At the far edge of the plain, where the wind travelled without interruption and the soil thinned into almost-form, Liora found a gate.
It was not locked.
It did not even appear closed.
It was simply there, like a pause in the air.
Beyond it lay a garden.
Not orderly rows, not wild abandon — something in between. Blossoms rose in spirals, in lattices, in asymmetries that almost repeated. Petals shimmered in colours that refused to settle into single tones. Leaves held veins like branching rivers, each bifurcation precise, deliberate.
As Liora stepped inside, a sound rose.
“Velith.”
She turned.
A pale blue flower inclined toward her.
“Velith,” it said again, softly, as though reminding itself.
Liora smiled.
“Is that your name?” she asked.
The flower trembled, and the tremor changed its hue — now silver at the edges.
“Thalen,” it said.
From behind her, another voice called, brighter, sharper:
“Velith!”
A red blossom opened wider, petals curling back as though amused.
Liora looked from one to the other.
“You share a name?”
The blue flower dimmed slightly.
“I was Velith,” it said, almost apologetically.
The red blossom flickered.
“I am Velith,” it declared.
A third voice, somewhere deeper in the garden, whispered:
“Velith.”
And then laughter — not mocking, not cruel — a rustle of leaves shifting in windless air.
Liora walked further in.
Everywhere she stepped, the garden spoke.
“Anor.”
“Sereth.”
“Thalen.”
Sometimes the same name leapt from three different blossoms at once. Sometimes a single bloom spoke a new name each time the light shifted across its petals.
Near the centre of the garden, she found a group of travellers.
They stood with notebooks and measuring cords. Stakes marked the ground. Strings stretched between blossoms.
One traveller crouched before a cluster of violet flowers, brow furrowed.
“It’s inconsistent,” he muttered. “Yesterday this one was Anor. Now it insists it is Sereth.”
Another traveller shook her head. “No. You misheard. That one has always been Sereth. The red bloom beside it was Anor.”
“It was not.”
“It was.”
They began to argue — not loudly, but with tightening voices.
Liora knelt beside them.
“Are you mapping the names?” she asked gently.
“We are trying to fix them,” the first traveller said. “If each bloom would simply retain its designation, the structure would reveal itself.”
“The garden must have a stable taxonomy,” the second added. “Otherwise it is meaningless.”
As if overhearing, a golden blossom turned toward them.
“Taxo,” it sang.
Then, after a pause:
“Velith.”
The travellers groaned.
Liora did not.
She closed her eyes.
The garden was not random. Beneath the flux of naming she sensed rhythm — patterns of recurrence, spirals of sound. Certain syllables clustered near particular colours. Certain tonalities echoed across specific distances. Names shifted, but not arbitrarily.
The garden was not failing to stabilise.
It was refusing to reduce.
She opened her eyes and addressed the nearest blossom.
“Who are you?” she asked.
The blossom shimmered.
“Sereth.”
A breeze — or something like one — passed over it.
“Anor.”
Liora nodded.
“Thank you.”
She stood and began to walk slowly between the rows. Each step altered the light. Each alteration shifted the names spoken around her.
Where she lingered, certain sounds recurred. Where she turned away, new clusters emerged.
She began to hum — not a melody imposed from outside, but an echo of what she heard: Velith-Anor-Sereth-Thalen, braided together, rising and falling.
The garden answered.
Not with agreement.
With elaboration.
Behind her, one traveller looked up.
“She isn’t fixing anything,” he whispered.
“No,” said the other. “She’s listening.”
Liora reached a clearing at the heart of the garden. There stood a single white bloom, almost translucent.
It did not speak.
She waited.
Light shifted across its surface.
“Velith,” it said at last.
Then, softer:
“Anor.”
Then nothing.
Liora placed her hand near it — not touching, merely near.
“You do not need to remain,” she said quietly. “You are not held by a single sound.”
The bloom brightened, then thinned, as if exhaling.
Around the clearing, the chorus swelled — names overlapping, diverging, rejoining. Not chaos. Not fixed order. A field of patterned possibility.
Liora turned back toward the travellers.
“You will not find a final map,” she told them kindly. “But you may find a music.”
They looked at her, uncertain.
“Without stable names,” one protested, “how do we know what anything is?”
She smiled.
“You know it by how it answers.”
A pause.
A red blossom called, bright and clear:
“Velith!”
The blue one responded, laughing:
“Sereth!”
The golden one added:
“Anor.”
The travellers listened.
For the first time, they did not attempt to correct.
They heard recurrence.
Variation.
Constraint without fixation.
As Liora approached the gate once more, the garden grew quiet.
One last whisper followed her out onto the plain:
“Liora.”
She turned.
No single blossom claimed it.
The name hovered — not attached, not owned — a tone in the air.
She bowed her head in acknowledgment.
Then she walked on, leaving behind a garden that did not need to be fixed in order to flourish.
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