Eileen smiles, but this time it is not entirely warm. It carries a quiet sorrow, the kind that comes from knowing something others are still pretending not to see. "There are," she says. "But most of them do not get to tell their stories. The world rarely listens to those who stepped aside on purpose."

Morning air clings gently to the forest, the kind that makes steam from a teacup look like it's trying to say something. Eileen steps through the last thicket of undergrowth with a full basket on her arm and a small smear of damp earth across her hem. The mushrooms were especially generous today, fat capped and blushing, the sort that hum softly when picked and smell faintly of thunderstorms. Fenn trails just behind her, tail low and even, paws brushing against moss with practiced quiet. His fur is neatly groomed, of course, but still carrying the memory of bramble leaves and mushroom dust.

They pass through the garden gate, which lets out its usual creak, more curious than complaint. The path to the porch is damp with morning light and the faint traces of last night's fog. Eileen sets the full basket on the porch beside the kitchen door and brushes her hands together, more from habit than need. "You know, I still think those coral caps might argue with the stew, but we'll give them a chance. And if they don't behave, I'll turn them into pickles just to teach them a lesson."

Fenn sniffs the basket she sets down then turns his gaze toward the other one, already waiting beside the porch bench. She lifts that basket with both hands, adjusting her shawl with a practiced tug as she does. "William must've packed this one," she says, already responding to the look Fenn gives her. "Everything is in its place. Which is more than I can say for the quiche I made last night. Ollan looked so puzzled by it, the dear and Audry was trying so hard to be polite, even though her fork was mostly just rearranging it into new shapes."

She smiles as they start down the path. "I don't think they dislike it, not really. They just haven't decided if vegetables belong in something that looks like a pie. Maybe they're right. But I want them to learn the taste of things that grow. It matters, especially when their little."

Fenn ambles alongside her, his paws silent against the moss warmed stones, his head tilted just slightly as though weighing her words. She glances at him, then back towards the well, "I was thinking of trying squash next, just a little, roasted until it goes sweet and soft. Something gentle for the dish, nothing that shouts, maybe parsnip."

They pass beneath the old lilac bush where the petals are beginning to yellow at the edges, and the scent is thick enough to taste. "Leek could work to," she continues, mostly to herself now, though she knows Fenn is still listening. "If I can coax it into staying mild that is given that this year it has been more philosophical, and that's a flavor that's hard to explain, especially to children. Maybe just a whisper of it then and something green that doesn't call attention to itself. Not spinach, spinach never knows when to be quiet."

Fenn's ears flick, the corner of his mouth lifting in a way that might almost be a smile. Eileen pats his head as they arrive at the well, that waits for them. "They're trying all my food though, that's the important bit, even when they don't like the all flavors of it. Did you see how Ollan cleaned his plate when he thought I wasn't looking? Did you see how Audry left me a thank you note drawn in crayon, a pink sun with a face and the word 'almost' underneath. How adorable it was."

The well waits where it always does, though its shape is never quite the same. Fenn circles it once, his steps deliberate, then hops onto the rim and settles, still and alert. Eileen steps closer and the wells steps spiral open around the outside allowing her descent into the earth. Fenn watches but does not follow.

Eileen rounds the corner into yet another hallway. The carpet too plush, the sconces too ornate, like set pieces waiting for dialogue they never get to say. When suddenly a jolt of static breaks the silence, crackling from a sound box half embedded in the crown molding. It's disguised as décor, but speaks like something trying too hard to sound helpful. "Reminder. The mezzanine level courtesy refreshments remain available exclusively to registered enthusiasm affiliates. Credentials must be verifiable and internally radiant to qualify."

A second voice breaks in behind the recording, muffled but still caught. "No, I told you, that schedule wouldn't work..." Then the original voice resumes, slightly frayed at the edges, as if recovering its place in the script. "Reminder. Tampering with distribution carts will result in the gentle suspension of privileges. We thank you for your patience. While the resonance well remembers how to balance."

Curious now, Eileen chooses a direction, any direction really, and continues on, only to run into another potted plant sitting squarely in the middle of the hallway. Then another in the following hallway and around the next corner, two more. Not quite too many, not yet, but enough to make her pause. She considers backtracking, though wonders if she's being ridiculous, then turns again. Another hallway, another... this plant was much bigger, about the size of a small potted tree, a fig perhaps. Then behind the fig tree is rotund succulent. Followed by a topiary with a badly trimmed spiral that leans like it's ashamed of itself. They don't seem planted so much as misplaced, like centerpieces left behind after a party that forgot them first.

