Aránbríd & the Turning of Time

Some frogs are made for lilypads.
Others are made for legend.

Aránbríd—stone-skinned, silver-eyed, and strangely serene—has never been one for leaps and bounds. She prefers stillness. Watchfulness. Her place atop the Faewilde Chronicles is not accidental, nor decorative. It is sacred.

The Faewilde Chronicles, for those new to the realm, are not a book in the usual sense. They are not bound by ink or order. They do not begin on the first page. They are stories that grow like vines, looping through time and memory, past and possible. Those who seek simple chronology should look elsewhere. Those who seek enchantment... welcome.

Two hourglasses stand beside Aránbríd. One is full and freshly turned, its grains bright with potential. The other is nearly spent, its shadow long in the morning light. Together, they mark more than minutes. They are a reminder: in the Faewilde, time is a spiral. One story ends as another begins, and neither waits for permission.

It is Aránbríd who decides when a tale is ready to be told. Her role is not to write, but to reveal. She listens for shifts in the wind, changes in the frogsong, the hush that settles over the clover just before something stirs. Then, and only then, does she open the book.

Today, she does not turn to the first page. That’s not how stories live in the Faewilde.

“The beginning is far too fragile,” she says, gently pushing open the tome. “It can’t bear the weight of knowing yet. You have to let the tale grow into itself. We’ll begin somewhere it’s already blooming.”

She smiles—a barely-there curl of mossy lips—and taps a page with her stony fingertip.

The air shifts. The grain pauses mid-fall. The story stirs.

Next time, we begin.

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