Kaelen and the Night Mailman

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Night had fallen motionless over the valley of Drelna, heavy as an unopened letter. Kaelen had curled up in her cloak, the fire long since extinguished, and Varaan was sleeping with one eye half-open when the sound came: not a footstep, not a flap of wings, but the faint crunch of dried ink on paper. A sound not heard, but felt—somewhere between skin and heart. Kaelen straightened. The fog hung low, as if someone had carefully exhaled it into the world. And then he stood there. No taller than a man, but bent like an old fold. Inside his long cloak, he wore ribbons of yellowed parchment that fluttered like feathers. Wax seals, broken or intact, were stuck to his chest. Instead of a face: an envelope, sealed with a dark mark that changed if you looked too long. "I only deliver what was written," said the night mail carrier, his voice like sleepwalking ink. Kaelen felt something move in her coat pocket. An old seam burst, and a letter fell into her lap. The paper was soft as skin, the sender missing—but the handwriting was unmistakable. It was her own. Only... she had never written like this. Not with this flourish. Not with this depth. The letter began simply: "Kaelen, I write to you from the morning you have not yet experienced..." She read. Each line a drop from a time that had not yet been—but would come. Words about a house on a hillside, about friends she hadn't yet met, about decisions she would soon have to make. And at the end, a sentence that resonated with her like an echo in a deserted hall: "If you accept it, something begins that you can never give back." The night mail carrier held out his hand. A second envelope lay inside. No address. No mark. Just an empty space of possibility. "You can open it," he said. "Or you can give it back to me. Then I'll carry it to someone else." Kaelen looked at Varaan. The dragon twitched briefly in its sleep, as if it had noticed the shadow. Then she looked back at the white paper. "What does it say?" she asked. "What you don't want to know. Not yet." She took the envelope. Her hand didn't tremble. "Then keep it. For now." The night mail carrier inclined his head slightly. A gesture like respect—or grief. And then he turned, the paper on his coat rustling like distant voices in the wind. As he left, the fog seemed to breathe with him until it was completely gone. Kaelen placed the first letter back in her bag. Tomorrow, she would move on with Varaan. To where letters were written not with ink, but with decisions. As the last wisps of fog lifted, a faint glow remained where the messenger had stood. Kaelen stepped closer. Nothing remained—no footprint, no shadow. Only a single strand of paper, barely thicker than spider silk, drifted in the air. Varaan raised his head. His eyes glittered, not sleepily, but watchfully. "You In a misty forest, a cloaked figure holds a glowing book, facing a large dragon with striking blue scales. A companion stands nearby, all enveloped in a mysterious, magical atmosphere.