Moonstone Quarry The world that hardens as the harsher winter holds

solharr walked in silence beside her, the wind threading through the hollows of the trees and combing the fur along his shoulders. her words—gentle, but with weight—did not wash over him. they settled. slow, like the falling of ash.

we did, he said simply.

his eye, carved from winter sky, did not turn toward her, but there was something softer in the line of his brow. in the pause between one breath and the next.

she burned warm. and bright. a small exhale. i… endure.

his stride did not falter, but the rhythm of it slowed, as if his body remembered something his mind had buried.

the moon rises, he murmured then, almost to himself. even when it cannot be seen.

a pause.

i will remember her like that.

and then nothing more—for now. the quiet between them was not hollow. it was reverent.