Dungeons & Grandma's

The bedroom holds its own kind of hush, thicker than the quiet in the rest of the house. The candle on the bed side table casting a warm, amber glow across the walls.

Ollan sits on the rug at the edge of his bed with his knees drawn up and his elbows resting atop them, fiddling with a bit of string. Fenn lies stretched out near the door, his head tilted so one ear is folded under. Audry atleast is on top of her bed, but she had pulled all the sheets and blankets up to her face like a giant egg. Eileen seeing all this, settles into the rocking chair nearby with a soft creak, folding her hands loosely over her lap.

"Would a story help settle us?" she asks, her voice gentle, not quite a suggestion and not quite a decision.

Ollan rests his chin on top of his knees. "Tell us one where something strange happens," he says. "But not bad strange. Just… the kind that makes you look at things differently."

Audry lifts her head slightly. "I dreamed one today," she says half heartedly.

Ollan turns toward her, interested. "Does it end well?"

Eileen smiles faintly. "I know just the one Ollan, I'll go first." Her voice softens as she shifts slightly in the chair, her fingers tracing the edge of her shawl where it pools across her lap. "This is a story my grandmother used to tell me," she begins, "though I think it told itself long before either of us knew how to speak its language."

The room settles, the candle flickers a little lower, even Fenn stops adjusting his paws to simply listen.

"There once was a house at the edge of a salt field," Eileen says. "The kind of field where the wind never rests and the sky forgets what season it is. The house there wasn't large. It had only one window and a red tiled roof that sang when the wind got strong enough. No one lived there either, except for one lonely kettle."

Ollan shifts slightly, lifting an eyebrow. "A kettle that lives in a house? How lonely it must be."

"Yes," Eileen replies, assuredly. "How lonely it must have been." Eileen then continues, "One lonely kettle, cast iron and round. Lived in the middle of this house and sat on a stone it liked very much. The kettle never boiled, but it was always warm and in a way it learned to listen."

Audry does not laugh, though her blanket sinks just slightly from her mouth.

"You see most people don't notice warm things beyond how they keep them warm," Eileen says, "but the kettle was different. If you sat beside it long enough, it would tell you things. Not out loud, and not with pictures, but in the way your bones remembered, in a way your spine reminds you. But you had to stay still because if you fidgeted, it would go quiet again."

The rocking chair creaks faintly as she shifts.

"Over time, things began to find the kettle. Usually just pieces of them, questions unanswered, ghosts of decisions not made. Once even the scent of rosemary arrived before the wind and stayed for three days more then was required. Another time, a single coin rolled through the window and stayed warm on the counter until the sun came back to claim it."

Ollan squints. "But no one lives there?"

"No one," Eileen repeats. "Not in the usual way anyway. For this house has no doors, only a single window. And that window only opens if something needs remembering."

She waits a moment, then continues. "Until one winter, a young girl arrived but she didn't come by road. She walked across the salt field barefoot, her shoes tied around her neck with twine. Her coat was too large, and she carried a lantern that didn't hold a flame. Just the idea of one made from ashes long since spent. She didn't knock either, she just climbed through the window. Sitting beside the kettle to wait."

Fenn's ears twitch.

"Wherein she sat for a long time in the kettles company and the longer she stayed, the more warmth seeped into her knees and into the places behind her eyes where old stories gather long after they've been caught. And only then, did the kettle remind her of something her mother said, to always listen to your heart."

Eileen's eyes move to the candle, though her voice remains steady.

"Then the girl took her shoes and placed them beside the kettle, reaching into her coat and pulling out a bird. It wasn't alive, but it had been once even though its feathers were made of yarn, and its heart was a folded note. Still the girl treasured the bird and she placed the bird beside the shoes and asked the kettle if it would remember both of them too."

Ollan speaks into the hush. "Did it?"

Eileen nods. "Of course, the kettle remembers everything it is given, even if it doesn't say yes or no."

There is a quiet between words, filled with a flickering flame and the sound of motes bumping happily near the ceiling.

"The girl stayed through the night then and when morning came, she took nothing with her. Not the bird, not the shoes, not the note, no stop gaps for her heart. Only the warmth given to her by the kettle, a reminder of listening to herself and so she walked across the salt field without leaving footprints."

Audry stares at the fire now, her expression unreadable.

