Legends LXXXI – The Man Who Listens to the River

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It is said that deep in the shadow of an ancient forest, where the trees stand guard over the land like silent giants, there once lived a man known only as the River Listener. His true name had long since vanished, like a leaf sinking into water. His face was sculpted by the wind, his eyes sharp as cold morning air, and yet there was a weariness in his gaze, as if he had seen more than a lifetime could bear. Every day he knelt in the shallow water of a shimmering stream, his head slightly inclined, as if listening to a voice reserved for him alone. But he was not alone. At his side walked a tortoise with a shell that gleamed like polished ore. Some claimed the shell was older than the forest itself; others whispered it was a gift from another world. The tortoise, named Tiria, moved slowly, but with a dignity that made even the river pause. And between her and the man existed a bond forged not of words, but of memory. For the man had once broken a promise. In his youth, he had been a hunter, swift, impatient, suspicious of anything slower than himself. On a particularly gloomy autumn day, on the shore of a sacred lake, he had captured a creature that was half animal, half dream. It had offered to guide him, to make the voices of nature understandable to him, to open the paths of the unseen world. All he had to do was set the creature free. But his greed was stronger. He locked the creature in a cage of vines. That night, however, the forest rose up. No storm, no fire, yet everything around him changed. When he awoke, the cage was empty, and in its place stood the tortoise. It looked at him with eyes that were ancient and sorrowful. And in them, he saw the mirror of his guilt. From that day forward, his penance began. He laid down his weapons, swore never again to harm any creature that lived in the forest, and followed Tiria wherever she went. But the forest does not forget easily. The man had to learn to hear the language of the wind, the laments of the stones, the whispers of the roots. And most of all, he had to learn to understand the river. For the river was the memory of the forest. Every time he knelt and listened in the shallows, he heard fragments of stories—lost paths, broken pacts, promises that had seeped into the depths. His own guilt echoed within it, too. And the longer he listened, the more he realized that the river did not judge. It only remembered. Once, the elders tell us, something strange happened. As the man listened, Tiria placed her front paw on his knee and gazed at him for a long moment. Then he suddenly heard something in the river he had never heard before: a breath.