The Story of the Magical Forest The Collector of Lost Colors

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In a hidden corner between day and dream, where the paths were made of smoldering moss and the sky shone with eternal dawn, stood a cottage, barely larger than a thought. It was built of silent wood and roofed with tiles that seemed to have come from petrified twilights. Here lived Lysanna, the Collector of Lost Colors. It was said in the whispering villages of the Rim that whenever a person forgot a color—be it the precise glimmer of childhood's first suns, the deep blue of a rain-drenched memory, or the bright green of a long-lost wish—those sparks of color traveled secret paths to Lysanna. No one knew how she found them. Some said she heard them sing, others claimed she chose the colors herself. Her small house was filled with silverwood bowls in which colors rested like living droplets. Some pulsed gently like breathing beings, others lay motionless, as if in deep sleep. Glass spheres hung in the corners, each one capturing the light of a particular morning or a never-to-return dawn. It smelled of rain on stone, of warm dust, and a hint of violets. Lysanna herself was a delicate creature, with hair that changed color from amber to malachite to midnight blue, depending on the light. Her skin was like paper on which the wind wrote poetry. Her hands, slender and finely drawn, were like tools of memory: they knew how to heal broken tones, awaken faded nuances, and make colors that seemed to weep smile. She barely spoke—her language was the light she captured in drops, the music that floated in the bowls of color, and the radiance she gave back to things. Every day, she wandered through the forest, accompanied by the Color Guardians, small, transparent creatures with wings of butterfly breath and delicate baskets of dewdrops. Together, they gathered what was lost: the last warm red of an autumn leaf, the fragile silver of a fading dream, the soft yellow of an almost forgotten laugh. They did it silently, reverently, as if each drop were a piece of soul. On one special evening, when a heavy fog hung between the trees and even the stars had lost their voices, Lysanna found something extraordinary. A color that wasn't simply golden or blue—but memory, longing, and song all at once. It was a small flame, barely larger than a breath, yet so bright that it rent even the deepest darkness. It didn't burn; it sang. A sound that recalled lost names, words never spoken, and the feeling you get when, after a long time, you recognize something you never wanted to forget. She carefully placed it in a glass of woven air and frozen water. It was so delicate that even one look too many could have shattered it. That night, she began a new work: a map of colors that would bring home all lost dreams. Not parchment made of paper, but of light, fog, and silence.