The temple's grand library, usually a place of hushed reverence, held a different kind of quiet one afternoon. Sunlight, fractured by ancient stained-glass, painted colorful patterns across towering shelves filled with scrolls and tomes. Augustus stood near a window, his silhouette stark against the bright light. He wasn't reading, but simply observing the sky, a familiar, almost restless energy about him.
Near him, in a patch of dust-dancing light, Dolores sat on the polished floor. Her shadow-dark hair seemed to absorb the light around her, creating a small, intensely still pocket. She was meticulously arranging a pile of smooth, dark pebbles, each one nearly identical, into a perfect line. Her movements were precise, quiet, and utterly focused, a deep echo of her father's own calm intensity. No sound escaped her, save for the almost imperceptible pulse that emanated from her, a rhythm unique to her being.
Augustus shifted his gaze from the sky to his youngest daughter. A rare, almost imperceptible softness touched his features. He knelt, his dark cloak fanning out around him like spilled ink, and picked up one of the pebbles Dolores had laid out. He turned it over in his large fingers, its smooth surface catching no light. Dolores looked up, her dark eyes, vast and knowing for a child her age, fixed on him. There was no fear in her gaze, only a calm acknowledgment.
"The shapes of stillness," Augustus murmured, his voice a low, resonant tone that seemed to blend with the quiet of the library. He placed the pebble back carefully, precisely where he had found it. Dolores gave no response, but her small hand reached out and briefly touched his finger before returning to her arrangement. Then, with a soft, pleased sound, she looked at him and uttered, "Abuu!..." It was a silent conversation punctuated by her new, earnest gratitude, a shared understanding between darkness and nascent darkness.
Elsewhere in the temple, Eleonoré paused her work with the acolytes. A faint shiver, not of cold, but of something formless, prickled at the back of her neck. She looked out towards the sprawling city of Luminaria, its familiar glow suddenly feeling a touch dimmer, a breath colder. A subtle unease, like a barely perceptible shift in the air, began to settle upon her, a feeling she couldn't name or shake. It was a discord that sang beneath the peaceful hum, hinting that the quiet might not last.