Brammelwurz and the Awakening Starseed

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The sky above the Time Lake was still. No wind stirred the reeds, no sound disturbed the mirror-smooth surface. Brammelwurz knelt on a floating root bank, a strange seed in his hand – transparent as glass, with a spiraling movement within it, as if it contained a small star. He had found it in the Glimmer Bog, deep in a hollow of memory dust, guarded by a silent echo that had only waited for his touch. Since then, the seed had radiated warmth – not heat, but a kind of attentiveness. As if it wanted to be seen. Now the moment had come. Brammelwurz pushed aside the damp moss with his bare fingers, dug a small hollow in the rooty network, and placed the seed inside. Instantly, the light contracted – as if it were holding everything around him for a moment. No clap of thunder. No tremor. Instead, a soft whirring, barely audible, like the flutter of a wingbeat in sleep. Then the light fell. It was no ordinary light—not sun, not moon. It was like the reflection of a thought never spoken. A silver veil descended over the landscape, and from the place where the seed rested, not roots grew, but lines—fine as veins, luminous, branching out in all directions. Timelines. Brammelwurz gasped. He knew the feeling—the proximity of a decision that was more than choice. It was a revelation, hidden in a gesture. The lines formed a path, shimmering, translucent, as if made of lived possibilities, presented themselves for re-examination. He followed the path. To his left and right, moments lay like half-shadows: He saw himself with Zelda, as she poured him tea with a look he could never interpret. He saw the workshop beneath the lake—burning, though it never did. And the white wolf—wounded, disappearing, but also laughing with a voice he had never heard. Time rippled around him. Every decision he had ever made now appeared to him in two versions—what had happened and what hadn't. And then he stood before him: the white wolf. Unhurt. His fur gleamed in the silver light, the scars gone. And yet he was heavy—as if he carried something within him that was older than memory. "You saved me," said the wolf. "But what if my pain was part of the order? If my wound wasn't a mistake, but a question that couldn't be asked?" Brammelwurz was silent. It wasn't the time for words. The lines around her flickered, as if they themselves were listening. "I have returned to give you something," the wolf continued. "Something that never happened—and yet waits for you." He lowered his head. A crystalline droplet, clear and shimmering, broke loose from between the furs on his forehead: a sphere barely larger than a seed. Brammelwurz took it. It felt warm, but not alive—more like a key made of memory. "What is this?" he whispered. "A node," said the wolf. "A decision not made.