In the vale where the lantern grass gleams,
and rivers hum softly with names,
there lived a small kingdom of quiet,
built carefully out of restraint.
The people there spoke with their hands,
and trusted the stars more than kings,
for long ago trust had been broken,
and silence learned how to sing.
At the edge of that vale stood a tower,
not stone, but of woven white bark,
where a keeper of embers took refuge,
guarding a single warm spark.
Her cloak bore the marks of old winters,
her palms held the map of past wrongs,
yet still every night she tended the fire,
and fed it with patient old songs.
Beyond the fields roamed a hound,
iron grey, scarred by the hunt,
once bred for the teeth and the chase,
now tired of being the blunt.
He circled the tower for weeks,
never snarling, never near,
until her fire learned his shadow,
and decided it wasn’t fear.
She spoke first, not with command,
but with bread set down in the dew,
and the hound lay his head on the earth,
as if that was all he could do.
Seasons folded like pages,
the vale breathed easier then,
children slept without counting steps,
doors forgot how to pen.
But sound travels faster than kindness,
and greed has a sharper ear,
men came dressed as traders,
with smiles rehearsed, thin and clear.
They struck at the hound in his resting,
mistaking mercy for weak,
and the fire keeper heard the silence,
where his breathing should be.
The tower glowed brighter than ever,
the grass rang loud as a bell,
the vale remembered its promise,
and showed them how roots rebel.
When the dust and the shouting were over,
the hound lay changed by the flame,
no longer bound to tooth or collar,
but something gentler in frame.
A spirit of ash and starlight,
with laughter low and kind,
who walks the roads between houses,
leaving courage behind.
They say if you walk that vale slowly,
and listen where shadows convene,
you will feel watched over, not hunted,
and know what protection means.