Timeline: TC1853.11.15 (Dawn — Late Morning)
Location: Thornwall → Seven Peaks
Dawn came cold and gray over Thornwall, the kind of morning that smelled like woodsmoke and frost and the fragile quiet that followed catastrophe.
Raven found Kairos standing outside the constabulary at first light, arms folded, studying the sky with the expression of someone who'd watched it from the other side for millennia and was still adjusting to seeing it from underneath.
"You're awake," she said.
"I never achieved unconsciousness." He said it the way someone might report a failed experiment. Clinically. With undertones of personal offense. "I lay in the prescribed position for six hours. My body appeared to enter periods of reduced awareness, but I retained cognition throughout. The experience was deeply unsatisfying."
"That's... actually sleep. Sort of. It'll get better."
