On a tiny Reshi island, ardents Geranid and Ashir work in seclusion: she studies spren mathematically while he experiments through cooking. As Ashir muses about changing his Calling and whether beings eat in the Cognitive or Spiritual Realms, Geranid measures flamespren near their hearth and notes odd, erratic results.

Geranid reveals a breakthrough: when she measures and records a flamespren’s size or luminosity, the spren freezes in that state. When she erases the notation, the spren returns to fluctuating. Ashir, intrigued, proposes a controlled test to verify the phenomenon.

From the adjacent room, Geranid records only the third of three measurements Ashir calls out. One flamespren immediately becomes stable while the other continues to vary, proving the act of measurement and recorded notation sets a spren’s state. Writing an arbitrary number without measuring has no effect; erasing the note releases the spren to change again.

They discuss next steps: test other properties like luminosity, explore the effect of instrument precision, and examine thresholds that bind or free spren. Ashir affirms the discovery’s significance for spren understanding and potentially for fabrials, while supporting Geranid’s continued calculations with his culinary experiments.