Each spring, the village of Greyford holds a simple midday assembly at the edge of the Whispering Woods. Here, traditions are linear scars across time, fading only to be traced back with ghostly fingers. The air is thick with resinous pine and the deep shadows cast by ancient trees soften the edges of reality.
Newcomers gather under the canopy; eyes wide with unsaid questions, hands clenched around heirlooms they no longer understand. Elders shuffle forward, clothing printed stories of their past.
The Ritual of Murmurs begins with a low hum, an echo of something primal, gone but never forgotten. Each villager’s voice blends into a tapestry, woven out of whispers and secrets kept behind closed lips. Shadows flicker on the fringes like past memories of relatives never named.
As the hum rises, participants close their eyes against the sun's impatience and step forward one by one. They dip their palms into a basin of ashen wood and leave their mark on the Symbol of Oaths etched into stone. It's a simple act, bearing the weight of unseen burdens.
When the assembly ends, the sigh of the woods becomes a fading heartbeat. The initiation is complete, marked only by a quickened understanding that life, like the town’s annual rites, is seldom linear and often cyclical.