Mallanna, exhausted and happy, leaned back against the palm tree. The blanket was done. But there was one final corner of the sky that was empty. A small, dark patch near the southern cross.

Poof.

But the sky was too dark. It was swallowing his blue thread.

As the first star, Arudra , appeared in the east, the Moon stopped trembling. He looked down at the woven blanket. He saw the patterns. He saw the dark blue of Mallanna’s devotion, the silver of the fish scales (which became the Milky Way), and the white, silent fire of the jasmine buds.

The children of the village—who had been watching silently—brought him their clay lamps. They brought him the fireflies they had caught in turmeric-stained cloth. But it wasn't enough.

He climbed the tallest palm tree in the village. He did not use a shuttle. He used the spine of a falling star. His thread? He reached into his own chest and pulled out a thread of bhakti —devotion. It was blue, the color of Vishnu’s throat.

“Listen, little sparks,” the jasmine would whisper, its white buds beginning to glow like tiny lanterns in the fading light. “Do you know why the sky turns deep blue, like the back of a peacock, before it goes to sleep?”