Then, she looked up, directly at me. I hadn’t moved, hadn’t made a sound, yet she seemed to sense my focused attention. She held up the inert shard, tapping its dark surface with one finger. Then she pointed toward the canopy, toward the memory of the sky, and made a series of short, sharp sounds, the alien cadence of her language. She tapped the shard again, then gestured between it and the marks she’d made on the bark, her expression intent, earnest. She was communicating and trying to explain.
The sounds meant nothing, the gestures were abstract, yet theintentwas unmistakable. She was trying to bridge the chasm between us, offering a glimpse into the function of the dead object, into her world. It was a fragile gesture, fraught with the impossibility of understanding, yet undeniably offered.
I remained still, processing the attempt, the vulnerability of it, the profound shift from silent captive to someone reaching out across the void. The air thickened, charged not just with confinement, but with the electric potential of connection, however faint, however tentative.
The sanctuary hummed its low, constant song. The trickle of water, the soft pulse of the luminous flora, the whisper of air currents through the high foliage. Sienna sat near the edge of her designated space, scratching lines onto another piece of bark, her focus inward. The quiet rhythm held, familiar and stable.
Crack, screech!
The sound ripped through the enclave’s harmony, sharp, violent, echoing unnaturally off the stone walls. It came fromdeeper within, beyond the waterfall, where the shadows lay thickest. Not the sound of wind or water, but something heavy, stressed, giving way with jarring force. A potential disruption. A threat.
Before the echo of the crash even began to fade, the Vow surged through me.Protect. Shield.Thought dissolved into pure reflex. In the space between breaths, my form unfolded from the shadows, a silent, explosive force covering the distance to plant myself between her and the disturbance. My back to her, I became a living wall of root and sinew, every sense straining toward the threat. Silence crashed back, heavy with the scent of her spiked fear.
The danger proved to be nothing but a large branch, weakened by internal decay, finally succumbed to its own weight. As the echoes died, I felt her frantic energy subside, replaced by a trembling awareness. I relaxed my stance, but the silence that resettled between us felt different, charged. The raw, instinctual nature of my protection had been laid bare.
In the cycles that followed, the sharp quartz sliver found a new purpose. The frantic edge in Sienna was gone, replaced by a quiet, intense absorption. She gathered pieces of dark bark, at first documenting the sanctuary around her—the fractal patterns of moss, the interplay of light and mist, the delicate structures of fern and fauna.
Her focus shifted from me to a small, skittering creature near the edge of the pool—a shimmer beetle, its carapace catching the light in iridescent waves. It attempted to climb a particularly slick, mossy stone, sliding back down comically three times in a row. On its fourth attempt, it flailed its tiny legs, flipped onto its back, and wriggled uselessly.
A sound erupted from Sienna, sharp and utterly unexpected. It was not a cry of pain or a whimper of fear. It was a laugh. A short, breathless burst of pure, unadulterated amusement.The sound, so alien in this place of quiet reverence and her constant tension, struck me with the force of a sunbeam piercing the deepest gloom. It was the sound of life, vibrant and unrestrained. It did not grate against the grove’s harmony but became the most beautiful note in its ancient song.
I felt a strange vibration deep in my chest, a low, soft rumble that had nothing to do with threat or speech. It was the resonance of amusement, a feeling so ancient and unused it felt new. The light in my core, the essence that served as my eyes, pulsed with a warmer, gentler glow. The Vow demanded I protect her life, but in that moment, hearing her laugh, I felt a powerful, undeniable pull to protect herjoy. It was a feeling entirely separate from duty, a current that flowed directly from her to me, unsettling and deeply compelling.
One period, as the sanctuary’s internal light cycle dimmed toward its deepest shadow, a ripple began near the base of the waterfall. The lumen-kelp, usually emitting a soft, steady blue, started to pulse erratically. The pulses intensified, spreading outward, igniting adjacent clusters.
Waves of brilliant azure light washed across the stone walls, chasing the shadows back, painting Sienna’s still form in fleeting, electric hues. The intensity grew, the blues deepening to violet, then shifting momentarily to an incandescent silver that illuminated every crevice, every water droplet, every strand of moss with unnatural clarity. It was a rare, synchronized surge, a silent symphony of light unique to this deep sanctuary.
