The stream here is shaded, untrampled, talking in a clean voice. Ferns drink at the edge. No cattle have churned it into a brown soup.

You do the cup test because Nan’s first story asked for it, even if Nan did not know she was asking.

Cup one: this water. Clear. Cold. Leaf-taste, honest.

Cup two, from the cattle-ditch below the mill pasture: cloudy, hoof-punched, smelling like a barn that forgot the door.

“Unicorns purify water,” Mira says slowly, “meaning… don’t wreck the banks? Keep a clean reach? Leave the shade on the water and the feet off the mud?”

“Same kindness as a magic horn,” you say. “Different costume.”

A pale moth ticks past. The wood feels, for a moment, like a person who has been waiting for you to notice the obvious.

You can take this to Nan, who loves a story that learns a new job.

You can take it to Cole, who loves a mill that does not grind grit and sick water.