The people named it Arvus's Palm . And every night, children would point to it and say, "Look. He made a star just for us."
"Our pattern ends with us," the voice replied. "We have no gods. We have no one else. Only you."
The dying sun was smaller than he remembered stars could be. Its core had gone quiet, its outer layers cooling into a smoky haze. The silver cities below had grown dim; their people huddled in geothermal warmth, telling stories of a sky that had once blazed gold.
And somewhere in the darkness between galaxies, Starmaker Arvus—who had no hands, no eyes, no heart—felt the warmth of being known. And for the first time, he understood: a star was never just a star. It was a promise that someone, somewhere, was watching.
He turned back to his work. But now, when he shaped a nebula into a sun, he would sometimes pause—just for a moment—and wonder: Who will love this one?
The star shuddered. Its core reignited in a pattern no natural star had ever known—a lattice of fusion and intention, a heart that beat not just with heat but with choice . The light that spilled from it was not white or yellow, but a soft, living gold that seemed to recognize the faces below.