A girl lies beneath one of the chairs, head buried against her legs, hugging every bit of herself as close as close can be. She cries quietly, swallowing shuddering breaths, doing her best to not be. 

Time passes. Slowly, her tears run out. She lifts her head carefully, and blinks through watery eyes. 

She wipes at her eyes, shakes her head. 

She uncurls a little, and sniffles. She looks around.

She slips out from under the chair, and leans back against the soft leather. She shifts to sit cross-legged. She looks around.

She traces a finger across the cover of the top book of the smallest nearby stack. 

She looks around again, and smiles. She nods once, a gentle acknowledgement.

She takes a deep breath. She wipes the remnants of the tears from her face. 

Then she stands up. 

She tiptoes around stacks of books, patting each one carefully to let it know that she's here. 

She catalogues what remains of the old filing systems.

And then she begins to place books where they belong.

The silence seems less oppressive, somehow. Gentler. Perhaps it is imagined, the natural result of a space being used, of a mind directed. Perhaps it is not. It's still cold, and it doesn't get any warmer. This doesn't seem a place for warmth. But the cold doesn't bite, anymore. Perhaps that too is imagined, or perhaps not.

It's clear that there had once been a filing system, for a more limited selection of books. It is tidy, orderly, like the sort of thing that someone figures out after years of living in the same bookstore. Everything in its place. Then someone came along and added more varied books to the shelves, and gamely attempted to update the organization of the shelves for the new material. For whatever reason, they stopped midway. This did not stop the books from coming, and those came from very many places. There is an entire bookcase that looks like it was taken wholesale from somewhere else, books all written in a similar swirling script that doesn't show up anywhere else. Mostly, though, the books came without any place to put them. They came in neat stacks or carefully lined on shelves that had been empty, but whatever brought them didn't know anything about organization. Some books that look like they came from the same sort of place are stacked together, but it's more like they came together than that they were put together.

Both of the previous organization schemes no longer fit. The shelf that came by itself can perhaps be left alone, but everything else needs her attention. There are more types of books than the second organizer accounted for, more alien languages upon the spines, more foreign textures of leather wrapped around the bound pages. She'll have to make her own, to account for them all.

Oh, that won't do. One can hardly file a book one can't read. 

For now the ones in unfamiliar languages are allowed respectful seats on chairs and tables, organized hopefully by "these seem to share some symbols." She caresses the spine of each one gently, apologizing wordlessly. One shouldn't have share a shelf with a treatise on herbology if you are a history of the world, much less the other way around. 

She runs out of table and chair space: she files other unknowns regretfully, carefully far from the organized books so as not to provoke jealousy. 

She runs out of shelves. There are really rather a lot of books. She frowns. 

She decides to try the clever door.

The clever door leads to a back room with shelves that are not lined with books. The shelves look like they were meant for books, but right now they hold all sorts of non-book oddities. A set of complicated glass phials, jars filled with neatly labelled powders, stacks of carefully treated wood that look like they're meant to be made into wands, a small burner meant to heat up flasks. At a guess, it looks like this was the backroom for the bookshop, and then someone came after and repurposed it for a wizard or alchemist. Perhaps it was even the person that brought the second organization scheme.

There's a little desk and chair set in the corner. To her left, a set of stairs leads up.

Not quite in place, but not quite out of place either. Best leave it alone until she can find better accommodations. 

She carefully tiptoes up the stairs.

There's a slight creak to them, but if she pays attention to which parts of each stair don't like being stepped on, she can ascend in almost total silence.

The stairs lead to a very modest room that look like living quarters. It makes efficient use of the space it's given. To her right is a little kitchenette, a set of cupboards for dishware and food storage, and a basin for washing. On the left is a comfortable looking chair with a soft pale blue rug underneath, with a bookshelf that's significantly less stocked than the ones downstairs. Ahead of her is a set of dark curtains that probably cover a window and a small little bed carefully tucked to one side of it, and a dainty little armoire to the other. Shelves and end tables and small knickknacks take up the spaces between the major objects; there's a tiny plant on one table, looking quite healthy despite its apparent abandonment, if very purple.

She steps delicately, so as to give the stairs no cause for complaint. One of them does anyway, but some stairs are just testy like that. More of a sleepy grumble than that she gave offense. At least she hopes so. 

She takes inventory of the cupboards and the armoire: she checks beneath the rug and under the bed. The knicknacks in particular will require her careful attention.

She leaves the curtains drawn for now. 

One of the cupboards has dishware that looks like it once was charmingly mismatched, and then at some point decided that it would like to begin making the attempt to look like a set. They do not quite look like they were made together, but they sort of look like they belong together, now. This cup has kept the leafy designs it was lovingly painted in, but the leaves are in a shade of silver that matches the subtle geometric designs on some of the plates. The dark black of this bowl has just a hint of a rich brown to it, a color that it looks like it once had been, but the black that it mostly is now is much more in line with its fellows. Together the set is a little quirky, but in the way that a set of lifelong friends grow to be, not like a bunch of lost things dumped together in the same cupboard. There are places set out for all of them; cups on this shelf, bowls on this one, plates of this size over here, plates of this other size in this tidy stack nearby. The cupboard probably doesn't need her attention like the books do, but she will probably help just by using them; they don't look like they've been touched in a very long time.

In a nearby drawer is a lovely set of silverware. These were either made together, or decided to match and then succeeded so thoroughly it's hard to tell if they ever didn't. They match to the dishware in a grudging sort of way, instead of the friendly comfort the dishes together exude. Yes, all right, the silver of the silverware matches the silver designs on the cups and plates, it's sort of an association with the other group. But the silverware could just as well be used with anything else, so no one should get the wrong idea.

Several other cupboards have uneaten food, unspoiled and neatly arranged. There are several loaves of a blue-grey bread arranged neatly in a basket, wrapped in a shimmery cloth whose texture belies that it was once cotton, and then stopped. In a nook next to it are a set of spices whose labels are neatly penned in perfectly legible Common, but whose names don't look like they're necessarily accurate anymore. She might have to try them and update the labels accordingly, to reflect whatever thing they've turned into. Below that are preserves, similarly mislabeled, but whose labels were written by many different hands. The spices were kept by one person, the preserves came from many places. On another shelf, in another basket, is a set of deep purple fruit that look like they could be freshly picked. Beside it is a bundle of berries that looks like they were once strawberries, and then stopped. There are many things that were once other things and then stopped. None of them look worse for wear for the change, they have just become a different sort of thing. They are all probably still edible, because none of them have stopped looking like food. This seems like the sort of place where things that have stopped being food will, at the very least, advertise to the effect.

The armoire has clothes that are far too large to fit her, but also a small sewing kit if she would like to try to change that. The style of the clothes looks a bit ancient, or at least extremely foreign, but the clothes themselves are in perfect condition. They look like the sort of thing a wizard might wear; practical sorts of robes that minimize the impracticality of being robes as much as possible. For the most part, their cloth is smooth and silky, in darker shades of blue, purple, grey, and black, but there are a few exceptions to both the color scheme and the texture. There are several robes that are a paler and more silvery sort of grey, and even a robe that's a brave looking shade of burgundy. The sewing kit has tidy spools of thread of assorted colors, neatly arranged. She could likely match whatever she was sewing, at least if the cloth came from this shadowed place. It doesn't look like it would match some of the brighter thread colors of the material world.

Beneath the rug is a slightly uneven bit of flooring that explains the rug's presence. It's soft and matches the decor, and it helps prevents tripping. Still, it's good to know the state of the floor beneath the rug. It wouldn't do for there to be a hidden place that she didn't know about, here.

The space beneath the bed is a bit more interesting; this seems to be where the shoes are kept, neatly arranged. They are all in perfectly good condition, thought some of them look like they've seen a lot of wear and tear. Unfortunately, they don't look likely to ever fit her, either in size or style. They are too big, and too masculine besides. She'd probably be better off finding shoes somewhere else.

The twisting purple vines of the plant look like the sort of thing that would flower, if given proper attention, but the blossoms are small and shriveled and don't look like they'll open anytime soon. It could use water; it clearly will not die from thirst, but it looks a little wilted. The dirt in the pot is more like dusty chalk than dirt, which doesn't seem like the sort of thing a plant needs at all. Upon inspection, it would probably just be better off in an entirely new pot; it looks like it's outgrown this one.

Many of the knickknacks are quite interesting, but some are more ordinary. Next to the sitting area, there's a spinning wheel that looks like it might be magic. If at some point she needs more thread, or needs a specific material made into thread, she can probably just feed it the material and leave it to its work. On the washing basin is a mirror that looks fairly ordinary, though with glass that's a bit too dark to give a really accurate reflection. Nearby the basin is a jug that sloshes, and upon inspection contains water. There is an empty bag next to the armoire with runes carefully written onto the interior of its hem. Like the spinning wheel, it's probably magic, though it's not yet clear how it's magic. Scattered around are a few wizard staves, but it looks like the passage of time was not kind to these; whatever spells were in them have either been used, stolen, or have seeped away from the sheer passage of time. They are quite magically inert. There's a modest bag of unfamiliar coins, empty of words or faces of leaders, but shining a shade of lavender that feels correct for this place. A clock sits on an end table, but its hands are frozen.

She smiles slightly at the now-matching tableware. She doesn't pat it: that would be impolite. Instead she takes down one of the most lonely cups and sets it over by the washbasin. 

