[ SYSTEM STATUS — RAVEN LUSTRE ]
[ TEMPORAL POSITION: Day 18 Post-Regression ]
The system window hung in the air before him, pale blue-white text floating in the warm courtyard light.
He read it.
His lips moved with the faint curl of someone reading numbers that pleased them without needing to perform the pleasure.
The landing had been soft — both feet, flagstone, the subtle displacement of air that came with dropping from height without caring about the physics. A whisper of wind. No impact sound worth noting.
Every woman in the courtyard had gone still.
Not from surprise.
From something older than surprise.
Their bodies registered him before their minds did — nineteen sets of lungs drawing in the same breath, nineteen spines straightening with the particular, helpless attention of women whose nervous systems had been permanently re-indexed to a single point of reference.
His scent.
