Alex didn't move right away after Renn turned back to his post.
The square continued around him—people passing, voices overlapping, the soft grind of stone underfoot—but something about the guard's words had lodged itself in his chest.
Dreams don't usually leave footprints.
Alex looked down again.
The impressions were still there.
Not deep. Not dramatic. But unmistakable. The packed earth had yielded under his weight, edges still sharp enough to catch the light. No breeze erased them. No shifting crowd smoothed them away.
He stepped back once.
Another print appeared.
Alex exhaled slowly and forced himself to move.
If this were a dream, then it was the kind that required participation.
The longhouse stood at the edge of the square, exactly where Renn had said it would be. From here, it looked less imposing than it had earlier—less like a place of judgment, more like a house that had simply grown larger because people kept coming to it with problems.
Light spilled through its open doorway.
Warmth followed.
Alex stopped just short of the threshold.
He was suddenly, acutely aware of himself—of his clothes, his dirt-stained sleeves, the way his posture kept tightening as if he expected to be struck or corrected. He lifted a hand, hesitated, then let it fall again.
No one had invited him in.
So he spoke instead.
"Excuse me."
His voice sounded too loud in the open doorway.
Conversation inside the longhouse thinned—not stopped, but bent around him. The scrape of a bench. The soft hiss of the hearth. A few heads turned.
A woman rose from near the fire.
She was tall, her posture straight without being rigid, hair braided close to her scalp and threaded with silver. Her ears tapered to clear points, unobscured and unapologetic. Her gaze moved over Alex once—quick, practiced—then settled.
"Yes?" she said.
Alex swallowed. "The guard said I could… ask. For a place to stay. Just for the night."
A pause.
Not the dangerous kind. The measuring kind.
"You came through the forest," she said.
"Yes."
"And crossed the bridge."
Alex nodded. "I didn't know there was another way."
"There isn't," she replied. Then, after a beat, "Come in."
Relief loosened something in Alex's chest that he hadn't realized was locked tight.
He stepped inside.
The longhouse smelled of old wood, smoke, and dried herbs. The space was large but grounded, broken up by thick beams and a central hearth where embers glowed steadily. Several figures sat or stood around a broad table—elders, he assumed, though no one announced it.
He hovered near the entrance until the woman gestured to a bench along the wall.
"Sit. You look like you might tip over."
He did, the wood solid beneath him.
"We can give you shelter for the night," an older voice said from near the fire. "Food. Water."
Alex nodded quickly. "Thank you."
"You won't wander after dark," the voice continued.
Alex hesitated. "It's… still early."
"It will not be later," the elder replied calmly. "That is all."
The woman with silver-threaded hair nodded. "Until then, you're free to walk the square. Stay where people are."
Alex took that as permission rather than dismissal.
When he stepped back outside, the square had resumed its steady rhythm. The light was still high—afternoon, not yet softened by evening. Shadows lay short and well-behaved at people's feet. Smoke rose straight up from chimneys instead of drifting.
Life, uninterrupted.
Alex let himself move without direction at first, circling the square slowly. The statues stood as they always had—silent, facing inward, their stone features worn but intentional. He avoided touching them without consciously deciding to.
Near the well, music surfaced.
Not loud. Not performative.
A stringed instrument—something between a lute and a fiddle—plucked in a steady, wandering rhythm. The melody looped back on itself often enough to be familiar without becoming repetitive.
Alex reached the square without fully deciding to.
His feet carried him there along the worn stone paths, following sound rather than intention. The village had settled into its afternoon rhythm—merchants calling halfheartedly, children darting between adults, the steady scrape of labor continuing even in the presence of strangers.
The square itself was wide and uneven, its stones darkened by age and use. Statues stood at its edges like patient witnesses, their forms worn smooth in places where hands had brushed them over generations. Monsters, frozen mid-snarl or mid-fall, arranged not as trophies but as fixtures—as permanent as wells or posts.
People were gathering.
Not crowding. Not pressing.
Just… stopping.
At the center of the square sat a girl.
She occupied the space without claiming it. Seated on the low lip of the old fountain, cloak gathered loosely around her shoulders, she looked almost incidental at first glance—another traveler, another performer.
Until she sang.
Her voice didn't rise above the square. It settled into it.
