Kaelen's astronomy lesson did not end when the children were called inside for bed. It lingered in the cool night air, a new constellation of thought hanging above Aethelburg. For Kaelen, it was a revelation not of stars, but of methodology. He had presented cold data, and the community had warmed it with narrative, making it palpable, digestible, *real*. He had always believed narrative was a decorative flourish on the edifice of fact. Now, he was forced to consider that it might be the mortar holding the bricks together.
The next morning, he was at the schoolhouse before anyone else. He stood before the slate, still covered in his precise chalk diagrams of celestial mechanics. With a damp cloth, he wiped it clean. The act felt symbolic. He was not erasing the knowledge, but clearing the space for a new way of presenting it.