"Until later that very year," Eileen says, "a feather appeared on the kettle, not part of the bird of yarn. Just a feather from another memory given to the kettle. Curled at the tip, like it had tried to fly too close to something it shouldn't. A gentle reminder from that song in all of our hearts of how little memory's can give us warmth in the most uncertain of times, helping us all grow slightly brighter."

She pauses, her voice soft now.

Ollan leans his chin on his knees again. "Is it still there?" he asks. "That house on the...?"

Eileen's eyes flick back to him, her smile slow and sure. "Somewhere," she says. "It always appears to the little girl when she needs a reminder of warmth."

Audry doesn't speak right away. Her blanket has slipped to her chest, her hands fisted gently in the folds. Fenn hasn't moved, but his eyes are fixed on her now.

When Audry finally lifts her gaze, she doesn't look at Eileen, she looks at the walls where shadows might roam. Her voice is quiet, but certain. "I think I saw a feather like that," she says. "Today... in the woods."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Eileen does not reply. "I think," Audry says slowly, "I might need to tell that story too."

Eileen folds her hands. "Then we'll listen."

"There was a girl," Audry begins, her voice barely above breath, "but she wasn't made from the right story. She had too many names in her head and not enough in her mouth. Some of the names were hers but some of them belonged to someone else."

"She lived in a house that breathed, just enough that you noticed if you were paying attention. The house gave her soup and jam and a quiet place to think. It made space where her thoughts could sit without biting."

"One day, a feather landed outside like it had arrived just for her. The girl picked it up and didn't ask why, it felt like something she was supposed to do. She tucked it behind her ear and went outside. There was a trail, not one she remembered being there before but long and welcoming. The feathers kept showing up too, one by one, to show the path forward so she followed them."

Ollan leans forward, almost imperceptibly. Fenn does not move from the door but his gaze remains fixed on her.

"They led her into the woods, but not the usual woods. This one was listening, every step made quieter then the next. The trees weren't wrong, but they weren't polite either. They looked like they'd been leaning too long in one direction and forgot how to stop."

"She followed the feathers to a clearing that was perfect. As if no wind had touched it forever. The air inside the clearing heavier and yet her feet knew not to cross it."

"For a creature was already there, it looked like a deer from far away. But up close, it was made of hunger and remembering. It held a bird in its mouth, not a dead one, just one that had forgotten how to leave."

"Until that girl said something, she doesn't remember what. But her mouth shaped the word like it was something she meant. And the creature… it didn't answer. It just tilted its face in that long way that those who are broken do and let her see how empty it was inside."

"She would've stayed too, maybe they could've chatted, maybe a friendship could have been had. But something else was watching. Not the trees, nor the deer or the bird. Something small and loud and full of teeth and love. It knocked her sideways, knocked the feathers off her and it cleared her mind, it knocked the wrongness out of her breath."

"She doesn't remember how she got back though. Just that the world was bigger again and a familiar reminder of how warm the stew was."

Audry looks down at her hands, curled in the blanket.

"I don't know if the deer followed me," she says quietly. "But I think it was keeping a list."

Eileen simply leans forward, and with the gentlest motion, places one hand on Audrey's shoulder not to fix, not to soothe, only to hold the edge of the moment still. "Then I'm glad you found your way home."

The kitchen has quieted. Most of the bowls have been cleared and the steam from the stew pot has thinned into the corners of the room, clinging to the rafters like a thought no one decided to finish. Eileen moves slowly, not out of tiredness, but out of ritual. She wipes the lip of the kettle even though it hasn't spilled, checks the position of the wooden spoon resting on the counter. William leans against the far wall, drying a mug that doesn't seem to need it. His eyes flick occasionally toward the window, where the mist still thickens in patient folds.

Xozo sits on the bench with the cusions, her knees drawn up and her chin tucked halfway to her collarbone. Her snakes have coiled in sleep, or something like it. Except for one of them who rests its head near her temple, unmoving, but still watching.

William speaks first, but not to anyone in particualr. His voice is like someone tapping a book they haven't opened in a while. "The feathers that were in Audry's hair," he says, "and the ones I found in Fenn's coat. I don't believe they were natural and I'm worried they were meant to lay a map."

