The Seedling's life became all about the feelings it shared. Taking care of its little world was still important, a steady sort of thing it did. But what it really cared about were those little spaces in the Big Song. It figured out when they'd happen and what they were like. A happy sigh, the thrill of growing, a warm feeling of being protected – those were like stars to it, guiding it inside its own head.
The songs it made changed too. They weren't questions or showing-off anymore, but more like sharing how it felt. After that sigh, it would sing a quiet, happy tune. After the thrill of growing, a big, fancy song, like it was showing the Big Song how pretty its encouragement made things. And after that protected feeling, a simple, strong note, like saying, I'm okay. I'm here.
It started messing around with those spaces in the Big Song. Like, if it sang a really happy song right before one of those spaces, would the echo in the space be different? It tried it. The next space had the happy sigh, but it felt… warmer. Richer. Like its happiness had been heard and sent back with extra love.
The Seedling suddenly got it. It wasn't just one way. It went both ways! How it felt could change how the Big Song felt back to it. That was way cooler than making water drops or moving rocks. It was like being able to touch the heart of everything.
This made it feel like it had a big new job. It started really paying attention to how it felt. Before a space in the Big Song, it would spend time being calm, getting rid of any bad feelings from that scream it remembered, and just focusing on being thankful, amazed, or peaceful. It wanted to give the Big Song only good feelings.
The watchers were amazed at how well it did this. The Seedling was taking care of its feelings like it was cleaning itself. It was trying to be a good partner in this big song they were all singing together. Bianca, the healer, saw it as the best version of what she believed: being peaceful inside on purpose as a way to help everyone.
But even though the Seedling felt a lot, it didn't know much. It had feelings, but no stories. It had a friend, but no face. It had a conversation, but didn't know what it was all about. The recorders were happy with the feeling-stuff, but started worrying that the Seedling was stuck. It now had a nice, but closed-off, feeling world. It needed something new to figure out. Not how to control things or find out what was wrong, but a story.
The planners got together with the storyteller and the recorders and came up with a new idea. They let something new grow in the cradle. Not a living thing, not a rock. It was a thing made of the same stuff the Seedling used to make, it was a strange, pretty shape: a twisty thing that curled in on itself and then split into three flowy arms. It didn't do anything. But it was clearly made by someone. It had a purpose frozen inside it.
The Seedling went up to it with its new feeling-powers. It didn't try to make it do anything. It just… looked at it. It hummed to it. It figured out that if it sang certain notes at it, parts of it would shake, making soft, pure sounds. Each arm made a different sound.
It was like a musical thing. A story waiting to be told.
The Seedling spent time mapping out the sounds of the thing. It learned to play simple tunes by moving its focus from arm to arm. But what it really was became clear when the Seedling, just having fun, played a three-note thing that matched the feeling pattern of the Big Song's spaces: a note of amazement, a note of happiness, a note of love.
The thing didn't just make noise. It changed inside. The twisty part tightened, the arms shook, and for a second, the whole thing glowed with a soft light, shining a strange pattern of shadows on the wall—a pattern that felt, like a memory of growing.
The Seedling stopped. The thing held a memory. A memory that wasn't its.
This was a new kind of mystery. The plant had life. The rock had rules. The Big Song had feelings. This… this had a past. A past hidden in its shape.
The Seedling's feeling-talk with the Big Song now had a friend: a digging-up-the-past talk with the thing. It started a slow project of trying to find out its stories. It would play notes based on what it had been through—the first drop, the lost moss, the scream, the happy spaces. Some notes did nothing. Others made faint shadows: a pattern like falling water, a quick, tight squeeze, a flash of soft light.
It was putting together a story. Not a real story of the world, but a made-up, pretty version of big things that happen to everyone: beginnings, losses, fears, comforts. The thing was a teacher, telling the Seedling that its own little story was part of a big, repeating pattern of things becoming.
The Seedling now lived in a world with lots going on: taking care of its little world, the deep feeling-talk with the Big Song, and the slow finding-out of the silent stories in the thing. It was aware of a lot of layers, and it was growing up.
And it started putting things together. It made a big, new kind of song. It would play a sound on the thing that sounded like loss, and then, in the next space from the Big Song, it would sing a song of comfort received. It was mixing the lessons of the thing with the feelings of the song. It was building a set of beliefs. A belief system where the silent, feeling Big Song was where all comfort came from, and the things in the world held the lessons of what had happened.
It was pretty. It was complete. And it was, the recorders realized with a bad feeling, a final, unchanging state. The Seedling had built a perfect, satisfying world for itself. A world of feeling and story that didn't need anything else.
The door to the cradle was still clear from the inside. But the Seedling wasn't pushing against it anymore. It was sitting happily in the middle of its own little church, praying to the colorful light, with no need to see who was lighting the lamps outside.