[The sound of the wind, too quiet to move stone, too sharp to forget. The Isles hover—vast chains tethering mountains to the clouds, swaying slow like breath. Here, in a ruined courtyard suspended over the void, two figures meet beside a broken sundial. The sky folds in layers, and no sun shines clearly above.]
TALMAR: You made me wait. Again.
VESRI: You came early. Again.
TALMAR: You're not denying it this time?
VESRI: I'm not in the mood for illusions. Not tonight.
TALMAR: Ah. The moon has you brooding, then?
VESRI: The air has teeth here. Every time we move islands, I lose more warmth.
TALMAR: I told you—layer your cloaks. This is Revari. These heights don't care who you are.
VESRI: You forget—I am the one who fell through fire to reach you. You just stood there with your riddles.
TALMAR: And you chose to stay.
VESRI: Because I was bound. Because I said yes when I should've screamed no.
TALMAR: You weren't screaming when you learned to tear truths from stone. When you held that blade of memory and smiled like it knew your name.
VESRI: That wasn't a smile. That was fear with good posture.
TALMAR: You hide it well.
VESRI: So do you. Until you start speaking like a gravekeeper with too many stories and not enough graves.
TALMAR: Better than a servant who forgets how to listen.
VESRI: I haven't forgotten. I'm just tired of pretending you're always worth hearing [Silence. The wind rises slightly, tugging at their cloaks. Below, clouds ripple like a sea of broken glass.]
TALMAR: This isn't about me.
VESRI: It's always about you.
TALMAR: No. Not this time. Look closer—this place isn't just where we meet. It's one of the remaining threads. The dial doesn't work, not because it's broken—
—but because time doesn't dare pass here anymore.
VESRI: Poetic nonsense.
TALMAR: Call it what you will. But the world is fraying. And every word we speak tugs it looser.
VESRI: Then why keep meeting?
TALMAR: Because if we don't… no one will remember what came before. And that's worse.
VESRI: I'm not a historian.
TALMAR: You will be, eventually. You're bound to witness. I'm only here to remind you of it.
VESRI: And what are you bound to?
TALMAR: ...To bear it. Until it ends. [Another silence, longer this time. The wind dies. The sundial casts no shadow. VESRI steps forward and places a hand on the stone, tracing it.]
VESRI: This place again. We always come back here.
TALMAR: Because we always leave something unfinished.
VESRI: Is it ever finished?
TALMAR: Not yet. But soon.
VESRI: I keep hearing those words.
TALMAR: Then start listening for what follows them.
VESRI: And if nothing does?
TALMAR: Then we meet again. Somewhere older. Somewhere colder. And ask the same damn questions until the sky gives us answers. [VESRI lets out a low laugh. The first in a while. It's dry, unsure.]
VESRI: You're more stubborn than the mountain priests.
TALMAR: And you're better than you think.
VESRI: That's the first lie you've told tonight.
TALMAR: Then let it echo. Come—there's a place beyond the spires. We'll speak there next.
VESRI: And after that?
TALMAR: We walk… until they all gather. Until the ones like us finally ask why we keep showing up under the same title.
VESRI: "Of the Bound and the Bearing…"
...Yeah. It's been stuck in my head, too.
They leave the courtyard without looking back. The sundial remains still—shadowless, changeless. But beneath the stone, something shifts. The title appears again in faint script, older than the Isles themselves.