There is a road in Vinperia that does not appear on any map.
It winds through the silver canopy of the Selenheart Woods,
where light moves like breath and shadows listen.
The locals call it The Whispering Path—
a trail that walks you, rather than the other way around.
They say it appears only to those who have lost something the forest wants to remember.
The Selenheart Woods are older than the stars that shine above them.
Their trunks glimmer with faint runes, not carved but grown—
each symbol a word the forest once spoke aloud.
Now it whispers instead,
its voice threading through leaves like wind woven with memory.
No two travelers hear the same thing.
Some catch laughter, soft as rain.
Others hear names they thought forgotten.
And a few—just a few—hear their own heart answering back.
To walk the Whispering Path is to surrender direction.
It curves where your thoughts do,
turns when your doubt flickers,
and narrows when you try to name the sound.
The forest listens not to your voice,
but to your silence.
Every unspoken feeling becomes a lantern,
glowing faintly to light the next step forward.
Many lose their way,
but none truly vanish.
They simply find a story the world was waiting to tell through them.
In rare hours, when the twin moons cross,
the forest breathes in unison with the traveler.
The air turns green-white, like starlight seen through tears.
In that moment, the Path sings.
Not with words, but with recognition—
as though the land itself says,
“I remember you.”
Those who hear it never speak of what follows,
but their eyes shine with something older than fear,
softer than joy.
Every wanderer knows the forest’s courtesy:
leave a gift, however small.
A petal. A hum. A secret.
Give something of yourself, and the woods will guide you.
But never pluck the glowing fungi.
Never follow a whisper that sounds like your own.
And above all, never thank the forest aloud—
for it is said that gratitude is an invitation,
and the forest loves guests who stay.
At the path’s end, there is no gate, no shrine, no treasure—
only a mirror made of water,
so still it reflects your breath before your face.
When you kneel and look,
you do not see yourself,
but the person the forest remembers you to be.
Step away too soon, and the image fades.
Stay too long, and you might trade places.
The wise leave quietly,
carrying only the sound of their own footsteps returning home.
Scholars of Elanora debate whether the forest truly speaks.
Mages claim it channels echoes of the First Dawn.
But the wanderers say something simpler—
that the forest is not speaking to us,
it is speaking through us.
Every sigh, every shiver of leaves, every remembered song—
a conversation between what we are and what we were.
And so the Whispering Path remains:
a road that leads nowhere,
and in doing so, leads to everything.
