After she'd told Manna about Hume for the first time, Manna had told her about the water cycle. It was something the jaguar had observed from living and wandering through so many water-filled caves. The rains started, dropping fresh water onto Fornax's oceanic basin. The basin overflowed for a time, before all the new water drained down into the rest of the caves below. But rain, as Maw likely knew, had to come from somewhere. Water in the air, Maw had told her, and she'd given her a particular smile. Exactly. Water in the air, which came from the basin, condensed, and fell back down upon itself.

The comet, and the cyclical remaking of Hume, could be just like that. A cycle, after cycle, after cycle. Going nowhere, sustaining itself. And was that not how life was produced? Bodies made for passing water and air in and out and through. Life was the box of noise between two flat lines of entropy. The reason it didn't go anywhere was because it couldn't. Circles have no ends.

Since then, Maw had created a routine for herself in Fornax. She'd visit Manna, check the neonates, pet and scratch Manna's various itches and favorite spots. Maw had taken it upon herself to learn to read, as well. Since she had that book from one of her wishes. Maw had come to enjoy it, far more than speaking, or brooding, or anything else really. She had learned, so far, about the butterflies and the bees. Literally! They were pollinators! And a little about the plants they liked on Earth.

Earth was so far away from this place, in mind, body, and spirit. Did those little Humans even know? Did they ever learn about the things beyond that fateful little rock of theirs, adrift in space? Did they ever wonder about her, in turn?

Maw's mind felt so compressed by all the knowledge it now held within. She had to get it out—she had to. And with every passing day, the Coil bound itself tighter around her chest and throat, and Manna had to physically stop her from running out the den and never coming back. She just had to tell them, to tell them all. And maybe, once everyone knew, she could finally be at peace and return to her normal life, of wallowing in melancholy, and missing the children she never had.

She hadn't been to Pegasus in a while. She hadn't gone to the secret refuge in—maybe ever. The creatures of Chaos had been her constant companion, ever since her kittenhood. Ever since... Doug. And she'd never wanted to abandon him, even after leaving Pegasus. Leaving him behind.

Maw walked until she saw something so gripping, it ripped her straight out of her thoughts. The cathedral that shined with the same pink-gold as the nebula caught in her chrysoberyl hand. She had to enter—she wanted to. Desperately.

She wandered its halls, reverent with awe, jaw ever so slightly agape. She wandered until she found the series of pagodas. She wandered through them, taking in that ever-present scent of flowers and greenery (attempting to feed their life and passing on unfazed when nothing came of it), until she came to the biggest one. She wandered in, and within moments of seeing it felt so overwhelmed, her soul might rip itself to pieces. Her life, her God; depicted here, in stone. She'd never been here before. How had she never been here?