Lucille, the ever-so-lively, charismatic yet cherished librarian of our town. A quiet little place the world seemed to have forgotten, for better or for worse. The streets are usually empty, even the kids sometimes feel lifeless. That’s just what this town is: silence.
Being born here is a sentence. No matter how great you are, the world will never hear about you. And in all honesty… I was comfortable with that. I never questioned it, never challenged the natural order of things.
But then she arrived.
It was probably the biggest event this town had seen in decades. She came in with tons of luggage, all of it bursting with books, colorful clothes, and scarves, she always wore scarves. She was a walking contradiction to everything I thought was permanent. She smiled so big, like she’d never been told to shrink herself.
She moved into the old library, the one that had been abandoned ever since Miss Jay passed. They found Miss Jay with a cigarette in one hand and a newspaper in the other. She lived exactly how she wanted, all the way to the end.
No one expected anything from Lucille.
The kids mocked her colorful dresses and old leather boots. The women gossiped, saying how they pitied such a young, beautiful woman wasting her life in a place like this.
"She’s going to waste her youth and charm here… poor girl."
The men either ogled her or ignored her completely.
Lucille was no one, and yet she caused such a stir.
And me? I thought she was perfect.
She was everything I wasn’t, and I admired that.
The first thing she did was renovate the library. With her own two hands. She left the doors wide open to let the paint dry, and I watched her from afar every day as I did my usual paper route. She’d always ask for a paper, and I never charged her. She didn’t even know it cost anything.
She didn’t care about the news. She cut out pictures and made little paper figurines for the kids, who, slowly, began to warm up to her.
They called her the crazy librarian, but still… they started visiting.
She opened the library to the very last ray of sunshine, and reopened it again at the first one. At first, no one cared.
Then the kids came, drawn by candy and stories on the carpet outside.
Then the women came. Romance novels for the dreamers, cookbooks for the mothers, a book club for anyone who wanted to speak.
Then the men. Fiction and adventure for those men who grew up too fast, and manuals for those trying to impress someone.
Then the elderly. Not for the silence, but for the peace. A peace that comforted, not suffocated.
And me?
She lured me in just by being herself.
One day, she invited me in. We talked. She recommended books. She smiled like I mattered.
Nobody had ever shown interest in me before. Not really.
Suddenly, I wasn’t just the paperboy anymore.
She became my daily route. My ritual. My comfort.
And one day, I asked her:
"Why do you always wear those old leather boots? Aren’t they too heavy for someone like you? I could get you new ones — Miss Smith makes the best shoes in town. She did mine and I’ve worked in them for years."
She looked at my shoes, then at her boots, and smiled.
“Your shoes are meant to walk around town,”
she said softly.
“My boots are meant to walk around the world.”
I thought she meant she walked a lot inside the library. It made sense. I almost never saw her sit.
I shrugged it off.
Three days later, I passed by the library.
It was closed.
The doors that had always been open, shut.
People knocked for days. No one answered.
Eventually, we forced the doors open. Everything was in its place.
Except Lucille.
She had taken her things. Her colorful clothes were gone. But the books? The books remained.
While everyone else buzzed with theories, I went to her desk. There sat one of the newspapers I’d delivered. Beside it: her favorite book.
Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne.
That was it.
Everything hit me like a storm.
She was never meant to stay.
That’s what the boots were for. Unlike me, unlike my shoes, Lucille was always meant to keep walking. To leave pieces of herself in every town she touched. And I…
I held the book to my chest and finally understood.
She left behind no letters. Only the weight of her absence, tucked carefully between the pages of every book she ever touched.
The world moved on. With or without her.
But I couldn’t.
Still, the townspeople rallied. Instead of hiring a new librarian, we took shifts. The library lived on. The town had color now. Noise. Joy.
And I wasn’t the same paperboy anymore.
I quit the job. Bought a good horse. Spent the last of my savings on a pair of strong leather boots from Miss Smith, boots meant to walk the world.
This chapter may have ended.
But I’m not ready to close the book.
Not yet.
There are still many more pages left to read.