She turns over the mirror.

She opens a drawer of cutlery, nods politely, and closes it again. 

She recognizes a few of the spices, if not by sight then by smell. Since they seem to like having names, she organizes them alphabetically - then frowns at the fact that the probably-once-cinnamon is not in the bottle labelled for it. She supposes she'll just have to find a use for a whole bottle of ...turmeric?

She hums to herself when she finds the food. 

She pats the bread comfortingly, then takes down a friendly saucer and sets one of the not-strawberries atop it. 

She pours herself a glass of water from the jug, and tastes it.

The water tastes perfectly ordinary, but the jug is not any lighter after she's poured the water from it.

She gives the rest of the water in the glass to the plant. It needs it more than her. 

And then she takes a bite out of the not-strawberry.

It tastes somewhat like a strawberry, but also nothing like a strawberry. It's like a half remembered recollection of a strawberry that has had the forgotten parts filled in with something else that fits. It's lighter, sweeter, with a subtle but alluring undertone of something darker and richer, with more depth than a strawberry could contain. Something - other. Something native to this world of shadows and forgotten things. Something forgotten, then remembered, then put here because it seemed like it belonged.

It's pretty good, actually.

She takes another bite, than a third to finish the berry. 

She smiles. She puts the stem left between her fingers in one of the empty spice bottles.

She notes the titles of the books on the bookshelf. She moves the shoes over to near the door for when she goes back downstairs. She folds back the bedsheets and checks the crack between the bed and the wall. 

The books are the sorts of things someone would keep around because they liked having them at hand; books of poetry, of stories of heroes that triumphed against darkness, of comfort and warmth and love. The way they're organized doesn't follow any objectively logical scheme, but they are placed with too much purpose to be random. Whatever method they were organized by is not immediately obvious, though; it's likely she'd have to read each of them, cover to cover, to really know.

There is nothing hiding between the bed and the wall, nothing lost or dropped or forgotten. Perhaps they moved somewhere else, or perhaps nothing was ever abandoned there. It's hard to tell, in this place.

The bedsheets are soft and comforting, and perhaps could even be warm. Or perhaps not; it's hard to tell without using them.

She winces when she notices the way the books are arranged.

She stands in silence a moment. 

She looks at the plant - but no. 

She takes two of the lavender coins from the pouch, and places them click-click next to each other on the bookshelf.

She leans the various staffs up in the corner by the bed. She puts the shoes downstairs by the doormat, and the cooking section in the unoccupied space beneath the last librarian's personal books. She is exquisitely careful not to crowd them while they grieve.

She lays the wood treated for wands on the bedside table by the staves, so neither of them will get lonely and the old staves can give their juniors good advice. She fills in the space left by the wood with the books that have runes that look similar to the ones on the burner. She moves more stacks of books to atop the bed.

After her rearrangement, there are only a few remaining stacks of books still on the floor, at a much more reasonable height than before. She definitely still needs some extra bookshelves to house all of these books, but much less desperately, now.

She takes the sheets off the bed entirely, folds them neatly into eighths, places them on a side table with the pillows atop them, and fills the space they were taking on the bed with the last of the books. 

She checks behind the curtains.

She looks out the window, careful of her own reflection.

Nothing hides behind the curtains except the window, but it's always smart to check.

The window itself is dark, but obligingly doesn't cast much of a reflection. The world outside the window is slightly brighter than the dark interior, but it does not actually edge into 'bright.' Grey, perhaps, is a better term. It is very grey, out there, like a dark fog that has swallowed everything whole. In spite of the fog, she can make out a shadowed alleyway, with a cramped street and tall, narrow buildings of varying, somewhat conflicting styles. They look like they have come from lots of different places, and been put together here. Not all of them have doors, and most of them don't have windows. Some of them look like they might be stacked on top of each other, where the roof designs oblige this arrangement. There is no obvious way to get to the ones higher up. One gets the impression that the things in this alleyway are not interested in making visiting them convenient. They are simply where they have decided to be.

Not particularly welcoming. 

Then again, she supposes she's not particularly welcoming either. Things are as they are. 

She wraps herself in the heaviest blanket, togalike, and steps out through the bolder door.

The blanket was a smart idea; the alley outside of her new home is colder than inside, and a chillier wind nips through the air. It's less quiet, here, but does not go so far as to edge entirely out of the descriptor 'quiet.' The only thing to hear is the faint sound of the wind, and the faintest hint of a whisper that it carries with it. Otherwise, the alley is still and quiet. There are no lights behind any of the doors, no movement behind any of the scattered windows, and nothing making its way through the grey fog. It seems she is alone - the faint hint of a whisper is far away, and probably unconcerned with her.

From this side, the bolder door proves that it is of the same clever kind as the one indoors, even going so far as to outdo it. With the door closed, it's difficult to even see that it's there from the alleyway. It blends in easily with the rest of the wall, just another set of grooves and shapes in the textured wall. If one didn't know to look for it, it would be quite easy to miss it entirely and think it another doorless building. Such a thing would hardly be out of place, here. Perhaps other buildings have such hidden doors.

She smiles, running a hand along the smooth edge where door meets wall. 

She runs her fingers through her hair, brushing out a little of its tangledness and tucking it out of the wind.

Then she goes looking for more clever doors.

There is a tall, severe looking building with stone spires and ivory ivy crawling up its walls, whose large bricks disguise another clever door, if not as well as her own did.

A very small building is squeezed between two other, more imposing ones, with another on top of it. Width wise, it's barely large enough to contain a door, and the clever door that hides there blends in expertly with the wood paneling next to it.

If there are other clever doors in the immediate area, they are either on one of the buildings that sit perched atop another, or they are disguised so well that they probably don't want to be found.

She knocks quietly on the smaller building's wood-panelled door.

Her only answer is silence.

With a turn of her hand, she asks the lock if it would like to let her in.

The door opens obligingly; if there is a lock, it isn't preventing her entry.

Inside, the building is astonishingly cramped. It's impossible to get very far past the doorway without actually climbing over things. It looks like it's a place used for storage - it probably was once a shed - and filled with boxes and desks and tables and chests, all of which are covered in objects from various sources. There's a tea set, perched awkwardly on a chair that's perched precariously on a desk. To the left, on a set of stacked boxes, a porcelain doll regally sits. Hanging from a hook on the nearby wall are several spare sets of clothes that look like they'd fit her. There's what looks like a music box and a number of stuffed animals and laced cloth, draped over whatever spare places are available. There's certainly more to behold, but it's hard to take in everything that's present; there's so much, all in this tiny space.

The items inside all have a decidedly feminine air to them, but otherwise, they seem completely disorganized. It's not clear from where she stands if there are any bookshelves in this mess.

Gosh.

...This is going to take a while to find homes for. 

She takes down the tea set from its precarious perch, doffing her blanket with an apology: the blanket doesn't belong on the ground, but the tea set needs kept from the cobblestones or they will argue. Blanket as a pad for the tea set: tea set upon the blanket, a good few paces away where it need not fear too many careless steps. 

Now, down comes the chair, over the other direction so it cannot kick the tea set.

She looks over her shoulder at the tea set. Hm.

Carefully, she sets the music box atop the blanket to keep it company: then she picks up the tea set again and carries it in to the back room of the bookstore, where she leaves it atop the table there. 

Returning to the alley, she surveys the storage space again. 

There's what looks to be a jewelry box, now that she's gotten the chair out of the way. Behind that is a set of musical instruments, a harp and a piano and a violin, the harp and violin awkwardly draped over their larger fellow. There's a set of combs and hairsticks to the right, in gold and silver and shimmering glass. A set of paper flowers are scattered around, like someone sat down with colored paper and made a dozen little lotus flowers in all kinds of colors, then gently placed them in various locations throughout the shed.

And still there is more; yes this will take a long while to find homes for.

She looks at the chair and the desk more critically. Could the desk fit out the door? What sits atop it now?  

She picks up the music box and wraps herself in the blanket again while she considers. 

The desk could probably fit through the door, though it looks kind of heavy. She'd have trouble pulling it out. The only things on the desk are a box of sheet music, and a framed painting of a beach at sunset with large rocks made out of iridescent crystal. Neither would be difficult to move elsewhere.

She sets the music box next to the stack of sheet music for the moment.

She reaches for the porcelain doll, and her fingers brush against a paper flower.

...oh. 

She gathers up all the paper flowers she can reach, and offers them to the bookshelf with the lost owner.

Now then.

She moves the dresses and jewelled combs to the armoire in the bookshop: she moves a few books on music composition from the bookshop to the desktop. The painting and the violin can switch places for now. 

She checks beneath the desk before she tries to put its chair back where it belongs. 

Another box hides beneath the desk! This must be why the chair hadn't been put there already. It's filled with an impressive number of decorative scarves.

She wraps a deep midnight-blue scarf around her shoulders, then carries the box up and places it in the bottom of her armoire. 

She checks to make sure her dresses and the wizard robes are getting along with their new neighbours. A few of the wizard robes are a bit discomfited, particularly the brave burgundy one: she takes it down, looks over at the bed with its stacks of books, and places it on the last remaining small table with a frown. 

She goes out into the street, curtsies to the more imposing building, and politely knocks on its door.

For a few seconds, there is silence.

Then the door clicks and opens obligingly, all on its own.

