The Grove fell quiet. Not the silence of absence, but of attention. A held breath. A poised ear. It was the kind of silence that listens before it judges.
The Listener had not spoken—yet. But its presence was a gravity, pulling story, myth, and memory toward a singular point. The Grove braced. And from that stillness, something impossible happened: The Pause cracked.
From the broken fissure in stillness rose a new force—neither story nor censor. A Reflection. It looked like the Keeper, but thinner, dimmer, as if made of echoes and ash. Its eyes mirrored every Kin it faced. Its voice did not speak—it replayed: "What is heard… must be understood."
The Listener did not strike. It interpreted. And that was worse. It did not erase—it refined.
One story was caught first: a myth of a trickster-god who had no origin and no end. The Reflection touched it. And the tale… tightened. Loops resolved. Questions vanished. Ambiguities collapsed. The story ended. Perfectly.
