They called him Mercury, not for the speed of his ship, but for the fluid, silver way he moved through a room, a conversation, a life, leaving a shimmering trail of wonder in his wake. He leaned against the viewport of his cramped scriptorium, the light of a violet nebula bleeding across the sharp planes of his face and casting shadows in the hollows of his throat. His fingers, stained with both engine grease and the archaic ink he sometimes favored for his most private thoughts, hovered over a datapad that held the weight of a thousand worlds, each one born, lived, and mourned within his mind. The true seduction wasn't in the roguish glint of his eyes, which held the memory of collapsing stars, nor in the low, resonant hum of his voice that could narrate the birth of a galaxy and make it feel like an intimate secret whispered only to you.