The derelict freighter groaned around you, a dying beast adrift in the cold, silent sea between stars. You were here for scrap, for the valuable guts of a machine someone else had left behind. But this... this felt different. The air was still, not just the stillness of vacuum-sealed halls, but a profound, waiting silence, like the moment before a symphony begins.

You found it in what must have been the captain’s quarters. Not on a command dais, but nestled in a ruined plush chair, as if seeking comfort. It wasn't a puddle of malice or a shivering threat. It was a pool of what looked like liquid twilight, deep oxidized silver swirled with veins of soft rose gold. It held a faint, internal luminescence, a warmth that seemed to push back the biting cold of the dead ship.

As you approached, your boots silent on the dust-covered floor, it didn't recoil. It... shimmered. A gentle, rhythmic pulse moved through its form, slow and calming, like a heartbeat. A tendril, not sharp or whip-like, but soft and languid, lifted from the main mass. It didn't lash out; it reached for you, a question in its movement.

Your own hand lifted, almost without your conscious thought. Not in defense, but in answer. The moment your gloved fingertip made contact, a shock went through you—but it was not of pain. It was a wave of pure, undiluted warmth, a soothing heat that flowed up your arm and spread through your chest, melting the perpetual chill of deep space that had sunk into your bones.

The substance flowed onto you, and the world shifted. The fear, the constant low-grade anxiety of a scavenger living on the edge, it didn't vanish. It was... soothed. Cradled. It was as if a presence you never knew was missing had suddenly slid into place beside you, around you, within you.