A lone full moon hung in the murky night sky, its clear radiance spilling like silk over the barren cliff.
The night wind swept through the canyon, carrying the crisp chill unique to late autumn. It pressed the wild grass by the cliff low and stirred the hair at the girl's temples.
The girl sat at the cliff's edge, her slender legs dangling in the air, as though she could fall into that bottomless darkness at any moment.
Her long, wavy golden hair flowed in the wind like molten gold, while her left eye gleamed with emerald-green light.
The bandages wrapped around her right eye glowed a faint gauzy white beneath the moonlight, hidden from all eyes.
The girl hummed an unknown song, her voice so ethereal it seemed not of this world:
"Neve plumam pulvis foedet tuam. Nec iam complexum alma."
"Capias bona somnias a luna. Capias bona somnias a luna."
A faint rustle of fabric sounded behind the golden-haired girl.
The chestnut-haired Puppet girl sat cross-legged on a bluestone slab three feet from the cliff's edge.
She wore a standard maid outfit, though its skirt had been tailored for ease of movement through years of activity.
Precise mechanical seams were clearly visible at her bare arms and knee joints, reflecting the cold moonlight.
The wind-up key on her back turned with her breathing, making soft "click, click" sounds like a clock that never rested.
Puppet listened intently. Only when Othinus stopped singing did she come back to herself.
She spoke slowly, her voice carrying a slightly mature teasing tone.
"Othinus, if you held a concert in the human world, you could probably earn enough to buy half a city."
Othinus turned around, her green left eye curving into a crescent.
"If Sevier likes it, I can sing for