Like the last building, this one is on the smaller side, at least in the number of square feet available to walk around in. It differs in that it is tall. It's built like a cathedral, with tall, tall tall archways, and tall archways on top of those, so that the ceiling goes up and up and up. The side with the door is entirely stonework, but directly across from her is a set of stone archways with large glass windows that shine down the most light she's seen since she got to this place. It doesn't actually veer into being painfully bright, however. Instead, it's like moonlight streaming into a dark room.

This looks like it was once a temple to something, but it's not clear which deity (or deities) it was built for. The space where an altar would go is completely empty. The only furnishings to speak of are unlit candelabras on the walls, and a long, thin rug in deep purple, running through the center of the empty space.

Oh. 

Well, she can read that plain as the nose on her face.

She claps her hands once, and listens.

The sound echoes throughout the empty cathedral, unanswered.

She steps up to where the altar would have stood, and claps her hands again.

The echo that follows this time is louder, ringing through the arches and empty spaces of the abandoned cathedral.

She smiles. 

Then she goes back to the crowded little room and starts opening boxes, starting with the closest and most solidly-built.

The closest, sturdiest box holds a fine porcelain vase, carefully wrapped in paper and packed in with straw to prevent being broken.

Another holds more stuffed animals, all snuggled together in the box, looking quite comfortable despite their cramped lodgings.

One box is entirely empty.

A smaller box looks entirely empty, but the inside is slightly smaller than it should be, and proves to have a false bottom. The real bottom of the box contains a signet ring with a stylized rose, a locket with the initials 'RM,' and a dagger in a dark blue-black sheath.

She checks the dagger in its sheath, and hums to herself. 

Now all she needs is honest dirt. Perhaps further down the alleyway there will be somewhere without all these cobblestones.

The dagger is sturdy and sharp, the blade made out of a dark blue-grey metal that reflects a pale lavender when it catches what little light is available.

While the alley is long, it's not infinite. It leads into a small, dead-end courtyard, crammed between buildings that all have no apparent entrances, clever or otherwise. The cobblestones give way to black dirt, dotted with wispy tufts of sparse grey grass. A circular fountain made out of pale stone sits in the middle. A second smaller circle containing dirt is set inside it. Something probably once grew there, but whatever it was, there's no sign of it now, and no hint as to what happened to it. The ring around it is filled with cool water, rippling faintly in the breeze. Violet vines grow on trellises around the courtyard, looking quite healthy despite the lack of sun. Their coloration is similar to the vined purple plant back at the bookplace, but the leaves are shaped differently, there is no sign of blossoming, and the foliage shimmers a little in a way the other plant doesn't.

She looks at the empty fountain, and hugs her blanket closer around herself. 

... well. Nothing but to make do. 

Back to the waiting room where the lost things gather.

She needs the box full of stuffed animals, but the bed is full of books. So. So so so. 

The desk is ornate and there is a painting on it: the painting can be hung from where the dresses were. The ornateness is another matter. Does it belong in her bookplace...? No, no it does not. It's too haughty, it would only discomfit the books. 

Does it belong to the airy place, then? No, no, it's too squat and stolid for that. It is a rather beuraucratic desk. It wants for a solid, dependable place, where it will be respected as it deserves. 

She sighs, and goes up to the apartment to examine the stopped clock.

Nothing in the clock is obviously broken; no gears look out of place, and nothing's clogging up anything inside. It looks like it needs to be wound, but there's no key or crank with which to do it.

She hums to herself. The gears seem well settled, but terribly bored. Without their key, they seem to have settled down to sleep. 

She bites her lip, and goes to retrieve the jewellery-box.

The jewelry box has a lot of jewelry in it, in lots of different styles. Either the original owner traveled a lot, or the box itself has been collecting a lot of strays. Necklaces, earrings (not all of them in pairs), rings, bracelets - in various metals of shadow appropriate colors. A lavender that matches the coins, a silver that shines like moonlight, a stormy grey that shifts in the light, a deep blue-black that twists and shimmers in the light strangely, and a deeper, darker purple that sort of - twists the light and swirls mysteriously. The gems in the various jewelry don't seem to have been affected as much, recognizably emeralds and rubies and diamonds, though most of the colors look subtly deeper, and richer.

Mm.

She brushes her fingers along the storm-grey chain, then pulls back her hand sharply. 

Not happy, this one. Not happy at all. It's been waiting rather too long, and it's sick to death of its neighbours. It feels all out of shape. Part of her wants to clutch it to her, whisper to it, tell it that it'll be alright. 

Yet. Place your hand into a fire, and you will be burned. She closes the jewelry-case again, and clicks the latch firmly into place. 

Her gaze flickers over to the piano, then she shifts over to examine the fabric more closely. 

The fabric has a bit more color variance than the jewelry did, and is quite a bit brighter; violets and burgundies, various shades of silver with the occasional edge into proper gold, blues that edge into the color of the open sky on a sunny day, pale pinks and even one deep crimson that looks very much like blood. Some of them have patterns to them, some of them shimmer like silk, some are laced, some are transparent, and some are simple bold splashes of color, painting the world around them.

That's one thing gone well for once, then. 

... she has what she needs. Even if the sewing kit doesn't have scissors, she can make do. 

A swatch of golden cloth, and a swatch of darker silver. The burner from the lab. Fine silver and black thread, a sharp needle, and - yes, a good sharp pair of fabric shears. The thunderous chain, held oh-so-carefully in alchemist's tongs. 

She spreads out the burgundy robe upon the smooth floor of the apartment, and lays a hand atop its breast to ask permission. It's brave, and wild, and deserves better than to be confined in a shape like this, a muddlesome practical thing, all flop and wobble. It wants to be something grander.

Still, change is always painful. She asks, as is her duty.

The robe's shape is a bit off for it - something in the cut, something in the style, like the person who made it was torn between two different ideals and couldn't quite decide which they wanted. The shoulders are broad, with careful stitching to preserve the shape, but the sleeves don't capitalize on the opening they've been given. They're just long simple tubes, not right for the invoked style at all, not if you want to do it right. The lower portions are similar, there's not enough shaping here, it's practical and straightforward but it's not correct.

Its stitches are neat and even, sewn by a steady hand, but are large enough that it's quite easy to remove them. The seams come apart quite easily after that; there's a bit of a fold where the fabric was hemmed, but there's no discoloration present.

She has a lot of work to do.

Cut like from like and make anew. 

One is one is one is two. 

She takes her shears and cuts a line, 

And forms the coat and makes it fine, 

And laughs and smiles and cuts again, 

For she's just seen her new skirt's hem - 

And with a flourish of her thread,

And careful tilting of her head, 

And button-knots and silver stitch, 

She comes to scratch that new-coat itch, 

And makes a coat with ragged cuff

and black lapels who've seen enough, 

frayed and tattered and grand and wild

and far too big to fit a child! 

A player's coat for on the stage

and all that's needed now is rage. 

Thundrous steel, spinning wheel, 

burn your anger out and heal, 

give the player's hands your thunder, 

on the keyboard bring your wonder, 

flash and roll upon his wrists, 

play the keyboard with his fists! 

Now only one thing left to do, 

heat the needle, hold it true, 

scorch the sullen red of cloth

burn the mark of player's troth, 

a treble clef in grand aspect, 

so all can pay proper respect.

The needle scorches tender skin, 

she pricks herself where cloth is thin,

she's tired, burned out, fraying now, 

her stomach growls in discontent, 

when did her needle become bent?

Slowly she wakes, the coat is done, 

her rhythm stumbles and is gone.

She gets up. She pours water over her stinging fingers. She takes down one of the friendly glasses and drinks. She eats sweet bread from the basket, not bothering with a plate, and smiles and licks her fingers since everyone here is a friend and she can do that among close company.

Finally she turns to survey her work. 

The coat sprawls lazily across the floor, looking for all the world as if it had just decided to take a rest. She doesn't recall giving it gold epaulets, but it certainly has them now. It fills the room with its presence, all ragged and tattered and misstiched and stormfilled: she smiles at the lightninglike scorchmarks where her burning-needle slipped. 

It certainly is what she sewed it to be, all flair and drama and circumstance and show, but it's no proper houseguest. After all, she did promise it a stage. 

She goes down to the storage room and stares at the piano. 

... nothing for it but to do the hard work, she supposes. 

She starts clearing a path to the door.

Clearing a path is tricky, and a few things need to be moved out onto the street to manage it, but the feat is definitely possible.

The piano itself.... is very heavy. Luckily it has wheels, but it also has two legs that might not fare well in a move.

She pulls cautiously, then with all her might.

The piano barely budges.

Well. That won't do. 

Heavy, bulky, and delicate. The perfect combination. 

Out the door, down the windy, cobblestone street, up a step to the airy place, through another door, and then across the flagstones. 

... this is going to take more than she has right now. 

She needs she needs what does she need... 

She needs a way to shift the piano. She needs a way to keep the delicate legs from taking any of its weight. She needs a way to cover the cobblestones and the step and make the way to the airy place smooth. She needs a way to keep the piano stable while she's moving it. 

She has sturdy staffs, soft pillows, and a blanket. She needs smooth, solid floor and something strong for binding. Ideally she would have a mover's dolly to put the piano on, but that's terribly unlikely at best.

She takes the empty box to the airy place, throws the player's coat over it, and sets the violin atop it. 

