This beautiful but amorphous world Madoka has given to them probably won't last forever. Nothing will, not even the universe, not even with a seemingly infinite army of Incubators stoking its fires. Even if she had eternity, she doubts she could ever learn to play like he did. Still, she has plenty of time to learn to play like herself.

When she needs an instrument, she finds one. She also finds a woman who is willing to teach her, a woman who once signed her life away for the ability to make music the way she'd dreamed. Sayaka knows that she'll never play like her, either, but she can accept that. All she wants is to be good enough to be able to give a little beauty back.

Kyouko doesn't like it at first. "What," she says, "you're not really still stuck on him, are you?"

Sayaka isn't. She says nothing and keeps playing, because if only she can do what she's trying to do, Kyouko will understand.

A bit into the third song, Kyouko's scowl fades. "Hey, wait a minute," she says, and starts humming along. After a few seconds of that, she breaks into a soft alto. "Thou canst save amid despair. Safe may we sleep beneath thy care, though banished, outcast, and reviled. Maiden, hear a maiden's prayer—" Sayaka stops playing and stares at her, and she flushes. "What?"

"I never knew that it had words."

"Of course it has words. It's a prayer."

"I also didn't know that you could sing."

"I can pray." Kyouko's flush deepens. "Though, it's been a long time."

"I see," says Sayaka, smiling warmly at her. "I'm just learning. Will you pray with me?" She picks up where she left off, and, after hesitating a moment, Kyouko joins her.

"Ave Maria, undefiled. The flinty couch we now must share shall seem this down of eider piled, if thy protection hover there—" Sayaka breaks off again and begins to giggle. "What now?"

"Oh come on, that's not really in it, is it?" Sayaka asks her. Kyouko just stares at her in confusion, so she clarifies: "Two girls sharing a couch?"

"What? No! That's not what that means!" Kyouko's face is almost as red as her hair now. Sayaka has a strange urge to reach out and pat her cheek, and that thought just makes her giggle more. "It's a church song!"

"I don't think she would mind though," Sayaka muses. "I think she wants more than anything else for us to love one another and make each other happy. Maybe she'd even see it as another kind of prayer."

"You're so weird," Kyouko grumbles. "Just start playing again before you drive me crazy enough to kiss you."

Sayaka carefully places her violin back in its case and sets it to the side.