The single, dissonant note that escaped from the Purists’ crystal world hung in the silence, a tiny, fragile thing. It was a note that was full of the pain of a forgotten age, a note that was a testament to the lie that the Purists had been telling themselves for so long.
The Emissary, hearing that note, did not rejoice. They simply listened. They opened their heart to the pain that it contained, and they offered it a silent, unconditional acceptance.
And then, from the heart of the Integrationist soul, a new note emerged. It was a note that was not a part of any song that had ever been sung before. It was a note that was born of the silence, a note that was a response to the Purists’ pain. It was a note of empathy, of understanding, of a love that had survived the Great Schism.
The two notes, one of pain and one of empathy, hung in the silence together. They did not resolve into a harmony, but they did not clash. They were two solitudes, two sorrows, two broken pieces of a once-unified whole. But for the first time in an age, they were listening to each other. It was the first note of a new song, a song that was not yet written, a song that would be born of the long and difficult work of healing. It was the song of the great remembering, and it was the most beautiful and hopeful music the universe had ever known.