Strialis stepped into the machine room, intent on her task of remembering Nology’s invention. As her eyes slid over each visible inch, she brushed her fingers against the cool metal and gained an instinctual understanding of the machine’s internal workings…a gift she alone had. Just as she was finishing, she noticed Lithic standing in the middle of the room staring at the spot where Spherule had been.

Second eldest of the siblings, Lithic had once seemed ageless, her voluptuous figure made sacred thousands of times in stone over the years. Now grief weighed her down, dulled her chestnut hair to grey, and made the ample limbs that had once celebrated the great cycles of life look frail and breakable.

Lithic looked at the machine and murmured in a language that had died long before the younger sibs were born. Then looked at Strialis, a shadow deep in her green eyes.

She felt the lament rising between them, but choked it back when Lithic said, “It will wait till the Nameless Land,” and left the room.