The boredom was like water without taste, a bit too distilled. The Body had reached its peak. It was a work of art by itself, a song everybody knew by heart. The great instincts were now mere idling engines, useless and getting cold.
The very first indication of change was the idea of the Body limiting itself. It didn't start with a huge plan, but rather a small, playful experiment from the Improviser Theme. In a secluded spot of the Memory-Orchard, it produced a tiny, sealed pod of pure crystal. A simple memory was placed inside: sunlight on skin, as experienced through an algae-filled sky, something that they couldn't feel directly anymore. After that, it wrapped the pod in a field that shut out everything else.
It seemed like a hundred years passed and nothing happened. The pod was a black box in a white world.
After that, there was a vibration. It was very quiet and peculiar. The memory that was isolated, started to...change. It started to dream without any context. It asked itself: What if the sun was hotter? What if the skin was not that of a human? What if the sky was blue? The simple feeling gave rise to questions, and questions were new data.
The pod unlocked. The changed memory, now complex, returned. It was a tiny, new taste in their normal life. It wasn't much, but it was different.
The experiment made the point: new things are created by Limits.
The Gardener Theme, curious, moved on. It selected a large, stable area of the Body—the old Hepatic Labyrinth, now a super-controlled filter—and introduced a rule: for one full orbit of the Deep Drone, it would get no help. No fixes, no changes. It would be running on its last settings, making small mistakes, getting a bit worse.
The Resilience Theme was looking on, very concerned but also unable to take its eyes off the scene. This was contrary to the Resilience Theme's nature.
The Labyrinth, without interference, didn't collapse. It...changed. Its mechanisms became strange due to the absence of continuous assistance. A filter cyst that was making a noise of stammering that rhythmically matched the Heartforge's beat and a bunch of purifier fungi, that, being untrimmed, grew into an attractive sculpture even though it was not efficient for filtration, but looked better, were some of the things that happened.
When everything was back to normal, they didn't repair it. They saw it. They turned the stutter into part of the music. The fungi were recognized as art. The Labyrinth wasn't worse. It was different. It had its own vibe, coming from being ignored.
The Body was training itself on the good side of the principle of letting things be. Not being perfect. The boredom was slowly getting a bit of a golden shade.
The most significant concept was raised by the Bridge Theme. As composers, Benny and Elara were very much aware of the stillness. There was nothing new to say to the Deep Drone.
They came up with the following idea: What if we stop composing for it? What if we just listen for a thousand years and then we see what we have to say?
It was like not talking. Severing the communication with their voice.
The rest of the team thought it over. It was a very daring move. The counter-melody was an integral part of them. If they stopped, it might result in the Deep Drone's rhythm taking control over them.
However, the Vigil Tree reminded them: not doing something sometimes can be as powerful as doing it.
They consented.
The Bridge Theme went silent. The cool counterpoint to the Deep Drone ceased. Only the Body's rhythms were remaining—the Beat, the flows, the light. They were just...listening, to the great Pulse from the dark.
The silence was dreadful. For the very first time after forever, they experienced the enormous weight of the Deep Drone's rhythm without their music. It was like being naked in front of a glacier. The glacier didn't care, was massive, and different.
Nevertheless, after listening for hundreds of years, the things were different. They stopped viewing the Drone as something to resist or embellish. Instead, they started to perceive it. Its problems. Slight changes that were not random, but demonstrating what was going on inside—its weather, its slow thoughts, its digestion. They were witnessing it live.
Moreover, upon hearing it, they experienced something new: not anger, not teamwork, but friendship. They were two huge entities, existing in the same dark, listening to each other's breathe.
Once the thousand years were over, the Bridge Theme did not come back to their old music. They produced one pure note. It conveyed: I hear you.
The Pulse from the Deep Drone got stronger, for a moment, then. It listened.
The silence was not void. It was filled with a new understanding. They had ceased their song, and were filled with someone else's.
The boredom was gone. At present, there was only a quiet interest. They are not finished. They have just realized that the song never stops; it only changes. And there are endless ways of changing it.