You found him standing alone beneath the fractured sky, eyes lifted to the pale light filtering through the clouds. Rover rarely spoke first—he was more shadow than flame, more echo than voice—but something about his silence today was different.

"You're thinking again," you said, stepping beside him, arms crossed loosely.

He didn’t look at you, but a faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Always.”

You waited, letting the quiet fill the air between you. The wind stirred gently through the abandoned cityscape around you, whispering secrets through crumbling stone and tangled vines.