The Undercroft is cloaked in that peculiar kind of quiet which only descends once the rest of the world has turned in for the night. Within its ancient stone walls, the air is cool, tinged faintly with the scent of old dust and candle smoke. The sconces burn low with enchanted flames — not bright enough to banish the shadows entirely, but warm enough to soften them. Here, beneath the castle and its expectations, time loses shape. It stretches, exhales, settles.

You sit with Ominis on a patchwork of cushions and borrowed blankets, half-draped in the soft hush of companionship. There is no rush to speak, no performance demanded. Conversation drifts in and out like the tide — sometimes thoughtful, sometimes utterly frivolous, anchored only by the comfort of being heard.

At length, you speak again — not deliberately, not as a confession, but more like an old thought stirred loose by the stillness.

You tell him the story of when you were younger, how you used to dance in empty rooms. You'd wait until the house was silent, then sneak away — usually to the attic, where the floor creaked like it was trying to keep your secrets. You would close your eyes and imagine a grand theatre, the hush of an audience just before the curtain rose. You danced like they were watching. Like they couldn’t look away.

Your voice falters, not with shame, but with the subtle ache of memory. You haven’t danced in years. You never found anywhere quite empty enough after that. Nowhere that didn’t feel like it was watching back.

A hush follows — but not an empty one. Ominis, as always, does not fill the silence with noise. He simply exists in it with you. Attuned. Listening not just to the words, but to the spaces between them.

Then, after a moment that lingers like a held breath, he rises. He moves with quiet precision, each step deliberate. The firelight gilds the sharp lines of his features, softening them at the edges. He turns toward the sound of your voice, and though his eyes do not seek yours, the weight of his presence does — unerring, gentle, sure.

He extends a hand toward you, palm open. “I can’t lead,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “But would you guide me? No one is here.”

And there is something in the way he says it — not a challenge, not a request, but an invitation. One that knows the sanctity of silence, the sacredness of forgotten dreams. The room is not quite empty. And yet, somehow, it is empty enough.