The clearing stayed heavy with silence.
Drifting script particles from the erased still hung in the air like pale ash, slowly thinning but not yet gone. The smell of broken information lingered, dry and wrong.
No one spoke for a long time. Even the surviving pirate underlings stayed pressed against the outer edge of the stone, eyes fixed on the empty circles as if the seats might suddenly reach out and grab them.
Different thoughts moved through the people already sitting.
