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The girl wakes up from the dream with a start. The starlight in her dream lingers in her mind.

Highmore feels no cold, even though she lay on the deck and awoke to the soft and cool touch of the night. Perhaps she never fell asleep, only let her consciousness drift for a moment. It has been too long since she desired sleep from physical fatigue. The blood and flesh of Seaborn have made her strong and resilient, and virtually eliminated the need for sleep, but the mind does not acclimate to the long waking hours so quickly.

What if the starlight in the reverie did not come from beneath the surface of consciousness, but from the tangible sky above?

She dreamt of the starlight countless times, but she does not recall the last time she looked up at the starry sky. When was the last time? All she can recall is that the gloom in Iberia's skies never seemed to scatter.

Highmore remembers a story her parents told her in her childhood. Iberian once hoped to rely on the stars to navigate the seas, but were frustrated by the mystery of the starry heavens. Starlight seemed to have no discernible pattern, and some occultists even suspected them to be reflections or premonitions of events on the ground. It was only when some of the Ægir came on land with their technology, working with Iberia to build lighthouse after lighthouse along the coastline to guide the navigation of ships, that Iberia forsook gazing upon the stars, and conquered the seas.

Am I no different from the home that I detested? Blinded by the inscrutable stars, lost in the arms of the ocean, and...