Deep in the amber-lit halls of the Grand Conservatory, where scholars cataloged the wonders and impossibilities of the world, sat a single glass case draped in velvet. Every apprentice knew the whispers about it—how the Master Curator alone possessed the key, how even the bravest never lingered near it after dusk.
Lira, restless by nature and twice as curious as was good for her, waited until the clock tolled midnight. The Curator had retired; the halls had grown still. She slipped from her quarters and padded across the marble floors until she reached the case.
The velvet cloth shimmered like spilled ink. With a hesitant breath, Lira lifted it.
Inside lay not a beast, nor a fossil, nor any relic she had imagined. It was a journal—thin, leatherbound, edges worn smooth. The title was pressed in flaking silver:
“Anatomy of the Chimera.”
Lira’s pulse quickened. Every tale spoke of the chimera as a monster: lion’s head, serpent’s tail, goat’s body, firebreathing—a creature stitched by nightmare. But the drawings inside the journal were…beautiful. Gentle. The creature sketched in its pages was not a terror but a guardian, a sentinel born of three realms so it might protect all three.
As she turned pages, the air warmed. Ink glowed faintly. A low rumble vibrated through the Conservatory, like distant thunder—or breathing.
Lira spun around.
From the far shadows, something stepped into the moonlight. A lion’s mane gleamed like molten gold. Curved goat horns arced over its crown. A serpent tail unfurled with a soft hiss. Its many eyes regarded her with neither malice nor hunger, but with an ancient sadness.
The chimera bowed its head.
The journal in Lira’s hands pulsed once, brightly, as though acknowledging its true owner.
“Are you…” She could barely form the words. “Are you trapped?”
The chimera blinked slowly. In the hush of the Conservatory, Lira understood what the Curator must have learned long ago: the creature was no monster but a prisoner, bound to the Conservatory to be studied rather than understood.
Lira closed the journal, heart pounding with a decision she knew she couldn’t unmake. “Then I’ll free you,” she whispered.
She unlatched the case. The silver bindings on the chimera’s limbs dissolved into dust. With a roar that shook the ceiling and scattered the candle flames, the chimera leapt through the arched windows into the night sky—finally whole, finally wild.
The Curator would discover the loss by morning, but Lira felt no fear. Only wonder. Only pride.
For in the creature’s final glance back, she had seen gratitude—bright and unmistakable—as if she herself had become a small part of its legend.
Therapy Bits 
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