Portraits of the Divine

Stillness stretched across the painted world. Nothing moved around them, not the breeze, not the trees, not the puppet forms of those who had once been people. Even the sky, a canvas of inked stars, seemed to wait as if it was paused between scenes, unsure if the play should go on. Inside the cloth-skin of a hand puppet, something stirred, not a twitch, not a breath, but a memory. Soft and quiet, like the first glint of dawn through frost-fogged glass Joren could hear a voice, gentle and patient. "Careful with that, now. Stars don't rush to be known." Elira's words didn't echo in his mind, they hummed. Joren clung to it not as something to recall, but something to be remembered like a thread pulled from the dark. Then he heard another, this time lighter, precise, and a touch amused. "You ask too few questions for someone so curious. Try again." 

The stitches holding him began to loosen bit by bit. The illusion didn't crack, not yet, but he felt the pressure shift inside him. This wasn't where he belonged. This isn't who I am. Overhead, one of the stars trembled. A pinpoint of white once fixed in the painted sky flickered, then peeled away, sliding down the air like a scrap of paper loosening from a wall. "Sleep's not a weakness," Hazel used to say, brushing crumbs off his shirt before he went out to help in the fields. "Even the moon has to rest." He remembered her laughter and how she'd sit in her creaking chair after supper, boots off, fingers knotting bits of twine together just to keep busy. Another stitch inside him loosened. Willow twitched again beside him, a small sound escaped her lips like trying to remember how to shape words. Gus shifted too. His puppet-jointed knee kicked a little, like remembering how to move on your own. 

The three puppets couldn't tell how long they had been sitting there; time was impossible to determine with the limited consciousness they had. It could've been minutes, or days. This fabric reality Joren found himself in made the sun look like felt, the sky like a quilt, and the grass like green cotton. He stared at the felt sun and realized it hadn't moved once. There was no arc or warmth, just a perfect yellow circle pinned to the heavens like a child's craft project. Around him, the seams of the world began to shift the more they remembered. The sky quilt rippled at its edges, its stitches loosening, a patch of blue sagged, revealing gray behind it. One star peeled off completely and floated down like lint, vanishing before it reached the ground. 

Control of their bodies came back to them the more they resisted this world, they began to move again. Joren's legs returned to him, he could feel sensation bit by bit. Willow began to blink like a human again, her hands rubbing her eyes on their own. Gus stood up, no longer needing someone else's aid. The booth behind them sagged inward and one pulled the strings. No one called for the next act as the play had unraveled from the inside. The audience had left and Oren had vanished. The world around them was back to normal now, and the sun moved again. 

Morning – The Camp 

The next morning became a new type of lively, giving the group a chance to settle down from the disorienting day (or days...) they had in that field. Today we find them packed up and ready to head out after a brief break. "You think I looked like this the first time I morphed?" Joren looked up. "Did you?" She snorted. "Hardly. First time, I panicked so hard I turned into half of a giant stag beetle and nearly crushed my bed." Her smirk softened. "I couldn't control where the legs came from, let alone how I looked. It took me so many months before I realized that fear was the fuel, not the enemy." Gus chuckled from his post near the window, arms crossed. "Wish I could've seen that. You still part beetle sometimes?" "Only when the mood strikes," she said with a wink. 

Gus stretched his arms above his head with a groan. "Honestly, I'm more impressed you didn't rip your roof off. I lived in a cramped attic once. Could barely sit up without cracking my head." Willow grinned. "You'd be surprised how many support beams I've accidentally restructured." Joren packed down his bedroll, brushing off a few pine needles. "I can't even imagine waking up with extra limbs." Willow shrugged. "Well, you wake up with stars in your hands, so don't act like you're normal." Joren smirked. "Stars are different, they don't skitter around the floor when I panic." Gus chuckled. "No, they just explode and almost cook us alive. Totally normal." Willow pointed at Joren's palm. "I just don't get how you can make a star out of nothing. Like, where does it come from?" 

Joren held out his hand, turning it slightly as if expecting something to flicker into life. "I don't know, it just… happens. It's like, whoosh, and then it goes, fwuh, and it appears in my hand." Gus leaned in. "If you don't eat for a whole day, does it just not happen? I bet it comes from food or something." Willow raised a brow. "So what, you're saying he's powered by breakfast?" Gus smirked. "Look, I'm just saying the bigger the meal, the bigger the boom." Joren laughed, shaking his head. "That makes you my weapons supplier, then. Better keep the snacks coming." Gus snorted. "Then I expect hazard pay. Maybe a medal if you don't accidentally nuke our tent one night." Willow rolled her eyes. "Stars and sarcasm. We really picked a winner." She tugged her pack over one shoulder and glanced at the thinning mist around camp. "Come on, Sparkhands. Let's see if breakfast-powered miracles work on whatever's waiting ahead." 

Afternoon – The Road 

The road sloped downward, weaving through tall reeds and muddy ditches that steamed faintly under the afternoon sun. Distant gulls wheeled overhead, their cries thin and sharp, riding the wind that smelled faintly of river salt. They were getting close. "Finally," Gus muttered, adjusting the strap of his pack. "If I have to sleep on another bed of twigs, I'm going to lose it." "I've never been to Dyer's Crossing," Willow said, glancing over her shoulder. "You guys?" "No," Joren said. "Not me either," Gus added. "Though I heard the food's good from someone who traveled from there to buy a dish set." "You think it'll be quiet?" Willow asked, voice low. "No place near water's ever truly quiet," Joren said. "Too many things pass through." Willow tilted her head. "You sound like someone who knows something." "I don't," Joren said. "Just a feeling." Gus snorted. "We've had plenty of those lately. None of them good." Up ahead, a sign could be seen. 

DYER'S CROSSING – 2 MILES 

It stood at a fork where the trees gave way to low, golden hills and terraced fields sloping toward the river. Beyond them, rooftops began to rise—clay-tiled and sunbaked, clustered close together like a pile of warm stones. Narrow bridges arched gently over canals. Boats drifted between them, poles dipping into water so clear it mirrored the walls beside it. "Looks prettier than I expected," Gus said, shading his eyes. "I was imagining more mud." Willow smiled faintly. "Give it a few days. Water always finds the cracks." As they moved down the final stretch of road, the city revealed itself more fully: balconies burst with herbs and flowers, voices carried on the breeze. Instead of carts, flat-bottomed boats lined the edge of the town, tied to pillars carved with faded crests. A barge passed by, slow and steady, its deck loaded with crates and coiled rope. Everything smelled of warm stone, river salt, citrus, and sun-dried fish. 

Joren took it in quietly. There was movement everywhere, but no one rushed. Even the boatmen, steering with long poles through narrow channels, did so with the grace of people who had done the same thing every day of their lives. A woman leaned from a window to call something to a man two stories below. He shouted back without looking up, hands deep in a basket of lemons. Somewhere behind them, a bell rang once, low and deep, though no one seemed to react. Children darted barefoot along the narrow walkways, hopping easily over puddles where the canals met stone. One of them splashed water onto another's shirt and was immediately chased through an alley, laughter bouncing between the walls. Willow let her pack slide off one shoulder. "I like it already." 

Joren stopped beside a mooring post, watching an older boy in a small skiff paddle in lazy circles. The boy met his eyes for only a moment, then looked away quickly and rowed back toward the far bank, faster than before. As they crossed into Dyer's Crossing, Joren couldn't shake the sense that they weren't entering a peaceful place. That boy had a strange look about him when he saw us. They were stepping into something already in motion and someone, somewhere, was already watching from the shadows.