Marble statues only remain still from a human perspective. From their own, they crawl forth from mountains in their infancy, who raise them like mothers with their volcanic milk. Despite being wrought from stone, they find their own skin to be soft, and it rises and falls as they breathe.

They exist along a separate axis of time, one that hosts its own songs, empires, and gods. When they die in our world, they crumble to dust; in theirs, they bleed black lava.