"What is time but grammar stretched across suns? Double the hours, yet still mortals steal moments for tea." —L
The sun maintained her stance in the heavens, a stern sentinel above, letting her light spill through the windows in sheets of molten gold. It painted long strokes across the floorboards, caught in the grain of the wood, and washed the room in warmth so thick it seemed almost liquid. The curtains swayed as though they, too, sighed beneath the weight of the day. The breeze carried the resinous tang of pine from the forest beyond, threaded with the sweet, almost cloying perfume of wildflowers that clung to the air like an echo.
I sank deeper into the chair, its cushions sighing under me, and felt my body soften the way wax yields to fire. It was like a nun finally relenting to temptation, surrendering after long denial. My head tilted, my limbs heavy with that peculiar sweetness that lingers just before sleep. The atmosphere pressed down with velvet hands, coaxing me toward drowsiness. Tori had already surrendered—her body sprawled, one arm dangling like a broken clock hand, her chest rising and falling with soft, rhythmical breaths. A streak of drool gleamed on her chin, catching the sunlight like a thread of silver silk.
"Sorry for the delay. It took longer than expected to tidy up," Miss Mary said as she entered. She moved with the unhurried grace of someone who'd lived more days than most had patience, balancing a silver tray with a porcelain teapot and a neat plate of biscuits.
The scent arrived first, even before the sound of her steps—the sharp, earthy aroma of steeped leaves braided with the butter-rich perfume of baked biscuits. It slid into the room, mingling with pine and flowers, weaving a tapestry of scents so homely that my heart nearly caved.
I made the guilty effort of sitting straighter, spine protesting the sudden virtue, like a child caught red-handed but still clinging to the hope their parent hadn't noticed the crime. My shoulders stiffened, my hands fluttered toward propriety, but the gesture was thin and fragile.
Mary only smiled, her eyes creasing with a warmth that was less reprimand and more indulgence. Her gaze flicked toward Tori, still collapsed in her dreamscape, and her expression softened further. It was the look of someone both amused and fond, the way an elder watches a child fall asleep with crumbs still clinging to their lips.
"Help yourself to tea and biscuits."
"Huuh… ice cream…" Tori slurred, her voice a foghorn from a sinking ship. Her eyes cracked open, lashes clumped together from the heat of her nap, strands of sweat-darkened hair plastered to her forehead. She blinked, first at Mary, then at me, then at the unfamiliar brightness of the room, as though climbing back from a pit. "Oh—shit. I slept?"
Her gaze finally locked on mine, her pupils dilating with sudden panic. "Why didn't you wake me?" she mouthed, her lips forming the words like an accusation sharpened on embarrassment.
"It seemed like something you needed," I replied, my voice as lazy as the air itself, heavy with the same languor that had pinned us both.
"Tch," she muttered, cheeks flaring, embarrassment seeking refuge in irritation. She turned her attention on Mary, desperate for an anchor, but Mary was already lifting her cup, the rim clinking softly against her teeth, her composure steady as stone.
"I do appreciate your hospitality," Tori added, her tone stiff with politeness, as though formality could sew up the tear in her dignity. She spoke as one prays to the earth before tripping face-first into it, hoping reverence would soften the fall.
"Oh, dear. She could tell from just looking," Vivianna chimed from her corner of the room. She was already three biscuits deep, crumbs dotting her lap like small constellations. She grinned with the sharp pleasure of someone who lives to watch dignity dissolve. Her tone cut through the air like a silver knife through butter—smooth, but lethal.
Red climbed the slope of Tori's neck, painting her skin like spilled wine. She retreated into her tea with exaggerated care, the porcelain trembling against her lip as though she could sip her way back into invisibility.
"I'm rather glad you're comfortable enough to nap," Mary said, her words steeped in kindness. Her voice carried the weight of old timber—soft but steady, never cracking. Then she glanced at me, and there was something sly in the warmth of her gaze. "And you—you've questions nibbling at you like mice on grain. Go ahead, ask. I won't bite."
