Fenn sprints ahead with the driftwood in his mouth, his paws kicking up soft dirt and leaf scraps in lazy little bursts. Ollan follows, not quite chasing, just laughing and slipping through the trees as if the woods are a game they both remember how to play. They circle the clearing twice more, orbiting each other like errant moons, until Fenn finally slows. Tail standing high he drops the stick with a soft thud, as if declaring something complete.
He then decides to bat the stick aside and begins to dig at the base of a tree. His paws move like he already knows the shape of what's waiting. The earth sprays lightly to one side, some of it catching on Ollan’s bare feet as he arrives, grinning at the hopeful mess. Perhaps Fenn had found a root maybe or a beetle or another forgotten forest treasure half-buried by time and paws.
Fenn stops suddenly, he noses into the hole and pulls something out, a spoon. The kind that turns up in camping kits and the backs of junk drawers. Bent, blackened at the edges for use. It has that look of being used long ago and then forgotten on purpose, as if laid to rest here. Fenn places it down with care, settles beside it, and stares at it like it matters. Like Fenn remembers something important about it.
Ollan leans down to grab the stick instead, not particularly interested in the spoon but as he glances up, he straightens.
That’s when he sees it.
Far off, on the hill that rises beyond the lake, someone is standing.
Not close enough to make out any detail, but too precise in shape to be mistaken for a tree. The figure is tall and motionless, wrapped in what may be robes, though the fabric does not stir in the soft breeze that brushes across the lake. Its face is hidden behind something pale and smooth, like polished bone or the inside of a shell, blank and unreadable.
Yet it faces them, facing Ollan in particular who remains still, caught in a moment that feels stretched too thin.
The figure lifts an arm with slow, exacting motion. It does not wave and it does not beckon. It simply moves, as though performing something that has been rehearsed too many times to forget. For a breath, Ollan thinks it might be mimicking him, echoing the bend of his elbow or the slight rise of his hand. But then the arm abruptly sinks again, slower than before, disappearing into the folds of its robe.
When it emerges, it holds a bowl.
The figure steps forward, or perhaps kneels, the shape of the figure becomes unclear again. At the edge of the lake it scoops water into the bowl and rises. With a sudden, stiff gesture it sends the bowl spinning through the air. It travels in a long arc, light catching briefly on its curve, before landing in the shallows on the other side of the lake with a soft splash. The sound drawing Fenn’s eyes away from the spoon.
While Ollan witnesses the way the ripples roll outward and then vanish, the bowl already gone beneath the surface, as if the water had a particular interest in keeping it. Nothing about the moment fits, not the figure’s presence, nor its offering. Or the strange, purposeful quiet that follows.
Then the figure turns, not leaving exactly, but shifting as though the moment has ended and its part in it is done.
Ollan blinks and the robed figure is gone. There is no one on the hill now.
He looks again, harder this time, but there are only trees, only wind. The space where the figure stood is empty, though somehow it does not feel unoccupied. Fenn is watching Ollan now, ears forward, something steady and thoughtful in his gaze that should not belong to a fox and yet does.
Ollan picks up the spoon, its cold to the touch and not like the lake was, it unsettles him and so he tosses it into the trees, then turns without a word and walks back to where Eileen and Audry are waiting. Fenn follows close, his paws quiet, his presence warm and patient.
Neither mentioning they saw anything at all.
They linger only a little longer by the lake, until the sun begins to slip sideways behind the elder trees, casting long shadows between the ancient columns that sit here. Eileen makes the decision with a stretch of her knees, wherein she gathers the towels, folds each one with a practiced hand, and tucks them into the basket in the same order she always has.
As she does, her gaze drifts to the tree line, where the ground flattens and the reeds thin out. There is a patch of earth there, dry and level, edged with soft moss and a leaning stone like a marker, and it has her eyes narrowing in thoughtfulness.
“Wouldn’t be a bad spot to camp someday,” she murmurs. “Dry, level… quiet.” She says it the way one might name a plant in passing, a little offhand, a little reverent.
Turning, she gathers everyone's attention as she starts to leave. Ollan and Fenn are quick to respond, while Audry follows slowly, the shawl still draped over her shoulders, head tilted to the sky as if trying to memorize the exact hue between the trees.