Want to read the full story? I post chapters early on Wattpad. Come sit with me there 🌙📖 → [https://www.wattpad.com/user/NoctelleThorne]
Hiiii, my name is Noctelle Thorne. I just started my writing career and I do really hope you guys like my writings. you can also found me in Reddit, Wattpad, Substack even. all under the same name
thank you so much for reading this piece, if you guys like it I could write a second part for it or more. have a great day! :)
"ARIA The Last Songbird"
One of my best my personal favorite story. Aria ,a young girl who has power to heal wounds, restore destructions and to calm hearts just by humming. She can't speak or sing like others. She lives siliently in a world full of music and magic.
Hope u guys like it . I also have written this whole in pdf form if any of u interested comment down . I will post that too !
if u wanna to watch this story in video/picture form ,follow me on Instagram link given bellow:
What melancholy magic
Has turned a multitude into mush
Mandibles drop from shock
An old lady at high altitude
Whispering hush
She slips off her white shoes
And grabs her tenor pacifier
From its stand
Thirty half steps to the microphone
Smile on her face
Flower in her hand
Oh how a crowd can melt
When they've been dealt
Such a deliciously delicate blow
By a barefooted fairy
Not with a clang but a whisper
Totally stealing the show
Fools desire distraction
And not take to heart
Their faces to their gadgets fall south
Ignoring the beauty of a fog on a hill
And a kitten with a mouse in its mouth
A motley mob settles down
And there's hardly a frown
As the air in the temple turns to mist
A spotlight, a mark and a cleanse of the throat
And her microphone gently is kissed
You can hear a boot lace
And a speck of dust taste
As the babe bravely stared down the herb
But she played not a note
And only one moment spoke
These simple and poignant five words
You people are totally absurd
Говорят, в безымянной долине, укрытой от взгляда солнца и времени,
лежит озеро, что не отражает звёзды —
оно хранит их.
Когда-то там пало эльфийское войско, сражаясь не за власть, а за клятву.
И первым, кто коснулся глубин, был беловласый воин,
чьё имя ныне забыто,
но в песнях его зовут Сон Леса —
ибо с тех пор деревья у озера больше не шепчут, а спят.
За ним последовали иные.
И вода не взяла их плоть, не тронула доспех.
Она приняла их — как дитя принимает сон.
Они лежат там, не мёртвые, не живые.
Мечи у груди. Глаза закрыты.
Словно ждут сигнала, который не прозвучит.
И лишь одна стоит на берегу —
Элендриэль, Светлая, дочь Серебряного Дома.
Тонкая, как утренняя тень на чешуе.
В её венце — не гордость, а тишина.
В её пальцах — не клинок, а память.
Каждый рассвет она приходит туда,
где кончается мир и начинается забвение.
Она не плачет. Эльфийки не плачут.
Но вода у её ног всегда теплее,
словно помнит, кого она ждёт.
Из Свитка Туманных Берегов, фрагмент IV:
*”…и так стояла Она, в кольчуге цвета утреннего инея,
меж камнем и сном, где Тар’Эйлин пал без крика,
а волны замкнулись без всплеска.
Меч Его — при груди.
Лик — без страха.
Вода — не взяла Его плоть.
Ни гниль, ни время не коснулись.
Словно сам Вала хранил этот миг,
дабы сердце Её не ушло за ним.
И ныне каждый, кто ступит к Озеру —
услышит не голос, но тишину,
не зов, но воспоминание.
Так хранится там войско без холма,
и Светлая, чья скорбь не знает имени,
сберегает их покой —
покуда песни не вернутся…”*
🔥 𝔢𝔫 🔥
Elendriel and the Lake of Eternal Dreams
They say that in a nameless vale, hidden from time and sun,
there lies a lake that does not reflect the stars—
it remembers them.
Once, an elven host fell there, not for power, but for a vow.
And the first to sink beneath the depths was a fair-haired warrior,
his name long forgotten,
but in song he is called The Forest’s Dream—
for since that day, the trees around the lake no longer whisper.
They slumber.
Others followed.
And the water took not their flesh, nor touched their armor.
It received them as a child receives sleep.
They lie there still—not dead, not alive—
with swords upon their chests and eyes gently closed,
as if awaiting a call that shall never come.
And only one still stands at the shore—
Elendriel the Bright, daughter of the Silver House.
Slender, like the morning shadow on silvered scale.
In her helm—silence, not pride.
In her hands—not a blade, but memory.
Each dawn she returns to the place
where the world ends
and forgetting begins.
She does not weep. Elven maidens do not weep.
Yet the water at her feet is always warmer,
as if it remembers the one she waits for.
