Scorpio was certain he had been staring out to sea for hours.

“Nevil,” Scorpio said.

He said something back, his lips moving, but his words were masked by the hiss of the surf.

Scorpio called out again. “It’s me—Scorpio.”

Clavain’s mouth moved a second time. His voice was a croak that barely made it above a whisper. “I said, I told you not to come here.”

“I know.” Scorpio had approached closer now. Clavain’s white hair flicked in and out of his deeply recessed old-man’s eyes. They appeared to be focused on something very distant and bleak. “I know, and for six months we honoured that request, didn’t we?”

“Six months?” Clavain almost smiled. “Is that how long it’s been?”

“Six months and a week, if you want to be finicky about it.”

“It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like no time at all.” Clavain looked back out to sea again, the back of his head turned towards Scorpio. Between thin strands of white hair his scalp had the same raw pink colour as Scorpio’s skin.

“Sometimes it feels like a lot longer, as well,” Clavain continued, “as if all I’ve ever done was spend each day here. Sometimes I feel as if there isn’t another soul on this planet.”

“We’re all still here,” Scorpio said, “all one hundred and seventy thousand of us. We still need you.”

“I expressly asked not to be disturbed.”

“Unless it was important. That was always the arrangement, Nevil.”

Clavain stood up with painful slowness. He had always been taller than Scorpio, but now his thinness gave him the appearance of something sketched in a hurry. His limbs were quick cursive scratches against the sky.