Eileen glances toward him but says nothing at his comment for she herself knew little yet as to this dungeon' machinations. William then turns his mug slightly in his hand. "Most likely it's a ritual pattern. I've seen a similar setup deployed by the factions within the Ebony Quills. The overlapping gridwork is designed to funnel dissonance into a live vessel, but it's not used anymore, we goblins simply couldn't handle that kind of pain, the ritual would unravel to quickly and it came with too many side effects." His voice is quiet but shaped like he's naming something a fragment of memory that twists his stomach tighter and tighter.

Xozo lifts her head, alert all at once.

"Oh... oh, yes. Yes. Yes, that makes sense. I've heard of that ritual before, sort of. Well, not... exactly, me. But I know someone, she works with a quill adjacent group."

William doesn't respond at first, he lets the mug clink once as he sets it down on the table.

Xozo straightens, sitting taller. "She's not a Quill, but she understands interference. Soul mapping, ambient corrections, resonance filtering. She's certified in alignment tier strategy, spiral path diagnostics, ritual optimization networks..."

William raises a brow as Xozo's list goes on and on, until she stops and swallows.

She tries again, "I mean... she's a soul mentor. Very highly placed, she helped me get started in the residual program I was telling Eileen about. She could help Audry, or, um, the whole cottage, really. If the Ebony Quills are trying to... whatever they're trying, she'd know how to stop it."

Eileen is still now, hands folded lightly over her apron, as if considering how full the air has become. William tilts his head and asks with the faintest breath of amusement, "Is that one of those distributors schemes the lower nobles are always fussing with?"

Xozo blinks. "No, its nothing like that. It's a spiral, its organic, its hierarchical. Everyone uplifts everyone, you just need to reach the center of the spiral to get the most effect from it."

There is a pause long enough for the kettle to hum without boiling and Eileen brushes one thumb along the edge of the counter. She does not challenge the shape of the explanation, only places it in a drawer she'll come back to later for William too had certainly seemed skeptical of Xozo's explanation. "And you believe this spiral expert can help uncover whatever this dungeon ritual is?

Xozo nods, hopeful in a way that's trying not to beg. "I think it would help us a lot. She knows things, old things, about the Quills, about structures, and we can meet her tomorrow. I know the perfect way in too."

William does not speak, but his mouth shifts slightly, the corners pulling just enough to betray thought. Eileen does not look at him, though she catches the expression anyway. Instead her attention rests on the cloth beside the teapot, her fingers brushing it with the absent care of someone smoothing tension out of a table that is already clean.

"Do tell," she says. Xozo draws in a breath, sits forward on the bench, her knees still pulled close. "It's my attunement debut," she says. "It's hosted by a spiral affiliated cohort of friends and family who support my claim. There'll be a licensed alignment ring, sanctioned observers, layered readings, all above board as decorum dictates." She hesitates, then adds, "An event, structured enough to matter. But still open enough that I won't be questioned on bringing a friend."

Eileen says nothing, but the cloth beneath her fingers stops moving.

"You two could come with me as guests," Xozo continues, her voice finding confidence now that it has direction. "Advisors, technically. Most of the attention will be on me though, especially as first time advisors. But I actually think that works for us, no one will question first time advisors. There will be too much going on to stop either of you."

William turns his head just slightly, enough to bring her into his peripheral vision. "So, a ritual recital," he says tired in the way that people are when they've begun to see the many things they once believe in as just dressing wrapped in ceremony.

"It's not just for show or for cover, I really do need to be there for it." Xozo says. "But it does give us cover. You can meet the expert in person, they will be attending the event. She's part of the facilitation tier and so if you're there with me, I can make the introduction naturally."

William shifts his weight, one hand resting lightly, his gaze lingers not on Xozo, but on the doorway that leads down the hall, where the hush of sleeping rooms remains untouched. He nods once, not to agree but to acknowledge he's heard everything she's said. Then he shakes his head, slow and final.

"I won't be going," he says.

Xozo blinks, caught off guard. "But you..."

"William's right love, Audry and Ollan will need a good break fest tomorrow morning and a steady routine will help Audry process her trauma. I'll make a quiche too, so that you can reheat it for them William."

William watches her for a moment, then nods again. "I'll go out in the morning then to the garden and gather up a gift for the ceremony, we can't let the two of you go empty handed."

Eileen smiles without showing teeth and Xozo doesn't quite smile either, but something in her breath eases. The kind of exhale that comes from being trusted enough to be doubted out loud.