My attention was fixed on the display, a familiar yet always awe-inspiring event. The energy hummed, almost audible. Then, I registered her stillness. She wasn’t sketching, wasn’t sleeping. She sat near the edge of her boundary, utterly motionless, her head tilted upward, face bathed in the shifting blues and silvers. Her posture lacked the coiled tension of fear. Instead, there wasa focused absorption, her eyes wide, reflecting the cascading light.
We watched, separated by the invisible line of her confinement yet united by the spectacle unfolding before us. Her breathing was slow, even. My own ancient systems registered the beauty, the power. For that span of time, the roles of captor and captive seemed to dissolve, replaced by two consciousnesses witnessing the same natural marvel. No words passed. No gestures were needed. There was only the shared observation, the proximity, the silent acknowledgment of the phenomenon washing over us both.
Then, as gradually as it began, the surge subsided. The light softened, the pulses slowed, returning to their gentle, rhythmic blue glow. The shadows crept back, reclaiming the corners.
Sienna blinked, slowly, as if emerging from a trance. She drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, but her gaze lingered on the now softly glowing kelp beds. The underlying tension of our situation remained, a low hum beneath the quiet, but for a brief interval, it had been momentarily eclipsed.
The echoes of the light surge faded, leaving a stillness that felt different, maybe less empty, more contemplative. The creature, Sienna, remained seated, her posture less guarded than before. The shared moment lingered, a thin, shimmering thread in the vast space between us. I resumed my motionless vigil, the ancient rhythms of the sanctuary pulsing faintly through me.
Then, she shifted. Slowly, deliberately, she turned her body fully toward my alcove. I felt her gaze lock onto me, not with the analytical focus of her sketching, nor the sharp edge of fear, but with a new, direct intensity. Her hands, small and pale in the dim light, lifted hesitantly. One hand swept outward, encompassing the luminous moss, the dripping stalactites, theshadowed recesses, the very air of this deep place. Then, her other hand gestured toward me, toward my rooted form.
Her mouth opened. Sounds emerged, shaped into the querying inflections I had learned to parse. “Why?” The single syllable hung in the air, sharp and clear. She paused, gathering herself, her eyes fixed on mine. “What is this place… to you?” Another pause, the silence stretching. “Whatkeepsyou here?”
The questions struck not as noise, but as focused intent.Purpose. Connection. Binding.The core of her query resonated against the bedrock of my existence. Why?
Instantly, the Vow surged within me, not as a command this time, but as the fundamental truth of my being. Ancient. Absolute. It was the reason the stone held its shape, the reason the water flowed, the reason the light pulsed. It simplywas. This sanctuarywas. And Iwasits guardian. Bound? Kept? These were frail, temporary words for a reality woven into the fabric of millennia, into the very essence of this place.
How could I translate that? How could I shape the immensity of the Vow, the weight of ages, the sacred charge, into the fleeting vibrations of her speech? Words like ‘duty,’ ‘oath,’ and ‘protection’ felt like pebbles trying to describe a mountain range. They would convey nothing of the truth, only a pale, distorted reflection. To speak would be to diminish, to mislead.
Her gaze remained locked on me, expectant, vulnerable in her seeking. The fragile thread spun during the light surge frayed under the weight of her direct question, exposing the unbridgeable chasm between her understanding and my reality. The air grew heavy again, the silence thickening, charged now not with shared wonder, but with her unanswered need and my profound inability to meet it in any way she could comprehend.
I offered no sound, no movement. My stillness became the answer. Let the silence convey the depth, the age, the otherness that words could not touch. Let it underscore the mysteryshe perceived. The Vow demanded guardianship, protection, and preservation, not explanation. Silence was the only truth I possessed that she might, eventually, begin to grasp. The tension stretched taut, the gulf between us reaffirmed.
THE WEIGHT OF THE VOW
Sienna
The silence stretched after my questions, thick and heavy as the damp air. Kauri remained utterly still in his shadowed alcove, a statue carved from bark, moss, and ancient secrets. Disappointment settled cold and familiar in my stomach. Of course, he wouldn’t answer. Why had I even dared to ask? I hugged my knees tighter, turning my gaze away from his inscrutable form, back toward the softly pulsing lights near the waterfall. Expecting answers here was as foolish as expecting sunlight.
But then, something changed. It wasn’t a sound, not at first, but a shift in the quality of his stillness. A tension gathered, like the air before a storm. Slowly, ponderously, he moved. Not with the startling speed he’d shown before, but with immense deliberation. He stepped from the deepest shadows, his massive form catching the ambient blue light.