So she moves around them and by the time she reaches the end of this corridor, she realizes quite firmly now there are simply far too many plants in the hallway for this to be normal. They crowd now like houseguests who have been provided hors d'oeuvres, entertained, fed a main meal, offered dessert, coffee and conversation, brought to the exit and still don't know that it's time to leave.

And that's when she sees it. One comically oversized fern with a particularly bushy top, sitting lushly in a way that feels far too planned. For it is pushed up against the wall near the base of an ornate door which now blocks her path. She narrows her eyes. "I see you," she says, setting her basket down. Then, with the dignity of someone who once ousted a feral goose from a community bake sale, she drags the plant aside. Her full intention being to then use the reclaimed space to open the ornately carved door ahead.

But before she can try the handle she is stopped by something that is just slightly out of place beside the door, almost like an afterthought. It is a shabby hole in the wall, stuffed with stained rags and dyed sheets, clearly meant to blend in with the natural stone of the resplendent decor. A patchwork lie, dressed for polite company. Accompanied by a voice from within the hole and its covering, too soft to be speaking to anyone, but too sharp to be nonsense. "Mirror," it says. "My name..."

A pause, then, more hurried, "My name is... Seraphine. I am line blooded. I'm... I'm refinement. I don't need exemption, I don't need..." Her voice breaks, then resets, like someone reciting from a waterlogged script. "Legacy is an investment. It's restraint, it's a cycle... I reflect the cycle..." A beat, faster now. "I am the legacy that... that chooses... chooses me..." The cadence stutters, too many echoes of self doubt evident in the voice. Mixed with the pain of eagerness that comes from reading the footnotes of someone else's cadence.

The voice then suddenly cuts out and their is a sharp inhale along with the sound of a wet palm slapping glass. "I am enough. I'm enough. I have to be..." A scream, sudden and sharp, then the unmistakable sound of glass shattering, not once, but in layers, like the pane had been waiting for permission to break. The sound ending in profound silence and then, just a breath later, jagged, uneven breaths.

Followed by a hiccup, which has Eileen leaning in slightly, brows creasing. "Oh, my dear," she whispers. "That doesn't sound like believing at all."

Eileen sets the basket down without ceremony, her hands practiced, almost fond. Pushing the plant again to make more room, she finds the pot yields easily, its weight off center. She pulls the sheets next freeing them with a softness that feels like it was waiting to find her. The hole leading not to a hatch or trapdoor, but to the quiet absence a sloping hole. Dark, damp, glowing with neon moss that pulses faintly, not with light but with caution.

She doesn't pause though, warnings like these are for people who still need them. She steps forward, letting the curve of the slope take her, slides, not cleanly, but comfortably down into the waiting dark. The descent swallowing her whole. Before then gently depositing her on a nest of crushed cushions, old and overused. Which sigh under her weight as if acting like it remembers her shape.

The room around her is shaped like a teardrop, wide at the base and tapering into shadow above, its edges heavy with velvet hush, as if sound here has been asked to wait its turn. Cushions lie scattered across the floor in patterns that seem too random to be accidental, as if they were tossed by someone who knew exactly where they needed to land. In one far corner, a curtain hangs in a shade of bright pink that feels almost offensive in the subdued atmosphere, not pink like softness or sugar, but pink like the volume has been turned up too high, pulled taut across something unseen, something large enough to have its own gravity.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

A sound drifts out from behind the curtain, not a cry and not a word, but a whisper shaped like breathing, long and low. The kind a child might make when trying to soothe the sting from burned fingers, and Eileen steps toward it, careful not to disturb the hush around her, until something unseen freezes her in place. The lights in the room flicker once, then again, their glow uncertain, and the curtain before her pulses outward. A low vibration hums beneath her shoes, not hostile but remembering pain, and it spreads outward like a story someone has tried not to tell.

There is a pause, and when the curtain ripples once more, then hum falls still, not inviting but not closed either, more like a door someone has chosen not to lock. Eileen reaches forward and draws the fabric aside, slipping into the space beyond. Her hands falling instinctively to her sides, searching out for the basket that should be there, only to find it absent, because of course she left it behind.

