"I was dead for these two lights."
This answer doesn't shock Varion at all. He is like eager to hear this kind of reply from Aeries.
"Oh man, you still are cracking same jokes now of death but there is a variation this time and that is you mentioned time this time. Anyway you can't convince me further."
Understanding the fact, Aeries realized it was his past self making this kind of silly jokes. Avoiding this calms down his mind.
"I was busy in my own business. I couldn't manage to contact with you."
"At least you can do a telegram to me. You know I am busy with my work in the farm. And you always are busy in your mystery."
Aeries is plotting all these replies to connect the dot, "What mystery was I solving? Varion mentioned telegram. Is that a symbol meaning this world is a high-tech world?"
Keeping these thoughts in his mind, he clears his throat to speak something but Varion stops him.
"I know you are gonna tell me I will try next time."
"So it is the normal behavior of Aeries," Aeries is thinking in his mind, " I have to choose every word specifically to reply so that he won't start to judge me."
Aeries starts talking, "I actually solved the mystery this time that is why I couldn't manage to contact with you all the time. From now I will never busy with any such kind of weird job."
A man has just passed by Varion with a hurry conflicting with his shoulder.
Aeries shouts out, "Don't you see man?"
"Maybe he is busy in going somewhere urgently. Leave him and go to your house."
Aeries thinks, "I, myself, even don't know where my house is. Anyway I will not understand him." Sighing in ownself, " Okay, lets go."
Aeries and Varion walk off to go to Aeries' living apartment. They cross Minisio Traders walking swiftly having a little chitchat between them. Aereis, every time, is trying to understand the behavior of his past himself. No matter Aeries must be a decent and hard-working guy who wants to uplift his social status by becoming a rich personality and taking a place in high class society.
When they reach at the exit point of the market, Aeries sees a long road plying through beside the market, not made from pitch or looking like a highway in the earth.
The main road runs through the settlement in a long spine of cobblestone, uneven blocks worn smooth by years of wheels and hooves. Every passing cart sends a sharp clatter echoing between the buildings, iron rims striking stone in a steady rhythm that carries far down the street. Shops and lantern posts line this path, and people walk with purpose upon it, boots ringing faintly against the hardened surface. Yet only a few steps beyond, the ordered sound fades. Narrow alleys split away between the houses, sinking into soft ground where the stones end. There the earth turns dark and wet, and each step presses deep into mud that answers with a slow, wet squelch, swallowing footprints almost as soon as they are made.
Varion stops a cartage that is running with two horse like creatures. The creatures resemble horse at a first glance. Its body is taller and leaner, the muscles along its shoulders moving beneath the hide like slow water beneath stretched cloth. Its legs are longer than normal steed's legs, ending not in smooth hooves. Aeries becomes surprised looking such like creature appearing at him all on a sudden. He wants to calm down his surprised mind not to reveal his anxiety.
Varion asks him looking at his face, "What are you thinking? You look like bit changed than normal lights. What's the matter? Tell me bro."
"Nothing, it's nothing."
Varion asks the coachman," How much for sixty four by B, Minisio Super Colony?"
" Ten Vellin."
Varion starts bargaining, "It's eight Vellin."
"No, if you want to go then you have to pay ten Vellin."
"Okay, as your wish."
Aeries and Varion get up into the carriage, wheeled with four and a rooftop covering the head not to interfere the light.
"Do you want to tell me how you found the mystery solved? You were looking into this matter for last three arcs."
Aeries can't understand what to reply. He knows some of his memory fragments has been stolen or vanished away. But he knows what arcs mean.
Time in this world is measured not by clocks, but by cycles agreed upon long before the current Reckoning began.
The smallest unit is the Light — a single passing of dawn to dawn, marked by the rise and fall of the sun. Seven Lights form a Sept, a short span commonly used by laborers, soldiers, and markets to measure routine work and rest. Merchants plan deliveries by the Sept, while patrols rotate their duty on its seventh Light.
Fifteen Lights complete an Arc, a period tied to civic order. Wages are often paid per Arc, and official notices are dated by it. Seasons subtly shift across Arcs, making farmers and travelers alike attentive to their passing.
Five Arcs together form an Orbit, a longer measure used for trade contracts, military campaigns, and regional planning. An Orbit carries enough time for change to take root — prices rise or fall, borders tense, and rumors become truths.
A full cycle of three hundred Lights is known as a Turning. It marks the completion of a year, when records are closed, debts renewed, and histories updated. Most people measure their lives in Turnings rather than Lights, remembering births, wars, and losses by how many Turnings have passed.
Above all stands the Reckoning — not counted in Lights or Arcs, but in generations. A Reckoning begins with a defining event: a collapse, a conquest, or a covenant. To live within a Reckoning is to inherit its consequences, and to be shaped by the long shadow of its beginning.
Present generation is known as Sixth Reckoning, when true advancement of this world start to begin under twelve orthodox churches and temples combinedly, as there is five churches and seven temples.
Thus, time here does not merely pass — it accumulates, presses forward, and judges all things in its own slow measure.
Aeries replies in a soft and convincing voice, "Actually it is all my misunderstanding."
Varion nods his head and replies in a relaxing and calm tone, " I knew all these from the very beginning. I tried to convince you all the time yet you didn't listen to me. And now you can see I was always right."
Aeries just nods down his head, trying to utter words from his dry tongue strongly but can't say much as something is resisting to utter, "If all these were true!"
"It will never be."
"Okay, I accept my fault."
"It was always yours."
No words passing between them, there are pin drop silence in the carriage. The roads are turning into cobbled stone from muddy squelch. The sounds are coming too harsh to both of their ears. Aeries is feeling annoyed but looking at Varion, he understands that it is the day to day life of these people. Aeries slides the curtain from the window to look outside of the carriage. He vaguely sees the outlooking of the city or locality. He sees different species of humanoid creatures plying through the street.
Aeries keeps staring at the outside, tries to understand this world and manners of this world.