The climb to the surface took three days.
There were no stairs, only a rising tunnel that coiled through layers of stone and light. The newborns moved without fatigue, their bodies glowing enough to guide the way; Arin and Seren followed among them like shadows chasing stars. The air changed as they ascended — metal tang giving way to the scent of wet clay, then to something that made everyone stop and breathe deeply.
Wind.
Not the sterile drafts of the Forge's vents, but true wind, cool and uncertain, carrying dust and the faint perfume of unseen things.
"It smells alive," one of the newborns said.
"It is alive," Seren answered. She smiled, and the expression felt strange on her face, like an old word remembered after years of silence.
The tunnel widened until daylight appeared ahead, not bright at first but filtered through a veil of thin clouds. When they stepped out, the world stretched before them — a plain of greenish glass and black earth, rivers glowing like veins of silver. The sky was enormous, shifting with colours that had never existed before the awakening — rose and indigo swirling around a newborn sun that pulsed in rhythm with the planet's core.
The newborns gasped. Some fell to their knees, pressing their luminous hands into the soil; where they touched, sprouts erupted, slender and translucent. Others simply stood, stunned by space itself.
Arin raised a hand to shield his eyes. "I remember the sky being smaller," he said.
Seren shook her head. "We were smaller."
Tera's voice drifted from the wristband on Seren's arm, thinner now that the system had to relay through open atmosphere. "Surface parameters — habitable. Oxygen stable. Light refracting through particulate memory crystals in the upper air. Caution advised: world topology rewriting in progress."
Arin smiled faintly. "Then it's learning how to breathe, same as us."
They took their first steps onto the glass-black plain. Each footprint melted briefly, then cooled, leaving an iridescent trace — like writing on the world's skin.
By nightfall they reached a valley carved by the retreat of ancient lava. Streams of glowing water crossed the dark rock, collecting in shallow basins that mirrored the stars. The newborns began to gather stones, following instinct more than instruction, arranging them in spirals around the pools.
"What are they doing?" Seren asked.
Arin watched them a while before answering. "Building. The pattern's familiar. It's like the cooling rings we use in the lower forges — only they're making them from memory."
"They've never seen one."
"Maybe they remember through us."
The wind shifted. Distant thunder rolled — not from storms, but from mountains growing on the far horizon. Every few hours the planet adjusted itself: peaks rising, valleys sinking, rivers changing direction. The newborn world was still forming its idea of balance.
That night, Arin sat beside the largest pool. The water glowed faintly from within, showing reflections of faces that were not there — echoes of those lost when the old world collapsed. He touched the surface, and for a heartbeat he saw his younger self, hammering furiously at a half-melted blade.
Seren joined him quietly. "Does it ever stop?"
"The memories?"
She nodded.
He looked up at the sky. "Maybe they're meant to follow us. So we don't forget what shape we used to be."
She was silent for a time. Then she whispered, "Do you ever wonder if we should have let it sleep?"
He didn't answer immediately. "If we had, nothing new would exist. Maybe this is the price of creation — watching the world learn to feel pain."
Morning brought colour. True colour. The indigo haze cleared to reveal grass — real grass — growing in spirals around the newborns' stone rings. The sprouts shimmered between green and silver, humming faintly. When the wind touched them, they sang.
Seren laughed aloud, unable to help herself. "They made music."
Arin knelt, brushing the blades with his fingers. The sound responded, low and warm. "Every atom of this world remembers sound. Even silence here has pitch."
The newborns began to imitate the tone, humming softly until the entire valley resonated. It was not chaos; it was harmony searching for form. From somewhere deep below, the planet answered with a bass rumble that made the ground quiver. The valley became a single instrument, tuned to life.
Tera's voice chimed in, awed despite its artificial calm. "Data inconclusive. Planetary core and surface biosphere establishing feedback loop. In simple terms… you're teaching each other how to sing."
For the first time, Arin laughed. "Then let's make a song worth remembering."
He drew a circle in the dirt with his hammer's head. "Here," he said, "we build the first forge under open sky."
Seren looked at him in surprise. "You want to start again already?"
He nodded. "Creation is how we talk to the world. It listens better when we speak in fire."
They worked together, drawing lines, placing stones. The newborns helped, carrying slabs as if guided by shared instinct. When night returned, the forge took shape — not grand, not like the old towers, but simple and breathing, flame born from wind instead of engines. Above it, the aurora curled like a watchful eye.
Days passed. The valley changed with them. Rivers brightened; trees of glass-leafed branches sprouted along the ridges. The newborns learned hunger, thirst, rest. Seren taught them the names of things — sky, river, heat, silence. They repeated each word until meaning stuck.
Arin spent most evenings at the new forge. He melted fragments of old metal into tools, shaping them with both hand and thought. When he struck the hammer down, the flame flared in patterns — symbols not of any human language but of resonance: promises between maker and world.
One night, as he cooled a blade in the luminous water, the reflection shifted again. But it wasn't his face. It was something vast moving behind the clouds — wings of light spanning the horizon.
Seren saw it too. "Is that…?"
He nodded slowly. "The world's dream, taking shape."
The newborns gathered, watching as the sky itself rippled. Out of the glow descended faint motes — each the size of a tear, falling silently. When they touched the soil, new flowers ignited. Their petals were mirrors that caught the stars.
The planet spoke once more, soft enough that only the wind carried it:
"You build. I breathe. Together we become."
The words faded, but the echo lingered in every pulse of light, every whisper of grass.
Arin looked to Seren. "We should give it a name."
She thought for a moment, eyes reflecting the mirrored blooms. "The First Sky," she said.
And for the first time in memory, the word sky truly meant home.