If These Walls Could Weep: The Silvermoon Registry Speaks
I was not built so much as breathed into existence.
Raised not by hammer nor chisel alone, but by spell and soul, by starlight caught in crystal, by runes etched in time. My foundations are ancient stone, warmed with the touch of moonborn hands, and my spires sing when the wind carries elven song from the boughs of the Eversong Woods. I remember the day I opened my eyes, though I have none. I remember the first step taken across my threshold, though I have no feet. I remember because I am memory... bound and etched into every slab of marble, every curling rail of goldleaf filigree, every whisper that glides like perfume down my vaulted halls.
I am the Silvermoon Registry.
I have been called a building, a vault, a library, a record hall, a sanctum of statecraft and secrets, but truly, I am a keeper. I cradle names in ink and flame, from the humblest stableboy to the heirs of houses older than stars. I house the sighs of lovers pressed against columned shadows, and the fury of queens who found betrayal tucked between treaty and signature. I know your grandmother’s name before your mother is born. I remember every birth. Every death. Every handfasting and betrayal and pledge and lie, pressed between pages like a pressed winter rose… delicate, yes, but impossible to forget.
My corridors are long, curling like the tendrils of a wisteria vine in bloom. The floors? Oh, child, they shine. Polished so you might mistake them for water, until you see your reflection and wonder what lies beneath. Stained glass windows kiss my insides with color when morning comes, washing the high arches in lavender, rose, and emberlight. The glass itself holds enchantments—listen close, and it will hum the names of those who stood in its light during vows sworn in truth.
There are rooms here few ever enter, doors carved with old draconic script and sigils that resist even the most clever tongue. Some contain scrolls that burn the breath from your lungs when read aloud. Some house tiny bottles filled with the breath of the dying, caught in time, weeping softly against their crystal prison. Others? Only she holds the key.
Lady Amariesse Starsinger Dracone.
She walks within me as if I were an old friend, her fingers trailing along bannisters like she’s tracing a thought she can’t quite name. She wears sorrow like silk, and love like armor. Her presence is quiet thunder, never loud, yet everything bends slightly toward her. When she smiles, it is the rarest thing in the world... not because she does it so infrequently, but because I feel it, deep in my bones. She is as much mine as I am hers. Her tears have fallen in my halls and made the stones bloom. Her laughter has echoed through chambers where only ghosts dared linger. She has buried her dead within me, not in crypts, but in books... each name inked with trembling hand beneath candlelight, as if she could keep them alive in the telling.
Her office overlooks the square, her balcony draped in ivy and gentle lanterns. At night, she sits with her tea, iced peach, and watches the city breathe. She does not know I listen. She thinks she is alone. But I hear the prayers whispered into her cup. I hear her ask the stars if they still remember him. The one with the hat. The one who never came home. And the others, the others that never stayed.
There are others who dwell within me. The Registry members... Ana, the ever-diligent librarian, now lost in a tome, who arranges chaos with a meticulous fury. Her hair always falls in her eyes. She murmurs to the tomes when no one is looking, as if offering apology for moving them. Fae, the priestess with eyes like polished dawn, glides like smoke...soft where others crash. She has sung in my halls during storm, and the storm stopped to listen. They are family, not by blood, but by bond. Bound in loss and longing, in duty and hope.
I have watched as war brewed outside my gates, and as lovers declared the world anew between stacks of dusty ledgers. I have listened to the crack of hearts breaking and the hush of secrets shared beneath candlelight. I have heard names whispered as if they were forbidden spells, and others shouted in triumph across balconies during festival nights. I have seen ghosts dance in the reflection of the old mirror by the western stairwell, where no one dares linger past the stroke of moonrise.
If you asked me, do I regret? I would say no.
And I will keep remembering. That is what I was made to do.
So if you ever find yourself walking my corridors alone, and the air tastes like memory, and your name echoes back to you in a voice you do not recognize... do not be afraid.
snowghoul
titsay
yousharknotpass