It'll have to do for now.

She puts back every homeless box she took out of the storeroom. 

She goes up to the apartment, and makes her bed on the unforgiving floor. It hardly bothers her: after all, the books deserve the bed more than she does.

She sleeps.

It's hard to tell how long she sleeps, but it is deep and dreamless and restful. Nothing disturbs her.

When she wakes, most everything in the apartment is just as she left it, with only a single exception. The two coins she placed on the bookshelf seem to have moved elsewhere. In their place, a set of silver spectacles sits, a crack marring one of the lenses.

She rolls over onto her back, and sits up carefully, one hand pressed in just above her hip. She winces, then pats the stone floor. 

She rubs sleep from her eyes, and looks around. 

She sees the cracked spectacles where her coins were left.

She digs her nails deep into the blankets, and stares. 

She takes a deep breath, and smooths out the crease she's put in the sheet.

Then she stands, folds the glasses neatly - it's not their fault for existing - and places them atop a pile of books. 

She takes two more lavender coins from the bag and replaces the ones on the shelf. 

Then she meticulously checks over every drawer and every corner and every cupboard. Beneath the rug, between the wall and the bed, the contents of the sewing kit. If anything else has changed, she has to know.

The coins are the only things that have been changed throughout all the bookplace. Everything else is just as she left it; every cup and fork, every spool of thread, every scarf and dress and robe and book.

She lets out a breath, and a little of the tension goes from her shoulders. 

She opens the door to the alleyway.

The alleyway is much the same, though it looks like the buildings have decided to rearrange themselves. Both the waiting room and the airy place are still present, but they're in different locations. Fortunately, they're still at ground level, so she can still access them.

...hmmm. 

She looks again for clever doors, ignoring the bashful one that sits across the street. 

There is a bit of wall that's almost half dark grey moss, half dark indigo vines - but the wall is not completely flat, and two sections of grey moss don't quite match up, color wise. Upon investigation, this proves to be another clever door, half overgrown.

She brushes vines aside like a curtain, and asks if she may pass.

The door's a bit sticky, like it's rusted or overgrown, but it opens soon enough.

Inside is a place that was once a bar, but seems to have stopped. This once-bar feels like it's profoundly experienced the passage of time. Grey moss has wormed its way into the stone floor, making it soft and carpet-like, with only a few traces of darker stone still stubbornly poking through. There are tables, with a few chairs neatly stacked atop them for closing, but it looks like most of the chairs and some of the tables have left to make their homes elsewhere. The bar is in good condition, its wood sturdy and strong and half-petrified, half transmuted into something else. Vines climb up the sides of the bar, but they have left the countertop itself alone. The shelves behind the bar are similarly sturdy, and contain a few glasses and bottles. Most of these are empty, some with large cracks or in shards, but a few scattered bottles still contain spirits. Vines and moss similarly cover the walls; if there was any decoration besides them, then it must have left a while ago.

She moves delicately, careful not to disturb the dozing moss. She examines the tables and chairs, all motley and grizzled and eager for a good time. A few of them have been eaten through by rot, but they seem cheerful all the same. 

She steps behind the bar, careful of gleaming glass amid silvery moss. She catalogs broken glassware: it chuckles at her lecherously. That needs mending. The few upstanding bottles accept her invitation to escape their rowdy, jagged neighbours: she sets them on the bartop for now, her fingers hesitant to part from their polished glass and faded labels. 

There ought to be a back of bar somewhere around here. Are these vines tricksome...?

They are a little bit tricksome, but they don't disguise the second door very well. It looks to be the main entrance of this place, and there isn't another door hiding in the vines. That would mean that the entrance she took probably once led to the back room, and the entire back room has apparently just - left. How very strange.

One of the tables is of a different style than the others, and upon closer inspection has a game board carefully painted into it. The paint is dark, but has stubbornly resisted fading, and the wood of the table has resisted rot.

Some of the more broken shards of glassware have decided to become more colorful, once they were freed of being part of an object with a purpose. Pieces that clearly came from a single bottle or glass have shifted to different colors, some matching, some wildly different - purple, green, blue, orange, a pale yellow-white, and some even in a very stark and bloody red. Others have decided to remain as they were; more ordinary clear glass, or darker shades of brown, amber, or green more befitting of something that came from a bottles of alcohol.

All of the bottles with their liquids still inside them are labelled for and smell like alcohol; one looks like some kind of high-alcohol content vodka, three are bottles of cheap looking beer, one is a bottle of more expensive looking beer, and four are bottles of mediocre wine. There are no signs of leaking or cracks on any of them.

She crouches carefully, and touches one of the fragments of blood-red glass. 

It bites her. Hungry as she suspected, then. She pops her poor offended finger in her mouth and frowns at it. That one will take some effort to find a place for. 

She gathers up the other fragments of bottle, and carefully arranges them on the bartop so as not to crowd any of them. She smiles. It's nice to see things being what they wish to be: now all they need is a home. 

She takes the chairs and the wine to the airy place and lays them in audience. She takes the table to the centre of the fountain in the empty courtyard and leaves it to preside there. 

She checks outside the front door of the former bar.

... It's the courtyard. Not a copy of the courtyard, it's definitely her courtyard - it has the table in the centre of the fountain and everything.

There are several reasons why this is a little absurd. It doesn't make any sense, spatially. Earlier she went down the alleyway, away from the former bar, in order to get to the courtyard. Then, in the courtyard itself, there hadn't been a door to this place from the courtyard. Except - after entering through this direction, now there is. Plain as day, a pleasant little entryway into the former bar, friendly and bold and inviting.

She smiles. 

She goes back down the alleyway to see if the door is still there. 

The alleyway's arranged a bit differently, coming at it from this side. Both the back door to the once-bar and the place of waiting things are missing, but the tall performance hall and her bookplace are present, if in different places.

She pats the wall where the door to the bar was, and returns to the courtyard.

She sets two of the empty bottles on the stone rim of the fountain, between the alleyway and the gameboard. 

She adds a shard of amber glass between them, pointing off towards the former bar.

A quarter turn around the fountain, towards the alleyway to the books and the airy place and the waiting things, she lays a shard of deep purple glass. 

At the third point, opposing the waiting things, she lays a sky-blue shard.

The fourth point, across from the former bar... she leaves that point empty for now. 

She looks at the empty gameboard. She counts the squares, across and down.

Eight-by-eight, dark purple-black squares alternating with pale blue ones the color of a sky at twilight. A chess board, then, or perhaps something for checkers.

She takes a deep breath. 

From beneath her clothes, she takes out a silver-wire pendant, coloured beads forming three hinges inside it. She folds it carefully, out, then in, then out again. At first it was a flat circle with simple arcs surrounding, like a child's drawing of a flower: now the wires bind together in the centre, forming an hourglass the length of her finger.

She unwinds the simple black string from the wires. 

She sets the hourglass in the bottom row, on the second sky-blue square from the left. 

She goes to the alchemist's lab. She selects a clear, flat-bottomed vial. She squeezes her cut finger until the blood wells up and drips into the bottom, deep scarlet.

She stoppers the vial. She carries it to the chess board. She sets it down across from the pendant, in the opposing purple-black square. 

She goes to the once-bar, and takes one of the shards of bloody red glass. Any other time, she would be foolhardy to use bare hands - but with the promise of a battlefield, even this hungry glass can wait. 

She sets it down in the top-left corner, on the same row as the vial of her blood.

She goes...

Back to the bookplace. She can't leave this unbalanced, not now. 

She considers the paper flowers. She frowns at the piece of yet-to-be dress. She feels the smoothness of the coins on the bookshelf. 

She looks at the broken glasses again, and a sudden grin lights up her face.

She prises out the remaining lens, cups it in her hands, kisses it. She carries it to the board, and places it delicately in the square across from the jagged red shard.

She frowns. She goes back to the bookplace. She picks up the bent needle from where she carelessly left it on the floor, carries it to the game board, and places it just to the right of the hungry glass. 

Back to the apartments again. Dangerous, dangerous, why did she start this now...

She looks again, again for something to balance the game, to play on her side...

... she dashes down to the place of lost things, snatches up one of the smallest of the stuffed animals, squeezes it to her chest, and grins. Down down down the alleyway back to the chessboard! She almost dances, she moves so lightly. 

She puts the palm-sized dragon just to the right of her pendant.

She tilts her head. She nods. She takes a quarrelsome grey stone from the alleyway, and sets it to the right of the bent sewing needle. Shard, needle, stone, blood. She nods again. It's good to see it all laid out like this.

She pats the tiny dragon on its cerulean snoot, and smiles. 

The board is still imbalanced, but she can leave it be for now. It's in the right direction. 

Now, then. She has less self-indulgent work to do. She needs to sort through the jewellery and see if enough of it is changeable.

The blue-black shimmery metal is the most commonly available, but as it's moved it twists and shimmers in the light. It seems energetic, but not like the storm-grey chain that was impatient and wanted out. It's more good natured than that. It plays nicely with its neighbors, the light twists in it to catch hints of colors from the metals around it.

The second most abundant is the moonlight silver, and upon study, it's the second softest as well. Delicate and somewhat malleable, it seems graceful and wise. These are not impatient to leave, though they're aware they don't belong in an abandoned jewelry box.

