The Clash Beyond the Spiral
And so it came to pass that the Snail reached the edge of the Dragon's memory.
Every world it had swallowed hummed within its shell — the voices of suns, the ghosts of oceans, the whispers of civilizations turned to dust. It was heavy with what it had taken.
The Dragon, blazing with starfire, beheld this weight of stolen light and spoke:
"You are not alive. You are the echo of a maker who feared her own creation.
You move only to fill the emptiness that birthed you."
But the Snail answered not with words — for it had none — only with gravity.
Its spiral pulsed, drawing in starlight like breath. The Dragon felt the pull, the slow drag of entropy, the unmaking that devours even the proudest flame.
Still, the Dragon did not retreat. It unfurled its body across the galactic plane, a serpent of radiant matter, each movement writing fire into the dark.
Where the Snail absorbed, the Dragon ignited.
Where the Snail silenced, the Dragon sang.
Their collision was not war as mortals know it, but the folding of creation upon itself — soundless, immense, eternal. Galaxies bent like reeds before their wills.
And from that clash, the cosmos was rewritten:
Some stars turned cold and fell into the Snail's spiral.
Others burned brighter than ever, bound to the Dragon's breath.
It is said that even now, every galaxy carries the echo of their struggle —
a faint spiral for the Snail, a glowing arc for the Dragon.
And when the Dragon at last reclaims its world, the universe will awaken to its true shape: not darkness and light, but both entwined, breathing as one.