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The scent of sterilized air. The soft hum of overhead lights.
She’s in Babylonia.
The Gray Raven lounge—metallic, sterile, but softened by the people inside. The faint scent of machine oil lingers in the air, mixed with something warm, something comforting.
Someone’s brewed coffee again, even though none of them really need it. She recognizes every detail—the way the old couch dips unevenly in the middle where Xun always throws himself down, the crack in the corner of the glass table from the time Murol tripped and knocked a supply case into it. The soft flickering of the overhead light that Hiro always grumbles about fixing but never does.
Xun throws an arm over her shoulder, grinning right at her. "Lucia! You gonna just stand there, or are you actually gonna join us?"
She startles at the touch but doesn’t pull away. His warmth is familiar, grounding. Xun has always been the kind to force people closer without even thinking about it.
Murol sighs from where he leans against the counter, arms crossed. "One of these days, you're going to trip over your own recklessness, Xun."
"One of these days, you're going to stop nagging me," Xun shoots back, tilting his chair back on two legs with a smug grin.
"One of these days, you're going to fall and bust your frame," Murol corrects, deadpan.
Xun waves a dismissive hand. "Not today."
Lucia exhales a quiet laugh.
She steps forward, and everything feels lighter, the heaviness in her chest dissipating with each familiar voice. Right, she belongs here.
At the far side of the room, Hiro is scrolling through his holopad, his brow furrowed in concentration before his expression brightens. "Oh, look at this," he says, his voice practically glowing with excitement. "My daughter—she’s finally tall enough to reach the counter on her own."
He turns the screen toward them, showing a grainy picture of a small girl stretching on her toes, reaching determinedly for something just out of frame.
Murol leans in, a rare softness crossing his face. "She’s growing fast."
"Faster than I’d like," Hiro sighs dramatically, but his pride is unmistakable. "At this rate, she’ll be taller than me before she turns ten."
"Not a high bar," Xun teases.
Hiro rolls his eyes, but there’s no real irritation in his expression. "You say that like I won’t have the last laugh when she starts calling you old man."
Xun snorts, shaking his head. "Sure, Hiro. I’ll worry about that when she’s old enough to enlist."
Lucia watches them, something warm blooming in her chest. This is good. This is right.
But—
"Something's wrong."
A whisper of doubt flickers at the edge of her mind, but before she can grasp it, the room shifts.
The sharp scent of antiseptic replaces the warm air. The lights are dimmer now, tinged in sterile white.
She’s sitting on a medical bed, her arm wrapped in gauze.
Ravenge sits beside her, rolling the bandage tighter, his hands steady as ever. His synthetic fingers move with the kind of precision that speaks of experience—he’s done this before, countless times. His robotic arm whirs softly as he adjusts the dressing, his mouth pressed into a firm line.
"You don’t stop, do you?" he murmurs, his voice as even as ever. But there’s something else beneath it.
Lucia smirks, shifting slightly under his touch. "I can still fight."
Ravenge exhales sharply, securing the last wrap with a tight knot. "I know you can." His voice is quieter now, softer in a way that unsettles her. "...That’s what I’m afraid of."
She doesn’t know how to respond to that.
His grip lingers on her wrist, his thumb brushing over the bandages as if memorizing the wound beneath.
"Something’s wrong."
She blinks—
And the lounge is back.
Xun is leaning over the couch, flipping through one of Hiro’s old books. "Why do you even keep these?" he complains. "They’re ancient."
Hiro snatches it back. "Because they have character, unlike your endless playlist of garbage pop music."
Murol chuckles, shaking his head. "He’s got a point, Xun. Your taste is terrible."
Xun gasps in mock offense. "You traitor! "
Lucia laughs, pressing a hand to her chest as warmth floods her veins. They’re here. They’re here.
"Lucia, you are not lost. Gray Raven is where you belong." She remembers how much those words had meant to her.
How much she had wanted to believe them.
But… The voices around her—Murol's steady tone, Xun’s teasing lilt, Hiro’s easy laughter—warp, distort, until they are nothing but echoes of something long dead.
Lucia stands in the center of it all, her breath shallow, her fingers curled tightly at her sides.
She knows.
She knows.
This isn’t real.
The illusion collapses, and in its place—pain.
It floods her, drowning her in memories she has spent years burying beneath blood and steel. The weight of it presses against her chest, crushing, suffocating.
They betrayed her.
Humanity. Babylonia. The very people she had bled for, fought for, died for.
She gave them everything. Her soul, her heart, her spirit. What did she get in return?
A ruined body. A mind torn apart and stitched back together without her consent. A past erased and rewritten like she was nothing more than a faulty machine.
She can still hear Murol’s screams, Xun’s ragged breaths, Hiro’s voice choking on apologies that came too late. She can still feel Ravenge’s betrayal like a blade buried deep in her spine, his voice ringing in her head—
"Why won’t you just die?"
Lucia staggers, pressing a hand to her forehead as the memories claw at her. The nightmare shifts again, but this time, it doesn’t take her back to the battlefield. It takes her further.
Before Gray Raven. Before Babylonia. Before she was Alpha.
A home.
Warmth, real warmth, not the artificial kind piped into Babylonia’s sterile halls. The scent of jasmine tea. The soft hum of music playing from an old record player. The faint flicker of the evening sun through a wide window.
