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# Waverider Expedition - Eclipse

Sign here, and here

The sea was calm when the Waverider reached the harbor of Nyxthar.

The city rose from the cliffs like two reflections caught in the same mirror. Half its towers shone with pale stone and sunlit glass, the other half drowned in shadow, their surfaces dark as obsidian. Between them, bridges arched like threads of silver and gold, binding light to darkness. Bells tolled from somewhere unseen, slow and deliberate.

“Looks almost peaceful,” Phaedros said.

Severin’s eyes narrowed. “Almost.”

They docked beneath a row of marble steps slick with sea mist. An elf waited there, slim, composed, with hair the color of dusk.

“Welcome to Nyxthar,” he said. “I am Arithen, servant of both dawn and dusk. You seek maps, I am told?”

“We do,” Severin said. “Passage through the straits, and knowledge of your waters.”

Arithen smiled faintly. “Then you are wise to come in daylight. Some matters are best begun when Auryel still watches.”

He led them through winding streets of pale stone and narrow bridges that crossed mirrored canals. The city glowed under the afternoon sun, full of soft color and quiet order. Vendors called from market stalls, children played by the fountains, and the air smelled faintly of citrus and ash.

Arithen’s home was a tall, slender house of green stone and glass. Inside, its walls were lined with maps, seas, stars, even maps of the soul, or so their titles claimed. He served them tea and listened with the calm of a man accustomed to shifting sands.

“All agreements here must be signed twice,” he said. “At dawn, and again at dusk. One promise for the day, one for the night. We cannot risk the balance being broken.”

Venera frowned. “You mean you don’t trust yourselves.”

He smiled, without offense. “We do. But only in halves.”

The negotiations were simple enough. Ink dried, seals were pressed, and the map was promised. Yet as the afternoon light thinned, Severin noticed a strange change outside. Shops closed one by one. Voices quieted. People turned mirrors toward the doorways of their homes.

Arithen rose from his chair. “It is almost dusk,” he said. “You will forgive me, I think. I must prepare.”

“For what?” Selene asked.

He looked at her with sudden weariness. “For myself.”

By the time they stepped outside, the sun had fallen behind the towers. Silver lamps burned in the streets. The air felt cooler, the colors muted.

Arithen met them again at the door, dressed differently now, his hair tied back, a thin silver chain around his wrist. His smile was the same... yet not. He smiled at them as if he’d once known them in a dream, and was trying to remember why it mattered.

“You are the travelers from the south,” he said. “Arithen of the day spoke well of you. You seek maps?”

Severin inclined his head. “We signed a trade today. With you.”

Arithen studied the parchment in his hands, eyes scanning the familiar words as if for the first time. “So it seems.”

He poured wine this time instead of tea, deep red as shadow. The conversation continued as before, but the tone had shifted. Where the day-Arithen was calm and warm, the night one was precise, distant. When Selene complimented his work, he gave only a small nod. When Phaedros asked about the city’s divided life, he said, “It is not division. It is honesty.”

Outside, the streets whispered with muted life. Laughter in one alley, argument in another. The city breathed with two hearts.

When the final signature was set, Arithen extinguished one lamp and lit another, its flame a deep violet.

“It is done,” he said. “The maps will be delivered at dawn. Tell your captain he is free to sail when the light returns.”

Severin studied him. “Do you remember us?”

Arithen’s smile flickered. “Of course. I remember what he remembers. But I feel it differently.”

He looked away then, toward the window, where the moonlight touched the water. “Tomorrow I may be kinder. Or crueler. Who can say?”

They walked back in silence. The streets glowed faintly with twin colors, gold on one side, silver on the other, like veins through stone. Somewhere, bells rang again, slower now.

Selene broke the silence. “How can they live like this?”

“No choice,” Venera said. “You get used to what you can’t change.”

“Or you forget which part of you ever wanted to,” Phaedros murmured.

Severin said nothing.

At dawn, the Waverider’s sails filled with the first wind. The map had been delivered, neatly wrapped, marked with both signatures. Arithen stood on the dock below, waving politely as they cast off.

Selene watched him fade into the brightening haze. “He seemed... both gentle and sad.”

“He’s two people,” Venera said. “Maybe he’s tired of pretending they get along.”

Severin turned from the rail, the rising sun catching in his eyes. “Maybe he’s not pretending at all. Maybe that’s what truth looks like when you can’t hide it anymore.”

Phaedros smiled faintly. “Then gods help us if we ever face our own halves that clearly.”

No one spoke after that. The ship turned toward open sea, its sails catching both light and shadow as Nyxthar disappeared behind them, a city forever waking and dreaming in the same breath.

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