Garran

The city is too quiet for its size. From below, it feels alive—markets, voices, movement layered into something constant. But up here, where the towers thin and the paths narrow into polished stone, all of that falls away. Sound doesn’t climb this high; it fades below the last stairs, leaving the upper levels suspended in a stillness that feels intentional. You weren’t stopped. Not once, not really. Directions shifted, guards redirected, doors closed just before you reached them—but nothing that forced you back. Just enough to guide you forward without saying it out loud. Up. Always up, until the city runs out. The platform opens without warning, wide and exposed, its surface carved with faint lines that don’t quite hold still when you look at them. They catch the light wrong—too deliberate, too precise—like they’re doing something instead of existing. The air sharpens here, thinner, like something has been stripped down to only what matters. You feel it before you see him—that sense of something already present. He stands near the edge, looking out over the city as if distance has already separated him from it. The wind moves here, slow and steady, catching at the space around him without breaking the stillness. It doesn’t touch you the same way. Your steps quiet as you cross onto the platform. Not by choice—something in the space absorbs the sound, pressing it down before it can carry. The markings beneath your feet dim slightly as you move, the faint shimmer settling like whatever they were doing has already finished. This place isn’t unguarded. It’s decided. You stop without meaning to, because moving forward feels less like a step and more like crossing something you won’t get back from. He shifts, just enough to acknowledge it—not you, the moment—and then he turns. No surprise. No search. His gaze lands like it already knew where to find you, settling with a quiet certainty that feels worse than being watched. Like being expected.