?? Audio Version

  

  A sudden pulse—his eyes unveiled,

  The world around him trembled, paled.

  But now he knew the way to be:

  Observe, but never think to see.

  His feet moved on through shifting scenes,

  Through realities that split like dreams.

  Till something made the cosmos pause—

  A familiar light, a forgotten cause.

  Before him stood a frozen form,

  A white tigress in time's cold storm.

  Within her jaws, a strange hive lay,

  Where tiny wings had lost their sway.

  "Like bees," the thought came, swift and clear,

  "They dwell in trees"—then disappeared.

  He dared not dwell on questions why,

  For fear the peace would break and die.

  With gentle hand, he freed the hive,

  While fragments of the world would strive.

  Then peering through reality's veil,

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  He sought a tree to tell its tale.

  There stood a grove from times long past,

  With leaves of glass that wouldn't last.

  Their edges caught the shifting light,

  While roots of mist reached starward height.

  The sacred tree of Ark'Sul's care,

  Now sang its sharp notes through the air.

  He hung the hive among its leaves,

  Where life and glass made strange reprieves.

  The thought escaped him, quick as rain,

  Lest balance slip to chaos' reign.

  His focus turned back to the beast,

  Whose frozen form had not yet ceased.

  He touched the streams of frozen time,

  That held her form in paradigm.

  The tiger shuddered at his touch,

  The contact proving far too much.

  Yet something drew him, wouldn't cease,

  A feeling bringing strange release.

  Not memory, but something more—

  A light he'd somehow known before.

  He pulled her free from time's strange hold,

  And watched her form once more unfold.

  She sprang to life with fearsome grace,

  Her fangs bared fierce before his face.

  His balance broke, the chaos rose,

  The universe again unfroze.

  Reality began to spin,

  As madness surged once more within.

  But through the storm, that light remained,

  A beacon where his mind had strained.

  He followed it through space and time,

  Till everything grew still, sublime.

  There stood a girl in radiant glow,

  Her eyes held wisdom he didn't know.

  The light that saved him from the void,

  Was hers—the truth his mind deployed.

  "It was you," his spirit cried,

  Though not a sound broke space inside.

  But as the thought took form and grew,

  The chaos stirred, beginning new…