They leave the lake behind without fanfare and no one looks back. But something in the silence feels fuller now, as if the water is holding something for them not in waiting, but in witness.
The path home is soft with fallen leaves, and Ollan soon distracts himself by humming a tune with no melody. Fenn trots behind, then ahead, then behind again, as if guarding a procession only he knows the rules of. And though none of them see it, motes begin to gather behind them.
Two soft blue lights drift from the canopy above, weaving gently between the branches. Two more white ones follow, just ahead of three yellow ones which bring up the rear, trailing as if keeping up the rear guard, warm and slow.
+2 Blue Motes: Shared Understanding Registered
+2 White Motes: Past Acknowledged Without Collapse
+3 Yellow Motes: Profound Memory of Comfort
RITUAL SITE POTENTIAL: CLEANSING
The sun has nearly finished setting by the time they return. The sky is the color of ash and plum. Inside, the air is warm and smells of rosemary, cooling cider, and something older that lingers in the woodgrain. No one speaks much, but they do not need to for they shared a dreamy day together.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Eileen sets the basket by the door and goes to put a few logs in the fire, which begins to stoke itself anew. She moves without hurry, but everything she does has purpose. Hanging towels to dry, placing a kettle on to heat, folding a shawl just so. The children peeling off slowly into the bedroom they have come to claim. It is not bedtime yet, but the world has gone quiet enough to make sleep a good idea, and the lingering chill from the cold lake does the rest of the work.
Fenn does not curl up immediately. Instead, he settles near the hearth, where the heat from the stone is strongest. He does not sleep, not yet. He just sits, tail curled, eyes half closed, and lets the firelight wash over his fur in slow pulses that seem to gather motes above him. White, blue, soft yellow, one pale green. Their motion is slow, deliberate, rhythmic.
He does not try to chase them, bark at them, or claw them. He just breathes, and lets the stillness deepen.
It even seems to draw Audry, who peeks out at him from around the hallway. She does not call out. She just watches for a long time, until she hears the kettle begin to hum, signaling that Eileen will be coming by soon. So she turns and disappears into the room she shares with Ollan.
Ritual Acknowledged: Instinctual Stabilization In Effect
+2 Yellow Motes: Shared Hearth Boundaries Maintained
Eileen makes her way out into the living room with a teacup in her hand. She lowers herself into the old reclining chair by the hearth, and it creaks just slightly beneath her, familiar as the street one grows up on. To the side of her is a basket of old letters, sitting where it always does, tucked behind the side table beneath a folded quilt she has not needed yet this season but will be needing soon.
She does not dig for anything specific, just reaches in and lets her hand find the paper it is meant to find. It is Daniel’s handwriting, familiar, looping, far more careful than hers. It is a letter from long ago, when they had been separated on a contract gone sideways. The one for that awful Malik, who wanted the heart crystals of a storm born Thryxil. The one that nearly cost them Sibella with that dreadful feint attack.
It was the kind of job Godfrey always got them into. One of those never should have taken that job kinds of jobs. But they were younger then, and hungrier, and thought they could get away with doing their coin purses a little good on the way towards something worse.
The letter is not long, but it is in Daniel’s voice. Steady on the page, telling her about the dunes that hissed when the Thryxil moved beneath them. About how the creature’s back bloomed with spires like frozen lightning and how he hated the Malik for splitting their team up. Him having to fight the Thryxil without her there, not because of the danger, but because Godfrey and Sibella never appreciated how beautiful the sky was that day following its death and the way the skyline broke in such beautiful ways.
At the bottom, in smaller print, he had written to, “I found a shard by an oasis. It is not from the Thryxil, the guide says it occurs naturally. But it reminded me of how much I miss you. Can't wait for you to see it too.”
She smiles, but only faintly, the fire pops once. Fenn shifts beside it, tail twitching in a dream. Eileen folds the letter back up and sets it beside her teacup. Her fingers rest on it for a moment longer than needed, then she looks toward the hearth.
"We're headed back to the well, my sweetest beast in the house, please keep Ollan company tomorrow.” she says quietly, watching Fenn breathe.
She does not mention the motes above his head, because she still does not see them yet. Maybe Daniel would have.
