You likely didn’t notice the first one.

No one ever does.

A shimmer in the corner of your eye. A whisper behind your shoulder that sounds like your own voice, but softer. The brief sensation that you’ve forgotten something important—but can’t quite say what.

That’s how the Velithorns come.

Not in flocks. Not with sound.

They arrive in silence, trailing memory and fog, their translucent wings too delicate for this world and too heavy with what once was. They are born not of flesh, but of echoes—creatures shaped in the void between memory and magic. Between dreams that faded and truths we chose to forget.

The scholars of Mythrindle Academy call them Etherborn. But students simply call them Velithorns—Whisper-Wings. Dream-Floaters. Grief’s Lanterns.

They are drawn to longing.

Some say a Velithorn can only find you if you’ve lost something deep: a memory, a person, a promise you made to yourself long ago. Others believe they choose their companions at random, latching onto souls like yours just before they forget how to feel.

They don’t speak—not the way you do. But they listen.

Their tendrils drift through emotions, collecting fragments like frost collects on a window. Sometimes they show you what you’ve buried. Other times, they mirror what you’ve never said aloud.

And sometimes—only sometimes—they bond.

To bond with a Velithorn is to invite memory and dream into your waking life. They become shadows at your heels, lights in your nightmares, and keepers of things too fragile for words. Most of the time, they’ll only appear when no one else is looking. Some students have had them for years and still aren’t sure if they’re real.

But ask yourself this:

When was the last time you walked past a window and caught your own reflection… smiling at something you didn’t remember?

When did you last feel the air stir beside your ear… like someone leaned close to whisper a name you hadn’t heard in ages?

When did you last forget, only to feel the ache of it later?

That’s the Velithorns.

They’ve always been here.