Main:
Gwynviène Avenloré
Other:
Aurenne “Ren” Avenloré, Sylvérian Avenloré, Lady Syraëlle Avenloré, Lord Caladien Avenloré, Panvier
Where:
The Archivum wing of The Library, and the surrounding woods
When:
Present-day Evergild Era
Theme:
Belonging, routine, magic in the ordinary, memory, dreams, family, gentle magic, comfort
Summary:
In a single sunlit day, we follow Gwynviène Avenloré through her life at the Archivum. Her hours unfold in quiet purpose and affection: researching lost rituals, brewing potions with Ren, teasing Sylvérian, and answering her mother’s care with gentle irreverence. That evening, she and Panvier walk to the edge of the woods and sit by the stream beneath a rising moon. It’s a day of small, meaningful things — the kind that build a life.
The sun had not yet fully risen over the estate when Gwynviène Avenloré stirred beneath the covers, blinked away the last traces of a strange dream, and sighed as she stretched. Pale golden light filtered in through the high windows, catching on the curls that spilled from her pillow. Panvier, curled into a massive crescent of warmth beside her, gave a soft huff as she shifted, clearly unimpressed by the early hour.
“I know,” she whispered into his fur, “too early. But that tome… I have to see it again.”
She slid from bed and padded barefoot to the standing mirror in the corner of her room. Her reflection blinked back at her, a sleepy scholar with pink-streaked curls that had escaped their overnight braid and lavender eyes still heavy with dreams. She pinned her hair up attempting to calm the chaos, looping a sage ribbon through the mess and finally, sliding a quill into place into the unruly curls, knowing she always needed one at hand. Then came her blouse and skirt, soft and worn, cinched with her corset belt hung with keys, charms, and a small bronze bell—silent now, but still part of her. It had once rung clearly, fastened to her belt when she was small and prone to wandering off. Her parents had given it to her so they could always hear where she was, the faint chime a comfort more than a leash. But the clapper had fallen out years agoand she’d never replaced it. Not long after, she’d met Panvier under the willow, and from that day on, she no longer needed the bell. He was her shadow, her sentinel. She kept it now as a quiet reminder of being loved, watched over, and found.
By the time she reached the kitchen, the scent of herbs and cooling ash lingered from the night before. Unlike the other branches of the House of Scholars, whose grand wings within The Library were maintained by quiet fleets of servants, The Archivum, the domain of her immediate family, was more self-sufficient. Partly because the rest of the House simply overlooked them, and partly because they chose it. They had a small kitchen garden that provided herbs and vegetables, and her father, who delighted in cooking, often made meals for them all with quiet joy. None of them were especially tidy, though, and the kitchen, like much of the Archivum, was a blend of charm and chaos: drying herbs hung from beams, recipe scrolls tucked between cookbooks, and a perpetual trace of flour across the counters.
Gwynviène brewed herself a strong cup of tea and toasted two slices of fruit bread, sliding them onto a napkin before making her way through the tangled corridors toward her manuscript.
The Archivum, nestled within the eastern wing of the Library, was a place of candlelight and dust motes, old books and dried flowers. Soft lighting pooled in corners. Tomes were stacked in semi-logical piles beside velvet cushions and tea cups. It was an organised mess, and they mostly knew where everything was. The warmth and clutter made it feel like home, a sharp contrast to the austere orderliness of the rest of The Library. The rest of her family.
The great halls were still and golden in the morning hush, the kind of quiet that made the world feel suspended. She walked barefoot over warm stone, Panvier trailing reluctantly behind her, and settled into the western alcove with her satchel, tea, and toast. Her fingers, already twitching for ink, opened the manuscript she’d left bookmarked the night before—a piece of local history detailing the forgotten rituals of spring.
Her handwriting was delicate but purposeful, looping across the parchment like threads stitched into fine cloth. Her expression furrowed gently in focus as she studied and ate, alternating between bites and notes, the dream still echoing at the edges of her thoughts. Somewhere down the corridor, her younger sibling was humming.
She’d woken with the dream still lingering—symbols she couldn’t quite place, a tree with silver leaves, a whispering wind that spoke in rhymes she couldn’t remember. The memory prickled at the edge of her mind, folding into the text before her like a thread waiting to be drawn. Following the sound of the hums, she found her sibling, Ren, in the sunny herb room, legs swinging from a stool as they arranged sprigs of thyme into a spell bundle that glittered faintly in the light.
“I had that dream again,” Gwynviène said softly.
