The planet still has no name, but the humans who eventually find it will call it Nova Terra.
Right now it has three inhabitants.
Lin Kexin is in the kitchen garden, humming something ancient and off-key, hair tied back with a strip of Hassan's discarded shirt. She is thirty-eight forever, but today there are laugh lines at the corners of her eyes that weren't there yesterday; she lets them stay because they make her feel human.
Hassan is on the porch, pretending to read a paper book (paper is a novelty again), but mostly watching her the way galaxies watch their favourite star.
Between them, barefoot in the grass, is their daughter.
Her name is Yexing (夜星): Night-Star.
She is six years old, black hair to her waist like her mother, eyes exactly like her father's when he's pretending to be mortal (old-gold rings around absolute dark).
She is currently trying to teach a baby phoenix how to fetch.
The phoenix (hatched last week from an egg Hassan made because Yexing asked nicely) keeps setting the stick on fire instead of bringing it back.
Yexing huffs, tiny hands on her hips.
"Baba, your bird is broken."
Hassan doesn't look up from his book, but the corners of his mouth curve.
"That's your bird, little star. You named her."
"Her name is Dumpling," Yexing announces with the solemnity only six-year-olds can manage, "and she's perfect, she's just opinionated."
Lin Kexin laughs from the garden, brushing soil off her fingers.
"Sounds like someone I know."
Yexing spins toward her mother, grass staining her bare knees.
"Mama, can we have three suns today? I want to see triple rainbows."
Lin Kexin raises an eyebrow at Hassan.
He closes the book without marking the page (he doesn't need to remember; he is memory).
"Three suns is a little ostentatious," he says, but he's already standing, stretching like a panther made of night.
Yexing bounces on her toes. "Pleeeease?"
Hassan sighs theatrically, scoops her up with one arm, and kisses the top of her head.
"Only because you asked in Mandarin and Arabic at the same time. Cheater."
He flicks two fingers.
Far above, the sky ripples. A second sun (smaller, rose-gold) ignites to the left of the original. A third, soft indigo, appears on the right.
Instant triple rainbow, bright enough to cast coloured shadows across the porch.
Yexing squeals, loud enough to startle Dumpling into finally dropping the (now thoroughly charred) stick at her feet.
Lin Kexin walks over, leans into Hassan's side, rests her head on his shoulder while their daughter chases phoenix-fire light across the grass.
"She's going to break the universe one day," Kexin murmurs.
Hassan's arm tightens around her waist.
"Good," he says, voice warm with pride. "It could use some redecorating."
Yexing looks back at them, eyes glowing faintly (just faintly) with the same darkness that once swallowed galaxies.
"I love you bigger than all the suns!" she shouts.
Lin Kexin smiles, soft and fierce.
"We love you bigger than forever, baby."
The triple suns shine down on a family that ended one war and started a better kind (the kind fought with laughter, sticky fingers, and the occasional accidental supernova in the backyard).
Somewhere very far away, the last surviving Custodian archive records a single line in a language no one will ever read again:
Anomaly resolved.
Status: Happy.
End of interlude.