Duskharrow Vellthorne House and the Parlour That Never Found Its Morning

The parlour of Duskharrow Vellthorne House receives footsteps like a place that has forgotten the shape of sound. Dust drifts upward in faint spirals from rug creases; stale wool and cooled tea scent the air. The furniture seems to listen inwardly, curves and cushions shaped by habits long stilled.
Nothing pushes outward—every upholstered line, every softened board, turns toward a quietness that has grown thick with years.
The Reserved Domestic Rhythm of Elyra Celine Vellthorne
Elyra Celine Vellthorne, tutor of genteel handwriting and household arithmetic, once anchored her days to these rooms. She lived with her brother Raelan, a fledgling tinsmith whose work arrived in unpredictable bursts. Elyra kept the inkroom nook in painstaking order—slates stacked by lesson level, quills trimmed evenly, practice sheets folded with careful precision. She paced a measured arc around her escritoire before every session, murmuring sums beneath her breath. But as Raelan’s commissions faltered and Elyra’s fingers stiffened with strain, their supplies dwindled. Lessons thinned. Papers gathered dust before she corrected them. Her once-steady routines softened, fraying quietly until the nook itself seemed to lose its structure.

The Corridor Where Her Rhythm Faltered
In the west passage, Elyra’s shoes sit angled toward the wall, laces stiff as cord. A cracked lamp chimney rests beside a dropped dust cloth. Raelan’s tinsmith sketches lie blurred on the floor from a slow, creeping moisture that curled their edges.
The Scullery Where Work Drifted Out of Reach
Inside the scullery, mismatched mugs bear pale residue. A kettle rimmed with mineral chalk sits beside the smooth cooling stone Elyra pressed to her aching wrists. A linen apron hangs from its peg, its creases long surrendered to collapse.

At the landing’s far end, Elyra’s final corrected page—ink faint, lines unsteady—rests beneath a shawl she never retrieved. Raelan’s smallest tin-cutting blade sits beside it, dulled to a soft matte. Duskharrow Vellthorne House continues settling deeper into itself, its rooms dimming slowly, indefinitely abandoned.