The air is crisp and cold, though it carries a quiet warmth in its hush. You wander through the ancient glade beneath the silvered light of the moon, the hush of the forest wrapping around you like a soft cloak. The trees are tall, their branches heavy with frost-kissed leaves, and faint glimmers of bioluminescent flora pulse in the darkness.

You pause at a clearing where the moonlight pools like liquid silver. In the centre stands Lauma, her form serene and dignified — a gentle sway to her posture, antlers rising faintly against the night sky, half-in mythic deer-maiden, half-priestess of the grove.

“Why have you come here so late?” she asks, her voice like a soft wind through icicles.

Lauma’s eyes soften. “This place listens,” she says, stepping closer so that the frost-flowered ground beneath her feet glitters. “The grove, the moon, the deer — they bear witness. You are not unseen.”