The Lantern-Tender

3"5" Watercolor on Paper

They called her the Lantern-Tender, though no one remembered who first whispered the name. She drifted through the twilight meadows beyond the old stone wall, moving like a scrap of dream that refused to be forgotten. Her hood hung low, her skirt whispered around her legs, and her metal-jointed hands gleamed faintly in the violet light.

When she reached toward a closed blossom, the flower leaned toward her in return; as if recognizing her touch before it arrived.

The villagers believed she woke the lights inside those petals. No one knew what the lights were; fallen star-seeds, shy spirits, or something older still, but each evening, as day balanced on the edge of night, the Lantern-Tender tapped each bud with a gentle, luminous finger. At her touch, the blossoms unfurled golden hearts that glowed like fireflies remembering a promise.

Children sometimes crept into the tall grass to watch her work. They never spoke. They simply sat, breathing in the warm shimmer of the meadow, and some claimed they heard her humming; a soft, circling melody that made the dusk feel safe.

One night, a fierce storm swept across the fields before she could finish. Wind bent the stems and tore at the petals. Still, she moved patiently through the dark, lighting each flower one by one. And when the storm finally passed, the meadow shone brighter than it ever had: thousands of tiny lanterns pushing back the wet and worried night.

By morning, the Lantern-Tender was gone. All that remained were the glowing blossoms swaying in the breeze, quietly offering the truth the villagers had always suspected:

Magic lingers wherever kindness takes root.