Ciaranna Lyndis – A Conversation in Dreams

The ruined Eastward Estate is not yet a home, but it is no longer just a ruin.

The Moving Mountain Clan has set up their tents among the cracked stone and creeping ivy, their warriors standing watch as laborers clear debris and reinforce old walls. Fires burn low in the night, their embers flickering against the shattered remains of a once-proud lineage.

Ciaranna’s tent is finer than most, a courtesy of the Goliaths who respect her status—if not yet her claim. The heavy fabric shields her from the night chill, and furs soften the hard ground beneath her. She should sleep well.

She does not.

Her dreams are filled with shifting patterns, the sensation of something brushing against her thoughts, too light to grasp but impossible to ignore. And then, at some unmarked moment, she is not dreaming at all.

She stands within the bones of the estate, but the ruin is different. The walls are whole, yet they breathe. Ivy coils like veins along the stone, pulsating softly with an unseen rhythm. The air is thick with luminous spores, glowing gold and green in the dim light.

At the center of it all, in a place that feels untouched by time, Olythrae waits.

Her long, mist-like hair pools at her feet, drifting as if suspended in unseen currents. Tiny orbs of light orbit her form, flickering with the cadence of some unspoken truth. She does not turn immediately, only staring at the far wall, her wide, pale eyes unfocused—or focused on something beyond sight.

Then, fluid as thought, she looks to Ciaranna.

"The floor hums with a song unsung."
"Do you hear it?"

Ciaranna exhales slowly. "I'm getting tired of riddles, Olythrae."

Olythrae tilts her head, strands of glowing hair shifting with the motion.

"Then stop looking for answers."
"Listen for the question."

The dream does not feel like a dream. The walls are too solid, the air too heavy. Something lingers in this place, pressing against the edges of perception.

Ciaranna takes a slow step forward, her boots making no sound. "Something follows me," she murmurs. "Something waits."

Olythrae blinks, slow and deliberate.

"The loom weaves, but the pattern is not set."
"A moth alights on your shoulder."
"It waits to see if you will brush it away."

A chill runs through Ciaranna’s spine. The Mothkeeper. Its presence has loomed at the edges of her awareness ever since Duskwood, neither threat nor comfort.

She clenches her hands at her sides. "And if I don't brush it away?"

Olythrae does not smile, but something in her gaze softens, as though pleased that Ciaranna asked the right question.

"Then the moth will whisper in your ear."
"And you will listen."

Silence stretches between them. The golden spores drift lazily, weightless, waiting.

Ciaranna exhales. "What happens if I listen?"

Olythrae steps forward, just close enough that the lights orbiting her graze Ciaranna’s skin. The warmth is deceptive. The weight of the moment is not.

"When the frost touches your lips, will you sigh or will you sing?"

The words settle deep, wrapping around something unspoken inside her.

And then—the dream unravels.

She wakes in her tent.

The Moving Mountain Clan still sleeps outside. The fires burn low. The ruin stands unchanged.

And resting on the edge of her sleeve, barely visible in the dim firelight—a single white moth.

It waits.

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