So it wandered — through the lustery wood where shadows were kind and the rain never truly decided to stop. It cupped its hands to catch the drizzle and drank. It curled up under a toadstool’s brim and slept while the afternoon turned slowly, quietly, toward evening.
It had no mother, no name, only the damp, lustery air that wrapped around it like a half-woven blanket. The light filtered through the hazel branches, thick as honey and thin as longing. Everything was soft-edged, smudged, as though the world had been painted in watercolours and left out in the mist. lustery babyling
And the forest, old and patient, leaned in close and whispered: Stay small a while longer. The world will wait. So it wandered — through the lustery wood
It stretched, clumsy and curious, on a mossy stone beside a brook that murmured secrets to the pebbles. A dewdrop slid from an oak leaf and landed on its nose. The babyling sneezed — a sound like a tiny bell ringing underwater — and where the sneeze landed, a cluster of silverpink mushrooms pushed up through the loam. It had no mother, no name, only the