In the Listening Court of Interval, the air bent.
No one saw it enter.
But the wind stopped.
And in its place stood a figure made entirely of question marks. Not glyphs. Not marks from a language. Literal interrogatives, stitched together by a logic foreign to the world.
It did not speak.
It waited to be read.
The Archivist of the Unheeded approached first, carrying a scroll written in ellipses and silence.
"I do not know how to welcome you," she said.
The Questionform tilted its head, and dozens of its punctuation-pieces tumbled and rearranged.
"Then do not welcome," it said, in a voice made of tones that echoed what you feared most.
"Ask."
The Archivist bowed, not in subjugation, but in reverence.
Then asked the only question she did not keep in her scrolls:
"What do you become when no one finishes you?"
And the Questionform shuddered.
Its limbs rippled.
And for a brief moment, a name almost appeared in its center.
Then vanished.
It was not ready.
—
