Mirabel peers, knelt over the threshold of the Keeper's office door, down to the depths beneath the Harbor on the Starless Sea, and smiles. There is a sadness in the creases, in the heavy weight behind her eyes, but, she thinks to herself, this is how it had to be.
"Mirabel?" The Keeper, then, his nose lifting from his book for the first time in a while. This office, the only place last standing after the Heart shattered, was a bit cramped for three; Melody lay curled up in a chair by the nearby fireplace. One of the many cats laid atop her, at once both guarding its person and joining her in a brief bit of respite before whatever was to come next. "It has already been a ten-day. You know as well as I that if they have fallen as far as it appears, they're already lost. We should aim to find another place to go. Higher up."
Mirabel glances once more down into the void, and for a brief moment it gazes back at her. "Time has grown tired of waiting, hmm?" She looks back to the Keeper out of the corner of her eye, her smile turning wry. "So impatient. A ten-day is nothing compared to how long we have spent down here, after all."
The Keeper answers by returning to his notes. "Previously my waiting did not involve so many people in my office. But you are correct. What makes you think they will ever return? The other did not."
Mirabel pushes to her feet, dusting the pale beige dust from her knees and walking quietly over to Melody. "Simon left the story, and with it, my care. I won't let go of the others so easily. Not after putting them on this path to begin with." She reaches out with a tentative finger to brush a hair out of Melody's face, the young Acolyte murmuring quietly in her sleep. The cat opens a single eye before closing it again with a yawn. "I've asked too much of them. I have sent them to go where I cannot. I only hope they trust me. It's hard to trust someone who holds back as much as I do. They are not all as devoted as Melody."
"Few are. If they were, she would not be our last." Quietly, the Keeper closes his book, resting the quill on top. The spine, covered over with a strip of parchement, reads Mirabel, Vol 12. "I trust you, and I trust that I will continue." From his desk, he stands. "The movements of the Harbor have quieted. The three of us are the only three that remain. The cats have found their places to wait for the sea to rise. I trust someone will be collecting them? If so, I will retire and let sleep complete my watch."
Mirabel leans down behind Melody's chair to pull a knit blanket up, draping it carefully over their sleeping companion. "Yes. Everything has been arranged. Now we just wait." She looks to the Keeper with a sly grin. "Though rest does sound nice."
In answer, the Keeper walks over to a bookcase, pulling on a volume and letting the shelves swing out to reveal a small room, only half as large as the office they leave. A twin bed, a wash basin, and a dresser are nearly all that adorn the space; the spartan furnishing of one that doesn't want for much.
Spartan, save for the large painting that hangs on the far wall. It stretches from floor to ceiling and is nearly half again as wide, its subjects depicted at a near lifelike scale. Thirty of them, in all poses and forms of dress.
Mirabel sidles up, placing a hand on the Keeper's shoulder and another on the door frame. "Every time I see it I am glad you kept it. That was her last, wasn't it?"
The Keeper nods in response. "I didn't know what to make of it, before. A group portrait of people I had never met. But my foresight has never compared to hers, or yours. All I knew is that it would be important."
A few steps and he has reached it, staring into the faces he has known as well as his own for many decades and has only just met in the last year. A hooded figure at once a boy and an old man leant atop a cane. The four who are one who are four, dressed in red, purple, blue and green. A figure holding an umbrella outstretched, mid-strike, the ghost of... something behind them. Another brandishing a sabre, the sea breeze in their hair. And another, his face near obscured with his hood, his robe covering much of his figure.
They get harder to make out, the further from the middle they get. The deep dweller and the doting grandmother. The devoted and the cursed, the eternal and the one seeking such things. The difference between those that would become familiar, and the others that would only visit once - each as important as the last, but fleeting, like ripples on the surface of a lake.
With a nod, as though in greeting, the Keeper walks to a short shelf next to his dresser, placing the latest tome next to the one marked Mirabel, Vol 11. Others, too: a handful labelled Sivía. A few more for Étienne. Only a couple for Lachesis, Decima. Urðr.
Mirabel stands in the doorway, and smiles.
"So much history. I wonder what you will write in the next one?"
