There's a brief pause, then:

"Well, yes, but what else are whispers to do?

  "We'd grow so bored if we stopped!"

"But we apologize for our bad manners."

  We do, we're very sorry. We hope we're not intruding."

"There was an open door! We wanted to see where it went."

She smiles, and walks on towards the courtyard where the whispers are drifting in from.

^{”I don’t mind. This place is - itself’s, not mine.”} 
She hums softly, a single low, lingering note. 

^{“Is there anything I can do for you, whispers?”}

The voices lower and chatter excitedly to each other, clearly pleased.

"No one's ever asked us that before!!" "What do we do? Do we need anything?" ".... I don't know!!!"

Then they raise their whispering to a slightly less unreasonable volume:

  "We're terribly flattered at the offer!"

"We don't know what we could offer in return."

  "Or what to ask for."

"Shhh! Don't tell her! She might decide not to!"

  "Don't be rude, she's being very nice!"

"Sorry."

She tilts her head slightly. 

^{“You don’t have to do anything, but if you know of anything lost or out of place that I could help, I’d appreciate knowing. I could - make a list, of things that need places, and then you could tell me if you know anywhere that might want them, but it would be quite long and I’d hardly want to oblige you...”}

^{“Let me know if you think of anything I could do for you, alright? Maybe - questions you’d like answers to? Places for echoing in? I’m sorry, I’ve never been a whisper, I’m not sure what you’d want or need.”}

"Oooh, we could do that. Whispers can be found in all sorts of places, talking about all sorts of things."

  "We like having things to talk about!"

"Oh! Oh! I know! I know! What do all of the pieces on the board mean?"

  "We thought it was a chess board but we weren't quite sure!"

^{“You don’t go for the little secrets, do you?”} 
She smiles. 

^{“Certainly - do you mind if I raise my voice a little? I don’t want to drown you out, but for this I shouldn’t whisper.”}

"Go ahead!"

  "We won't interrupt, and that way you won't drown us out."

She nods, and delicately steps over the circle of water, standing over the White side of the board. 

“It’s chess, yes,” she says. “But it’s also not. Just like this is a garden but also not, and you’re a whisper but also not. Things reflect things. The whole can be named by the part. And so a chess-piece can be the fate of the world...” 

She flushes. 

“Not that I’m - I’m not -“ 

She pauses, takes a breath.

“ - those aren’t the stakes, but that’s the game. This is just a - tiny fragment, a little shard of a very, very large battle. And maybe I’ve been picked as a pawn. Maybe. Maybe everyone has been and I just take it more seriously than most.”

She gently pets the head of the White King, two fingers skritching in between the plush dragon’s little horns. 

“White. The side I play for. Life and love and creation and the ability to do good in the world, the ability to change things for the better, the power of growth and care and meaningfulness. Everything that makes the world worth having.”

She taps the opposing, empty square, where the Black King would sit. 

“Black. The eternal opponent, the thing that wants everything and everyone to suffer and die, that wants the world to cease, or to cease to be worth having. Pain, suffering, absence, void, that which tears and wounds and makes not, that which makes the lost and broken.”

She looks up. 

“Black is winning at the moment, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

She taps her side of the gameboard with two fingers. 

“But not here. Not in this game. Not if I have anything to say about it. And who knows, maybe there’s some other girl a world away, standing at another board just like this one, making the same declaration. Maybe there are a thousand of her. Maybe there are enough.”

“And if there are, I could be the pawn that matters. No piece is insignificant. Not while the game is still in play. So - I play to win. But I remember that if I lose, I was never the King at all.” 

She taps the silver necklace in the White Queen’s square. 

“That’s why I’m the Queen, not the King. If I am lost, the game goes on. If the game can be won by my sacrifice, I accept it. In this small game, I am no minor piece - but it will not be lost if I am gone. There can always be another.”

“And - I’m not alone. I have my minor pieces.”

She smiles slightly, her fingers flicking over to alight on her left rook, the lens from the last librarian. 

“Care. Compassion. Remembrance. The ability people have to distinguish Black from White, and choose the latter. Kindness for its own sake, even to those now beyond kindness.” 

She touches her other Rook, the broken half of the geode. 

“Beauty. Luck. Serendipity. Transformation. The ability of things to fall just so, of the world to find goodness all on its own without the help of anyone. All the things that Black has to shatter before it can claim them for its own - and the ability of things to become more beautiful for the breaking, for all the violence of the world to give birth to new life.”

“ - of course, the other side has minor pieces too.” 

She touches Black’s left Rook, the shard of red, hungry glass. 

“Violence. Destruction.” 

The bent-needle Knight. 

“Carelessness. Apathy.” 

The quarrelsome stone Bishop.  

“Difficulty. Exhaustion.”

The vial of her blood, gleaming smugly in the Black Queen’s square. 

“Pain. Suffering.”

The other half of the broken geode, glittering red as Black’s right Rook. 

“Domination. Tyranny. Good intentions coming to bad ends.”

She considers the board for a moment. 

“- Actually, I think I have more pieces to add.”

"Oh? Which ones? And what will they mean?"

  "Will you actually start playing the game once you have all of the pieces on the board?"

“I’m already playing: this board is a record of the game so far.”

She looks at the board sidelong, and hums softly...

Her finger flicks out, and settles on her necklace.

“There was a girl with silver hair
Who thought the world was hers to bear
and so her piece is on this square
for win or loss, as fair as fair.”

Down to her Queen’s Rook. 

“There was someone who kept the books,
and kept the robes up on their hooks,
and kept this lens to fix their looks,
and now it’s all that keeps them.”

Up to her King’s Rook.

“There was something far deep in time
that chose this stone to be sublime
dazzling, shining, quite divine,
unknown till it was broken.”

She nods to herself. She considers the White King, glances at the opposing empty square, then shakes her head.