Waters of Elyrun

In days of the ancient boughs, there lived two daughters - sisters born beneath the same shade, their antlers crowned with amber beauty, their eyes holding the amber of autumn’s last light. The velvet forests knew their treading, the moss held the softness of their step, and the dark limbs of the trees bent to hear their laughter echo through the hollows.

But there came to them, the Legend of the Farpools. Oh, that tale! They spoke of waters that held the blush of rose petals and the breath of dawn sky, where cerulean and crimson swirled in eternal dance. They spoke of beauty that would not fade, of life that would not dim, of a gift given freely to any who found that hidden spring.

The sisters,they were entranced.And so, as all seekers of truth must, they departed. The forest that had cradled them watched with its thousand eyes as they passed beyond the known ways, beyond the paths where even the Watchers - dared not place their feet.

It was the Myst that called them. Myst- that which is neither water nor air, neither dream nor waking, but something that moves between. It curled before them like a beckoning finger, like a ribbon of silk pulled by an unseen hand. Where it led, they followed. Where it twisted, they turned.

And then - oh, then - they found it.

The Farpools lay before them as a promise fulfilled, as beauty imagined made manifest. Pink as the inside of a shell, blue as the moment before stars appear, the waters moved with their own slow breathing. Steam rose in tendrils, in ribbons, in veils that danced and reformed, never still, never silent - for even the Myst has its own song, if you listen close enough.

The sisters stood upon the bank, and the forest held its breath.

They shed their cloaks. They shed their fears. They shed all that they had carried from the velvet forests of home. And they sat - simply sat—l - watching the waters curl and whisper, watching the rose and cerulean swirl in patterns that spoke of secrets too beautiful for words.

Then, slowly, as all momentous things are done, they lowered their feet into the waiting waters.

Perfect, the temperature was. Not warm, not cool, but that precise point where water and skin forget their difference, where boundary becomes suggestion rather than law. They felt it immediately - the softening, the gentle dissolution of hardness, the way the Farpools began their work with tenderness rather than force. Their skin grew luminous, their beauty blooming like flowers in time-turned-backward.

And the Myst, sensing their acceptance, began to thicken.

They waded deeper. Waist-high in waters that held the memory of every beautiful thing, they stood together, sisters still, even as they began to become somethingmore. A serene energy moved through them, not taking, buttransforming- their bodies softening not in weakness but in transcendence, their beauty no longer something worn but somethingbecome.

The Myst rose around them now, no longer gentle tendrils but walls, blankets, worlds of white and blue and pink. The forest disappeared. The sky vanished. There was only the waters, and the Myst, and the two sisters standing in that space between what was and what would be.

They turned to one another. Their eyes met, holding all the years they had been, all the life they had known. And then, with the certainty of those who have chosen their fate, they reached out and clasped hands - 

In unison.The Myst swelled. The colors swirled. The waters sang their final welcome.

And the sisters, with their antlers crowned in light, with their eyes reflecting the rose and Celeste of those eternal pools, stepped forward into the haze and were taken -  taken entire - by the Myst.

They were never seen again in the velvet forests. They never returned to the known paths, never walked again where Watchers tread.

But sometimes, when the evening haze rises through the home-waters, when the light catches just so through the branches, you can see them - two silhouettes with antlered crowns, dancing in the space between, their hands joined, their beauty eternal, their choice complete.

This is the tale. This is the warning. This is the wonder.

For the Farpools do not lie - they give exactly what they promise. But the Myst that guards them asks a price that few understand until it is too late to turn back: not your life, but yourworld. Not your beauty, but yourbelonging.

The sisters found what they sought. And in finding it, they became part of the seeking itself - forever dwelling in that place where longing and fulfilment are one, where the rose and cerulean waters hold them in eternal embrace, where the Myst is all, and all is Myst.

So it was. So it remains. So it shall be told, until the velvet hollow forgets their names.