The universe began where the darkness tore thin.

A single speck of iridescence stretched into a brilliant line, pulsing with shifting colours and white-hot heat.

Then the rift split open.

A whirligig of impossible colour spun into the darkness, and newborn lightbursts spilled through in its wake, striking iridescent motes of light from the torn veil as they passed. Excited to begin their work, the lightbursts scattered jewel-bright flecks of energy and matter across the blackness like they were skipping stones over still water.

They were so young, then.

They frolicked as the universe expanded, looping and darting through the dark, delighted just to exist. There was so much to do and see. And so much to make. And since the universe was new like them, there was no limit to what it could become.

The lightbursts each set out to explore their own corner of the universe, glittering trails of prismatic stardust stretching far behind them. Except for two.

One lightburst, burning in vibrant fuchsia, molten gold, and ultraviolet, drew close to a newly forming sapphire nebula to admire it. It was so absorbed in the sight that it didn’t notice the other wasn’t quite finished working.

It was about to learn the importance of admiring things from a sensible distance.

The collision was spectacularly clumsy.

Colour burst outward in a startled halo. For a moment, their light tangled together, fuchsia and gold threading through silver and blue. Sharing energy and excitement, they felt a joy so complete that, briefly, nothing else mattered.

Then the other lightburst, a harmony of moon-silver and glacial blue, pulled away and dimmed at the edges, hovering uncertainly. Suddenly, it was aware of something that was neither itself nor the rest of the universe. The fuchsia-gold lightburst hovered too, because that seemed like the thing to do.

They lingered in awkward silence. They had no names for this. Or for anything, really. Something had changed, but neither of them could explain what, exactly.

Its movements more careful now, the silver-blue lightburst set out again. The other followed at a distance, almost guiltily, since it didn’t quite know the concept of an apology yet. In its defense, the nebula had been exceptionally pretty.

There was a vague idea that they were both supposed to continue apart. Whether this was a suggestion or a rule was unclear, but they reluctantly moved in opposite directions.

The darkness between them grew.

They returned to their work. They stitched light into the dark in uneven, experimental strokes. They unfurled matter across empty space, coaxing stardust into fractals, rings, and shining halos. They arranged ruby, indigo, and emerald stars into patterns that pleased them, since pleasing anyone else wasn’t really a consideration yet.

And then they discovered absence.

The universe was vast, a limitless playground for experimentation. But now that they knew what it was like to be together, it was lonely, too. Even though there was more than enough universe to go around, they somehow kept choosing the same stretches of darkness to work in. This was not, either would have insisted—if insisting had been invented at that point—because they missed one another.

At first, their crossings were awkward. Then they became a habit. And over time, they became something harder to explain.

Before long, neither strayed very far from the other.

They raced through the darkness together, scattering stars, antimatter, and black holes in their wake. And together, they continued.