The ink had run dry hours ago.
Not because the story was over—
But because the story no longer needed to be written in ink.
It breathed now.
In wind.
In gesture.
In pauses between words and the courage to speak them anyway.
The Author sat with hands resting over an open book whose pages refused to end.
No full stop.
No final line.
Only white space that pulsed with invitation.
And for once, they weren't afraid of it.
Jevan found them beneath the memory-vines, leaves curling like question marks.
"You're not writing," he said.
The Author smiled.
"Not today."
"Because it's done?"
"Because it isn't."
Jevan sat beside them, offering no answer. Only presence.
They watched the spiral sky shift again—slow, subtle, the way seasons change in stories that don't need chapters to keep going.
And in that soft, sky-turning hush, they heard it again:
A breath that was not theirs.
A voice still forming.
A tale not yet told, but already true.
