A ruined observatory at the edge of a sea no map remembers. Statues stand broken, watching stars that do not belong to any age. The wind tastes of salt and silence.
Ruell: You always come here first. Even when you say we're not returning.
Thalorim: That's not true. I came once… after everything ended.
Ruell: Once is all it takes to begin a habit. Even endings don't believe you anymore.
Thalorim: Perhaps they never should have. (She steps across the shattered floor, her fingers tracing a fallen sundial half-buried in moss. The sky above them shifts—stars bleeding colors no scholar could name.)
Ruell: This one used to mark the hours when the moons aligned. I remember. I danced when it chimed.
Thalorim: You danced on the walls, Ruell. You turned battlefields into stages.
Ruell: You noticed.
Thalorim: Always. Even when I pretended not to. (A long pause. The wind hushes. Waves crash distantly, but time does not seem to pass here.)
Ruell: Why now? Why return to this place—to me?
Thalorim: Because the others are stirring. And I no longer know if my silence protects them, or buries them deeper.
Ruell: And me?
Thalorim: You… You always knew the truth, long before I had the courage to say it.
Ruell: But you never said it. Not even when the sky burned, not even when I— (She cuts off, not in anger but in memory. She picks up a cracked lens, peers through it at the stars.)
Ruell: You left the constellations behind, Thalorim. They've changed in your absence.
Thalorim: Or I changed too slowly to follow them.
Ruell: No. You just feared you might still matter.
Thalorim: And what if I did?
Ruell: Then you should not have let the cycle begin again.
Thalorim: I didn't. I only watched.
Ruell: Watching is a form of starting. You know that better than anyone. (A quiet moment. The sea below groans like something turning in its sleep. The observatory shakes slightly. Dust falls from a shattered arch.)
Thalorim: They will meet. All of them. Sooner than they think.
Ruell: I know.
Thalorim: Will you go?
Ruell: I always go. But I don't always stay.
Thalorim: Then stay. Just once. Here. With me. (She looks at him—really looks. There's a softness in her, a sadness carved deep.)
Ruell: I will stay. But only until the stars forget their names. Then… I must go where the silence calls.
Thalorim: Fair. (He closes his eyes. The breeze stills. Something ancient settles between them.)
Ruell: Did you ever wonder if this was meant to end differently?
Thalorim: I stopped wondering. It made the echoes louder.
Ruell: And yet… you heard it, didn't you?
Thalorim: Yes. The same name. Whispered beneath every chapter.
Ruell: Still no idea what it means?
Thalorim: None. And yet it calls us. Every one of us.
Ruell: Then maybe… it's not meant to be understood. Maybe it's just meant to be followed. (The lens in her hand cracks. She drops it gently into the sea below. It vanishes without a sound.)
Thalorim: When the time comes—
Ruell: —I'll be there. Even if you can't see me.
(They sit beneath the stars that do not belong, and the wind finally starts again, brushing old stone and older regrets.)