They called it the Sky That Holds, but no map could chart its bounds.
No telescope could find its edge.
For it was not made of stars or fire or even story.
It was made of witnessing.
Not passive.
Not idle.
But active, chosen, defiant remembrance.
A net cast across beginnings—not to trap them, but to let them land. To give shape to that which would otherwise dissipate into endless do-overs.
And high above, in that sky, the first lights were appearing.
Not because someone made them.
But because someone chose to keep them.
—
The child—still unnamed, still untouched by closure—stood at the center of the Listening Ring and reached outward.
Not with power.
But with attention.
Every new spark that tried to escape into premature beginning, they caught—not in a cage, but in a palm open enough to cradle, closed just enough to keep.
They whispered no command.
They merely said, "Stay."
And the world, for the first time in uncountable cycles, listened.
Not because it had to.
