Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound does not come from the floor or the air. It comes from somewhere inside, as if a thought has grown knuckles and begun knocking politely on the inside of her skull.
Eileen raises her voice a touch. Not louder, just higher, the way one might when speaking to something small that could be scared, even of its own shadow. “It’s alright, little breeze,” she says softly. “You don’t have to use your voice. Would you prefer sign language?”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
She points gently toward the creature, then shapes her hands into mirrored hooks, fingers curling inward and twisting slightly, in the old, gentle sign for pain.
Her face softens. Her eyebrows lift. She lets concern ripple through her body, the question clear without needing words. Are you hurt?
Something shifts. The tapping continues, but the rhythm changes. It grows softer, uneven, like someone dragging a hand across glass, uncertain whether to knock or wave.
Eileen lifts her hand again and forms a different sign. Thumb, index, and pinky extended. Middle and ring fingers folded neatly to the palm. A gesture not made with grandeur, but offered like a cookie on a plate already waiting to be refused. I love you.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Above them, or perhaps beneath, something within the Dungeon’s syntax stirs. The shift is not a tremor and not a glyph. It is a shimmer, faint and unfinished, a flicker like a memory that does not know where it belongs. The shimmer does not speak, though a thread of soft glyphs unspools from the wall behind her and curls into the stone below. It dissolves before it can form, as though the system has tried to record her gesture but cannot yet decide what language to write it in.
Uncatalogued Motion observed.
Shape resembles Offering, but with no hunger.
Tone resembles Command, but with no weight.
Possibility: This is… holding?
Eileen waits a moment longer for Little Breeze to respond. When no answer comes, she reaches into her pocket and draws out a small red and white striped sweet. Its wrapper bears the faded impression of a sprig of mint and she unwraps it with the careful touch of someone who has learned how to make each kindness feel singular. Then, standing steady, she reaches up and places the sweet gently into the half screaming mouth of the wraith.
The creature releases a sound that doesn’t quite belong to either fear or relief. It lands somewhere between a whimper and the long forgotten sigh of a kettle taken of to cool.
Tap. Tap. Whine.
Tap. Whine. Whine.
The creature’s head turns, not abruptly but cautiously, almost as if it does not know whether it is permitted to look. Its eyes are hollow, though something leaks from them anyway, something that moves too slowly for tears and settles too heavily for vapor. Sleep
The word presses into Eileen’s thoughts. It is not formed by voice or tone. It arrives as sensation, laid gently into her like a thumb pressed against dough. But the feel is not forceful for it holds no weight of command and the shape of it is thin, scattered, like a tantrum thrown beneath water, or a fear too old to speak its own name. Little Breeze does not frighten her.
She does not retreat. She does not prepare herself. She simply remains. A woman with a basket, a peppermint tin, and long practiced patience. She reminds herself that even the most unusual little ones sometimes need to feel what they feel before they can understand it well enough to release it.
So she waits so she can simply be present when something small and frightened finds the will to reach.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Whine. Whine. Tap.
Tap. Whine. Tap.
The rhythm changes again. It does not come with anger and there is no threat in the air. Instead the rhythm stumbles, like a child attempting to stack blocks that refuse to stay balanced. There is a kind of desperation to it, not violent but earnest. For the child inside the shadow does not know what words to use, but it tries to form them anyway.
The creature leans into her now, not with its body and not with a psychic force, but with something more subtle. It folds its presence against hers, the way a child might lean on a wall they are not sure will hold their weight. Its whines becoming more quiet as the emotional shape of its voice begins to compress into meaning.
Another word arrives, this one simple and without artifice. It falls into her mind with a single splash, like a pebble into still water. Why?
Observation Logged. Duration of Silence Reclassified: Witnessing.
Eileen receives the question with stillness and she smiles though only a little. Her smile carries no condescension for it is simply soft. “Because I have to speak with the Dawkith Lorth,” she replies, in the same voice one might use to explain flour on the cat’s whiskers or how jam made it onto the lampshade.
“Because they’ve been neglectful,” she continues, letting the words carry their own quiet weight. “And someone ought to tell them so.” Her tone is not combative, not even stern. It is matter-of-fact, the way one might announce that shoes were left outside in the rain.
Then she adds, almost to herself, “Because children deserve better. Even when they don’t know what to ask.”
The creature flinches, not with pain but with confusion. Its shadow collapses inward as though it has stepped onto a thought it wasn’t prepared to hold. It folds itself briefly before flaring outward again, but not as a threat. The motion is uncertain, like a curtain pulled by an indecisive wind. It is not sure what it is feeling, only that it is feeling something. Beneath the woven posture of its ritual shape, something older quivers. Not from understanding, but from recognition.
its voice then returns, less hesitant now, though still burdened by effort. “Must protect,” it says, as if repeating a rule taught long ago but never fully explained. The words holding no menace for they sound like a child clinging to a sentence they were told was important without ever learning why. The shadow around the creature expands, widening in a slow and theatrical gesture. It is trying to appear large, trying to stall something unnamed. It reminds Eileen of bedtime protests spoken with imaginary importance.