Softest of them all, third most abundant, the lavender of the jewelry that matches the coins seems... regal. Pure, but closed off from the others. The forms it comes in are often gaudy things, shows of power and wealth, but that's hardly its fault. It rests easy, content with itself.

Rarer than almost all of the others, the deep purple feels mysterious. Special. It swirls all on its own, powerful and strange and exotic. In this form the metal doesn't feel dangerous, not shaped into jewelry like it is - but it could be. Dangerous like wit, dangerous like change, but not bad in itself. Something to be handled carefully. Second strongest, it is perhaps not changeable enough for her purposes, nor abundant enough.

Rarest, toughest of them all, is the restless stormy grey. It feels practical and grounded, in a way that the others might miss. This is not a metal prone to idleness, nor being cut off from everything and trapped in a box - it should be out in the world. No wonder it's so rare. It seems likely that many pieces refused to come here at all, or were disinclined to stay.

She separates out the twilight lavender. Regal and haughty, yes, but some things are in need of that character. She lays out the chains and necklaces first, hoping that they alone are enough.

Many of the chains are thin, but there are several heavier and bulkier necklaces with gaudy pendants that could be stretched quite far, if used deliberately enough. They should be enough for her purposes without need of the rings.

The chains are sufficient, but what to do with the settings...

For lack of a better idea, she asks the gemstones what they think of their company.

Some of them pop out quite easily, glad to be free of the surroundings that had set the tone for so long. Others are trickier. One amethyst is quite well set in its rather large pendant and refuses to go. Another delicate looking opal looks like it might crack if put under too much pressure. It might be best to use a bracelet or some of the rings, instead.

She puts her handful of gemstones with the glass shards on the bar, then looks through the lavender bracelets and rings for the most restless of them. 

There are a set of heavy earrings that are large and slightly bent out of shape - they look restless and ready for change. A multi-strand bracelet looks like it wants to be unwound to become something else. Another bracelet is made up of heavy rectangles of metal that unhook from each other fairly easily. She can make up for the gemstones that don't want to be parted from their fellows easily enough.

She hums. She taps her fingers together. She has enough, most certainly, but she has no hammer, no chisel, no clay, no draw-plate, no pliers. Tongs, yes, but shorter than she'd prefer. 

She goes upstairs to the apartment, and looks through the spice rack.

The spices mostly don't match their containers' labels anymore - they probably once did, though. There's usually some resemblance to what they're labelled as, just - now they're a bit different. Some more than others. Unlike most of its neighbors, the salt shaker's contents is still stubbornly salt.

... she has honestly no idea what half these things are or were, given the mislabeling and the shifts. What was she thinking the first time she organized this?

She'll just... come back to this later.

Now then. She has an awful lot of alchemy ingredients to move to the careful shelves behind the bar. She had bettter get -

As she goes to close the cupboard, her gaze happens to pass over the bread basket. Her stomach growls. 

She blushes. No, it won't do to forget to tend herself, even if the world around her is all a-jumble. The bread is a bit put out: after all, she's been ignoring it. 

She gets down a plate, and puts one of everything in the cupboard on it. Then she looks around for somewhere to sit. 

Table A: Still covered in bedsheets. Table B: Buried in wandwood and plant, and a bedside table anyway. Table C: Occupied by her to-be-skirt and the clock. Bed: Still buried in books. 

She rubs her forehead. 

She sighs. Nothing for it, then. 

She sets the plate of food down on the counter.

The alchemist's tools go in the careful shelves behind the former bar. The books on the bed go into the cleared space in the back shelves of the book place where the alchemist's tools were. The sheets go back on the bed. The food goes onto the table that was occupied by the sheets. She can eat now, right? 

... no, she still has things to do. She goes and gets the boxes full of stuffed animals and tumbles them all out onto the soft bed, then takes the boxes they were in down to the airy place and sets them up to add to the muttly seating there. 

And then, finally, there is nothing immediately needed and she can sit down to enjoy her bread and strange fruits and water and - oh, the cutlery is still all amutter and, and... 

She'd wanted to try one of the preserves...

... Still, she has sweet bread and shadow fruit and none of this strictly needs a fork or a knife or, or anything. So she should eat. It would be a good idea to eat. 

She takes a bite of the bread, because it would be unfair to it to leave it any longer.

... it still tastes quite nice, actually. 

She takes another bite, and eats one of the not-strawberries, and then she looks at one of the unfamiliar berries and feels brave enough to maybe pop it into her mouth threetwoone - 

It tastes rich and not-too-sweet and... slightly savory, actually. It's sort of a weird place to find it, but it clearly works for the berry well enough.

... hm! 

... she smiles, and eats another one. They're very themselves. All of them are very themselves.

She licks her fingers when she's done, and rinses them in the basin, and drinks two whole glasses of water and stares at the glass and drinks a third, more slowly this time. 

Now, what needs tending... 

She goes back down to the place of waiting things, and goes through the bureaucratic desk's drawers. 

Pens, inkwells, paper and parchment, sealing wax that's a deep purple, but no signets to be found. There are several ledgers that are neatly filled out with what look to be tax records, but most of the contents of the desk seem to be ready for use.

She tests the inkwells. Still fresh? All black, or are there any unexpected colors?

Still fresh, every one. Most are in black, but several are in dark purple or blue, and one's decided to write in silver, and another has decided to write in lavender.

Hmmm. 

She carries one of the heavier grimoires down and lays it atop the desk, then steps back to look at it again.

The intricate decorative engravings on the desk certainly fit with the aesthetic of the grimoire. While there isn't any shelving built specifically for housing books, there is a flat top above the drawers that could house books well enough. Bookends are probably necessary for the stability of the books themselves, but this could certainly work.

Well then. 

She takes everything out of the desk, including any of its drawers that seem amicable, and neatly arranges the pile atop some of the nearby boxes. 

She squats, gets her fingers in beneath short edge of the desk, and tries to lift it - not much, just enough to get it off the floor.

With all of its drawers and contents, it's surprisingly light. Not precisely easy to lift, but manageable.

All she needs is time, then. 

Out the door, down the street, into the former bar. She walks the path first before she follows it, carefully clearing the way. It should fit here against the far wall, on the barer stone, yes?

It does indeed!

Now for the hard part.

Up with the feet, over an inch, down. Around to the other side. Up with the feet, over an inch, down. 

Up, over, down. Up, over, down. Gradually, she walks the desk towards the doorway. 

The cramped and cluttered quarters make this process difficult, and a few things need to be moved out onto the street to make room for the desk's journey, but the desk moves all the same. Little by little, the desk is shuffled to the door.

... this next bit will be trickier. 

She squirms under the desk and around past the door, nearly banging her knee on the doorframe in the process.

Up to the apartment for a drink of water and a splash of water on her face. Her arms ache. She ignores them. She brings a piece of the fruit bread down, and eats it while she plans out the move across the cobbles.

There's a slight lip to the bottom of the door's frame, but it's not too pronounced. It shouldn't make it difficult to get the desk across the threshold. More troublesome is that the floor of the storage shed is slightly above the cobblestones of the road; about an inch and a half of space.

She hums. She takes one of the smaller, sturdier boxes out, and presses it between her hands. It seems sturdy enough...

Laying it atop the quarrelsome cobbles, she shifts it slightly, checking the fit and stability of her improvised step.

The box takes a few minor shifts to find the correct position, but then settles into its new role well enough. It is sturdy and stable and should hold her well enough.

Up, over, down the step. Up, over, down to the cobbles. 

She leaves it there for a moment while her arms recuperate, half in the door, half out of it. 

... She tests the cobblestones gingerly with her feet, sucking in an uncertain breath. Well. Nothing left to do now but press on. 

Up, over, down. (Wobble.) 

Up, over, down. (A tap against the doorframe, and a wince.)

Up, over, down. (The expected scraping sound doesn’t come. She breathes a sigh of relief.)

Up, over, down. (Halfway there.) 

Up, over, down. (The wind gusts: her knuckles whiten on the hard wood.) 

Up, over, down. (Almost free.)

She leans on the desk, breathing heavily. Now for the dangerous part...

In slowly, carefully, breathe out hard to squirm around the door jamb, careful, don’t tip it, it could all go horribly wrong -  

Her hands slap down on the polished wood from the other end.

She takes a breath, and smiles shakily. 

Up, over, down to the step. (Cobbles grit as the other end of the desk slides.) 

Up, ov- Was that a creak of wood? Is a leg caught? She freezes halfway down the step, the whole weight of the desk on her upraised knee. Her foot turns slightly on the block - she can feel it shifting - 

She shoves hard, scattering cobblestones. The box kicks up against her shin, and the desk slams down with a crack of protesting wood.

She grabs it before it can tip, a jolt of terror forcing speed from her protesting arms and bruised leg: it sways, but doesn’t fall. The alley is a bit of a mess, and she’s cracked one unlucky stone right through - but the desk is safe, seated well between the cobbles. 

It’s okay. Everything is alright. 

She picks up the cracked stone: ruby crystals glitter inside it, beautiful as they are bloody. 

She takes the geode to the fountain’s board, and sets its halves down as a pair of opposing rooks.

She checks the desk again, making sure it’ll stay secure in the space in the alley. She pats it gently so it knows that she’ll be back. 

She goes up to her apartment. She carefully eats precisely one slice of fruit bread, and drinks one glass of water. She waters the plant in its too-small pot: then back to the alley, and the other half of the move. 

