The scent of paper was fading from Kuon’s catalog. It wasn’t the musty aroma of age, though.
It was the scent of the ink—once soaked deep into the fibers—simply vanishing. A coastal breeze swept through, carrying the tang of salt and the sharp metallic bite of iron, all tangled with the faint, parched aroma of drying ink.
Kuon traced the edge of a page with his thumb. No black residue smeared onto his skin.
“...It’s draining.”
At Koyoi’s words, Kuon gave a slow nod.
“The ink... it’s being siphoned off. In these parts, it’s stolen the moment it hits the page.”
Asahi’s brow furrowed. “Stolen? By who?”
Kuon snapped the catalog shut and tapped its spine. “The place itself. These Rifts in the Records... they feed on the fuel of words. The more you write, the more they take.”
Koyoi tightened his grip on his drawstring pouch. Shizuku remained silent, but despite the quiet, an ache of unease stirred deep in Koyoi’s chest.
“What happens when we can’t write anymore?”
“We choose,” Kuon replied instantly. “What to keep, and what to cast away. That is the reality of a dwindling inkwell.”
Koyoi felt a chill at the clinical edge in his voice. To choose. It meant that whatever went unrecorded would cease to exist entirely. Asahi gave the scabbard of his sword a sharp flick with his finger.
“Then I just won’t write.”
“Easy for you to say,” Kuon said with a dry, bitter chuckle. “You commit things to memory through your flesh and bone. But Koyoi is different. He carries the weight of his world in words.”
Koyoi had no retort. He was right; the world was a terrifying place without language to define it. He had always used words to build a sanctuary—a boundary—around himself.
Kuon pulled out his final, small inkpot and unscrewed the cap. The glass bottom was already visible.
“...We write knowing it will fade. And because it fades, we must write with absolute precision. That is what we’ll need for the next town.”
A gust caught the catalog, flipping the pages of its own accord. The stark, white margins seemed blindingly bright in the sun.
Koyoi gave a small, resolute nod to that emptiness. The loss of ink wasn't the end of the story; it just meant their focus had to sharpen.
Kuon capped the inkpot and tucked it back into his robes. The trace of black clinging to his thumb dried swiftly in the salt air.
For a long while, none of them spoke or wrote a single word. In that silence, the act of not writing became their way of guarding what little ink they had left.