The Crow and the Rabbit I
A Fable of Verenis
There once was a white rabbit named Healintis.
She lived at the edge of a silent field,
where the grass was soft,
the wind was gentle,
and the paths never reached farther
than her eyes could follow.
There she knew the trees.
There she knew the scent of the earth.
There she knew when evening would fall
and where she could rest safely.
Often, Healintis looked toward the dark forest beyond.
Not because she wanted to go there.
But because she felt
that something was waiting there
which she did not yet understand.
One night, when the moon hung low
and the silence was almost audible,
she saw, between the roots of ancient trees,
a narrow passage
she had never noticed before.
She hesitated.
The opening was not large.
Not threatening.
And yet it felt different
from everything she knew.
Then a shadow fell over her.
Startled, Healintis looked up.
High above her,
on the dead branch of an oak,
sat a gigantic raven.
His feathers were darker than the night.
His head seemed shaped from ancient metal.
His beak was long and narrow,
sharp as a scythe
that did not reap,
but pointed.
The tree creaked beneath his weight.
“Who are you?” Healintis whispered.
The raven slowly bowed his head.
“They call me Noctyrnis Kain.”
Healintis took a small step back.
“Are you dangerous?”
Noctyrnis did not move.
“Only to those who think
comfort is the same as truth.”
Healintis looked back at the field behind her.
There lay everything that was soft.
Everything that was familiar.
Everything she knew.
Then she looked again at the dark passage
between the roots.
“I do not know what lies beyond it,” she said.
“Perhaps you never will,” Noctyrnis Kain softly rasped.
“Careful rabbits rarely dare to open hidden doors.”
Healintis swallowed.
“So I have to go inside?”
“No,” said Noctyrnis.
That answer surprised her.
The raven looked toward the passage.
“You do not have to do anything.
But not everything unknown
wishes to harm you.”
Healintis was silent.
Inside her small body, she felt tension.
No panic.
No urge to flee.
Something else.
As if she stood exactly
on the border
between what she knew
and what might be calling her.
“Why does it feel so uncomfortable?” she asked.
The enormous raven slowly spread his wings,
and for a moment it seemed
as if the night itself grew larger.
“Because not everything that grows
begins softly.
Because some doors
can only be felt
when you stop trying
to understand everything at once.
Because wonder
sometimes first appears
as tension.”
Healintis looked down at her paws.
She was small.
The forest was vast.
The passage was silent.
And above her watched a being
who seemed to carry
both threat
and meaning.
“And if I am afraid?” she asked.
“Then listen,” said Noctyrnis.
“And if I doubt?”
“Then look again.”
“And if I do not know what I am meant to find?”
Then the great raven leaned slightly forward.
“Perhaps you do not need to find anything.
Perhaps you only need to be willing
to meet something within yourself
that has not yet been seen by you.”
Healintis looked back one last time
at the familiar field.
It did not seem bad.
Only smaller than before.
Then she slowly placed
one white paw
across the threshold.
The air beyond the passage was colder.
The trees stood more crooked.
The shadows were deeper.
Nothing felt comfortable.
But everything felt alive.
And as Healintis walked on,
she felt that her tension
was not made only of fear.
There was something else inside it.
Curiosity.
Attention.
The first form of growth.
Above her, the heavy wings
of Noctyrnis Kain sounded once more.
Not as a threat.
Not as a command.
But as a reminder.
That not everything which feels strange
must be avoided.
And that growth sometimes begins exactly there
where certainty ends.
A little farther on, the forest opened.
Behind it lay a garden.
No ordinary garden.
A garden without a map.
And above that garden hung a night
that did not yet know
it would one day be made lighter
by a white rabbit.
✶
Dare, like the brave white rabbit,
to look beyond your first hesitation.
For not everything that seems dark is lost.
Sometimes it is precisely there
that what still needs to be found
lies hidden.
Only through the darkness can the light become truly visible.
Painted by V
Some guests have become part of the dessert.
✶ The Stillness Beneath Indulgence
The message is intentionally ambiguous .
The fruits glisten.
The bodies gather.
The table overflows —
yet nothing here fully offers itself in Verenis .
Everything seems within reach,
while quietly remaining distant.
As if the feast was never meant for hunger alone,
but for recognition.
The sugar softens.
The red deepens.
And beneath the velvet shine,
It waits without asking to be touched.
Not everything beautiful wishes to be taken.
Verenis waits with patience, until you are ready to arrive.
The Rabbit and the Raven II
Maybe her long hare ears were bigger than his silence.
Then Veli... touched one string of her harp.
The reader would later insist
that it had meant nothing.
✶ About Scratching Caws
Noctyrnis caws when he warns.
He screechs when he guards a truth.
And sometimes he rasps when words aren't big enough for what he's trying to say.
That is why most people listen to his words.
But a few listen to the scratching in between.✶
✶
Then the Traveler looked back one last time.
At dusk, the moon in the garden looked like the sun for a brief moment.
Or did he just think that?
He squeezed his eyes shut.
The shape was the same.
The light was different.
And yet…
For a brief moment, he had sworn that he did not look at the moon.
The mirror followed his gaze.
“What do you see?”
The Traveler hesitated.
"Don't know."
The Shadow also looked up.
The moon was just the moon again.
As if nothing had happened.
As if nothing had ever happened.
Still, the Traveler kept looking.
Just slightly longer than necessary.
“For a moment,” he said softly,
I felt like the moon was the sun.
The Mirror smiled.
That sounds like something you would say.
But the Shadow did not laugh.
He kept looking at the sky.
As if he himself wasn't entirely sure what he had seen.
Then the Shadow looked up one last time.
Perhaps some things can never fully become one another.
The Mirror nodded.
But sometimes they can be quite touching.
He was silent for a moment.
Then a small smile appeared on his face.
“Do you think,” he asked,
“that Healintis and Noctyrnis might have been in love with each other?”
The Traveler looked at the sky.
The shadow to the trees.
No one answered.
As if the story itself did not know
whether it wanted to answer that question.
For one rare moment, they agreed.
Then the three walked on.
And behind them the twilight lingered,
as if she kept a secret
that even the night did not dare to pronounce.
✶
Sorry if I interrupt your appetite further with this image,
But what this evokes goes deeper than mere attraction or simple lust.
You are still standing within the first book — Healintis …
yet here, for the first time,
you already feel something of the fifth book: Secretis.
A whisper
of what comes later.
For after the second book — The Mirrors
—
the deeper layers truly begin to unfold.
And beyond all of them,
Only one letter remains.
V