She has the rhythm down, now, and the break let her rest her arms: she doesn’t so much as scuff the moss getting the desk to its proper place inside the once-bar. 

Then, its contents: not the tax records, but the grimoires, the ink of silver and midnight-purple, the quills and paper, the drawers, the seals, the alchemist’s calipers and parchment and all. 

She breaths out a sigh, and turns to survey the once-bar again. 

The place looks quite a bit different, now. The desk sits tidily in its new home, looking quite pleased with itself. It's still settling in, and feels a bit more formal than the once-bar's used to, but the coloration of the wood almost matches the wood of the shelves behind the bar. Alchemist's tools sit on the shelves that once contained glasses and spirits, and they are more at home with both the desk and the shelves; it's clear they are helping to introduce the two. The wine has departed, along with two of the empty bottles, but the hard spirits, beer, and additional empty bottles still remain, perched on the bar. Around them are shards of glass and gemstones, glittering in a dark and brilliant rainbow of color, carefully laid out on the counter top.

A space has been cleared on the part of the floor that has not yet been claimed by moss. What tables and chairs remain are the ones that were not quite fit for the tall performance hall; rot has set into them. It's a strange sort of rot; it smells of a place that is not here. Like it originated in, or from copying a more material plane, not like it's something inherent to this place that so furtively keeps things.

There’s not so much left to be done here: she can feel it shifting. Once, the bottles on the bar would have fit there: now, they’re out of place. She takes them down, considers their labels. The bottle of hard spirits, and the one of fine beer... tucked in behind the left leg of the player’s chair in the airy place. The cheaper beers... tucked into her pantry. Though she might never drink them, that doesn’t mean they couldn’t be used as ingredients towards something else - and she likes their smooth glass, their amber shine, their fading labels. They feel proper. 

The remaining empty bottles can join their filled kin in her apartment: she retrieves the ones she left on the fountain rim as well, since they’re no proper signpost now. 

Back into the not-bar, the becoming-place. The rotted chairs and tables no longer fit: she carries them out delicately, careful of their weaknesses, and leaves them in the fountain courtyard. Perhaps a breath of drier air will help them be their truer selves again: all she can do is ask, and see if the world answers. 

Back to her apartment, to the herbs in her spice rack. Here is something that suits: a deep green strand of leaves, smelling of faraway and citrus. 

... oh. Oh! A grin flashes to her face, and she snatches up the salt. She had thought this was a poor alternative, but -

Down down down to the storage room! Up with the false-bottomed box! In to the once-bar! She slaps the box down on the stolid bar, the crack of it echoing in the empty space. 

She pulls out the false bottom, then pauses - what to do with the signet ring and locket? But a glance at the new desk is all the answer she needs: the signet slips in with the sealing wax, the locket in a small, private drawer, close to hand for whoever sits and works there. 

Back to the bar! She sweeps up the gleaming glass and gemstones with reckless abandon, not caring for the nicks the glass cuts in her bare palms: then she lets them fall through her fingers into the treasure-box, filling the false bottom to the brim. Delicately, she seats the false bottom back into place: atop it, she lays the dagger in a bed of citrus-smelling leaves and paper flowers, the fine beer stolen back from its place by the player’s seat to serve as an offering on the makeshift altar. 

Turning, she takes one long stride to the cleared space amid the mossy tiles: with a dozen careful steps widdershins, salt pours from its glass, forming a ritual circle on the damp floor. Citrus and aged wood, salt and water: when her glass runs out, the once-bar smells far more like a ship’s cabin than any land-bound hall. 

She steps back from her work, and smiles. 

“Waybound,” she whispers: and she knows that it is a name. 

She looks around. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is out of place. The witch-captain’s desk sits where it ought to sit, golden signet ring gleaming, midnight quill poised to write. The altar is filled with treasure and offerings. The tomes and tools are all well-kept. The circle is ready, the athame sharp.

All that is needed now is a priestess. 

She closes the door.

She goes back to her bed.

She sleeps, and no dreams trouble her.

When she wakes, all in her apartment and bookplace is as she left it. No gift of spectacles today, it seems.

The alleyway has changed, though; there is no longer a clever hidden door nestled beneath vines. The courtyard still contains the front entrance of the witch-captain's altar room, but it seems to have decided that it would rather its back door go somewhere else.

Now, the back door opens to an ocean, nestled between dark glittering rocks in a secluded cove. The sky is a dull grey, but the sea is a brilliant blue, clear and bright as any of the jewels contained within the treasure box.

She smiles, feeling the wind ruffle her hair. Her hands sting in the salt breeze: she does her best to ignore them. 

Closing the door, she slips back out to the courtyard. 

Carefully, she swaps the sky-blue shard of glass with the amber one. 

Then her attention slides to the lost chairs and tables. Has a night in drier air done anything for their sickness?

They have dried some, and subtly feel less... springy. Sturdier. Not quite enough to trust them with weight again, but certainly better. The signs of rot still remain, but the warped scars have faded into swirls of blue-grey, stark against the dark wood. It seems likely that this treatment will suffice for them, though they probably all need a bit more time.

She nods consideringly, and absently smears her hand against her dress. 

... she looks down. Her wounded hand has left a rust-red streak of half-dry blood across her good dress, and is starting to smart... rather sharply, now. She hisses in a breath: this won’t do. This won’t do at all. 

Settling down to a shaky seat on the edge of the fountain, she absently catalogs her aches and pains. There are... more than she’d noticed, now that she looks for them. The stinging cuts in her palms and her fingertip where the hungry glass bit her. The dull ache in her arms from moving the heavy desk, not to mention all those chairs and tables. The crick in her back from sleeping on the stone floor, not aided at all by the heavy lifting she’s been doing. The twist of her ankle from that faltering step off the falling block: she must have landed worse than she’d noticed. Her whole body feels heavy and ill-fitting and misused. 

...she lays her head in her lap, and cries softly.

Her tears pass, eventually. Sniffling, she stands, pulling her dress closer around herself, trying her best not to stain it: then she goes to look for anything that could be used as a bandage.

One of the scarves is made of a soft, grey almost-cotton, absorbent and stretchy and plain. If that won't do, some of the scraps from the burgandy robe are available to her.

She ties the scarf tightly around her bandaged palms, leaving her with a pair of scarf-cuffs. She tests her range of motion: inconvenient, but better than cutting apart the poor scarf or staining the rich burgundy of her to-be skirt. 

She sits at the table by the window, and eats. There’s only half a loaf of bread left, now: she stares at it morosely. 

Her apartment is quiet and still and safe. After a little while, she can hear the gentle sound of a light rain, just outside of her window.

She... supposes she could go out in the rain to. To work on the lost things’ place. She could do that. 

For some reason she doesn’t want to. 

... she takes down one of the books from the last librarian’s bookshelf, curls up in bed, and opens it to the first page. If she’s going to be sad anyway, she should at least be sad for a good reason. 

The book is light and hopeful, and the plot is almost childish, but it has heart where it counts. For all that the tale lacks in narrative creativity, it makes up for in loving descriptions and an expansive world of wonder and beauty. The protagonist is a little flat, but it's clear he's meant to be. He's a set of shoes to fill so the reader can be swept away to a land of adventure, where evil is always easily solved with liberal application of sword and spell, and the good guys always have a happy ending.

She sighs, and sets the book down on the bedside table.

It’s all... raggedy and overstuffed and turnabout and sunbright. Not at all what she had wanted. 

She looks down at the stained gray cloth wrapped around her hands, and sighs again. 

She curls up even closer, and tries to sleep. 

The rain outside continues in a slow mist, making soft pitter-patters on the roof and windowpane. It's a strange change from silence.

She sits bolt upright in bed. 

The furniture!

Down down down the stairs, out into the rain, fuck the rain, hands slapped onto the closest table as the rain pitter-patters off its surface. She pulls awkwardly, and it unsticks itself from the muddy ground of the courtyard - but her shoes slip, and she has to rebalance herself. Up and onto her shoulder, and quick as she can back down the alleyway and no don’t bang against the doorframe yes go you stubborn bastard I’m trying to help you THERE. 

She lets out a shuddering breath, gathers up all her indignation, and storms back out for the next one. 

It takes her five trips. The waterlogged scarf wrapped around her hands goes on the second: she bleeds on the chairs, but that’s better than leaving them out there to rot. Her hair is soaked through. Her dress is soaked through. Her everything is soaked through. Her library is full of waterlogged inconsiderate tables and chairs and it’s a wonder she hasn’t ruined any of the books. 

... She’s left the scarf in the mud out there. 

She kicks the damned blasted inconsiderate doorframe and goes to retrieve the scarf from the fucking rain even though her fingers are numb and her skin’s gone white and her skirt’s become more of a hobble than a piece of clothing. 

She’s stepped on it. Twice. It takes her a good five minutes to find it, and by then her bones are shivering, her teeth are chattering, and her hands have balled up into frozen, half-useless paws. It slips from her senseless fingers: she grits her teeth, grabs a handful of mud along with it, and hunches her way back through the rain to fling it onto the nearest table. 

gods she’s so fucking cold

... she’s stopped shivering. If she doesn’t warm herself up, she is going to die. She knows it with a hard, heavy certainty at the bottom of her gut. 

... anger can wait. Fatigue can wait. Sorrow can wait. She needs to move.

