She gathers herself, focuses, and declaims:

“In ancient times when world was new,
Black King decreed it wasn’t true,
And filled the world with hurting.

They woke up pain, they woke up Death,
They woke the ending of the breath,
They broke the world, made all askew,
And that’s the board we’re playing.

We know that you keep palming cards,
fudging your points and stealing ours,
we’re playing in this world you marred,
but it’s losers that need cheating.

We’ll beat you fairly, fix the board,
make sure each point’s properly scored,
and then we’ll claim our just reward,
a world that’s not your plaything.

I know that you’d not name, you see,
each piece of mine, if you were me,
you look for cheats unconsciously -
“there ain’t no rule”, I’m saying -

But If I’m to win against your side,
it’s not for me to have your mind
and be the girl you’d be as I -
so I’ll be fair and sporting.

I name King’s Rook, the broken stone
whose breaking crack’s the broken moan
of those surrounded yet alone,
trampled down and hurting.

I name Queen’s Rook, the shard of glass
the bloody red of battles past,
which seeks to fight until the last,
and wound all in its passing.

I name King’s Knight, the needle bent,
strong iron’s life carelessly spent,
all of its time, it came and went,
a moment in the losing.

I name King’s Priest, the leaden rock,
that if it could, would surely talk,
to say “why care? Is it a shock,
there’s naught to do but working?”

And last, Black Queen, my own shed blood,
The price I’ve paid for what I’ve loved,
the rule that says that all is judged
and weighed in suffering.

And there, enough, my piece is done,
I’ll name the rest when time is come
and we shall see who has more fun
at this game of your devising.”

There is a brief pause, then:

"gosh."

And then both voices begin chattering excitedly:

"Did you already have that prepared?" "What happened to the bookkeeper?" "Why are there more dark pieces than light pieces, does that mean black's winning?" "So you're making a game board to break the board so nobody has to play anymore? That's so cool!!" "Can you save the black pieces?" "Can we help??"

She pauses, hums, considers. 

"I think I... had the shape of it, and then the words worked themselves out. 

There are more black pieces because black is always winning until it's not, because White needs to work to put its pieces on the board and Black doesn't nearly so hard. Can black pieces be rescued? Well, I expect we'll find out. There are some kinds of chess where that can be done, but others don't let you. And of course you can help, if you want to." 

"It'd be nice if some of the dark things could be rescued."

  "It'd also be hard, I think. What sorts of things would help you?"

She rests her chin on her palm.

^{"That's always the trouble, isn't it?"}

"Are there things you want to know about?"

  "We've been to lots of places!"

"And we hear lots of things!"

^{”Tell me some things you found interesting, then - so long as they’re not anyone’s secret.”}

"There's a street that this courtyard can open up to sometimes!"

  "But I don't think it's felt social in a while."

"No, not since the King of Shadows died..."

She raises an eyebrow. 

"Oh, yes!"

  "Not a king of all shadows, of course, but enough of them to earn the title."

"He was very old!"

  "And very strange!"

"But mostly he was very powerful!"

  "So powerful! Old, old magic, seared into his soul, chained to his existence."

"Then he disappeared."

  "And died!"

"And now his kingdom is without a king."

”Oh,” she says.

"Oh. Yes."

  "This world collects them. Shadows of things and places and, and whispers. Sometimes the things themselves, if they fit well enough. If they are enough like shadows themselves."

"Many, many lost things, tugged away from where they were to be somewhere new."

  "Lost but not gone, you see? It's better than there being nothing at all."

^{”Do you know anything that needs rescuing now before it’s lost forever?”}

"Oh, hm."

  "Echos, whispers. It—it helps us, to be acknowledged. To be listened or spoken to, to have a place where we're welcome to whisper. We can tell others to come here."

"There are dangerous places where things can get twisted up into other things. Great and terrible spires of shifting stone and storm, chewing and eating and spitting out dust and blood.

  "I don't know how to get there anymore, do you?" "No, no, I wanted to forget." "Me too." "It was a bad place." "Not a place for whispers at all."

"Oh, oh! There was a cavern in the cove, some of the things in there might need rescuing, you have fingers and can touch things!"

  "Oh! Yes! The ocean doesn't know how to be gentle."

She blinks. 

"- I didn't even go looking, there was so much else to do - would you like to explore the beach with me, whispers?" 

She tilts her head. "...Did I ask for your names yet?"

"Sure! That's where we came from, we didn't finish exploring before we found the door."

  "Names? Oh. We don't have those."

"We're not big enough!"

She tilts her head. 

There's a long pause.

"... I don't know. I've never had a name before."

  "It seems like it would be a lot of responsibility? It'd be like... something pinning me to be a thing."

"It might be nice, maybe. It'd depend on the name, I think. I can't think of any names that are... me."

^{”Thistle. Whisper - forget I said that. Shiversweet. Starshine. Silvershaft. Sussurus - probably still too on the nose. Sixthfifth. Seliria - sorry, no, that one’s taken. Thinmint?” She giggles quietly. “Um. Thistle - I said that. Heather. Hearthfire. Heath. Halflaugh. Fluff? I mean, maybe. Flitter, Sigilsidia - where did that one come from? It’s nice and not taken, though - something, something, I don’t know, do any of those seem like they might fit?}

Little giggles trail after her as she walks.

"I kind of like Thistle. You even said it twice!"

  "Do you want to be called it?"

"... Maybe! I'm not sure yet! But I like it."

  "I think I don't want a name, personally. Maybe later. I don't want to be pinned, I like... I like being small. Having a name would make me seem much bigger."

Eliria smiles. 

^{"That's quite alright too. I like being small as well, it's just that - sometimes the world trips over you, you know?"}
She pauses in Waybound's doorway, looking out at that piercingly blue sky.

_{“- or sometimes you trip over a world, I suppose.”}

 She steps out into the sea breeze, and it catches at her blanket. She hugs it closer. 

There’s still much more work to be done. 

There is a wide and beautiful world in which to do it.

She's met with a jeweled sea, the sound of waves crashing upon a rocky shore. Beside her, the whispers excitedly begin chattering about the treasures held within the cove.