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“How long do you intend to remain there?” Weldir asked, his quiet voice distant through their bond.

Throwing Orson into the air in the shelter of a shallow cave, only to catch his happily squealing torso a second later, Lindi shrugged. “However long is necessary to teach Nathair all he can learn.”

Light rain pattered beyond the mouth of the cave, into Nathair’s territory within the Veil, and splattered against his lake. The waterfall was stronger than usual, but it was difficult to hear its roar over the shaa of rain.

Where Lindi sought shelter was still within his territory.

Although he rarely huddled in here, preferring to sleep in the lake where he was safest, he defended it ruthlessly.

She eyed the noticeable claw marks on the walls.

Nathair had been digging out this cave, perhaps to make a home outside of the water as much as within it.

It wasn’t very large, or deep.

With her back against the wall, the dying rain sprinkled on her toes and seeped towards the threshold as a growing puddle.

Water continued to trickle down the cliff wall and threatened to put out the fire she had next to her.

Its heat was unwelcome this deep into summer, but it’s light much needed with the moon obstructed by the dispersing clouds.

“Is that an issue?” Lindi pressed, masking her attitude with a nondescript tone.

“Not at all,” Weldir answered, catching her off-guard.

She was surprised he didn’t seem to be in a rush for her to shoot out babies, like her womb was a living catapult.

“I have no concept of your earthly time. I don’t know if it has been a few weeks or many years.

I’m just curious as to your intentions.”

Or just trying to strum up a conversation.

“I always forget that you don’t feel the impact of time like I do,” Lindi admitted, lifting Orson up, then lowering him back to her face so they could rub noses. “Does that not bother you?”

“I cannot be bothered by something I have never experienced any other way.”

Understandable. Lindi had learned to... slow down.

There was no need to rush, not when there was so much time for her to expend. It’d taken many years, well over two decades in fact, to alter something that was fundamentally set in her very spirit. To not feel the flow of time, as she was outside of it.

I struggled for so long to accept that concept. She still did, in some ways.

It made being at Nathair’s side, with little to do, far more bearable.

Sometimes she just stared at him, enchanted by his odd beauty and how she was part of his design.

Now with Orson, who bore their own skull and quill features, she sometimes emptied her mind to just let herself witness their moments together.

A witness. Just like Weldir.

Something that didn’t need to interact with the world, even if she sometimes longed to immerse herself in their play – but was always coldly rejected.

I guess it’s different, though. She was able to experience everything that Weldir could not. The grass, the sun, life. I don’t think I would be able to live as he does. To be outside of a world, to see it but not grasp it.

It sounded too painful for someone who had always been able to touch the delicate petals of a flower, take in its floral scent, and do more than just watch it wilt from a distance. There was loneliness in being able to merely pluck it from its bush and take it with her as a reminder.

“How long has it been?” Weldir pressed, and the note of mild curiosity was evident.

“Almost a year,” Lindi admitted.

It’d been eleven months since Orson was given their name, their skull, and not much else had changed. They’d consumed a few Demons with Nathair, both gaining a little more mass each, but that was all.

Last summer, Lindi had followed Nathair as he wandered.

He’d fought against that bear, and then all manner of other creatures that strayed into his nearby path.

He had no direction, from what she could tell, but just seemed to have an instinct to move with the heat on his back.

As autumn came, and the world grew chilly, he’d returned a slow path back to the Veil.

Once the winter frost had settled above the surface, although not so much on the ground of the canyon, he’d been reluctant to leave the lake.

I think he finds the water more agreeable in the cold.

Perhaps he was able to handle it better when he breathed through his gills, as if a physiological change happened. He only left to sunbake for a few hours of the day and then returned to the water like a hibernating animal.

Lindi had remained, only because there was no point in her leaving. Winter was cruel and was growing colder as each year passed. The Veil appeared to be warmer, so hunkering down where she had somewhere safe and protected seemed like the wisest choice.

