It was during twilight that the hunter discovered the truth—upon the glassy sheen of the neglected lake’s surface. Every ripple distorted the sky, bending filaments of clouds into secrets long whispered by the wind. They’d told her to seek answers beneath the surface, but no one mentioned what awaited in the cavern of reflections.

A trill wove through the thicket, vibrating the air like a harp string. It was not the singing bird native to these groves, nor was it the forest. “Patience,” it seemed to say, and suddenly patience personified, lingered in the droplets collecting on her brow, telling stories of realms once forgotten.

She leaned closer, peers converging across millennia, fingertips grazing the water where reality danced. A visage flickered faintly, a mirror mask. It whispered of stars untold, roads untraveled, promises wrapped in spun lodestone deceptions.

“The journey forwards is through,” she thought, stepping reluctantly into the mirrored depths. Was it her reflection stepping back, or another diverging world pulling her absence, punctuated only by the reverberating echo of her breath?

If truth were tangential whispers hiding beneath azure reflections, then what stories lay unverifiable through their luminous gaze?

Gaze Within | Stroll Evermore