In the Library Beneath Beginnings, the pages had changed.
No longer stacked in reverent rows, they floated, drifted, played.
The stories they carried were not sacred.
They were shared.
People came not to study them, but to converse with them.
One page told jokes about its own forgotten plot.
Another acted out scenes for children who hadn't yet chosen a narrative path.
A third simply held space—blank, pulsing faintly, for the reader who still didn't know how to begin.
And the Librarians?
They no longer catalogued.
They listened.
Because now, even the quietest pause between sentences could be part of the tale.
Shelter-for-All became more than harbor.
It became threshold.
Those who had once come to rest now came to ask:
"May I bring this with me?"
And always, the answer was:
"Yes—if you carry it together."
Lighthouses appeared elsewhere—on mountaintops, in deserts, beneath oceans.
But they didn't shine beams anymore.
They pulsed in rhythm.
To the Garden.