Then, like the budding flowers of spring, Nathair had emerged. His lessons had resumed, his playfulness with Orson continued, and he’d carved out this cave. Lindi had attempted to help with a sharp rock, trying to show him she just wished to be helpful.

When he’d allowed it, she’d grown more audacious with her closeness to him, while a triumphant grin had curled her lips. He’d been benign and welcoming to her, in his own strange and quiet way, and she’d pushed the boundaries as much as she could with the aim to eventually win him over.

But, like always, no matter that little had changed – and Lindi not at all – summer had returned to bake the world.

She always found it the hardest time to have a clinging child – especially one that was so large now they were the size of her torso.

They were heavy, they were unbearably hot, but at least they could hold up their skull now, which gave her tired arms a break.

Lindi lifted her gaze to the calming sky to greet the stars that were beginning to wink through wisps of clouds as the rain subsided. A thin, barely noticeable barrier at the cave entrance kept the horrible mosquitos at bay while she enjoyed her evening of nothing but her thoughts and Orson.

At least, that had been her intention. Weldir’s voice continued to ring, even after his silence.

She was alone, without anyone truly sentient to speak to even after a year, but she didn’t feel as lonely as before. Lindi had come to accept this forced solitude, basking in its carefree nature. She did have her two children, no matter that they were so different to her and not even human.

How lonely it must be to rule a realm filled with only the dead.

The least she could do was offer a branch of ‘friendship.’

“Weldir,” Lindi started, before licking at her lips nervously.

“Yes, Lindiwe.”

“What have you been doing all this time?”

“I have been... creating,” he answered slowly, like one might do when they were looking over a hobby they’d been working on and had been interrupted mid-task.

A star seemed a little brighter, a little redder than the others. She inspected it as she crossed her legs to settle Orson into her lap, then stroked their back quills gently. “Creating what?”

“My realm.”

Her upper lip curled up to one side, disliking that he was being vague as usual, and she rolled her eyes. Before she could tell him “never mind,” Weldir surprisingly continued.

“Tenebris is within my stomach” – she already knew this – “and it has been as empty as the rest of me, which you have seen. I am working to rectify that, especially after Rokul’s assistance.”

She could only imagine what he meant. “Are you making stars?”

Is that how the ones above her had been formed? Had a divine being really made them? And was she simply resting in their stomach as they spoke? To create one’s own realm, what would that entail?

“I... have not tried to make any. I can. I don’t imagine it would be hard to make glittering dots in the distance.”

“So you don’t know what the stars are made of?” she asked, looking up at them in the inky sky with wonder.

“I do. Most are giant balls of hot hydrogen gas, although they can be made of other gases. Science is an encouraged study among the Elysians. Some of it I know, some of it I don’t. I only received trickles of information within my prism.”

Prism. She’d heard Weldir use that term before, but had never asked about it. She wasn’t going to ask now, either, not when she had other questions.

With her cheeks heating because she didn’t understand science at all, or what hydrogen was, she asked, “Can you describe for me what you’re creating then? If not the wonder of stars.”

A small silence bled through the bond.

Lindi’s ears began to heat instead. Is it because I’ve never done this before? Or never really tried to speak with him? Although she tried to be more forthcoming, Lindi still found it hard. She didn’t know him, wasn’t all that trusting of him, and he felt so, so far away.

It was hard to talk to someone she couldn’t see, couldn’t touch, couldn’t smell. All she could do was hear him, but his detached nature made even that difficult.

“Sure, Lindiwe. I can describe what I have made of Tenebris so far.”

Lowering her head to hide her face behind the curtain of her unbound tresses of her bangs, she watched Orson curl their back to get comfortable as she waited for Weldir’s decadent voice to bless her ears.

It was like being read a story.

With every detail Weldir described, he watched his mate’s eyelids slowly droop before eventually drifting shut.

She fell asleep to the sound of his voice, and something about that left a tingle in the back of his consciousness.

It was something pleasant, and he hoped she’d enjoyed the narrative of his world, while he also tried to ignore the nagging doubt that perhaps he’d bored her.

If only I could reach through this viewing disc and lie her down comfortably.