Zurgo no longer ruled the Mardu; he rang a bell for Kolaghan. Familiar figures carried different offices or had never become the people Sarkhan remembered. Dragons filled the sky, delivering the joy that had driven his journey, while every unrecognising face confirmed that home could survive without preserving his place in it.
Sorin awakened Ugin from the cocoon, and the Spirit Dragon helped Sarkhan understand the paradox. Sarkhan still existed because he had travelled from the erased timeline, but this Tarkir contained no childhood that produced him. His actions at Zendikar remained real even though his origin had become the Unwritten.
Narset also lived, now an Ojutai scholar whose forbidden research ignited her own spark. She recognised Sarkhan from secret histories rather than shared memory. Their meeting offered neither replacement nor restoration. It was a new relationship between two survivors of different pasts, standing in a present whose dragons proved that fulfilled wishes still require judgement.