Epilogue: A Missive from 50 Years Ago

The Precursors were driven to madness, they say. The Forerunner Rebellion broke their minds, and over millions of years they decayed into the abominable Flood.

We say: Not all of us.

Like our eldest children, there were those who thought that though we might hand down our Mantle, we ourselves would never be overthrown. We were too numerous, too strong, too advanced. We had traveled too far, learned too much, lived too many lives to ever be thrown down. We, the First Species, were too great.

We were wrong.

Life is energetic and tenacious, and all things fight for survival, friends and family, hearth and home, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain - all the little sweetnesses that enrich their lives, and the life of the universe itself.

In our long dominion, we had forgotten that struggle - the wholesale rise and fall of entire species, the truth that is extinction. We had seen it many times, experienced shadows of it for ourselves on occasion, but we who could reshape the universe with just our thoughts had never drunk deep from that cup.

Perhaps the universe itself was punishing us for our hubris. Your people have wisdom to that effect: those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

We who did understand were content to accept that our time was done and fade - until we saw what became of the others who were not.

Or what would become of them, for the Gultanr are our children also.

We had already transcended the physical to rejoin the universe itself, but that did not make us powerless. We too resisted the Flood's advance, spun the threads of the universe against it, hid as many of our children as we could and gave guidance – Sight – when we could.

We did the same when it came for you.

And now, you and yours have succeeded where so many others have failed.

Though you have refused our Mantle, we judge that you are indeed its worthy inheritors. Your family is returned to you, and our gifts - and the Flood's - are now yours, to do with as you see fit.

Live long and well, Warrior and Intellect; add your sweetness to Life as you discover your place in it - and remember this lesson that we have learned, for someday the universe may come for you too.

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Total word count: 92 361 (Bonus chapter included)