The One Who Waits at the River

As told by Lirian Ever-Weaver

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I. Arrival – “The Sky Wore Mourning”

The village of Bairne wore quiet like a cloak. The sky above hung low, grey as worn wool, and the air held the kind of silence that gathers when grief lingers just beneath the surface. No carts clattered down the stones. No children called out in play. The forge was dark, the tavern dim.

I came not to mourn, but to pass through. A warm meal, a full canteen, perhaps a night’s rest if the inn had room. But even before I reached the square, I knew.

There had been a death.

A gathering of villagers stood beneath a white-draped arch of branches, their heads bowed. I did not know the name they whispered. That was enough reason, I thought, to keep walking.

Funerals belong to those who carry the name. I am only a traveler.

Still, as I passed the edge of the green, I lifted my hood and touched two fingers to my chest. There are silences one does not cross covered.

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II. Hesitation – “Let the Grief Be Theirs”

I turned to go, my boots whispering against the dirt. Grief is sacred, and I had no wish to intrude upon it. I had songs in my satchel, yes—but not every silence needs filling. Some ache more honestly when left untouched.

But stories have their own gravity.
And sometimes, they begin not with a question, but with a child left out of mourning.

I saw him beneath a bent-limbed elder tree at the edge of the green—a boy, perhaps ten winters old. Not with the mourners. His tunic was rumpled at the knees, as if he’d been sitting there for some time, forgotten, or perhaps choosing to be. His small frame curled in on itself, arms wrapped tight around his knees, gaze fixed on a patch of earth as if it had taken something from him and would not give it back.

It was not the stillness that drew me. It was the weight of it.
A silence too small to carry.

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III. The Boy – “A Silence Too Small to Carry”

I approached slowly, the way one might approach a bird with a bent wing.

He did not look up.

“I don’t want to see him like that,” he said, voice a dry leaf on the wind.

I lowered myself to the ground, not close enough to touch, not far enough to ignore.

“They say he’s sleeping,” the boy continued. “But no one wakes him. Not even Gran. And she always woke him.”

His hands were clenched in the folds of his tunic.
I waited. Sometimes silence is not a wall—it’s a waiting room.

“I’m Lirian,” I said, gently. “I don’t live here. I only passed through and stayed because the wind didn’t tell me to leave.”

The boy glanced sideways. Not quite at me. But not away.

“My name’s Callen,” he said, almost too quiet to hear.
“I used to fish with him at the river. He let me catch the small ones.”

He rubbed at his sleeve, then clenched his tunic again.

“He said the little ones were braver. That they had more heart for the hook.”
He blinked hard. “I never thought about that until now.”

His voice cracked like a twig underfoot.
“I don’t think I’ll ever go back there again.”

“Why do people leave if they love you?”

I looked out toward the white-draped arch. The breeze stirred it like breath.

“Would you like to hear a story?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. But he didn’t run.

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IV. The Story of the Washer – “She Does Not Cry. The River Does for Her.”

“There is a woman,” I began, “who waits at the edge of the river.”

The boy blinked.

“She doesn’t call out. She doesn’t shout. She just… washes.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“Clothes?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “But not just any clothes. The garments of those who are about to die. Soldiers. Wanderers. Elders whose breath grows thin. She washes what will not be worn again.”

“Why?”

“Because someone must. Because even when a name fades from the living, someone must remember it was spoken.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“Is she scary?”

“No,” I said. “Not to those who understand her. She does not choose out of cruelty. She prepares. She tends.”

“Did she wash my grandfather’s shirt?”

I looked at him then, and saw the small hope flickering beneath the question.

“If she did,” I said softly, “it was because he mattered. Because he was brave enough to be remembered.”

I let the river run in silence between us for a moment longer, then said:

“Some say the ones she comes for don’t see her at all. But sometimes—if the soul is still and the moment gentle—she speaks.”

“What would she say?” Callen asked.

“Not much,” I said. “She might sit beside him, near the water’s bend. She might take the shirt from his hands and say only this: ‘It is time. You’ve given all that was yours to give. Let me carry what remains.’”

“And he’d go with her?”

“He wouldn’t be afraid.”

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V. Quiet Closing – “A Name Carried Forward”

The boy loosened his grip on his tunic. His shoulders did not straighten, but they no longer trembled.

The bell rang once more in the green.

He stood slowly. He did not speak. But he gave me a look I will not soon forget—one part question, two parts gratitude.

Then, just before turning, he spoke again.

“His name was Eamon,” Callen said. “Eamon of the river bend.”

I nodded, and placed a hand over my heart.
“I will carry it.”

Then he turned, and walked back toward the others.
His steps were small. But they were his.
This time, they carried something—grief, yes, but also memory. And a courage that was not loud, but steady.

There are many kinds of warriors, I thought, as I watched the boy return. Some face darkness with swords. Some, with silence.

I remained beneath the elder tree for a while longer.
The silence around me had changed. Not vanished. But softened.

I reached down and picked up a small stone, turning it over once in my palm.
Not a marker. Just a memory passed forward.
I slipped it into my satchel, where I keep the things that don’t wish to be forgotten.

Sometimes the dead do not need songs.
Sometimes the living do.

If this tale stirred something in you —a memory, a whisper, a spark in the coals —then the journey does not end here.

🜂 The Fianna Chronicles: Awakening awaits:
A tale of storms remembered, oaths reborn, and legends that listen.
Own the book — signed, sealed, and sent from the Ever-Weaver’s archive.