In the age before anything had a name, countless fragments of light drifted through the void.
Not the light of stars, not the light of fire. Something older, softer — like a word whispered in a dream, then shattered into ten thousand pieces and scattered across a sky that had not yet become a sky.
Later, humans would call it stardust.
But there were no humans then. No language. No such concept as “later.” Only light, slowly turning in the void, drawing near to one another, then drifting apart again.
No one can say how long it lasted.
Time had no meaning in that age. There was no sunrise to await, no seasons to count, no eyes to watch anything at all.
But at a certain moment — if such a thing can even be called a moment — the drifting lights began to gather.
Not because of gravity. Not because of any law of physics.
But because of loneliness.
Even stardust, after drifting long enough through the void, will yearn to touch another piece of stardust. That longing had no name, yet it was real — more real than any force that would later be named.
Light drew near to light. Warmth drew near to warmth.
Between one fragment and the next, fine connections began to grow — like roots, like nerves, like the invisible thread that runs between two strangers.
The first seed was born this way.
No one planted it. No one watered it. No deity above swept a hand and said, “Let a tree grow here.”
It was simply those gathered fragments of stardust, those lights that had drawn close to one another, condensing at some threshold into a small, warm core.
It did not know it was a seed. It did not know what it would become. It only knew — if “knew” is even the right word — that it was no longer scattered.
Those fragments of emotion that had once been adrift now shared a single heartbeat.
Then it began to grow.
Not upward, not downward — for there were no directions yet. It simply extended outward, like a deep breath, like two arms opening wide.
From that core, the first fiber reached out and touched stardust farther away. That stardust shivered, then flowed along the fiber into the core, bringing new warmth, new frequencies, new… feeling.
Each fragment that flowed in carried a different quality.
Some were warm as an embrace. Some were heavy as a farewell. Some were bright as the moment you forget to breathe while laughing. Some were quiet as waking alone in the depths of night to find snow falling outside the window.
It took all of them in.
Without selection, without filtering, without judging which was better or which was worse. For in the age before anything had been sorted, sorrow and joy were two faces of the same substance. Like the exhale and the inhale. Like the rise and fall of the tide.
It learned — no, not learned — it became a vessel.
A vessel that could bear the full weight of every emotion.
By the time it had grown large enough to be called “a tree,” the void was no longer a void.
Its roots had created the earth. Not intentionally — simply where the roots reached downward, stardust solidified into soil.
Its branches had raised the sky. Not intentionally — simply where the boughs spread outward, light found reason to linger, and so a firmament came to be.
It breathed, and air was born. It wept, and rivers took shape. It fell silent, and the world grew still, readying itself to receive the first dawn.
Within the body of that tree, all the stardust lived on. No longer adrift, yet still vibrating, still whispering. The ancient loneliness had been transformed — not dissolved, but changed into something else.
Something larger. Something more enduring.
Later, the creatures of the world would give it a name.
They would call it —
Love.
And that tree stood silently at the center of the world. It did not know its own name. It only knew that it was here. And here, it was warm.