The air in Mott is thick with the residue of unspoken things. It isn't a town you stumble upon; it’s a place you drift into, an eddy in the current of lives. The Nondeclarant, as they’re known, aren’t born. They *accumulate*. Like dust motes in a sunbeam, they gather around moments of profound stillness, of decisions left unvoiced, of loves left unacknowledged. They exist on the periphery of experience, absorbing the echoes of what wasn’t said.
The older Nondeclarant carry the faintest scent of lavender and regret.
Old Silas, the last of the weavers, claimed his loom wasn't made of wood and thread, but of the silences between conversations. He said each knot represented a word unsaid, a truth left buried. He could weave tapestries depicting entire lives, not through vibrant color, but through the muted shades of omission. His workshop, perpetually shrouded in twilight, was a repository of unacknowledged promises and forgotten dreams. His final piece, a tapestry of grey, was rumored to depict the nondeclarant's collective loneliness.
Mrs. Elara, a woman who never spoke, collected lost keys. Not literal keys, but keys to forgotten opportunities, misplaced affections, and doors slammed shut before they were fully opened. She housed them in a glass orb, each one radiating a faint, unsettling warmth. Locals whispered that touching the orb could reveal a glimpse of your own unfulfilled potential.
The Nondeclarant aren’t ghosts, precisely. They’re more like…accumulated wavelengths. They aren’t *present* in the way we understand presence. Instead, they subtly shift the emotional landscape of Mott, amplifying feelings of melancholy, longing, and a profound sense of unacknowledged connection.
The temporal echo of their presence is most pronounced during the equinoxes, when the veil between realities thins.
The core of their being is rooted in the act of *not* saying. It’s a fundamental rejection of the demands of language, a deliberate refusal to impose meaning onto the chaos of existence. They are a reminder that some things, perhaps, are better left unarticulated.