Epilogue - The Eternal Rain

# Epilogue: The Eternal Rain

Many years later, when Ayla Grayfeather had become legend, when the door became a transportation hub connecting multiple dimensions, when descendants of Children of the Void and humans jointly established cross-dimensional civilization, someone would ask:

"Where did that great memory merchant finally go?"

The answer lay hidden in a small shop at Seventh Alley's deepest point. That shop had no sign, only a blue lantern, forever lit, forever warm.

Inside sat an old woman with heterochromatic eyes, left gray like morning fog, right blue containing starlight. She was Ayla Grayfeather, now 108 years old, though her appearance remained around sixty—the gift of her unique constitution.

She no longer performed memory operations herself; her students handled all transactions. But every afternoon at three, she would sit by the window, gaze at that blue lantern, waiting for someone.

The person she waited for never came, because that person had already become part of her.

But this didn't stop her from waiting. For a memory merchant, waiting itself was ritual, was faith, was the persistence of love.

Rain fell outside the window—Seventh Alley was perpetually rainy, as if the sky remembered something, as if the entire city was a giant memory crystal, forever preserving the story of that father and daughter.

Ayla raised her cup, drinking tea that had cooled. She remembered Victor's voice, remembered Eleanor's smile, remembered Echo's blue flame.

"I am still here," she whispered, "Still remembering, still existing, still loving."

She looked at her palm, at those lines that never changed. There were three deep marks there: one left by her father, one by her mother, one by a Child of the Void.

Three lives, three loves, three eternities.

The blue lantern swayed gently, as if answering her.

Outside the window, rain continued to fall, but in Ayla's heart, the sun was shining.

Because memory is existence; existence is love; and love is eternal.

The End