Breglio and the Secret of the Shapeshifter

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The fog lay like a forgotten veil over the grove, heavy with memories and secret voices. Breglio walked slowly among the roots of old trees, his lantern casting a trembling light on the moss-covered ground. It was a night without sound. Not even the wind dared to whisper. Only within him, something rustled—a question that would not be silenced: Who was I before I knew who I was? He had never questioned it. Not when he found the wishing well. Not when he met the forger. Not even when the fireflies disappeared and the echo of the message in the bottle screamed his own name to him. But now, with every step, a restlessness grew within him. Not like fear. More like a premonition. As if there were a crack in his form—not visible, but palpable. As if something were flickering within him that was not solid, not rigid, not even certain. The Old Ones sometimes whispered of beings who knew many forms. They called them shadowwalkers, shapedreamers, two-faced ones. But no one ever spoke of an imp who had lost himself and yet never found himself. At the edge of the grove stood a tree older than the memory of its name. It had no leaves, but its bark was inscribed with runes that shimmered only in the moonlight. Breglio didn't know this tree—and yet it felt as if he had once slept in its shadow. The bark opened at his touch. No creak, no resistance. Only a hum, soft as the echo of another time. Beyond it lay a corridor of light and mist, lined with mirrors that weren't mirrors. Some showed him. Others showed something—someone—similar to him, but not the same. A small fox with his eyes. A beetle with his hands. A shadow child with a lantern, standing on the threshold of a world not his own—yet his home. "What am I?" whispered Breglio. The mirrors didn't answer. But one shattered. No bang. Just a soft ringing, as if a verse remembering itself. Behind the break lay an image: himself, walking. Flowing. As moss, as wind, as a speck of light on a stranger's brow. And in the middle of it all: the lantern. His heart. His anchor. A being stepped out of the light. Not animal, not human, not spirit. It wore a hood of time and hands of twilight. "You have forgotten that you may remember," it said. "You were never just one. But you were always you." Then it touched him—not with hands, but with truth. And Breglio remembered. The promise. The first change. The feeling of being fox, spark, and question all at once. The moment when he found the lantern—and it held him tight, when everything else flowed. He didn't fall. He wasn't torn. He became whole. When he stepped out of the tree, the fog was lighter. The shadows had different voices. And in his lantern danced not only light, but also a trace of himself—from all the forms he had ever been.