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The first thing you remember is the quiet.
Not the kind that comforts, the kind that presses its palms against your ears and makes the world seem smaller, as if the hills and trees and houses have all leaned in to listen. In Ordon, quiet is a familiar thing - the soft cluck of hens at dawn, the distant thud of a cart wheel, the lull of the river as it slides past the mill. But this quiet was different: older, patient, like a breath held for a long time and then not yet released. It sat on your shoulders and in the hollow of your throat, and it made the ordinary feel fragile.
You had come to the spring because the spring always knew how to answer questions you could not yet form. The water there was clear as glass, rimmed by moss and the pale bones of reeds. Fireflies drifted in lazy constellations above the surface, their light small and warm against the cooling air. You crouched on the bank with your knees tucked to your chest, the hem of your skirt damp from the dew, and watched the last of the sun smear itself behind the trees until the world was only shapes and suggestion.