Then the creature speaks again. This time it does not offer protest or resistance. It offers a riddle.
“I start as a trickle, high up in the hills,
Growing and flowing, as rain fills.
Through valleys and forests, I twist and I turn,
Always moving, I never return.
What am I that travels but never tires?"
Little Breeze leans forward, its grin growing wide. Its face still holds that strange open mouthed scream, but now two small, sharp canines peek from the corners, proud and childlike. It beams, waiting for her to flinch, waiting for her to stumble. Eileen doesn’t move or blink or puzzle over it. She simply answers, gently and without ceremony. “A river’s journey.”
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Her voice is calm and steady, as though laying a warm cloth across a fevered brow. Her gaze meets the creature’s hollow eyes, and for a moment, the air holds its breath.
There is silence now and in that silence, something tightens. A pressure begins to build behind the wraith’s features. The stillness crackles, its voice hissing along the edges, trying to maintain composure, trying not to release something it does not understand.
It speaks again, another riddle, this one brighter in tone, shaped as if it were meant to sparkle.
“At dawn, I glisten, a gem so fine,
On petals and leaves, in early shine.
A fleeting jewel, morning’s first light,
Vanishing softly with the sun’s bright might.
Hold me not, for I’ll vanish anew,
What am I?"
Eileen lifts her hand with practiced calm and pats the top of Little Breeze’s head. The gesture is tender, not condescending, the way one might comfort a feverish child who cannot explain what hurts. Her voice is low, steady. “A forest’s enchanting dew,” she says. It is not a guess, not even really an answer. It is an offering, soft with worry, the kind that wraps around children who carry burdens too large for their names.
Light flares gently from the center of Little Breeze’s chest. A pale orb, pulsing once, then settling. Not in resistance. Not in triumph. But as if acknowledging an answer memorized long ago, a line repeated until it no longer meant anything. The brightness is not joy. It is the echo of approval, the kind forced into students who learn not from curiosity, but compliance.
Eileen hears it clearly too. The riddle’s weight does not come from mystery but from obligation. Each question is recited like part of a rite no one taught how to end. Her chest aches with a knowing that does not come from pity. Little Breeze is not trying to frighten her. It is trying to be important in the only language it was given. Not language shaped by feeling, but performance worn like armor. Fear dressed in borrowed ceremony.
The creature draws inward again, folding tightly, as if clinging to the structure of its riddles to stay standing. Its body shudders once. Then, without warning, its voice lifts again, reaching into something grander, something distant.
"In the vast black sea, I twirl and spin,
A ballet silent, amidst cosmic din.
Around a fire, in endless flight,
I chase my tail, in the abyss of night.
Bound by invisible strings, in a space so wide,
What am I, that does not hide?"
Eileen’s eyes do not narrow, nor do her brows furrow. She simply steps forward instead. Both arms reaching out, and she gathers the creature into them. Crystalline shards rise from its form and press against her skin, small and sharp, but she does not pull back. The cold bites, yes. The cuts do sting, certainly. But she holds them anyway.
Her body becomes an answer before her lips do. When she finally speaks, her voice is warm and immovable. “The Celestial Dance.”
It is not said to solve but just to still.
The corridor brightens as the mana lamps flare outward, flooding the space with sudden, searing light. Heat pushes into every corner, melting away the lingering cold in an instant. The floor hums, the walls vibrate, and in that brief chaos of light and pressure, Eileen almost doesn’t catch the final riddle as it slips out, quiet and delayed, like a breath held too long.
"When light retreats, I stretch and crawl,
Across the floors and up the wall.
My shape, it shifts with the moon's wane and wax,
In silence, I tell tales, never leaving a trace.
Grasp me not, for I am a fleeting shade,
What am I, in darkness made?"
Eileen doesn’t hesitate. Her answer is already waiting, shaped by care, not cleverness. “A whispering shadow.”
In the hush that follows, the walls don’t just still. They listen, not with ears, with shape, with memory. Somewhere beyond the light, a hallway reshapes itself in a curve not meant for soldiers, but for children too tired to cry. Somewhere else a corridor softens, like it forgets why it was angry. For one breathless moment, the Dungeon does not process, does not record. It simply remembers what it was like to wait beside someone who meant it when they said they’d stay.
