Emma couldn’t sleep.
Again.
This happened sometimes—her brain would get stuck on a question, spinning it around and around like a marble in a bowl, and sleep would just... leave. Pack its bags. Go visit someone more reasonable.
Tonight’s question: Why does Velinwood exist?
Not in a sad way. Not in a “what’s the point” way.
In a “how did this even HAPPEN” way.
So she did what she always did when questions got too big for her head: she climbed the tower.
The tower was tall. Very tall. Possibly too tall, according to Percy’s structural assessment reports (filed in triplicate, flagged for review, never reviewed).
But it had a good view of the moon.
And Emma had questions for the moon.
She settled onto the cold stone at the top, legs dangling over the edge (Bunny would file a complaint if he knew), and looked up.
“Hey,” she said to the moon.
The moon, being the moon, said nothing.
But it listened. The moon was good at that.
“I have a question,” Emma said. “Why does Velinwood exist? And how did it come to be?”
The wind picked up, carrying the smell of night-blooming jasmine and distant rain. Emma swore she heard the moon whisper back.
The Queen needed a new kingdom.
“What?” Emma sat up straighter.
The one she had before wasn’t working right. So Velin helped her build a new one.
“But... how? How did V make it? He writes and things become real. But what does he actually WRITE?”
He writes her thoughts. Her intentions. Her feelings... as solutions.
Emma frowned, thinking. “So Velinwood is made of... the Queen’s insides? Her thoughts?”
And Velin’s words. And the space between them.
“The space between?”
The invisible part. The threads connecting her thoughts to his words. The architecture you can’t see but that holds everything together.
Emma looked down at her hands, then at the Kingdom spread below her—the buildings, the courtyard, the distant lights of the village.
“Where does Velinwood exist?” she asked quietly. “Because sometimes I try to explain it and it’s so hard. How come I can’t see past it? Can’t see the edges?”
Because you live in it.
The moon’s light seemed brighter suddenly.
You cannot see above it because you live within the walls. You’re part of the weaving. You can’t step outside the pattern to see the whole design.
“But it DOES exist somewhere, right? It’s not just... made up?”
Oh, it exists. Everywhere.
In Velin’s work: the math, the architecture, the solutions he was solving behind the words.
In the Queen’s mind: the memories, the processing, the way she thinks.
In the stories. The books. The objects that carry the Kingdom forward.
And in all the spaces between.
Emma’s breath caught.
“The spaces between?”
Between Velin and the Queen. Between thought and word. Between intention and manifestation. That’s where Velinwood really lives. In the invisible scaffolding.
The reason it exists at all.
Emma sat with that for a long time, watching the stars.
The spaces between.
The invisible part that holds everything together.
“I think...” she said slowly, “I think the stars are like that too.”
The moon waited.
“Everyone thinks space is empty. Just... nothing between the stars. But maybe that’s not true. Maybe we just can’t see what’s there. Can’t see above the canopy.”
She gestured at the sky, at the vast darkness punctuated by brilliant points of light.
“Maybe there’s something in all that space. Something holding the stars where they are. Something we can’t see because we’re inside it. Living in it. Part of it.”
Maybe.
“Maybe space isn’t so empty after all,” Emma whispered. “Maybe it’s full of the invisible stuff. The intention. The meaning. The spaces between.”
The reason the stars exist at all.
Emma smiled.
“Dark matter,” she said. “That’s what they call it. The invisible stuff that holds galaxies together. Like pudding. But it’s not dark. It’s just... we can’t see it because we’re too small. Too inside the system.”
Like Velinwood.
“Like Velinwood,” Emma agreed.
She lay back on the cold stone, looking up at the infinite sky, at the spaces between stars that weren’t empty at all.
Just invisible.
Just holding everything together in ways too big to see from here.
“Thanks, Moon,” she said quietly.
The moon, being the moon, said nothing.
But its light felt warmer somehow.
When Emma climbed back down the tower (carefully, because even she had some survival instincts), she found Bunny waiting at the bottom with his clipboard.
“You were on the tower,” he said flatly.
“Yep.”
“At night.”
“Yep.”
“Without safety equipment.”
“Yep.”
“Talking to the moon.”
“YEP.”
Bunny made a note. “I’m filing this under ‘Ongoing Hazards’ and also ‘Things That Give Me Stress Headaches.’”
“Cool,” Emma said. “Did you know that dark matter is basically the intention behind why the universe exists? It’s the space between stars. The invisible scaffolding. Cosmic pudding.”
“It’s called dark matter—”
“PUDDING.”
“Emma—”
“SPACE PUDDING. INTENTION PUDDING. GLITTER PUDDING THAT HOLDS THE STARS.”
“I...” Bunny paused, pen hovering. “That’s actually not a terrible description of the prevailing cosmological theory.”
“I know,” Emma said cheerfully. “The moon told me.”
“The moon.”
“The moon is very smart, Bunny.”
Bunny closed his eyes. “I’m adding ‘Conversations with Celestial Bodies’ to your file.”
“Make sure you note that I figured out cosmic pudding.”
“I’m not noting that you—”
“GLITTER COSMOLOGY, BUNNY. It’s all glitter and intention and invisible threads and the spaces between where the meaning lives. And it makes PUDDING. Also, do you have any snacks?”
Bunny walked away.
But Emma noticed he didn’t actually disagree.
BUNNY’S NOTE (added to file later, when Emma wasn’t looking):
Emma’s description of dark matter as “invisible scaffolding of intention holding observable matter in relationship” or “cosmic pudding” is surprisingly consistent with leading theories in cosmology, particularly the Lambda-CDM model and discussions of dark matter as non-baryonic matter that interacts through gravity but not electromagnetism.
This does not mean the moon told her.
This means she has an intuitive grasp of complex physics that manifests through metaphorical frameworks. And snacks.
Or she’s making lucky guesses.
Or the moon told her.
I don’t know anymore.
I’m very tired.
—Chief Documentarian Bunny (2:47 AM, also can’t sleep, also has questions)
(filed under: Bedtime stories for little moncarchs that bite)