Audry does not fall asleep right away. The blanket does not feel quite right tonight, too stiff in some places, too loose in others. The way the mattress breathes beneath her is different from the bunks at the camp. Too soft, too safe, for never before had she considered the idea that safety could stay.
So she decides to get up without a word and pads across the hall in her bare feet, wrapped in one of Eileen’s nightgowns, careful not to wake Ollan or make the floorboards squeak.
She passes the spot where Fenn lies curled next to the hearth, past where Eileen sleeps soundly in the reclining chair, and moves toward the peg by the front door. The shawl is still hanging there, the one Eileen wore when she first found them, the one that Audry knows smells like wind, bread, and rosemary, scents that she hopes too will one day smell like home.
Audry pulls something small from the pocket of her nightgown. A smooth, flat green button, the one the brown mote helped her choose earlier in the morning. For she had convinced Eileen to teach her the new skill, sewing, so she does not dwell too long on her decsion. At least no longer than she needs to. She just takes the shawl from its peg, lays it flat on the table, and threads a needle from the extra tin Eileen keeps tucked nearby.
She does not sew it where it will be seen, not at the collar or the edge. She chooses a place low along the side, near where a hand might rest but just barely on the inside. A place of contact, a silent reminder to Eileen of how visible she can make small things such as her and Ollan feel.
The thread pulls clean. Her stitches are not perfect, but she feels like they do not need to be. That sometimes, just making an effort to hold something a little extra is the point. When she finishes, she presses both of her fingers over the button, holding it still for a moment. She thinks then of the water in the lake, how cold it was at first touch, and yet how warm it feels now as the memory glows in her mind.
Fenn opens one eye, just one, sensing the swell of emotion in the air. He does not move, does not lift his head. He just watches Audry from his place near the hearth, ears relaxed, tail still. His gaze does not ask questions. It only witnesses, with a gentle kind of curious calm.
Then his eye closes again, as if satisfied the moment belongs just as it is, without him needing to take part.
Audry folds the shawl, returns the needle, and sets the tin aside. She tiptoes back toward her room, and before stepping inside, she pauses beside the hallway window. The glass is fogged with breath and dusk and she lifts a finger and draws three circles, one inside the next, like nested intentions. Even she cannot explain why she does it, not even to herself. Then she ducks back into the room and lets the blanket receive her. This time, it feels right. Like it is holding her, not just covering her.
Outside, the night is misted and pale. The moon is veiled, and the trees are still. A few motes drift along the roofline and garden paths, their movements are unhurried, their light soft. The majority though are gathered to watch a raccoon clamber up the porch beam, struggling earnestly to open a wooden bird feeder hung too high. Its little hands paw at the latch with a kind of noble futility. The motes hover above it, silent observers, offering no judgment to the raccoon, only earnest company. Its paws scrabble at the wood with patient desperation, even as it looks over its shoulder at them, concern plain on its face.
And then they stop, the motes stop.
From beyond the fence line, through the trees, something darker glides. It does not float, it does not flicker, instead it moves low to the earth like a thought that should not be spoken aloud. A black mote, sluggish but steady, bleeding shadow into the air around it. Where it passes, even the fireflies go dim, for it is headed towards the cottage.
A few of the motes recoil, scattering in quiet arcs across the clearing, forgetting about the raccoon and the bird feeder, their pale lights darting around like startled fireflies. All except for two white motes, who hold steady for a moment before beginning to move. Not with grace, but with precision. Together they descend sharply towards the black mote, preparing to mount a defense.
The black mote begins to slow, not retreating, but folding inward, as if trying to hide inside itself. It slips toward a nearby tree well like a shadow looking for cover, but the white motes do not allow it. They dive, fast and focused, circling it in a tightening spiral and where they pass, the mist of the night glows.
A high-pitched hum begins. Not loud, but deep, a sound that settles into the bones of the nearby raccoon, who scampers off into the dark. The white motes pay the hum no mind, their coils tighten. Then, in a single motion, convergence.
There is no explosion, no flash. Only a stillness, as the black mote is undone. Unwritten, like a word that never belonged in a story about a little cottage.
A hush falls over the garden. But not in victory for it is a somber note, for the two white motes are undone as well.