Chapter 49:

Chapter 49. Rain

The House in the Woods. Part 1

The stones rejected him first.
Not with violence, no—
but with a subtle shift beneath his feet.
The earth bristled, curled, like a cat turning its back.
The smooth grass grew bristly,
bramble-born,
as if saying—

“You have no more business here.”

Ydoc let out a snort.
Low. Dry.
It wasn’t cruel—
but it was tired.

“Fine.”

He stood.

He didn't need this stone-hedge, anyway.
Not with the way it twisted away from him,
like even the old stones believed he was the problem.

So he walked—
off the rise,
down a gentle hill—
until he found a patch of moss and mud just wild enough not to care who sat upon it.

And then he simply sat.
Letting the world… continue.

The rain did not pour.

It began like a hush.
Like the whisper of a secret,
told too close to the ear.

Soft.
Slow.
Tender.

Not the summer kind, no—
this was a sorrow rain.

The kind that leaves no thunder,
no lightning,
only the sound of the sky pressing its face into the earth and…
breathing.

It hit his shoulders with cold fingers.
Gentle.
Like a tap on the shoulder from someone who didn’t know what to say,
but wanted to say something anyway.

And the smell—
oh, the smell.
Not of rot or soil.

But of…
blueberry.

Not strong.
Not candy.
But like the juice of a wild berry pressed underfoot—
a scent that reminded him of a time he couldn’t place.
A time he wished he remembered.

He tilted his head.
Let a drop kiss his lips.
Let another fall to his tongue.

“...Oh.”

Sweet.
Not overly.
But enough to taste care.
As if the Divide itself wanted to ease his pain.

Tiny streams began to form.
The rain, as slow as it was, knew how to find paths.
Just like grief.
Like memory.

The little trickles curved around fallen leaves,
wrapped themselves around roots and small stones,
joined up with cousins to become something more.

He watched one form beside him.
A single thread of water carving its own way down a divot in the moss.

It glistened.
Clear, but tinted faintly blue.
Not the blue of sky or ocean—
but the blue of longing.
Of lost songs.

“Froosta would’ve loved this.”
he murmured.

“Vexira too, if she could sit still long enough to taste the rain.”

His lips twitched.
Not a smile, not quite.

But something less broken.

He reached out.
Ran two fingers through the stream beside him.
It tickled his skin—cool, kind.
He cupped a little in his hand.

Watched as it held itself together like a ribbon of silk.
Then slipped through the cracks in his fingers.
Gone.
But not angry.
Never angry.

The forest watched.
It did not speak.
But it held.

The leaves above didn’t rustle.
They listened.
The sky didn’t roar.
It wept—softly, gently.
As if learning how to cry for the first time.

And Ydoc,
stranger,
wanderer,
raven-thing that he was,

sat still in that storm.

And for the first time in many pages—
he was not running.

He was simply being.

Somewhere, the trees whispered.
Somewhere, a lantern was lit—
not by a hand, but by the will of a moment.
For in the Divide… moments matter.

Ydoc sat still, the blueberry rain tracing lines down his face,
but his gaze was no longer turned inward.

Instead—
he looked to the world.
Their world.

The Divide.

They were in the Outskirts of Fall now.
A realm of damp gold and tired fire.
Where every leaf looked like a letter never mailed.
Where every breeze seemed to carry someone else’s story.

And here…
here was the Crossroad.
A stitched-together patch of different realms.
Where frost met mulch,
where whispers from Spring bumped shoulders with the old men of Autumn.

A well-trodden path—
boots, hooves, and paws had crossed this road.
It remembered everyone.

Nearby stood a bridge—
one of those impossibly old ones.
Oak bones and ash sinew.
It arched gracefully over a rising river,
wooden slats still whole after centuries.

No carvings.
No graffiti.
But if you leaned close…
you could swear it hummed.
A lullaby, maybe.
Maybe a secret.

The river it crossed was bloated now—
the rain feeding it generously.
A living ribbon of cold, gurgling laughter and sighs.
Fish flicked their fins near the surface—
small and silver, like loose coins someone tossed in on a wish.

But it was what lay beside the river that caught Ydoc’s eye.

Tiny ponds, shallow and purposeful.
With little reeds shaped into playful twists—
channels and dams no bigger than a plate.

And tending them?

Pixies.

Not the fluttering, mischief-making kind.
No, these were Tenders—
a caste of delicate gardeners,
each no bigger than a plum,
their hands caked in moss and joy.

They worked with care—
bending reeds to steer water,
guiding the river’s excess into tiny sacred pools.
And within those pools?

Eggs.

Soft, opalescent little things,
resting like dreams waiting to hatch.

One Pixie adjusted a current with her whole body,
pressing her back against a leaf like a dam worker.
Another stitched a leaf-roof over a stone—
shelter, perhaps, from the rain.

A third adjusted a Frog like a sentry.

Bright cyan and yellow,
painted with careful hands.
Markings like war paint, like heraldry.
A declaration:

“I protect this garden.”

He even had a beard.
Thin, green, mossy—
a symbol of age, of rank, perhaps.

Ydoc stared.
Mouth slightly parted.
Not in surprise.
But in reverence.

He had never belonged to something like this.

He was sitting beside another world.
A life he would never live.

Not in malice.
Not in punishment.
Just in truth.

Because he was Ydoc.
Whatever that meant.

The Divide held these moments like treasures.
It didn’t brag.
Didn’t demand you look.
But if you did—

You would see love.

Everywhere.