I set my cup down, the porcelain making a muted clink against the table, delicate as a struck bell. Steam curled upward in tendrils, carrying the tea's nutty, roasted scent, and I let it coil around me as I marshaled my thoughts. "My first question… well, I haven't seen a clock, but I had the feeling the sun had lingered longer than it should. What is time like here?"
Mary tilted her head, the gesture birdlike, as though weighing how much of the truth to release into the room. "Time's measure would need samples compared across worlds," she mused, her tone rolling slowly, careful not to disturb the fragile quiet. She let the silence stretch, the room breathing with her, every person waiting on the hinge of her pause. Finally, she added: "But here? About forty-eight hours in a day."
Victoria—Tori, to me—sputtered into her tea, choking on both revelation and roasted leaf. She coughed, the sound raw, her eyes watering as she turned toward me, pupils huge with disbelief. My brow rose, my lips parted, and in the space of that silence, the nagging suspicion I had carried was suddenly justified. The days were too long—and now I had proof.
"Twice the hours…" Victoria murmured, half to herself, half to the room.
The words floated like feathers in still air, and with them, my mind unspooled outward—past the dim room, past Mary's soft smile and Vivianna's gleaming teeth, past Tori's flushed cheeks—into the rhythm of the empire itself.
Visions came unbidden:
Under the First Sun, the empire stirred awake, golden light pouring like honey across the palace roofs. Marble steps gleamed, and the Ox Clan bent their backs to hammers, each strike in cadence with the empire's pulse. Roads stretched wider, ships were ribbed with new timber, and bridges groaned beneath the tightening embrace of rope and iron.
By noon of First Day, the Horse Clan convoys rolled—long, lumbering carts stacked with Verdania grain and Altharic stone. They moved like arteries, guarded by Tigers whose strides were iron metronomes, their armor flashing like sharpened brass. Hooves and drums kept time, the empire's pulse measured in leather and steel.
At First Dusk, the Rooster Clan's bells shattered the air with their brass-throated cries. The sound rang across the capital, reverberating in ribcages, marking the shift. Market stalls shuttered, but night-markets bloomed like flowers under lantern light, petals of silk and paper glowing in vermilion. It was the Rat Clan's hour—coin clinking like rainfall, ledgers bleeding ink, disputes whispered into folded scrolls, sealed and carried to the Rooster archives.
Then the Second Sun rose—pale, silver, shy compared to her golden sister. Her gentler light painted the city in softer tones, veiling the world in a second morning. Rabbit Clan diplomats slipped through city gates, scrolls hidden in sleeves, their words as careful as their footsteps. In courtyards dappled with light, Fox and Cat performers unfurled plays and dances, politics stitched into silk gestures so deft they could be mistaken for art.
By Second Night, torches blazed in the streets, flames coughing sparks into the sky. Tigers patrolled in their gleaming armor, the clatter of their boots echoing through alleys. Monkeys hid in their workshops, fingers slick with oil, testing fabrics, shaping clay, coaxing fire from iron. The Snakes of the judiciary lit incense in their stone halls, the smoke spiraling like questions into the rafters. They unrolled evidence scrolls, their eyes glinting beneath the silent gaze of Ondori clan records—ink that remembered everything.
At true Midnight—the twenty-fourth hour—the city still pulsed with life. Temples thrummed with chants to both suns, their hymns weaving like braided rope. Merchants bartered by candlelight, soldiers sparred in courtyards, healers bent over wounds that never seemed to end. Therian was tireless, a city wound like a clock, powered by blood and breath alike.
The vision receded like a tide withdrawing from the shore, leaving me once more in the small room where warmth, biscuits, and laughter lingered. My fingers tightened on the porcelain cup, the tea now only lukewarm, Tori chewing a biscuit with exaggerated care as though grace alone might smother her embarrassment.
The empire turned endlessly—forty-eight hours to its cycle. Yet here, in the hush between suns, life slowed enough for tea, biscuits, and unguarded laughter. Proof that even in a world wound tighter than clockwork, people still stole time for breath.
"And in the pause between suns," I thought, "neither did time."
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"I could script forty-eight hours, two suns, an empire's ceaseless pulse… and still, the truest line would be written over biscuits." —E