Eileen steadies herself with a long blink. Once. Then twice. The third time, she lets her eyes remain closed a moment longer. Not in fear or in weakness. But to give the world time to settle back into itself. The air is cooler here, not cold, just the kind of quiet chill that feels like someone has opened a window that was long forgotten.
A breath escapes her, soft and wide in the silence. Not heavy or pained, just alone in the way silence is after weeping. When she opens her eyes again, the corridor has changed or maybe it simply returned to itself. Stone walls remain regardless, dim and featureless. But there is a stillness in them now that feels earned.
Little Breeze is gone too. The child's shadow with it too. Only the hush remains, respectful and complete.
Eileen lowers herself to a small rise in the floor, a smooth outcropping that hadn’t been there before, or perhaps had simply waited for her to be ready. It is warm beneath her but not magically so. Warm like a stone that has remembered a kindness or seen the importance of shared breath.
A soft chime hums behind her left ear. Not from the walls, not from her basket. But from the air itself, the way a thought might decide to become music. She doesn’t turn though, she already knows what’s coming. And sure enough, when she finally lifts her gaze, the blue smoke letters are already there.
Drifting slow and smug across the far wall, like they’ve been waiting for her to look up.
+12 Blue Motes: Unspoken Terror Held Without Judgment
+3 White Motes: Sorrow Witnessed Without Name
+1 Red Mote: Ritual Protection Asserted Without Violence
Eileen frowns at them. Not with anger. Just the kind of disapproving affection one might reserve for a grown nephew who has brought store bought pie to a family gathering and pretended it was homemade. “Oh, not this again,” she mutters. “Always showing up after the fact, like a thank you card sent out three years late by someone who still thinks it counts.”
She rubs at her forearm, then pauses. Her skin feels different, more supple, more substantial, less like the thin parchment that so often comes with time. It feels like it did in her sixties, maybe even her fifties, on the kind of day when her joints didn’t yet vote against every chore. She presses gently, the skin gives and returns without complaint.
“Mm.” It’s not quite a sound of concern, but it’s certainly not agreement either. “This better not be collagen,” she says, eyeing the ceiling as if it might confess. “Or some kind of youth serum. I’m not here to start over. I’ve done my time.”
But her back doesn’t ache and her knees don’t throb. That familiar hum of discomfort, the one that used to wake her in the morning and trail along all day like an old friend, has fallen silent. Not gone entirely, just muted, like a room you forgot you cleaned.
In the corner of her eye, a shimmer gathers and unfolds, not smoke, not quite script, but something finer. A filament of writing, thin as breath, hovers against the wall, translucent and slow moving like a sacred sutra unrolling itself without urgency.
1 Yellow, 20 Blue & 5 White Motes Integrated.
Constitution Root Reinforced. Three Threads Stabilized.
Inconsequential Discomfort now Optional.
Eileen narrows her eyes. “Well,” she says at the wall, “that’s a long way to say I’m less creaky. I could have told you that in half the words.” She flexes her elbow, no pop, no click. It was frankly, suspicious.
“Still not doing backflips,” she adds pointedly. The text fades.
She closes her eyes once more, just to reset the world a little. When she opens them, she doesn’t look at the walls or the letters or the ceiling. She looks at her hands, folded neatly in her lap, resting atop the fabric of her skirt. Her fingers slide slowly over the rise in the stone beneath her, not carved, not placed, but grown, as if the room had always known she would sit here one day.
Her spine settles, shoulders easing downward with practiced grace, not slouching, just choosing stillness. Her breath moves in and out, like thread drawn through cloth. She inhales on two beats, exhales on three. Not magic, not training, simply rhythm, a rhythm her bones know before she did. A life of holding more than she dropped, of folding grief into tea and duty into lullabies.
She lets the questions she was holding go. What was Little Breeze meant to be? Who gave them that shape? Whether they’ll return? Whether she can see them again? For she knew some children wore shadows the way others wore their father’s coat, oversized and handed down. Not chosen, just inherited from someone else.
In the quiet she has left, something warm rises. Not power, not energy, not even change. A current, low, deep and patient. Like finding a gift you already opened, but only now understand.
It does not come from the Dungeon. Not from the motes or the glyphs or the walls. It comes from beneath her ribs, from the place breath turns into memory and memory turns into choice.
As if her lungs remember how to protect.
As if her ribs remember how to house warmth.
As if her soul had wrapped itself in threadbare love and called it armor.
It didn’t feel like strength.
It feels more like duty.
And that is the kind of power that does not ask to be seen.
The kind that stays when others go. The kind that waits when others run.
And she does not grasp at it.
She does not channel it.
She simply sits with it.
Not to master or to mark progress.
But to keep it company.
Like a pot kept warm on the back burner for someone who might still come home.
Heartforce