Her goblin mode had curdled. What began as a defiant retreat from the world’s expectations had festered into a swamp of apathy. Elara’s small apartment, once a den of what she’d called ‘cozy chaos’, was now just chaos. Dust bunnies roamed like tumbleweeds, and the stack of unread books by her bed seemed to mock her with their unopened spines. She was in an era, she supposed, but it was the era of stale tea and staring at the ceiling.
It was Kael, her perpetually-polished friend, who brought the whisper of a solution. “You’ve heard of the Almoner at the Weeping Spire, haven’t you?” he’d asked, carefully avoiding contact with any surface in her apartment.
Elara had. No one advertised it. It was a secret passed in glances and half-finished sentences; if you knew, you knew. The Almoner didn’t dispense food or blankets. He dispensed *change*.
“He’s just some nepo baby from a forgotten lineage,” Kael had continued, buffing a smudge from his silver ring. “Got the appointment because his great-grandmother charmed a fate-spinner. They say he’s basically quiet quitting the whole mystic duty. No ceremony, no arcane pronouncements. You just show up, and if he deems you sufficiently miserable, he gives you one.”
A coin. A small, unremarkable disc of bronze that held the potential to rewrite your personal narrative.
The thought hooked into Elara’s stagnant mind. She was tired of this version of herself. She yearned for that clean, bright, main character energy she saw in people like Kael. A life lacquered in a sort of dream-world perfection, a doll in a perfect house, every hair in place, every decision effortless.
A week later, she stood before the Weeping Spire, a tower of grey stone that wept a constant, silent film of moss. The Almoner’s chamber was a sparse, cold room. He was younger than she expected, with eyes the color of a winter lake and an air of profound boredom. He didn’t ask her story. He just looked at her, a long, appraising glance that saw the grime under her fingernails and the dullness in her eyes. Without a word, he pushed a single bronze coin across the marble table.
Elara snatched it, its metal surprisingly warm. She fled the Spire, the coin clutched in her sweaty palm.
That night, she sat on her floor, the coin glinting in the moonlight. The instructions, relayed by Kael, were simple. Hold it, and picture the life you want. Not riches or love, but the *feeling*. The state of being. The coin didn’t grant wishes; it rewove the threads of a soul. You could choose to be industrious, or charming, or fearless. You could enter your healing era, your villain era, your successful-artist-who-wears-only-linen era.
Elara closed her eyes. She imagined it: her apartment, immaculate. Her mind, sharp and focused. She saw herself rising at dawn, effortlessly creative, admired by all. A woman with no doubts, no existential dread, just a smooth, upward trajectory. The perfect life.
“Don’t do it,” a voice said.
She jumped. Rhys, her neighbor, was leaning in her open doorway. He was the antithesis of Kael—scruffy, paint-splattered, and perpetually smelling of turpentine and coffee.
“The vibes are just… sterile,” he said, nodding towards the coin in her hand. “I’ve seen them. The coin-takers. They walk around like they’re lit from within, but their eyes are empty. Like beautiful, hollow statues.”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Elara snapped, defensive. “To be stuck. I just want to be better.”
“Hey, girlypop, I get it,” Rhys said, his tone softening. “I’ve been there. But ‘better’ isn’t the same as ‘flawless.’ They trade their shadows for a flat, bright gleam. All their interesting, jagged bits get sanded down.” He gestured around her messy room. “This is a mess, yeah. But it’s *your* mess. You made it. You can unmake it, too.”
She looked from Rhys’s earnest, worried face to the coin. The life it offered was so tempting. No more struggle. No more rot. Just clean lines and easy smiles. She could feel the threads of her current self fraying, ready to be re-spun into something new and brilliant.
But then she thought of the strange comfort of her worn armchair. The specific taste of her favorite, over-steeped tea. The joy of a sudden, chaotic impulse to paint a wall bright yellow, even if she never finished. The jagged bits. Her shadows. Was a life without them truly a life at all? The swamp was murky, but things grew in it. Strange, wild things.
Slowly, deliberately, Elara held the coin up between her thumb and forefinger. She looked at its blank, promising face. Then, with a flick, she sent it spinning into the air. It wasn’t to activate its magic. It wasn’t to make a grand choice about her soul.
She smiled a small, genuine smile.
“Heads,” she whispered, as she caught it, slapping it down on the back of her hand, “I’ll do the dishes. Tails, I’ll start that book.”
Far away, in his cold stone room, the Almoner felt a faint, unfamiliar tremor. He sat up a little straighter. For the first time in a very long time, he was curious.
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