Ren looked up with interest. “The one with the mirrored tree? And the wind that speaks in riddles? Or the one where you show up to a house meeting in just your pants?”
Gwynviène groaned and sat beside them, shoulder to shoulder. “I should never have told you about that one. No, it was the tree but this was…different. It felt… older somehow. Like it was remembering me instead of the other way around.”
Ren, who had a sixth sense for these things and a talent for reading between the layers of both dreams and reality, handed her a dried sprig of lavender from their bundle with a knowing grin. “Memory trees show up in dreamlore, you know. Could be one of the old kinds trying to speak to you. You should write it down—it might link with something in the archive.”
Gwynviène nodded, smiling faintly as she turned the lavender between her fingers, making a mental note to write her thoughts down before the dream faded.
Later that day, while taking a break from her research, Gwynviène followed the low murmur of voices to the map room, where she found her older brother Sylvérian standing over a massive, timeworn chart. Their mother stood opposite him, arms crossed and eyebrows raised, deep in quiet but pointed debate.
“Those rivers haven’t shifted in two centuries, Sylvérian,” Lady Syraëlle was saying with a wry look, her finger tracing an elegant curve of ink that had likely been redrawn dozens of times.
“And yet the records disagree,” he replied, tapping a disputed corner of the parchment. “Three sources, each with a different delineation. Someone was wrong.”
“Or imaginative,” Syraëlle countered, arching a brow.
Gwynviène slipped into the room and leaned on the side of the table, scanning the chart with interest. “Maybe the rivers simply got bored.”
Sylvérian chuckled, not looking up. “Or the scribes did.”
Their mother gave her a fond smile, reaching over to gently brush a curl from her daughter’s forehead. “Have you eaten this morning?”
“Only ink and parchment,” she replied breezily. “Delicious.”
From the adjoining reading alcove, Lord Caladien’s voice carried over the shelves. “Make time for lunch later. The pear tarts are cooling, and I won’t be held responsible if Ren or Panvier eats them all!”
The day passed in soft, satisfying moments. Gwynviène helped bind a new ledger with her mother, debated a footnote with Sylvérian, and brewed a focus potion with Ren that turned gold at the edges when stirred clockwise. She spent a blissful hour alone in the archives with the manuscript, uncovering a ritual involving woven rivergrass and birdsong. She gently activated a few faint lines with her gift bringing old ink briefly to life beneath her fingertips.
By the time the sun had lowered toward the hills, The Archivum had grown quiet again. Not empty—never empty—but steeped in hush. She slipped away with the ease of someone who knew every creaking stairwell.
Down stone steps worn smooth by generations, across the green courtyard, and past the ivy-draped outer wall, Gwynviène walked into the nearby wooded field with Panvier at her heels. He was tall now, his grey-blue coat rippling in the wind like a storm cloud caught on earth. Still, he moved with the loping ease of a creature still half-wild, though always loyal. When she turned to glance at him, he met her gaze with pale lavender eyes and nudged her satchel with his nose.
“You missed lunch,” she murmured, teasing. “No pear tarts for you.”
Panvier snorted and trotted ahead.
The air smelled of warm grass and the coming cool. Twilight bloomed slow and violet across the sky. She walked a narrow path, her fingers brushing tall reeds, her boots dampened by the dew-kissed grass. A stream wound gently along the edge of the woods, humming the same quiet song it had hummed since long before she was born.
They passed an older man with a cart of mossy apples. She greeted him by name. A child in a red scarf waved from a distance, then disappeared over a stile, hurrying to head home before nightfall. Panvier chased a flurry of birds and came back proud, tongue lolling and tail high.
She knelt beside him, tying a charm of pressed mint to his collar, murmuring, “For cool feet and clearer thoughts, according to Ren.”
The sun had all but gone when they reached the old bridge—just a moss-covered arch of stone. She sat on its edge, legs dangling, Panvier sat beside her like dusk given form. Fireflies began to flicker near the stream.
She didn’t think about the future, or the duties she was meant to shoulder. Not tonight. Tonight she listened to the water, traced the shape of an old story in her lap, and let the quiet of the world press close around her like a second skin.
And when the moon rose pale and round above the field, Gwynviène Avenloré stood, brushed off her skirt, and made her way home. She would write the dream down properly tonight, maybe read it aloud to Ren. Perhaps even show Sylvérian. But for now, she had this quiet twilight, and Panvier, and the hush of the woods that remembered her footsteps well.