✨🔮The forest was quieter than it used to be.Lauren walked ba..
Added 2025-05-15 15:11:04 +0000 UTC✨🔮The forest was quieter than it used to be.
Lauren walked barefoot through the morning hush, dew clinging to her soles, the scent of stillwater fading from her memory like a half-forgotten song. The trees no longer sang Naiya’s laughter. The brook no longer bubbled with her sighs. Lauren had left her village long ago, chasing some hollow within herself, hoping that out in the wider world, she might find what had gone missing.
But now, with every step, she wondered if she had only traded one kind of emptiness for another.
She missed Naiya. The softness of her voice, the way she blushed when she was seen too deeply. Lauren had never meant to stay. But she'd never meant to feel that much either. And now the ache of it followed her like a shadow stitched to the soles of her feet.
By midday, the sunlight fractured through the leaves like stained glass. She paused at a quiet grove—honey-lit, unmoving. The air shimmered as if it remembered something tender. And then she saw her.
