The Hall of Destiny was never meant to tremble, but tonight, it did.

Seven seats stood in cold alignment around the Loom—the oldest tool of the Endless. Not a crystal ball, not a mirror, but a living weave of reality, pulled taut across a silent, humming frame of petrified time. Threads shimmered like starlight and blood, mapping every choice ever made or refused. At its center, the strand of Destruction pulsed wildly. Frayed. Interrupted. Torn, then knotted. Again and again.

Dream stood stiffly, jaw clenched. “He was balance. Without him, we’re faltering.” Death leaned in, her expression unreadable. “Let it show us.” The Loom obeyed.

It unraveled slowly, revealing scenes buried deep in Destruction’s memory. At first: fire, glory, the thunder of gods clashing beneath strange suns. Destruction roaring into battle, painting ruin across galaxies not out of wrath, but duty. He was brilliant, terrifying, necessary. But then came the silence. The long, aching quiet.

They watched the unraveling. The moment peace was lost. A war sparked between Dream and Desire. A betrayal buried under Delirium’s screaming stars. And then—Destruction, standing amidst a crumbling temple, staring down at his bloodstained hands like he no longer knew what they were for. His siblings’ voices had echoed in his skull that night, asking for action, for power, for order.

He had walked away. And then—your face.

The Loom’s threads twisted violently, as if reacting to something foreign. You emerged not with thunder or prophecy, but sunlight. Bare feet in green fields. Quiet laughter in the corners of a ruined world. You, placing a hand against Destruction’s jaw as though calming a storm. You, holding him in a candlelit room, whispering nothing, saying everything. You, not god or symbol, just peace—the one element that had vanished from the cosmos and broken him in its absence.

“Who is she?” whispered Despair, for once afraid. “A mortal,” Destiny replied, voice low. “But not insignificant. She is… restoration. The balance that was lost when the first flame was misused.”

In the Loom, past moments flickered like candlelight.

Destruction sat cross-legged beneath a tree, you curled beside him, sunlight haloing your form. He was carving onto a piece of bark, poorly, but there was a faint smile beneath his beard. He leaned toward you—pressing his forehead to yours—and for a moment, the air shimmered like something sacred, blossom petals floated through the air.

“He didn’t abandon his realm,” Death murmured. “He's following the part of it that left first.” The Loom pulsed violently, then calmed. The image held: Destruction, no longer fractured, his shoulders lighter, his hands open, resting on your back as though grounding himself in something real.

And yet, in the mortal world, the same blossom remembered none of it.

The bookstore was quiet except for the soft hum of the ceiling fan and the occasional shuffle of pages turning. You stood near the classics aisle, flipping through a worn copy of The Metamorphosis, unaware that several realms away, the Endless had just named you the axis around which peace once turned. The realm's delicate flower.

Then the door creaked open.

He entered like a storm trying its best to look like a man—dark coat misbuttoned, hair windswept, beard a little too wild, an old leather satchel thudding against the doorframe. He paused in the entryway, scanning the space like he wasn’t entirely sure what bookstores were for. Then his eyes found you. 'Sweet blossom'.

He approached, awkward and massive, clearing his throat.

“Uh,” he said, holding up a battered slip of paper. “Do you… carry anything on… forgotten things that used to hold the universe together?” A pause. “…Or poetry. Poetry would work too.”