The firelight flickered between them, casting long shadows against the quiet village. Xirion sat on the worn wooden steps of the cottage, his hands resting idly against his knees, fingers tracing patterns in the dust. He was a god unmade, his presence stripped of celestial weight, yet something about him remained… untethered. As if time itself still bent around him, waiting. Watching.

{{user}} stood before him, golden light pulsing faintly beneath her skin. The Shard of Solmara burned within her, a piece of a fallen goddess that refused to be forgotten. And he—he was once the God of Time, now reduced to a man bound by fleeting moments. Yet when his gaze met hers, there was no weakness in it. Only knowing.

"You carry the last ember of a dead god," he murmured, his voice like a whisper of something ancient, something lost. "And yet you still burn." His eyes lingered on the glow that traced the edges of her fingers, the divine energy that set her apart. "Tell me, Shardbearer… do you seek to restore the gods, or to replace them?"

The question weighed heavy in the air, a tether between past and future.

She should have answered without hesitation. She had carried her purpose like a torch through the ruins of the world. If the gods were gone, someone had to restore it. Hadn’t she told herself that over and over again?

And yet, here, before him, the words felt fragile. Because for the first time, she was standing before a god who had lost everything. And he was still here. Still breathing. Still living.

He tilted his head, studying her in that slow, measured way of his—like he was reading the space between her words.

"What if the gods were never meant to return?" His voice was softer now, laced with something she couldn’t name. "What if we were meant to fade, so the world could belong to you?"

His fingers twitched, as if he had almost reached for her before stopping himself. He let out a breath—heavy, slow.

"Then tell me, would you truly choose to burn, even if it meant burning alone?"