Low and clear, it carried without force, threading itself through conversation rather than cutting it off. One by one, voices softened. Footsteps slowed. A merchant paused mid-count. A child stopped tugging at a sleeve.
Alex halted near the edge of the gathering.
The fox-eared girl's hair caught the light—pale gold threaded with warmth, falling in soft waves around her face. Her ears rose cleanly from it, furred and alert, their tips darker, twitching faintly as if tracking sound more than sight. Freckles dusted her cheeks and nose, subtle but visible when she lifted her head.
Her eyes were calm.
Not distant. Not vacant.
Present.
She held a simple stringed instrument across her lap, fingers moving with unhurried certainty. Each note rang true, unadorned, carrying the weight of repetition rather than flourish.
This was not a performance meant to impress.
It was meant to be remembered.
"Before the land had roads,"
"Before stone learned to stand upright,"
"There was water without edge,"
"And a body that never meant to rest."
The melody circled slowly, looping back on itself like a tide pulled by something unseen.
Alex felt it settle behind his eyes rather than in his ears.
Around him, villagers listened without expression. Some leaned against posts or carts. Others sat where they stood. No one interrupted.
The fox girl's tail curled lazily at her side, brushing stone with each shift of her weight.
"They called it Leviathan,"
"Not because it ruled,"
"But because nothing else survived long enough to argue."
A ripple passed through the listeners—not reaction, exactly. Recognition.
Alex swallowed.
This wasn't the kind of song that explained. It assumed you already knew the shape of the truth and was simply reminding you where its edges lay.
"When it fell,"
"The sea did not reclaim it."
"It stayed."
"It softened."
"It broke."
Her fingers slowed.
"Its spine rose first."
"A long wound of stone."
"Mountains grew where breath once moved."
Alex's gaze drifted, unbidden, to the statues lining the square. Their stone surfaces caught the same light as the surrounding buildings, no longer distinct from the village itself.
"Life followed rot."
"Small teeth. Smaller hungers."
"Things that learned to crawl because swimming no longer mattered."
A few people shifted.
A man near the well crossed his arms. A woman pressed her palm briefly to one of the statues at her side, then let it fall.
"They grew,"
"As all things do when nothing stops them."
The fox girl lifted her eyes then—not to Alex, but past him, sweeping the square. For a moment, her gaze felt uncomfortably sharp, as if she were measuring something invisible in the air.
"And so did we."
Her voice did not swell.
It steadied.
"Small folk,"
"Soft folk,"
"On land, still learning how to hold weight."
Alex felt a faint pressure behind his ribs, a sensation like standing too close to a cliff edge.
"We learned to hide."
"We learned to dig."
"We learned that stone remembers longer than flesh."
The instrument fell silent for a heartbeat.
No one spoke.
Then—
"Something stopped them."
Her fingers resumed, slower now. Heavier.
"No roar."
"No war."
"No savior's fire."
She glanced, briefly, toward the statues again.
"They stood."
"They hardened."
"And they have not moved since."
A child near the front leaned forward, eyes wide. An older man rested his hand on the stone shoulder of a petrified beast beside him, as if confirming it was still there.
"We built around them,"
"Because it was safer than forgetting."
The song tapered, notes stretching thin before fading entirely.
For a moment, the square held its breath.
Then sound returned—not all at once, but in layers. A cough. The creak of a cart wheel. Someone muttering about unfinished work. Life resumed without ceremony.
Coins clinked softly as a few listeners stepped forward, dropping offerings at the fox girl's feet. She inclined her head to each, polite but distant.
Alex remained where he was.
His chest felt tight.
This was still a dream, he told himself.
Dreams borrowed details like this. Depth without consequence. Meaning without obligation.
And yet—
The stone beneath his boots was still cold.
The statues still loomed.
And the fox-eared girl, as she gathered the coins with unhurried grace, glanced up—
And met his eyes.
Just for a moment.
There was no surprise there.
Only the faintest suggestion of curiosity.
As if she knew he would be listening longer than most.
Then she looked away, rose smoothly to her feet, and the square swallowed her presence as easily as it had accepted her song.
Alex exhaled slowly.
The village continued around him.
And somewhere beneath it all, something vast and dead remained unmoving—patient enough to wait.