From the Scroll of the Mist-Shrouded Shores, Fragment IV:
*”…and so she stood, in mail of morning frost,
between stone and dream, where Tar’Eilin fell without a cry,
and the waves closed without a splash.
His blade lay on his chest.
His face bore no fear.
The water touched not his flesh.
Neither rot nor time claimed him.
As though a Vala himself held that moment still,
lest her heart follow him into shadow.
And now all who walk to the Lake
shall hear not a voice, but silence,
not a call, but remembrance.
There the host lies beneath no mound,
and She of the Light, whose sorrow bears no name,
guards their rest—
until the songs return.”*
Говорят, что в забытых землях, за горами и пепельными равнинами,
где не осталось ни песен, ни имён,
стоит разрушенная мрачная башня.
Не отмеченная ни на одной карте,
не указанная в песнях и хрониках.
Там, среди руин и тумана,
блуждает одинокая тень.
Не тело. Не дух.
Что-то между.
Когда-то это был страж.
Страж порядка, служитель великих замыслов.
Он верил в стройность мира, в красоту законов, в сияние порядка.
Он хотел лишь одного:
чтобы всё было правильно,
чтобы всё было чисто,
чтобы всё стояло на своих местах.
Но мир треснул.
Порядок был исковеркан.
Свет угас.
И страж, не найдя в себе сил принять хаос,
пал вслед за тем, кого считал сильнейшим.
Он пал — и стал другим.
Он пал — и потерял себя.
Но даже падшие майар, созданные в Свете, не исчезают бесследно.
Говорят, что Аулэ, Милостивый, не позволил окончательной гибели.
Что иногда самые сломанные сущности не погибают безвозвратно,
а уходят в Серые земли — место между временами и судьбами.
В буфер между разрушением и забвением,
где их существование становится бесконечным странствием.
И вот теперь он бродит среди обломков своего мира,
и иногда, когда ветер несёт пыль по голым склонам,
он словно слышит, как где-то вдали
его окликают древним, давно забытым именем —
тем, которое он носил до падения.
Он останавливается.
Прислушивается.
На миг в его грудной клетке
что-то напоминает о свете.
И тогда он почти тянется к нему.
Почти.
Но страх.
И стыд.
И ярость за собственную слабость
заставляют его снова отвернуться.
И башня продолжает стоять в тумане.
И стражник продолжает блуждать,
забытый всеми —
всеми, кроме одного.
Он ждёт.
Он надеется.
Он остаётся в Серых землях,
ожидая решения,
что когда-нибудь снизойдёт из рук того, кто помнит.
🔥 𝔢𝔫 🔥
The Tale of the Last Warden
They say that in the forgotten lands, beyond the mountains and the ashen plains,
where no songs remain and no names are spoken,
there stands a ruined, grim tower.
Unmarked on any map,
unmentioned in songs and chronicles.
There, among the ruins and the mist,
wanders a solitary shadow.
Not a body. Not a spirit.
Something in between.
Once, he had been a warden.
A servant of great designs, a guardian of order.
He believed in the harmony of the world,
in the beauty of law, in the radiance of structure.
He wished for only one thing:
that all would be right,
that all would be pure,
that all would stand in its destined place.
But the world cracked.
Order was broken.
The light faded.
And the warden, unable to accept the chaos,
fell after the one he deemed the strongest.
He fell—and became something else.
He fell—and lost himself.
But even the fallen Maiar, born of the Light, do not vanish without trace.
It is said that Aulë the Merciful would not allow complete destruction.
That sometimes, the most broken of beings do not perish utterly,
but are sent into the Grey Lands — a place between times and fates.
A buffer between ruin and oblivion,
where their existence becomes an endless wandering.
And now he roams the remnants of his shattered world,
and sometimes, when the wind carries the dust over barren hills,
he seems to hear, from far away,
someone calling him by an ancient name long forgotten—
the name he bore before his fall.
He stops.
He listens.
For a moment, deep within his hollow chest,
something stirs — a memory of light.
And then he almost reaches out toward it.
Almost.
But fear.
And shame.
And rage at his own weakness
force him to turn away once more.
And the tower still stands in the mist.
And the warden continues his wandering,
forgotten by all—
all but one.
He waits.
He hopes.
He remains in the Grey Lands,
awaiting the decision
that may one day descend from the hand of the One Who Remembers.