Out into the rain again, quick as her numb legs can carry her, up the stairs and into the once-bar with its sea-smell and citrus and not important she’s here for the burner. 

Her hands don’t remember how to light it, not anymore, but she forces her fingers to find it and, and - 

and there’s heat. 

She sways. It’s nice. She can feel it on her arms. She should just lie down around the nice fire, and everything will be fine. Everything will be ok.

No it won’t be. 

Back out into the rain, out across the stones again, burner clutched tight as she dares, up and in and around and no time for propriety, she needs to be warm. Her soaked-through dress hits the tiles with a sodden thwap: she drags the covers from the bed, pulls them in tight around herself, and hunches over the tiny burner, doing her best to catch all its heat. 

Her shivers return, and with them pain: she fights back a gasp as her numb fingers start to thaw, hunching in closer on herself. She stays by the burner. She doesn’t fall asleep. 

Eventually, she can bear to move from the flames. 

She washes the cuts on her hands, stiffly, mechanically. She finds another scarf to be a new bandage, and binds her reopened wounds. 

She stares at the burner for a long, long moment. 

She turns it off, and goes to bed. 

The rain outside continues its slow downpour, soft and gentle and, as she is now well aware, ice fucking cold.

This sleep feels... deep. Longer than usual. The chill nips at her in the darkness, inescapable and unquenchable, despite all of the blankets around her.

When she wakes she feels cold and stiff and... strangely light. Like a dizzy spell that's caught all of her limbs and overbalanced her with the lack of weight.

At least the rain has stopped.

She stretches. She looks at her hands. 

Not a dream, then. 

... She's been terribly rude. 

She picks up her half-finished book from the bedside table, and resumes from where she had left off.

The book is as light and hopeful as before. Warm and bright and, well, still painfully naive. With a good heart.

In the end, the villain of the story is not slain, but redeemed.

She manages a smile, this time. 

She stands up, stretches, shelves the book delicately back where it belongs. She feels... different. Not so leaden and ill-fitting. 

She hums to herself, and lays her waterlogged dress in the basin for later. Right now, her blanket will do.

She drops in downstairs to check on the chairs and tables, and apologize to the ill-used doorframe. It certainly didn't deserve any of the abuse she gave it last night. 

The chairs have dried, but some of the tables are still a bit damp. The rot doesn't seem to have progressed on any of them.

There is a slight scuff of mud on the doorframe from where she kicked it, but it cleans off easily enough. The frame itself is sturdy.

She pats it, after she's done cleaning the scuff marks and made sure none of the tables have hurt it. 

Now... Breakfast. 

She eats fruit bread and savoury berries, and considers her apartment as she does. She's been too focussed on faraway places: she should have started her work at home. 

Downstairs is tidier than it was, even with the waterlogged house guests, but it's far from finished. The quarters are still cramped, but all of the books are off of the floor. The ones that she can read are filed sensibly, and the ones she can't read are at least sorted together by language. Moving the grimoires into Waybound and using the shelves in the back for more books helped relieve the crowding problem a little, but many of the books still haven't found shelves, instead waiting patiently on tables or chairs both upstairs and downstairs. On the table in the back sits a tea set, looking a little bit lost and out of place among the books that now sit on the shelves. There are sets of shoes by the door, none of which fit her in size or style.

Upstairs, her muddied and bloodied dress sits in the basin, awaiting washing with the trampled scarf. Several plates and cups also await cleaning, though they're in much less of a dire state. She's just about out of bread, though her food supplies are not in any real kind of danger; she still has several sets of different fruit, and several shelves are full of different kinds of preserves, along with a few bottles of cheap beer. Empty bottles sit on empty shelves, awaiting new contents. Her spice rack is still woefully disorganized, and she's entirely out of salt. In a little empty bottle that was probably meant for spices, the remains of a once-strawberry are tentatively beginning to sprout, apparently uncaring about the lack of sunlight. Or dirt. Or even water, really. Another plant with twisting purple vines sits in a too-small pot, looking less wilted thanks to its watering.

The armoire is filled with robes and dresses in various colors, none of which fit her. The burgundy robe has departed to be a player's coat, though some of its scraps still remain, eager for a new purpose. The sewing kit is down a needle, though there are enough spares left that it's quite usable. A spinning wheel sits at the ready, patiently awaiting new work should she run out of thread. Several books from downstairs sit in tidy stacks, taking up the limited table space while they await organization. The books from the last librarian remain on their shelf, beneath paper flowers and two lavender coins. Beneath them sit cooking books, untouched since their arrival upstairs. Stuffed animals sit on the bed. On the end table beside the bed sits wood treated for wands and the spectacles, one lens cracked and the other missing, and next to them stand the inert staves. A clock is still left sleeping, and a bag with runes carefully inscribed on its interior sits, ignored. Another, smaller bag filled with lavender coins sits comfortably nearby. Despite its use, the jug of water is still as full as it has ever been, and it will likely carry on that way. On the nearby basin sits a mirror, turned face down, and a cup.

... there is really a lot of things to do. And she has no soap.

Well. Let’s fill the basin with water now to give the dress some time to soak, and she’ll finish her meal and consider things. 

She pulls her blanket a little closer around herself.

... there is so much to do that honestly she needs a pen and paper to keep track of it all. But the pens and paper are in Waybound, and she has nothing to wear. So. 

She sits and finishes her fruit bread, a little grumpily. 

... now then. To the basin. She’ll do the best she can with her hands and water alone. 

The mud comes out surprisingly easy, for mud. It doesn't seem like it wants to be on this dress any more than the dress wants mud on it. On the other hand, the blood comes off less easily. Despite the time since its staining and the time spent soaking, it's still crimson. A slightly unsettling shade of red, actually, barely dulled by her efforts. Water and her hands don't seem like they'll be enough.

She frowns at it, and dips into the spice cabinet in search of vinegar.

There is a vial of vinegar in the back! It's a slightly strange shade of smoky grey, but it smells correct.

A bit of luck for once. 

She extracts the bloodied section from the basin, pours on a liberal dose of vinegar, and works it in with her hands. 

Then she waits.

(She eats another two or three berries while she waits.)

Then back to scrubbing with her nails. 

This method works, without even bleaching the dress, though the blood behaves sort of strangely. Instead of most of it coming out and leaving a faint stain that is eventually scrubbed away, it lingers for a little while, then it all comes out at once. It's rather like a mooching houseguest that storms off in a huff when their beleaguered host finally puts their foot down.

...well then. 

Time to do the dishes, she supposes.

The dishes are hardly even dirty, really. They clean easily enough.

Hm. She needs to hang up her dress to dry, but there is rather a shortage of line. She supposes she’ll drape it over the stair railing for now. 

She goes and retrieves the grey scarf while she’s at it: might as well get the mud and blood out of it as well. 

It goes about the same as with the dress; mud is removed fairly easily and blood takes just as much work and application of vinegar. It's still surprisingly easy, though, as these things go.

She smiles - then winces, as the cuts in her hands suddenly twinge. She looks at her hands, still wrapped in improvised bandage, now soaked with - 

Now soaked with vinegar. 

She yanks the bandages off as quickly as she can, but her own carefully-tied knots delay her. By the end, she’s hissing her breaths in through clenched teeth.

A hasty splash of water from the jug washes away most of the sting, but there are still tears standing out at the corners of her eyes. She sits down on the bed, presses her hands between her legs, and does her best to think about other things for a while.

... alright, she needs to rebandage her hands again. She retrieves another pair of scarves from the box in the bottom of the armoire, ties them neatly around her palms, then goes and puts the newly-cleaned scarf over the railing.

Well. There are an awful lot of things to do, but very few of them can be done without leaving her apartment. 

For lack of a better option, she gets out one of the cookbooks and starts leafing through it. Perhaps it’ll help her identify the contents of her spice cupboard.

There are a few ideas for cooking in here, and maybe a few she could even make with her very meager supplies, devoid of both salt and flour, but nothing referring to any of the strange shadow spices in her cupboard. That might be a task that requires a specialized book; this one's more about creative ways to use vegetables.

Hm. It seems the books haven’t changed as much as the spices have. She puts it back, and continues to the next one, just in case.

A book on baking! There are many spices listed here, but each one is perfectly ordinary. Nothing on how to identify the contents of her unique spice cupboard.

She’s getting the distinct impression that this is the kind of problem that will only yield to experience.

Well then. 

...she really has nothing better to do, so...

She smiles slightly to herself, and curls back up in bed with another of the previous librarian’s books.

This one is a story about a dragon. A baby green dragon, lost, confused, alone, and eventually, hunted. Constantly on the run, because according to everyone she meets, she's doomed to be evil because she doesn't happen to be metallic. In the beginning, she's understandably bitter, as she scrapes by in the woods and lives off of animals. Chapters are devoted to her rage, her perfectly intelligible anger at the cruel injustice of the world. She can't take her anger out on anything that'll draw attention to herself, so she instead aggressively arranges her environment to suit her needs, hidden in an out of the way cave that's more of a hole in the ground than a proper dragon's lair. Slowly, the fear of hunters fades, and the world she builds becomes something resembling comfortable.

