Nora sat cross-legged on the living room rug, Solas the kitten nuzzling against her cheek. Sunlight streamed through the window, painting golden stripes on the floor. Everything seemed normal—but beneath the ordinary, something trembled.
A shadow flickered across the corner of the room, moving against the flow of light. It didn’t belong to the furniture, the curtains, or her parents. Her small chest tightened. She could feel it—a prickling at the back of her mind, a whispering pulse.
“Nora…” Solas the kitten’s presence brushed softly against her awareness, faint but insistent. “They are testing you. Do not fear. Hold the thread.”
The shadow pulsed, twisting, reaching toward her, almost like a hand of darkness trying to snatch her awareness. Solas the kitten hissed softly, fur bristling, and Nora instinctively wrapped the kitten closer to her chest. The pulse of the kitten’s warmth echoed through the threads, like the Solace machine’s heartbeat decades later, grounding her.
Nora held her hands out, trembling. The shadow recoiled slightly, reacting to her intent. She didn’t fully understand what she was doing, but the threads answered her attention. The shadow twisted and recoiled again, then shrank to a flicker, hovering nervously at the edges of her perception.
Her father called from the kitchen, “Nora! Are you playing nicely?”
“Yes, Daddy!” she shouted, though her voice quivered. The shadow dissolved under the mundane weight of the normal world, leaving only sunlight, rug fibers, and Solas the kitten’s steady purring.
Nora exhaled, realizing she had done something—she didn’t know what—but the threads hummed in acknowledgment, responding to her instinct, her touch, her tiny awareness.
That night, tucked into bed with Solas the kitten curled against her chest, she felt it again: the pull of other worlds, the shimmer of threads, the echo of battles yet to come. Somewhere in the distance, the Unmakers waited.
But for now, in her small room with her small companion, baby Nora had survived the first test.
And the threads, fragile but persistent, whispered back: “You are ready, little one. But they are coming.”