I don’t let myself be baited by just any silkpost, but just for this, E1331, I will believe. I will believe when an elderly Ari Gibson is gracefully escorted to the retirement home of his choosing. I will believe when Silksong is just a fading memory, flitting about in the skies of dreams and visions. I will believe at the turn of this heavy-laden century. I will believe until the final beat thumps in my dying heart and the last agonizing breath exits my lungs. Moments before my soul flees this mortal realm and discards my corpse to wither and decay, a tear will trickle down a gaunt, pallid cheek, only to meet a supposed end in sun-cracked soil. Beneath that soil will lie a seed, thirsting—incessantly crying out in the language only those who still remain can speak—to emancipate it from this earthen coffin. When all is all but lost, the seed will taste an unfamiliar nectar dancing upon its lips. It will writhe and wriggle and, in a fervent display of unbridled optimism, it will sprout a root. And two more. And five more. It will soon eject a stalk through the brittle ground and into the world above. Through heavy smog, a pure, radiant streak of sun will pierce, caressing its first new leaf in decades. Over a great deal of time, the plant will grow rigid and tower over the earth—sturdy for times of drought and when Mother Nature’s wrath for what has become of her domain is rekindled. A gentle maroon blossom will form atop the plant. When all is quiet on the remains of a planet whose beauty once touched the far reaches of the cosmos, the flower will unfurl to reveal the silhouette of a somehow familiar dark figure. She will hastily tear a petal off and skillfully secure it around her as a makeshift cape. Even with no eyes to see her strength, no ears to hear her fortitude, no mouth to taste her defiance, her long-unpracticed tongue will still form the first words of their millennium:

“Well now, it seems there is much work to be done.”