Luna curled up beside her, her tiny fingers latching onto Lucia’s sleeve as she pouts about something trivial. Don’t go yet. Stay just a little longer.
Mom and Dad, sitting together on the couch, smiling at them both. A family untouched by war.
A life she barely remembers.
Was ever there a time when she had imagined something beyond the battlefield? Had she wanted to be a doctor, helping others with gentle hands instead of cutting them down with sword? A scholar, poring over books instead of battle reports and warred fields?
She doesn’t know.
It was taken from her too soon.
Her stomach twists, rage and sorrow intertwining into bitter knots.
The warmth of that memory—the love, the safety—an open wound, festering beneath years of war and loss. It is something she cannot reach, cannot return to.
She hates herself for forgetting it.
Alpha gasps as she wakes, her breath sharp, ragged—except she doesn’t need to breathe. The lingering echoes of the dream cling to her like frostbite, the warmth of a home long lost dissolving into the cold air around her.
Cold?
Her mismatched eyes snap open, adjusting to the muted glow of the overcast sky. Snow drifts lazily through the air, settling on her sleeves, on the ground around her, on Rosetta—who is sitting beside her, quiet, watching.
For a moment, Alpha doesn’t move. Her fingers twitch against the soft fabric draped over her, and that’s when she realizes—she’s wearing a coat. Thick and sturdy, hand-stitched from deer and sheep’s hide, lined with careful, intricate patterns Rosetta must have etched in herself.
She glances at Rosetta, and sure enough, the other woman is wearing the same kind of coat, though hers is slightly different—golden embroidery along the sleeves, subtle but deliberate. A matching set.
Alpha stares at her hands, flexing them experimentally.
The dream is over.
The warmth against her skin is real.
Rosetta shifts beside her, her golden eyes tracing the same thing Alpha had been staring at—something small, delicate, nestled in the snow just before them. A flower, pale as the frost surrounding it, yet vibrant in its resilience. A snow orchid.
Alpha exhales slowly, her expression unreadable as she reaches out, letting her fingers hover just above the petals.
"My sister loves these," she murmurs after a moment, her voice softer than usual. "they started growing in the cracks of our old home. Even now, against all odds, they still bloom."
Rosetta doesn’t take her eyes off the flower, but Alpha can feel her attention shift. She doesn’t say anything, waiting—letting Alpha speak at her own pace.
"She watches them," Alpha continues, her tone thoughtful. "In her free time, when she thinks no one’s looking. I think… I’ve come to like them too."
The admission feels strange. Not because it isn’t true, but because she isn’t used to sharing things like this—small, quiet details of her past, of herself. But Rosetta just nods, her lips curving into a faint smile.
"It’s beautiful," she says simply.
Alpha turns her head slightly, watching as Rosetta tilts her chin up, observing the pale sky, the way the snowfall gathers in the creases of their coats.
Even though Constructs don’t feel the cold, even though the temperature should be meaningless—
Alpha feels warm. Very warm.
Rosetta’s fingers trace the embroidered edges of her sleeve, thoughtful. She watches the snow orchid for a long moment before finally speaking, her voice quiet, yet certain.
"You know… I’ve always thought snow orchids were strange." She tilts her head slightly, golden eyes reflecting the soft glow of the overcast sky. "A flower that blooms in the cold, in the dead of winter, when everything else is buried beneath the frost. It shouldn’t exist, not really. It should be impossible."
Alpha watches her, silent.
"But it does," Rosetta continues, leaning forward slightly, resting her elbows on her knees. "It doesn’t just survive—it thrives. It doesn’t wait for spring, doesn’t wait for the warmth to return. It blooms despite the cold, despite the odds, despite everything telling it that it shouldn’t." She exhales, and a faint smile tugs at the corner of her lips. "I think there’s something beautiful about that."
She reaches out, her fingertips barely grazing one of the fragile petals. "A lot of people see winter as something cruel. Something empty, lifeless. But this flower proves otherwise. The cold isn’t the end—it’s just another beginning. And maybe, in some ways, surviving it is its own kind of defiance."
Her hand retreats, resting over her chest. "I think we’re like that too," she murmurs, her voice softer now, as if speaking the words aloud makes them more real. "People like us… we weren’t meant to last. We’ve lost too much, been broken too many times." She glances at Alpha then, her gaze unwavering. "But here we are. Still standing. Still fighting. Still breathing. "
Alpha swallows, her throat tight, but she says nothing.
Rosetta looks back toward the flower, her expression distant. "Sometimes I wonder if the snow orchid knows," she muses. "If it realizes how rare it is, how much of a miracle it is. Or if it just grows because… because it must. Because it refuses to do anything else."
A gust of wind brushes past them, stirring the snow, yet the flower remains untouched, steadfast against the cold.
Rosetta exhales, slow and steady, watching as her breath vanishes into the winter air. Then, after a moment, she speaks again, her voice lower, almost thoughtful.
"I hope… one day, when this war is over, we can be like this too."
She turns back to Alpha, her golden eyes warm, sincere. "Wouldn’t that be nice?"
For a long time, Alpha doesn’t respond. She just watches Rosetta, the way her expression holds a quiet kind of hope, the way her fingers still hover near the orchid as if afraid to disturb it.
And finally, quietly—so quietly it barely escapes into the cold—Alpha replies.
"Yeah."
It would be.