Lore: Whisperfall Pools

Third day of the waning moon, winter

I walked to the Whisperfall Pools this morning, drawn by something I cannot name. The forest has been restless of late - not in any threatening sense, but rather as if it were turning over in its sleep, adjusting itself after a long dormancy. I have felt it in the way the Eldertrees hold their branches, in the quality of silence that settles between dusk and dark. Something is shifting beneath the roots.

The pools lie a short distance from one of the old waystations, those curious dwellings that appear when needed and vanish when they are not. The path winds between exposed roots that rise from the earth like the knuckles of some vast buried hand. I have walked this route many times over the years, yet today it felt different. The trees seemed to lean closer as I passed, branches held in an attitude I can only describe as attentive.

When I reached the basin, the mist lay thick across the water. Not drifting, as mist usually does, but settled. Purposeful. The pools themselves were still - that stillness that makes one hesitate before disturbing it, as if breaking the surface might interrupt some delicate working.

I stood at the edge for some time, simply watching. The water held a clarity that seemed impossible given the hour and the mist. I could see straight through to the bottom, yet what I saw was not the bottom at all, but something else entirely.

The stones beneath the water’s surface had become mirrors.

I have observed this phenomenon before, though never with such clarity. The pools do not always reflect what stands before them. Sometimes they show other things. Other places. I knelt at the water’s edge, peering into the mirrored stones, and my breath caught.

Instead of my own reflection, the stones showed forests that were not this forest. Trees grew in different patterns; their bark marked with runes that glowed blue instead of green. Through one canopy, I glimpsed a sky of such deep purple it looked bruised. Another stone showed silver leaves catching light that came from no visible source. A third revealed a sky of pale green, utterly alien, utterly beautiful.

Other MirMarnia’s, perhaps. Or other worlds entirely. I cannot say with certainty. The pools have never offered explanations, only visions.

I moved from stone to stone, documenting what I saw. Most showed empty landscapes - forests and skies and distant mountains - but one stone held something different.

A woodland appeared in its surface, ordinary in its way. Pale blue sky. Familiar trees. Yet there was sound bleeding through somehow, faint but distinct: the distant tumble of waves against shore, the cry of gulls. A coastline, then. Somewhere beyond the forest’s boundaries.

As I watched, a face appeared in the stone’s reflection.

A young girl, no more than eight or nine years old, with vibrant red hair that caught sunlight like copper wire and piercing green eyes. Her head tilted, curiosity bright in her features, and for a moment - a single, impossible moment - I had the distinct impression she was looking directly at me.

I froze, caught in that strange regard. Her mouth opened as if to speak, though no sound reached me. Then her attention shifted, drawn away by something I couldn’t see, and she was gone. The woodland remained, peaceful and empty, the distant waves continuing their song.

I have seen this girl before. Three times now, across as many months. Always in the pools. Always briefly. Each time, that same sense of recognition passes between us, as if we exist in adjacent moments, close enough to glimpse each other but separated by something I cannot name.

On the second occasion, I was startled to see not one red-haired girl but two, identical in every way, standing side by side at what appeared to be a shoreline. Both peered back at me with wide eyes, mouths forming perfect circles of surprise, as if they too were startled by this impossible connection. For a heartbeat, we simply stared at one another across whatever gulf separated us. Then both girls turned at once, called away by some voice I couldn’t hear, and vanished from the stone’s surface.

I sat back on my heels, heart racing, trying to make sense of what I had witnessed. Twins. The girl had a twin. Or perhaps she was simply appearing twice, folded against herself in the way these visions sometimes fold. I could not say.

I was still contemplating this when movement caught my eye in the same stone.

A great white dire wolf stepped into view where the girls had been.

Its fur was marked with runic patterns that shifted and glowed as it moved, symbols I did not recognise but which felt ancient beyond measure. The beast turned its head and looked directly at me through the water’s surface, its eyes holding an intelligence that was both terrifying and incredible.

I could not move. Could not breathe. The wolf’s gaze pinned me in place with an intensity that suggested recognition, as if it knew me, had always known me, though I had never laid eyes upon it before this moment.

We remained locked in that regard for what felt like an eternity but could only have been seconds. Then the wolf turned, unhurried, and walked back into the woodland from which it had emerged, disappearing between the trees as if it had never been.

I found myself on my feet without remembering standing, heart pounding against my ribs, every sense alive with the residue of that encounter. My hands were shaking. I had to sit down on the basin’s edge and wait for my breathing to steady before I could continue my observations.

She is real, the girl. I am certain of this, though I cannot explain how I know. Real, and existing somewhere - somewhen - beyond my reach. And the wolf... the wolf is real as well. Both looking back at me through the mirror-stones, both of them somehow aware of my presence in a way the other visions are not.

I remained by the pools until the sun reached midday. The visions faded as the light strengthened, the mirrored stones returning to their ordinary state, reflecting only sky and branch and my own weathered face peering down at them.

I cannot yet say what these visions mean. Whether they show possibility or memory, future or past, worlds that exist parallel to our own or simply reflections of what might have been. The pools do not offer answers. They only show and expect the observer to make what sense they can.

But I have begun to suspect that the Whisperfall Pools are not merely reflecting. They are revealing. Peeling back the layers between things. Showing the edges where one world touches another, where time folds against itself like cloth.

The forest is waking something. Or perhaps something is waking within the forest. Either way, the pools are the first place where that waking has broken the surface, where the boundaries have grown thin enough to see through.

I shall return tomorrow. There is more to learn here, and the pools, I think, have more to show me. Perhaps the red-haired girl will appear again. Perhaps she seeks understanding as I do, peering into her own pools or stones or whatever serves as mirror in her world, catching glimpses of another being in a forest she cannot reach.

The thought is both comforting and deeply unsettling. As is the memory of the white wolf’s knowing gaze.

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Olis
Scribe of MirMarnia