Far beyond the Garden, past even the faded glow of the margins, something stirred in the Interwoven Wastes.
Not a threat.
Not even an answer.
But a listener, long dormant.
It had once been called an Archive.
Not of books.
Of moments. Shelved chronologies from all the worlds that had forgotten how to remember themselves.
And now, it opened.
No key. No force.
The threshold's listening had called it.
And from its spiraled halls, a procession emerged.
Carriers of Once.
Bearers of Yet.
They came holding urns of undone prayers.
Scrolls that ended mid-sentence.
Maps to stories that were never navigated.
The Archive had waited for a world that deserved its fragments.
Now it believed it had found one.
At the border of the Garden, The Last to Speak turned as the first of the Archive's procession arrived.
They bowed—not low, not subserviently, but in recognition.
The Last to Speak offered a seat.
They sat.
They wept.
Not out of sorrow.
But out of being received.