"It's alright to cry, my Little Wibbler. Just getting through each day can be so hard, even for us adults," she says, her voice low and melodic, the kind that offers comfort before answers.

The space is a bathroom, or at least it was once, and its surfaces bear the tired memory of what they used to be. The tiles along the walls are cracked and stained, the air thick with a spoiled iron scent that curls unpleasantly in her nose and seems to cling to the back of her throat. Sharp enough that she stumbles a little and presses a hand to her temple as something quietly blinding flares behind her eyes like the edge of a migraine that does not belong to her.

And that is when she sees the figure curled in the center of the floor, half swallowed by shadow and broken reflections, a naked woman trembling with the kind of stillness that implies movement carried too far. Her skin is mossy green and welted, the sheen of sweat across her back catching what light remains in a fevered shimmer that only makes her seem more unreal, more like a story unfinished than a person in pain.

The women rocks gently, arms folded tightly across her torso, the movement so small it almost disappears, as if she's trying to fold herself inward, not to hide, not exactly. As if to vanish through sheer compression, the way a letter might, when it is folded and folded again until its meaning slips into the creases and fades. Eileen watches with still attention, the kind that recognizes when presence is more useful than interruption. The room does not try to help either nor does it try to interfere. It simply holds both of them here like a page left open too long, the air heavy with quiet and something else that waits politely behind it.

Crowning the the woman's head, something begins to stir, subtle at first, a movement that could be mistaken for breath, if not for the way it spreads in too many directions at once. Small snakes, green and glistening, shift along her scalp, woven into the moss damp strands of her hair like roots that learned to wake. They move not in panic but in slow, measured unity, lifting their heads, flicking their tongues, opening their jaws just wide enough to show teeth that glint like old enamel. They do not strike for they are assessing and they measure Eileen's distance with uncertainty. Her still calm forcing the careful creatures to wait.

Eileen lets her gaze move slowly across the room, not ignoring the girl on the floor or the snakes crowning her head and not in an attempt to bypass either of their pains. Instead Eileen searches for the small, mundane details that sometimes makes comfort easier to reach for. Along the far wall, she sees a thick bathrobe, plush and deep purple, hanging from a hook that leans slightly to one side as if tired from the weight of its own existence. Its trim catching the light which glimmers of silver like moonlight on still water. Eileen moves towards it and unhooks it from its peg, giving it a careful shake. Shards of glass falling from its folds in a soft clatter of ceremony long forgotten, a single silver thread dangling from one sleeve, delicate and barely visible but unbroken.

As she brushes the thread aside, the air around her shifts, warm and thin, brushing the back of her hand like something curious and unsure of itself, Eileen doesn't comment on the shift. She simply carries the robe back toward the girl at the center of the room and stops at the edge of the light without stepping over it, holding the robe not like an offering, but like a tool she already knows will fit. She does not drape it over the girl, not yet. She kneels instead and begins to remove the remaining shards of glass from its lining, one by one, her fingers gentle and practiced. Her voice humming something soft and old in a low, steady tone, not for distraction but for rhythm.

She hums the lullaby of Urgu, an old one, and she hums it more than once.

"Hush now, hush now, rest your heads, Urgu walks where soft light treads. Winds may wander, rivers roam, But weary hearts will find their home.

Oh, gentle hands, oh, quiet sigh, Moonlight watches from the sky. Traveler lost and creature small, Urgu's grace will love thy all.

Lay your worries, shed your fear, Soft steps fall, the path is clear. By silver thread and whisper bright Urgu guides all through the night."

With one final shake, Eileen smiles and gathers the robe in both hands, rising with the care of someone lifting a story from where it has slept too long. She meanders back to the girl, her footsteps slow, deliberate, her free hand outstretched like someone offering birdseed to a creature half imagined, half remembered. The snakes lean toward her fingers, their movements not fast or fierce but instinctual, their bodies swaying in a rhythm not entirely their own, more habitual than hostile, reminiscent of the lullably of Urgu. One of them then bites, though not with force, its teeth pressing down like dandelion stems rather than a fang, not to wound but to test, and Eileen does not pull away.

