The idea began with Veyra.
She stood by the Listening Tree one morning, her hands dusty from planting clover along Maie's trail. She was quieter lately. Not somber — just more present in the way people are when they've made peace with something long unresolved.
When Kael passed by, she said:
"I think it's time."
He paused.
"For what?"
Veyra looked toward the horizon.
"To carry it somewhere else."
She wasn't the only one.
That week, five others mentioned it.
Not as a plan.
Not as a goodbye.
Just a knowing.
The kind of knowing the field had come to respect.
One traveler said:
"This place gave me silence. Now I want to speak elsewhere."
Another said:
"I've gathered enough echoes. I want to see what my own voice sounds like."
Maie asked Kael:
"Are we supposed to feel sad?"
He smiled.
"No. We're supposed to feel full."
The field responded by blooming a ring of wildflowers overnight at the edge of the northern path.
A space neither entrance nor exit.
Just a circle.
Tama called it the Center of Going.
Sera wrote signs for it.
Maie built a tiny "toll booth" nearby with a painted rock and a button jar labeled:
Leave whatever still belongs to here.
Echo said nothing.
But she curled near the ring each evening, watching those who came to sit, and those who came to prepare.
Kael gathered the community near the fire.
"We're not holding a farewell," he said. "There's no loss."
"We're holding a Departure Ceremony. A walking-outward. A blessing."
He paused.
Then added:
"Because not all stories stay."
"Some need to carry the peace with them."
The preparations were quiet.
Veyra packed only three things: her cloak, a half-finished poem, and the Poké Ball that hummed with her old companion's presence.
Another traveler carved a spiral into a wooden ring and wore it as a pendant.
Sera made necklaces from dyed threads — one for each departing soul.
Tama composed a melody in seven notes: one for each person staying behind.
Kael sat by the glyph-sapling, writing lines he didn't know if he'd ever read aloud.
And the field listened.
On the day of the ceremony, the ring of wildflowers had turned silver-white.
Not dead.
Just transitional.
People gathered around it slowly, sitting on stones or soft moss. No speeches. No script.
Just Kael stepping into the center, holding a small bowl of water gathered from the rain that fell during Naming Day.
He nodded once to the travelers.
They stepped forward, one by one.
Kael dipped a finger into the bowl.
Touched each person's brow.
And said:
"You do not need to stay for us to remember you."
When Veyra stepped forward, Kael hesitated.
Then added softly:
"You taught us that even silence deserves to be heard."
She smiled.
No tears.
No collapse.
Just… clarity.
After the blessings, each traveler walked the ring once.
Then stepped beyond it.
No fanfare.
No echoes trailing.
Just the sound of grass parting under honest footsteps.
And the wind whispering thanks.
Maie walked up to Kael once the ring emptied.
She looked up.
"Will they ever come back?"
Kael knelt beside her.
"I hope so," he said.
"But if they don't?"
He placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Then we'll keep the trail open."
That night, Echo found Kael sitting near the Naming Bowl, staring at the stars.
She curled against him.
"They're still with us," she said.
Kael nodded.
"They're carrying us forward."
He opened his journal.
Wrote:
Today, the field exhaled.
Not to release.
But to make room.
And we didn't cry because we lost something.
We bowed our heads because we witnessed courage.
The wildflowers in the ring didn't fade the next morning.
They changed.
Glowed faintly.
And one traveler, passing the trail late at night, swore they heard the field say:
"There is no such thing as leaving.
There is only carrying elsewhere."