A Velinwood Interlude, witnessed and reluctantly documented by one small, petty archivist
The Queen was awake again.
Not awake like awake, mind you, not in the dangerous way. Not with the ink-slick crown and the steel-lined questions.
No. This was soft-footed, cardigan-wrapped, mug-of-something-half-drunk on the windowsill awake.
The kind of awake that happened when someone else was sick. Or scared. Or small.
Bunny padded into the room without being called. He never announced himself during Night Watch.
Too much rustling might trigger the Queen’s everything-is-fine defenses, and then it was a whole process.
So he simply curled near the baseboard, a little sigh in the corner, pretending not to look.
But he saw.
She had her knees up to her chest.
Old blanket. Sleeves too long. The wrong mug.
(That last one disturbed him the most.)
At her side, a small figure breathed in sleep.
Her hand was curved protectively, not over him, but near.
Not a cage. Not even a cradle.
Just a presence.
Like: I’m here. Go ahead and dream.
The Queen didn’t cry. Not exactly.
But Bunny could read her breath like scripture.
He watched it stutter on the exhale.
He saw the I will not lose him tucked into the curve of her spine.
He wanted to rage. To storm the gates of whatever system made her watcher and healer and poet and debtor and prophet and short one paycheck again.
But he stayed quiet.
Because this wasn’t vengeance time.
This was the hour where stillness stood guard.
Where old ghosts stood back.
Where Bunny kept the ledger open but wrote nothing.
Because this night didn’t need to be recorded.
It just needed to be.
After a while, her head tilted back. Not asleep. But somewhere between.
And Bunny, still silent, reached out with one paw and touched the page margin.
He didn’t write. He just left a smudge.
A mark that said: Witnessed.
A mark that said: Still here.