The transmission from Xylos reverberated through First Hope. It solidified their identity in a way no internal struggle ever could. They were not the flawed, chaotic children of the galaxy. They were its musicians, its storytellers, its messy, passionate artists.
That evening, Elias closed the main archive. He walked through Thornesgate, now vibrant with the noise of a thousand intertwined lives. He heard a new kind of music being played in the plaza, a fusion of Odyssey instrumentation and the rhythmic, earthy beats of the Scavenger Kings. He saw children, born of awakened and star-farer parents, playing a game that involved remembering and re-enacting the story of the Memory Bomb.
He climbed the Southern Ridge and looked down at the city lights, then up at the stars, where the Uncharted Shore was now journeying to a new, freely chosen destination. The memory of the blue sky was no longer a ghost he chased. It was a part of him, a single thread in the vast, magnificent, and unfinished tapestry of their existence.
His work as a trader was done. His work as a keeper was eternal. But in that moment, Elias Vance was simply a man, standing on a real world, under a real sky, filled with a quiet, unshakable peace. The story was continuing, and it was beautiful.