The rocket did not crash.

It did not blaze or spin or burst into fireworks.

It simply drifted down.

As though even the stars understood that this was not a moment for spectacle.

The roar of the Cosmic Circus faded behind them, shrinking into a distant shimmer. The great tent folded itself into the sky. The music thinned into wind.

Boxy glanced at the map in his hands.

It was warm.

But it was no longer glowing.

The lines that had once pulsed and flickered now lay still, as though the path itself had chosen to rest.

Below them stretched a clearing.

Green.

Soft.

Unremarkable.

The rocket settled so gently that not even a blade of grass bent in complaint. The hatch opened with a polite click.

Boxy stepped out first.

The ground beneath his boots felt different from cobbles and metal and stardust. It yielded slightly. It breathed.

Pete climbed out behind him, brushing space-dust from his tabard and scanning the horizon with dramatic suspicion, as if expecting jugglers to spring from the shrubbery.

Nothing did.

Gluebert followed last, adjusting his hat.

“Ah,” he said quietly. “The Quiet Ground.”

The name felt right.

No spinning lights.
No roaring crowds.
No flashing signals.

Just woodland.

Sunlight threaded through branches. Somewhere close by, something rustled, not urgently, just… alive.

Boxy felt a strange flicker in his chest.

Not excitement.

Not fear.

Something steadier.

And that unsettled him more than dragons ever had.

They had not walked far before Pete stopped.

At the base of a tree lay a speckled egg.

It trembled.

Pete pointed, eyes wide.

The egg wobbled again, bumping lightly against a wooden peg resting nearby, two curved shell pieces lying beside it.

Boxy crouched and picked up the peg.

He squeezed.

The shell halves opened.

Inside was a tiny yellow chick.

It blinked at them, offended by existence.

Pete leaned in.

Boxy released the peg.

Closed.

Squeezed again.

Open.

The chick peeped loudly, as if lodging a formal complaint.

Pete squeezed it himself.

Open. Close. Open. Close.

He stared at the peg in wonder, then at Boxy, as if he had personally invented movement.

Gluebert smiled faintly. “Pressure applied here,” he said, tapping one end of the peg, “creates change there.”

Pete squeezed again, testing the truth of it.

The chick hopped free at last, wobbling into the grass with surprising determination.

They did not chase it.

They simply watched it go.

Life rarely arrives with fanfare.

Often it arrives quietly and demands to be noticed anyway.

Further into the clearing, shapes moved between the trees.

Soft shapes.

Watchful shapes.

A small fawn stood half-hidden behind a trunk, ears flicking.

Boxy froze.

Pete froze harder.

Gluebert slowly lowered his staff.

“We are loud creatures,” the wizard murmured. “Even when we believe ourselves gentle.”

At their feet lay pieces of soft foam and elastic cord, pale faces, ears, small circles for decoration.

Masks.

Boxy lifted one. He pressed the lighter face piece into place, aligning the eye holes carefully. Pete copied him, though he briefly attached an ear sideways and had to correct it with silent indignation.

When they tied the elastic and slipped the masks on, something shifted.

They did not become deer.

They did not disappear.

But they moved differently.

Softer.

Slower.

The fawn stepped forward.

Pete removed his mask and turned it over thoughtfully.

Some faces are disguises.

Some are simply ways of learning to listen.

Near a fallen log, they found a small round bird struggling to lift itself.

Feathers lay scattered around it.

Gluebert brushed glue lightly across its back.

Pete gathered bright feathers and pressed them down with serious concentration. One stuck to his sleeve. He pretended not to notice.

The glue shone wetly at first, messy, uncertain.

They waited.

The glue dried.

The feathers held.

The bird shook itself, fluffed, and fluttered upward in an uneven but determined arc.

Boxy watched it climb.

Something inside him steadied in the same way.

Mess can become structure.

Given time.

At the edge of the trees stood a baby giraffe, neck stretched as far as it would go.

It blinked, frustrated.

Pete rolled a sheet of yellow paper into a cone, pressing the seam firmly until it held. The base flattened just enough to stand upright.

Stable.

Boxy added spots carefully, tearing small pieces and pressing them into place.

The giraffe stood taller.

It could see beyond the shrubs now.

Gluebert rested a hand lightly on Boxy’s shoulder.

“You do not return unchanged,” he said quietly. “You grow. And growth alters what you can see.”

Boxy looked out across the clearing.

It no longer felt overwhelming.

It felt open.

In a patch of moss, a small bunny lay with ears drooping sadly.

Pete examined the split pins, attaching the ears carefully to the back of the head. He threaded yarn through small holes and tied it in the middle.

He pulled.

The ears lifted.

He released.

They flopped.

He pulled again and stared at Boxy with unmistakable triumph.

Gluebert coughed politely. “Cause and effect.”

Pete pulled once more for emphasis.

Boxy tried it too.

Gentle pull.

Ears rise.

Release.

Rest.

Connection did not require force.

Only understanding.

As evening softened the sky, they sat in the grass.

Pete threaded green and yellow strips of paper into loops, one through another.

Green.

Yellow.

Green.

Yellow.

Each loop held the next.

Each depended on the one before.

The growing chain curved across the grass like a small, playful snake.

Boxy held it up.

The loops caught the light, forming a faint spiral pattern, not unlike the mark etched into the rocket’s cream panel, the spiral and gear that had followed them since the Station.

The map in his pocket remained quiet.

Not empty.

Just… waiting.

Boxy looked at the loops.

At the clearing.

At the trees swaying gently in the breeze.

He thought of the Hollow Hall.
The Festival lights that had glowed in darkness.
The Starlight Station’s hum.
The roar of the Circus.

None of it felt random now.

Each moment had linked to the next.

Each stage had held.

The chaos had not scattered him.

It had connected him.

Gluebert lay back against the grass. “Quiet does not mean nothing is happening,” he said softly. “It means something is growing where you cannot yet see it.”

Pete stretched out beside him.

The rocket stood nearby, no longer urgent, no longer blazing. Just present.

The clearing dimmed into twilight.

And then…

Boxy noticed it.

A flicker near the grass.

A tiny glow.

Another.

Small movements between the blades.

Soft wings.

Delicate shapes rising and settling again.

Not stars.

Not lanterns.

Something closer.

Something nearer to the earth.

Pete sat up slowly.

Gluebert tilted his head, listening not with his ears, but with patience.

The map in Boxy’s pocket remained still.

But the ground itself seemed to hum.

Not loudly.

Just enough.

Quiet did not mean nothing was happening.

It meant everything was happening slowly, beneath their feet.

Boxy pressed his hand gently to the earth.

He did not feel lost.

He did not feel hurried.

He felt rooted.

And somewhere in the grass, the smallest wings unfolded.