Gharic culture has a curious obsession with ti. To them ti is a coin that must be asured, weighed, and spent with care. They live as misers, shaving precious scraps from the sides and hating every mont that slips through their fingers.
Yet all they manage with their clipping and paring is to debase that precious currency, for ti is not sothing to be spent. It is at to be savored, wine to take in great draughts, and honey to coat the tongue in ecstasy. No man has ever experienced more joy in marking a year than in the monts when ones mind forgets ti entirely, existing only in the endless, perfect now.
- Saleh Taskin, On Reclamation, 687
Michael slipped an arm around Sobriquets shoulders, looking out over the city once more. Night had long-since fallen, and the stars burned clear overhead. In years past there had been fireworks, great explosions of light and sound that marked montous nights. The world had lost its taste for such fare, though.
Instead, candles burned from windows and balconies. There were only a few at first, and it seed a sad reflection of the broken, depopulated city. But more ca as the hour grew later, clustering in twos and threes until every window glowed with dim light, and every building was ringed with a halo of soft radiance. The city ca alight in small monts, hands hidden by dark withdrawing to leave behind a mote of fire.
It remained quiet. No songs echoed through the city, no raucous parties disturbed the lambent glow. Is was a landscape wrought from solemn fire, flaring against the black overhead until the lights overhead shrank away against those arrayed below.
A single bell, distant and atonal, rang out across the city.
Happy new year, Sobriquet said, turning to Michael.
He smiled, and bent down to kiss her. Look what we did with half of the last one, he said, nodding towards the sea of fla. Next year will be brighter still.
She smiled. Lets take it one day at a ti, she said. Its already setting up to be a long one.
Michael shook his head. Im done with half-steps, he said. I want this. All of this, forever. Listening to Lekubarri talk, I thought about losing what weve built together, and - I cant. I wont. This is what I want. He looked down at her; he could see in her eyes that his expression had slipped from the normal, but her face was rapt, present in that mont with him. Ask to make it brighter next year.
Her lips parted slightly. I want the city to shine, she breathed.
Like the sun, Michael said. And the people?
Daressans should want for nothing, she said.
Theyll be safe and happy, Michael said. Food on the shelves, glass in the windows, and the streets paved with gold. He leaned closer to her. Ask for anything you want.
She grabbed his collar and pulled him close, her breath fast and hot against his skin - then half-dragged Michael into the flat.
Thus began the six-hundred and ninety-fourth year following the dissolution of the Gharic Empire.
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