Whispers of the Past

Elder Rhubard’s study was a symphony of muted colours and hushed rustles. Scrolls, brittle with age, were stacked precariously on every surface, their edges softened like well-chewed gum. The air itself felt thick with the ghosts of forgotten thoughts, a scent of dust and something faintly sweet, like overripe fruit. I traced the faded symbols on a scroll with a hesitant finger, my own gum form, usually a vibrant, malleable shade of rose, feeling strangely stiff and unresponsive in this hallowed space.

“The echoes of the past are not always loud, Anya,” Elder Rhubard rumbled, his voice like the soft squish of old rubber. He sat behind a desk carved from a single, enormous piece of petrified gum, his own form a deep, earthy brown, etched with the lines of centuries. “Sometimes, they are mere whispers, carried on the breeze of memory.”

He had called me here after the incident in the courtyard, after my gaze had, quite unintentionally, softened the alarming cracks spreading across a statue of the first ruler. My heart had pounded a frantic rhythm against my ribs, a mixture of fear and a strange, exhilarating curiosity. The elders, especially Kael, had looked at me with narrowed, suspicious eyes. But Elder Rhubard… he had looked at me with something akin to hope.