Frames of Liora: 5 Liora and the River That Remembered Nothing

Far beyond the last village, a river wound through the land. It was a curious river: memories solidified along its banks into smooth stones. Travellers would throw their recollections into the current, and the river would hold them — or not. Each observer saw different stones form, each reflecting only what they had witnessed, what they had thought, or what they had feared.

Scholars came to catalogue these stones, hoping to assemble a complete archive. But every attempt failed. Stones appeared and disappeared depending on who watched, where they stood, and the time of day. The river’s memory was never integrable, never a single ledger of events.

Liora stepped into the cool water, letting it swirl around her ankles. She reached down, brushing her fingers across the stones. The moment she touched one, it glimmered, rearranged itself, then dissolved into ripples.

She smiled. The river did not forget. It did not fail. It responded. Each memory, each stone, each ripple was fully real — but only locally, only in relation to the observer. There was no universal archive, no totalised river, no singular truth to capture.

When she walked along the bank, the stones shifted beneath her gaze. A child skipping ahead saw her own memories solidify into stepping stones; an elder, resting beneath a willow, saw the same moments wash away. Each experience was valid, each actualisation complete — yet no combination could ever produce a singular river of all memories.

Liora knelt, letting her hands trace the water’s patterns. She realised that inhabiting the river required no attempt at totality. One could step into it, move with it, touch it, and participate in its flowing truths without demanding a ledger of all events.

At sunset, she left the river, carrying only a smooth stone in her hand — warm, impermanent, and full of memory that mattered only where she could see it. The river continued to wind, to remember, to forget, and to respond — utterly alive, and utterly local.

And somewhere beyond the horizon, the river awaited the next observer, ready to make new stones that could never all be known, but could always be experienced.

Frames of Liora: 4 Liora and the Festival of Mirrors

Once a year, the village of Seralis held a festival unlike any other. Hundreds of mirrors were placed in every alley, courtyard, and square. Each mirror reflected a slightly different version of the festival: in some, children danced; in others, merchants hawked their goods; in others still, lanterns floated silently through the night. No two reflections were ever identical.

Visitors came, marvelling at the spectacle — and soon grew frustrated. “Which is the real festival?” they demanded. “Which reflection shows the truth?”

Liora wandered among the mirrors, tilting her head, letting the light catch her eyes. She watched as one reflection danced to a tune that did not exist in the air around her, while another mirrored the crowd’s laughter perfectly.

She understood at once: the mirrors did not lie. Each reflected a local actualisation of the festival, coherent in its own space, yet irreducible to a single global scene. No reflection contained the whole; the festival was not a puzzle to be solved but a network of lived events, each valid where it appeared.

She knelt beside a small mirror in the corner, where no one else seemed to notice. There, a child’s shadow danced alone, untethered to the rest of the festival. Liora smiled. The mirror did not compete with the others; it simply existed, and in doing so, gave shape to a part of the festival that might otherwise have gone unseen.

When the villagers returned home that night, many argued over which mirrors had shown the “correct” festival. Liora walked away carrying none of their certainties, only the memory of dancing shadows, floating lanterns, and laughter refracted endlessly. She had learned what the mirrors already knew: the festival could be fully inhabited without ever being fully known.

Frames of Liora: 3 Liora and the Mountain That Was Two

Beyond the valleys where rivers forgot their names, two villages lay on opposite sides of a single mountain. From the first village, it rose green and lush, crowned with flowers that glimmered in the sunlight. From the second, it loomed gray and jagged, cliffs cutting shadows into the mist. Scholars and travelers alike insisted there must be one “true mountain,” but every attempt to reconcile the views ended in argument.

Liora arrived at dawn, carrying only a pack and a quiet patience. She walked along the ridge that separated the two villages, listening first to the songs of the green slopes, then to the sighs of the barren cliffs. Each perspective was vivid, undeniable, but they could not be layered into one coherent image. The mountain itself seemed to resist the demand.

When she began to climb, she saw both sides at once: petals drifting into mist, jagged rocks reaching skyward, streams winding between them like hesitant lines. They were the same mountain, and yet not the same. Each view was true, each form actualised for the observer who stood there. To demand unity was to impose an impossibility.

The villagers gathered to watch her ascent. They asked, “Which side is the real mountain?”

She shook her head. “It is neither,” she said. “And it is both. But it cannot be fully seen from anywhere but here, where you stand.”

She traced the mountain’s contours with her hands, letting her fingers follow every slope, every crevice, every bloom. The air shifted with her motion, light catching petals and stones differently as she moved. She realised then that the mountain was not a singular object to be catalogued; it was a landscape of perspectives, each actualised in relation to a local observer.

By sunset, Liora returned to the ridge. She left no notes, no maps, only a sense of awe. The scholars, still arguing about which side was correct, had missed the lesson: the mountain did not need to be integrated to be real. It existed, profoundly and fully, in every perspective that met it.

Liora smiled and walked on. Somewhere beyond the ridge, another horizon awaited — one that could not be captured in a single glance, yet could be inhabited by those willing to step into it.