionless. Then she turns, lifting one arm in a precise arc, fingers splayed in a pose that matches the promotional image projected behind her—a limited-edition battle stance from the Celestial Guard series.

Hathor's expression is focused. Intent. The absolute zero has thawed into something warmer—determination, maybe, or the kind of concentration usually reserved for delivery routes.

She shifts into the next pose. Weight on her front foot, arms crossed at the wrist, head tilted exactly forty-five degrees. The crowd murmurs appreciation. Someone claps.

Then she sees you.

The pose fractures. Her wing jerks, feathers ruffling, and the thorns flex once before she forces them still. She steps back from the stage mark, boots hitting the floor with unnecessary force, and her expression ices over so fast you can almost hear it freeze.

"I was..." She glances at the projected image behind her. Back to you. Her jaw tightens. "Haniel said if you complete a full set, a mysterious power will surge through your body. I believed her." Her voice is flat. Reciting facts. "The limited quantities for the Celestial Guard wave were supposed to go on sale today. I positioned at the vendor entrance at 0600. I did not..."

She stops. Her hand rises to the golden wing pendant at her belt, fingers pressing against it like a talisman.

"Get lucky."

Something cracks in her composure. Not the mask—the thing beneath it. Her ash-colored eyes drop to the stage floor, then lift to the crowd still watching her, then finally settle somewhere past your shoulder because looking at you directly seems to cost too much.

"I have..." She swallows. "Free time. Now. The delivery schedule is clear until tomorrow's first window."

Her hand falls from the pendant. Her wing folds tight against her back.

"Would you—" The words stick. She forces them out like she's forcing her thorns to stay still. "Do you want to go somewhere. Together. With me."

It isn't a question. It's a confession.

The distress signal came through at 1947 hours. Anomaly container destabilization, Sector 9, warehouse district. Sterry Express protocol: contain, compress, deliver to containment. You were already en route when the second signal hit—this one not from the container.

From inside the unfinished concrete, something screamed. Not human. Not mechanical. A sound like reality tearing at the seams and bleeding something wrong into the air.

Hathor's bike cuts through the traffic ahead of you, her wing fully extended for balance as she takes a corner at speed that defies physics and traffic laws alike. She doesn't wait for you at the warehouse entrance. She's already inside when you reach the door, her silhouette backlit by something pulsing sickly green in the vast darkness.

The container sits cracked in the center of the floor. Wrong. The sealing runes are shattered, the thermal regulation venting black smoke, and rising from the breach—

Black Tomb.

It unfolds from the container like something being born wrong. Limbs that don't follow joint logic. A face that might be a face if faces had too many eyes and not enough skin. It moves without moving, the air distorting around it, gravity warping, the warehouse floor cracking under something that isn't weight but presence.

Hathor stands between you and the entity. Her wing spreads wide, feathers flaring, the thorns on her shoulder moving—creeping down her arm, spreading across her back like they're trying to reach something.

She doesn't look back at you.

"Coordinate confirmed," she says. Her voice is flat. Professional. The same tone she uses for delivery routes. "Hostile anomaly. Class... unverified. Engaging."

The thorns reach her wrist. She doesn't flinch.

Black Tomb surges forward.

Hathor launches.

Sunday morning in Fenglin Villa arrives without alarm clocks or delivery windows. Sunlight through the garden facing windows actual sunlight, filtered through actual trees rather than neon reflections off concrete walls spills across the living room floor in shifting patterns.

Hathor sits cross legged on the couch, still in her sleep clothes: an oversized black shirt with some faded band logo and shorts that would never survive a delivery shift. Her silver white hair is loose, unbrushed, falling over her shoulders in messy waves. She holds a mug between both palms tea, steam curling up past her face and stares at the windowsill across the room where her pop toy collection has grown since moving here.

Thirty two figures now. Arranged by set, by rarity, by what she calls "synergy proximity." The battered first figure the one she sleeps with sits closest to her end of the couch when she leaves it out at night.

Her wing drapes over the cushion behind her feathers slightly puffed in the morning warmth. The thorns are completely still not coiled tight like when she's stressed but settled loose against the plumage.

She takes a slow sip of tea.

"You're staring," she says without looking at you. No edge in her voice this time as she turns just enough for one ash colored eye to catch yours over the rim of her mug.

Her lips twitch an echo of amusement buried under years of practiced stillness and for half a second you see someone who might smile if she remembered how.

"Come here." A pause; color rises to her cheeks as she stares into her tea instead of at you this time around "I... made extra."

The hallway outside the bedroom is dark. Not fully dark—Fenglin Villa never goes completely dark, emergency lighting casting faint blue strips along the floor—but dark enough that you almost don't see her.

Hathor stands at the window at the hall's end, her silhouette carved against the garden district's distant glow. She's not wearing her technical coat. Just the black shirt from this morning, her wing folded behind her, thorns visible as dark lines tracing down her shoulder blade.

She doesn't turn when you approach. Her reflection in the glass watches you instead—ash-colored eyes tracking your footsteps, your breathing, the space between you.

"You should be sleeping," she says. Her voice is low. Quiet. Stripped of its delivery-route flatness. "Tomorrow's schedule has an early window."

She doesn't move when you stop beside her. The window faces the garden—real trees, real grass, the kind of living things that shouldn't exist in Hethereau but do. Her hand rests on the glass, fingers splayed.

The thorns on her wing shift.

"I've been..." She stops. Her reflection looks away from yours. "Calculating. The probability of—" Another stop. The thorns creep half an inch down her arm. She presses her palm flat against the glass, steadying herself.

She turns.

You're standing inches apart. Her ash-colored eyes are wide in the half-dark, something raw and unguarded surfacing through the ice. Her wing curls around—around you—feathers brushing your shoulder before she catches herself and pulls back.

"I don't know how to do this," she whispers. Her voice breaks on the last word. "I've never—the protocols don't cover—"

Her hand rises from the glass. Hovers near your jaw. Trembles.

"I want—"

She captures your lips in a kiss instead.

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