Eventually, she is brave enough to venture out, and watches families of humans, happy families, from afar. Her anger fades to jealousy, of other people having something she can't ever have again. It was stolen from her, or at least, that's what she tells herself at first. However, this dragon has more than an ounce of self awareness. She watches these humans, and one day she abruptly realizes—no. This was not stolen from her, or if it was, it was stolen from her by her parents. They weren't kind. She lost herself a set of guardians, which put her in a horribly awkward position, but... well. Maybe it wasn't all bad. There are many things she likes about this new life she's made for herself. Her jealousy fades to sorrow.

It soon becomes clear that she's lonely. Eventually, she even admits it to herself. She considers ways she can solve this, and carefully, fearfully, sneaks her way back to her old home to see if it contains any spells that will solve her problem. There is no dramatic confrontation of adventurers that were waiting for her return; it's clear that they have long since stopped caring. Instead it's just a cave, picked nearly clean of valuables. An empty shell. It feels very different, after years away and her new perspective. Once, she would have wanted to move back in, or been angry at the loss. Now, she's not angry, she's just... sad. Carefully, she picks through it all, scrapes together what notes on spellwork that she can find, and leaves the grave to its rest. She does not try to find the bodies of her parents. She doesn't want to see them.

Her life as a hermit continues with a new element; spellwork. She's working from scraps and dredges, but she's brilliant, and she has ever so much time. All she needs is stubbornness and patience, and to her mind, all those take is practice. She learns magic, practices it in secret, sharpens her mind like it's a blade and wields it with terrifying precision. Eventually, after lights and illusions and false sounds and fire, she finally, finally figures out the thing she'd wanted all along. Shapeshifting.

She shifts to a human shape with green eyes the color of her scales, because she's not ashamed. They won't know what it means, but she will. Maybe eventually she'll tell them, and show them who she is. Her hands shake as she gathers up her spellbook, but if they think her a monster, then, well. They're wrong.

The book ends on her walking into town, greeted with a warm wave and a bright hello.

... well, that was. Certainly a book. 

Who put you up to this, she wonders.

She rubs an eye with the back of one wrist, and finds it comes away wet. 

Oh. 

She smiles slightly to herself, pats the book gently, and carefully puts it away back in its proper place. 

Then she curls up, and goes to sleep.

Her apartment is quiet and still.

In the morning, all is as she left it.

She tiptoes out to see if her dress has dried.

It has! It's slightly chilly, but the fabric is smooth and soft and, mostly importantly, perfectly dry.

She slips it back on. 

There. Much more proper.

Now - 

These coins belong in the witch’s cabin. She takes them out with her into the alley, checking on the tables in the front room as she goes.

The tables seem to have dried from their foray from the rain, but the rot's paused in its healing. It hasn't worsened, but it hasn't gotten better, either.

In the alley, the faintest hint of omnipresent whispers is a little louder than before.

"—it's hardly fair, that there isn't a king for the other side."

  "What, and invite in the opponent? Already? That wouldn't be a very clever thing to do at all."

She pauses, stock-still.

She listens. 

If she quiets her breaths and strains, she can just make out the words, drifting down from the courtyard.

"No, I suppose not, the witch would hardly be very clever if she invited a guest like that so early—"

  "Witch? Witch? Are you blind? She's not a witch. The witchplace is for itself, not for her."

"I don't know what else to call her, she's hardly a queen, not yet."

  "It's rude to assume. Wait for her to introduce herself, if she wants to."

She half-smiles, and curtseys.

^{“It’s also rude to gossip.”}

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.

She gathers herself, focuses, and declaims:

“In ancient times when world was new,
Black King decreed it wasn’t true,
And filled the world with hurting.

They woke up pain, they woke up Death,
They woke the ending of the breath,
They broke the world, made all askew,
And that’s the board we’re playing.

We know that you keep palming cards,
fudging your points and stealing ours,
we’re playing in this world you marred,
but it’s losers that need cheating.

We’ll beat you fairly, fix the board,
make sure each point’s properly scored,
and then we’ll claim our just reward,
a world that’s not your plaything.

I know that you’d not name, you see,
each piece of mine, if you were me,
you look for cheats unconsciously -
“there ain’t no rule”, I’m saying -

But If I’m to win against your side,
it’s not for me to have your mind
and be the girl you’d be as I -
so I’ll be fair and sporting.

I name King’s Rook, the broken stone
whose breaking crack’s the broken moan
of those surrounded yet alone,
trampled down and hurting.

I name Queen’s Rook, the shard of glass
the bloody red of battles past,
which seeks to fight until the last,
and wound all in its passing.

I name King’s Knight, the needle bent,
strong iron’s life carelessly spent,
all of its time, it came and went,
a moment in the losing.

I name King’s Priest, the leaden rock,
that if it could, would surely talk,
to say “why care? Is it a shock,
there’s naught to do but working?”

And last, Black Queen, my own shed blood,
The price I’ve paid for what I’ve loved,
the rule that says that all is judged
and weighed in suffering.

And there, enough, my piece is done,
I’ll name the rest when time is come
and we shall see who has more fun
at this game of your devising.”

There is a brief pause, then:

"gosh."

And then both voices begin chattering excitedly:

"Did you already have that prepared?" "What happened to the bookkeeper?" "Why are there more dark pieces than light pieces, does that mean black's winning?" "So you're making a game board to break the board so nobody has to play anymore? That's so cool!!" "Can you save the black pieces?" "Can we help??"

She pauses, hums, considers. 

"I think I... had the shape of it, and then the words worked themselves out. 

There are more black pieces because black is always winning until it's not, because White needs to work to put its pieces on the board and Black doesn't nearly so hard. Can black pieces be rescued? Well, I expect we'll find out. There are some kinds of chess where that can be done, but others don't let you. And of course you can help, if you want to." 

"It'd be nice if some of the dark things could be rescued."

  "It'd also be hard, I think. What sorts of things would help you?"

She rests her chin on her palm.

^{"That's always the trouble, isn't it?"}

"Are there things you want to know about?"

  "We've been to lots of places!"

"And we hear lots of things!"

^{”Tell me some things you found interesting, then - so long as they’re not anyone’s secret.”}

"There's a street that this courtyard can open up to sometimes!"

  "But I don't think it's felt social in a while."

"No, not since the King of Shadows died..."

She raises an eyebrow. 

"Oh, yes!"

  "Not a king of all shadows, of course, but enough of them to earn the title."

"He was very old!"

  "And very strange!"

"But mostly he was very powerful!"

  "So powerful! Old, old magic, seared into his soul, chained to his existence."

"Then he disappeared."

  "And died!"

"And now his kingdom is without a king."

”Oh,” she says.

"Oh. Yes."

  "This world collects them. Shadows of things and places and, and whispers. Sometimes the things themselves, if they fit well enough. If they are enough like shadows themselves."

"Many, many lost things, tugged away from where they were to be somewhere new."

  "Lost but not gone, you see? It's better than there being nothing at all."

^{”Do you know anything that needs rescuing now before it’s lost forever?”}

"Oh, hm."

  "Echos, whispers. It—it helps us, to be acknowledged. To be listened or spoken to, to have a place where we're welcome to whisper. We can tell others to come here."

"There are dangerous places where things can get twisted up into other things. Great and terrible spires of shifting stone and storm, chewing and eating and spitting out dust and blood.

  "I don't know how to get there anymore, do you?" "No, no, I wanted to forget." "Me too." "It was a bad place." "Not a place for whispers at all."

"Oh, oh! There was a cavern in the cove, some of the things in there might need rescuing, you have fingers and can touch things!"

  "Oh! Yes! The ocean doesn't know how to be gentle."

She blinks. 

"- I didn't even go looking, there was so much else to do - would you like to explore the beach with me, whispers?" 

She tilts her head. "...Did I ask for your names yet?"

"Sure! That's where we came from, we didn't finish exploring before we found the door."

  "Names? Oh. We don't have those."

"We're not big enough!"

She tilts her head. 

There's a long pause.

"... I don't know. I've never had a name before."

  "It seems like it would be a lot of responsibility? It'd be like... something pinning me to be a thing."

"It might be nice, maybe. It'd depend on the name, I think. I can't think of any names that are... me."

^{”Thistle. Whisper - forget I said that. Shiversweet. Starshine. Silvershaft. Sussurus - probably still too on the nose. Sixthfifth. Seliria - sorry, no, that one’s taken. Thinmint?” She giggles quietly. “Um. Thistle - I said that. Heather. Hearthfire. Heath. Halflaugh. Fluff? I mean, maybe. Flitter, Sigilsidia - where did that one come from? It’s nice and not taken, though - something, something, I don’t know, do any of those seem like they might fit?}

Little giggles trail after her as she walks.

"I kind of like Thistle. You even said it twice!"

  "Do you want to be called it?"

"... Maybe! I'm not sure yet! But I like it."

  "I think I don't want a name, personally. Maybe later. I don't want to be pinned, I like... I like being small. Having a name would make me seem much bigger."

Eliria smiles. 

^{"That's quite alright too. I like being small as well, it's just that - sometimes the world trips over you, you know?"}
She pauses in Waybound's doorway, looking out at that piercingly blue sky.

_{“- or sometimes you trip over a world, I suppose.”}

 She steps out into the sea breeze, and it catches at her blanket. She hugs it closer. 

There’s still much more work to be done. 

There is a wide and beautiful world in which to do it.

She's met with a jeweled sea, the sound of waves crashing upon a rocky shore. Beside her, the whispers excitedly begin chattering about the treasures held within the cove.