"Please don't move a muscle, my dear wibbler," she murmurs, not as a warning but as a promise. Her arms slide beneath shoulders that feel too warm, too light, as if the body they belong to has grown unfamiliar with being held. The snakes continue their quiet testing, their tiny mouths brushing her sleeves, their flickering tongues tasting the edges of her intent. None of it deters her though for grace moves with her, but not the kind that arrives easily or from nowhere. This is the kind you earn by being the one who stays when things feel too heavy to carry alone.

She brings the robe forward and sweeps it around the girl's shoulders, tucking it lightly against her skin, and for the smallest breath of a moment, it seems to catch. Then it slips again, sliding off, as though the body beneath it does not know how to accept the shape of being clothed. Eileen catches it gently mid fall, not startled, not surprised. For the robe was not rejected, just... forgotten. As though the gesture didn't register as something real and Eileen doesn't scold the little wibber either. She simply hums again, a low, knowing sound, the kind made by people who still remember old remedies, the kind that work even if no one believes in them anymore.

Drawing the robe closed again, she presses it briefly to her own chest, cradling it like a borrowed memory. "It's still here," she says softly, almost to the fabric itself. "It's only cloth but it's got good manners, it'll wait." She folds it carefully, precisely, and places it in the crook of the girl's arm not to clothe her, not yet, but to rest there like a suggestion, the kind a lap one offers to a cat or the moment of seat saving for someone in a crowded room, something that says, I thought of you before you were ready to arrive. "No rush," she adds, smoothing one corner. "We'll make it yours when you're ready."

The pause that follows is long enough to count and soon the Little Wibbler's hands begin to move. One lifts from her side, fingers twitching, not reaching so much as testing the idea of reaching, brushing the fold of fabric beside her. Not to grip it, just to feel that it's real. Then the other joins, the movement mirrored and hesitant, and she gathers the robe in towards her chest, pulling it not to wear, but to keep near. And for a while, that is all the Little Wibbler does. Holds the robe close to her body, tucking it softly against her chest like a question that is not ready to be asked out loud.

Until eventually her body does begin to move again, gently and without ceremony, a small unwinding, as if the air has grown warmer by a single degree and given her permission to exist just a little more. Her arms unfold, her shoulders loosen, her spine remembering how to lift itself without retreat. There is no signal and no shift in the light, only the quiet decision that arrives when it is finally allowed to. The Little Wibbler pulls the robe around herself, not with a dramatic motion or a gasp, but with the same instinct a person uses to reach for a blanket in sleep. This time the robe stays in place.

The snakes too respond without needing to be told. They lean toward Eileen's presence now as though listening with their bodies, no longer biting, no longer testing, their heads tilted in loose arcs that move with the unspoken rhythm of a heartbeat rediscovered. They do not hiss either and they do not tense when Eileen moves, if anything they settle against her too in quiet tandem, swaying slightly as if rocked by the memory of lullabies not meant for them. Their tongues flicking in and out in soft recognition, and their jaws remaining parted just enough to reveal teeth they no longer feel the need to use.

The Little Wibbler takes a breath, uneven but present, and Eileen waits until it steadies, until the rhythm softens just enough to carry them forward. Then she shifts, careful and unhurried, her body still angled protectively near. Her hand finds the girl's shoulder, light as a thought, and she offers a small nod, not one that commands but one that welcomes.

She guides the girl across the room, steps slow and even, one hand always nearby but never pushing. They move together toward the largest pile of cushions, the ones that seem to remember comfort more than the others. When they reach it, Eileen helps her down, steady and sure, not lowering her like someone fragile but helping her return to something familiar. She settles not in collapse, but in placement, as though she belongs exactly where she ends up.

Only then does Eileen kneel beside her. She begins the quiet task without fuss or announcement, fingers moving through hair and scale alike with practiced calm. She finds the knots, the strands, the pieces of glass tucked where they should not be, and she removes them one at a time. The snakes respond with small movements and the occasional nip, not in warning but in exploration, sensing the edges of this unfamiliar care.

Eileen does not speak. She does not ask questions or reach for meaning. She has seen stranger things take shape inside silence, and she has learned how to listen without needing answers. Some truths speak better through presence than language, and this one, seems content to be known only by touch.

"There we are," she says at last, brushing away the final shard with a whispery flick. "All better. And really, what does a little munchkin like you need with a mirror anyway?"

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