Nerina's Blossom Sleep

More about Nerina's Blossom Sleep

Original Prompt by Simone C. v. R. https://deepdreamgenerator.com/ddream/7fz67e7ni9b

The pond was so old that even the wind had forgotten its name. It lay hidden behind weeping willows, between mossy light and whispering roots, far from the paths humans had ever trodden. No boat had ever crossed it, no net had ever parted its waters. But those who lingered near it long enough could sometimes hear a faint humming, as if from a song no one sang anymore—except perhaps the water itself. Here Nerina lived. She was small, barely larger than a leaf in the current. Her skin shimmered like the inside of a shell, her fin shimmered in green tones found only in the morning mist. Nerina was a water maiden, born of foam and silence, a child of soft light and the ancient pond bed. But she was different from the others. While her sisters and brothers raced shrieking through the reeds and waves, Nerina often remained alone. Not out of sadness—but out of a longing she herself could not name. She loved to listen. The drop falling from the leaf. The trickle of distant springs. The soft gurgle beneath the roots. And sometimes, among all these sounds, she thought she heard a voice—not one of flesh or fin, but something deeper. Perhaps a call. Perhaps a song. One morning, as the water steamed like a sleeping dream and the light unfurled golden thread upon golden thread, Nerina spied an open blossom. A water lily, taller than all the others, surrounded by a radiance that no sun or moon could ever fully explain. The petals were soft, like promised answers. Nerina hesitated, gently touched the center—and felt a faint pulse. Without thinking, she slid inside. No sooner had she laid herself down in the velvety interior than the petals closed around her. Not like a cage, but like a song one could finally sing along to. Nerina felt nothing but warmth, safety—and then she fell into a sleep known only to those who trust in water. In her dream, she wandered through flowing tunnels whose walls were made of floating memories. Fish made of light accompanied her, and in a round room of silence, she encountered a voice—formless, but full of sound. It spoke not with words, but in tones that lit Nerina's inner being. "Your song is not before you," said the voice, "it is behind your silence." Nerina didn't understand everything. But she remembered. When she awoke, the blossom had opened. The sun was higher now, the pond was still. On her hand lay a single drop—clear, pulsating, as if woven from sound. Nerina lifted it to her lips, and there it was: the first note of her song. Not a melody known to others. No words taught. Just a single, shimmering sound—her own. Since that day, Nerina has returned to the blossom again and again. Not to sleep, but to listen. And sometimes, when the light dances on the water and no one speaks, you hear a melody, soft as mist and deep as memory. It's Nerina's song. And it grows.