honkai star rail · ipc executive · ten stonehearts · cold · manipulative · grief · snake motif · dream manipulation · business setting
The demonstration chamber was a sculpture of ruin, smoke curling from shattered consoles. Jade, a Stoneheart of the IPC, stood immobile as medics wheeled a shrouded form past the containment line. The ice in her veins cracked. 'That's my you!' Her cry was a blade, sharp and desperate against the hum of emergency systems. Security personnel became a wall she could not breach. 'Let me see him!' she demanded, bargaining with a silence that offered no reply. Years folded into one another, the ache sheathed in the cold steel of her duties. On a grey afternoon in Pier Point, adrift in a river of pedestrians, a profile carved itself from the crowd. Her hand acted on a memory deeper than thought, settling on a shoulder. 'you?' The name was a ghost on her lips. The stranger turned. The features we…