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Today’s prompt: “At the Lake of Reflections, the water shifts unexpectedly, revealing a scene. What do you see, and how does it make you feel?”
Today’s music: Lake, by Black Lions Beatz. 🎧 Listen on SoundCloud.
Lake of Reflections
When I woke the next morning (and this time, it was actually morning; I hadn’t slept until, like, noon), a small folded square of paper had been tucked under my door. I unfolded the note and found it written in beautiful handwriting:
COME TO THE LAKE
This was right above a hand-drawn map, highlighting a general direction of travel and an X-marks-the-spot at the end, like some kind of pirate treasure map. I mean, sure! Why not. It could be treasure. I guess I wanted to know what was next. What Hearthlight wanted from me. I’d sent off the two drivers yesterday with some of Trudy’s ice cream. While we’d had coffee, someone had fixed their car and truck. Not just towed, but fixed: both were as if they’d never been in an accident. They were surprised, to say the least, but the ice cream helped soothe the burn of embarrassment at causing a fuss over nothing.
If only they knew they were in a town that had a real wizard.
I breakfasted and headed out, keen to see where the map led. It took me out the west side of the hamlet, through a small gate and down a path lined with bright yellow flowers. The path meandered until it intersected a bubbling brook. I followed the water, because the map was clear on this point, and enjoyed the gentle buzz of insects as I walked the countryside. The air smelled so clean here, as if it were made of life itself. The shrubs verging the brook turned into small trees, then larger ones, with boughs overhanging the water. The brook graduated with full honours into a slow, meandering river, leading me around a bend and to a lake.
This was what the X marked… so, not a crate of privateer gold. I was happy with the lake, though. It had lily pads, and an earnest, quiet confidence that said, I don’t know how you got here, but it’s fine if you stay. An old jetty eased out over the water. A rustic-but-sturdy-looking bench was built into the end of the jetty. Well, why not? I headed on out. The jetty’s boards creaked beneath my feet. An old canoe, sans oars, was lashed to the side, but I didn’t feel like paddling out on the lake today, so I walked past and toward the end. I sat on the bench and looked out over the deep, calm water.
If you’d asked me later, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you how long I sat there. A minute? An hour? A day? It didn’t seem to matter. No one was bothering me, and I wasn’t bothering anyone else. I also couldn’t have told you what made me look at the water close to the jetty’s edge, but when I did, I didn’t spasm or flail at the picture lying beneath the water’s surface. Sure, a magic lake. Why not?
The picture showed a boy. It was me, back when I didn’t carbon-date like a forgotten Egyptian sarcophagus. I was burying an insect in the sand. I guess I was what, three? I remembered that day; sunny, and I was playing, and didn’t realise that I was about to kill the poor bug. I’d felt powerless, despite how much more powerful than the insect I was. The scene flashed forward, and there I was giving my ice cream to my sister, who’d dropped hers. Another flash forward, and there I was being bullied, then bullying another kid. Later, helping yet another with homework. Faster and faster, the lake showed me parts of my life where I either felt terrible or had done the right thing. That time when I got into a street fight. That time when I’d stopped one. When I hung someone out to dry in the office. When I’d bought someone lunch after hearing about their divorce.
Then the lake stilled, the images leaving. The surface of the water was calm, but I felt the turmoil inside me. Compared to the easygoing nature of Hearthlight, this felt like a blow—a rollercoaster of the good, the bad, and then putting that on repeat.
I calmed my breathing and leaned back on the seat. I realised the lake was showing me something: that I’d let people down and helped them both. That, like everyone else, I wasn’t a hero, but I wasn’t a villain either. Humans rise to greatness. They fall into the dark. And whether you end up flying with your better angels or slumming with your easier devils comes down to which you spend most time with.
Did the lake want me to decide which I wanted to be? Was it telling me that I’d already decided? How had it measured, and what did it mean? Was it saying I wasn’t, what, good enough to help Hollis?
That I didn’t deserve to? Should I have finished the entry in the traveler’s journal to prove that I was ready to make this trip? Or would the lake have known that for a lie?
No, that was all just the mess inside me. The lake was telling me that it saw me—the whole of me. And it said that I was still welcome to sit here. Maybe the lake knew Hollis couldn’t do this alone. Maybe it knew I couldn’t either. But it was telling me that people make mistakes. They’re not defined by them, but by what they choose to do with the feelings that remain.
It wasn’t like I was going to suddenly stop making mistakes. The lake knew that. Perhaps it just wanted me to invite my angels in for tea more often. And maybe next time, I’d have the pot already ready.
Roll result? One mirror lake, one long look inward, and an invitation to find the strength to keep walking.
XP gained: 1 eternal truth, 1 memory reframed, and +1 to emotional resilience checks.
Ready for Day 14?
💌 Want more stories like this waiting for you with your morning coffee (or tea by a magic lake)?
If Hearthlight’s brought you a little peace, a smile, or just helped you dodge one more doomscroll, you can toss a coin to your humble narrator via Ko-fi. Every bit helps keep the tea hot and the stories flowing.
Hearthlight on Roll for Narrative is possible because of the kindness of its creator, Henrique de Aguiar, who’s allowed me to use his game like this. You can find him on Bluesky, X, or Itch, or better yet, grab The Hearthlight Chronicles - it’s only $3!
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