He flips the switch and the capsule answers with a deep, disciplined tremor. Thrust blooms beneath him, invisible fire pressing the ship into its final descent. The moon widens in the window, no longer a dream-beast or a palace, only a hard white world of dust and shadow. He feels the numbers on the console settle into rhythm, and for once that rhythm sounds like mercy.

As the burn continues, the last scraps of his old fantasy peel away in the glare of instrument lights. There is no enchanted chorus, no waiting dragon, only the absolute attention of machines and human hands. Yet the plainness of it moves him more than any prophecy could. He is falling toward a place that does not love him back, and still he is learning to call it home.