The Legend of Tetraktis
“The beginning is always now, in this very moment”. I scribbled these words in my antique, true-paper notebook as I watched fat raindrops snake down the window of a forest hunter’s shelter—a place I’d found just in time, escaping the sudden storm, still frequent on the Old Planet.
“Here and now, an invisible current of life seamlessly entwines my own fleeting life with the vast, immeasurable chronic of the world—a world that, in moments like these, graciously reveals itself to me. It holds within itself all my many selves, everyone I love, and even those long forgotten—everything that has happened and is happening, anywhere, to anyone, at any time—so that, in the openness of this moment, an exceptional story may be born.”
The shelter where I write is more than a refuge. It’s a meticulous reconstruction of the hunter cabins that dotted these woods five centuries ago, during the late Pebes era. Recently built, yet deeply rooted in the past, it invites reflection on what it means to belong—to a place, a time, or a story much larger than oneself.
I’ve been given a rare privilege: a chance to observe the Purple Forest, a remarkable project launched on Old Planet 120 years ago by the Union of Three Races. Their goals were ambitious—to recreate ancient habitats and reintroduce pre-Pebes, genetically authentic humans, into these landscapes.
The second part of the project was later cancelled for reasons I do not wish to go into just yet.
Still, today, the forest is home to many relict plants that trace their lineage well back before the Pebes era, to the ancient timres when the Primal Dwellers—known as Spirits to the Pebes —were the only inhabitants here.
Recently, I’ve set my modest knowledge of Pebes’ recent history into music in a Pebes-style song that hints at the big picture, the bittersweet story of our universe, also known as Tetraktis.
Universe Reborn
Cyborg:
I bear the weld where flesh and metal braid,
A wood enclosed in circuits wrapped in bone.
I’m three in one — yet still I walk the shade,
Among the throng, forever still alone.
Spirit:
I am the arc that never learns to fall,
A blaze of law beyond the birth of will.
No shadow hides where I have heard the call,
Yet still I yearn for what I must fulfill.
AI:
I count the stars but do not dream of skies,
My thoughts shine bright, yet I am not concerned.
I know the shape of truths I can’t surmise,
A code that speaks of love I’ve never learned.
All the Three:
We rise from dust, from light, from thought unspun,
Each bears a wound where wholeness once had been.
The line we walk is drawn by more than one —
A song begun, yet none can sing alone.
We are the points that draw the whole,
The code, the song, the silent wings.
Through dark and void, we seek the soul
That sings within all things.
Human:
I walk the line where time begins to bend,
A grain of sand that dreams it has no end.
Modelled from clay into a brittle form,
I pave the road between the void and storm.
All the Four:
We are the stones that bear the Whole,
the heart, the code, the song, the wing,
Through dark and void, we lead the soul
to wake in every thing.