Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQH39VQ8R567SR9648C9QQ

The evening light slanted through the dusty windows of The Raven's Nest, casting long shadows across weathered wooden tables. Aurora traced the condensation on her whiskey glass, her black hair falling forward, obscuring the small crescent scar on her left wrist. The bar's walls were a palimpsest of memories—old maps and faded photographs that seemed to whisper of forgotten stories. The bell above the door chimed. She didn't look up. "Jesus Christ," a familiar voice said. Her spine went rigid. Michael. When she raised her eyes, the man standing before her was both stranger and memory. His collegiate swimmer's build had softened, replaced by the squared shoulders of a businessman. His hair—once a surfer's bleached mess—was now precisely trimmed, threaded with premature silver. "Rory," he said. Not a question. A statement weighted with years. She gestured to the empty chair. A peace offering, or perhaps just muscle memory. Michael sat, his movements careful. Professional. So different from the boy who used to burst through her dormitory door, all wild energy and spontaneous adventure. His watch—a TAG Heuer, she noted—gleamed under the bar's dim green neon light. Silas Blackwood, the bar's owner, materialized with another whiskey without being asked. His hazel eyes flickered between them, reading the unspoken geography of their history. "Been a while," Michael said. Aurora took a measured sip. "Ten years." The distance between them was more than physical. It was a landscape of choices, of divergent paths. She remembered him as he was: passionate, idealistic, the one who believed they could change the world. Now he looked like the very system they'd once criticized. "Corporate law?" she asked, already knowing the answer. A slight smile. Defensive. Proud. "Goldman Sachs, actually." The irony wasn't lost on her. The boy who'd led campus protests against corporate influence now wore their uniform, moved in their circles. She wondered which of them had compromised more. "And you?" he asked. "Still chasing... whatever it was you were chasing?" She knew what he meant. The nebulous dreams. The resistance. The belief that individual action could create systemic change. "I deliver food," she said drily. "And I'm good at it." But they both knew it was more complicated than that. Her part-time job was just a facade, a way to move through the world without being fully seen. Michael leaned forward. The old Michael would have filled the silence with words. This version studied her, calculating. "You look the same," he said finally. "Exactly the same." It wasn't a compliment. It was an accusation. The bar's background murmur—glasses clinking, muted conversations—created a buffer between their charged silence. Silas moved between tables, his slight limp barely noticeable, silver signet ring catching the light. "Some things don't change," Aurora said. But everything changes. Even when it looks the same.