"That's why he laughed," Satou said.
"He's been hoping you'd have children for some time," Morgana said, with the comfortable familiarity of someone who had worked beside their lord for decades. "He'll be insufferable about this."
She opened her portal and stepped through.
—------
The three of them stayed in the room for a long time after she left.
No reports. No tactical assessments. No settlement business.
Just the three of them on the bed in the afternoon light, Jessica still pressed against Lyra's side, Satou with his forehead resting against Lyra's, their hands all tangled together in the middle.
It was Lyra's mind that was the loudest, even if her voice was the quietest.
She'd spent time building. Organizing. Planning. Turning chaos into function, turning function into community, turning community into something worth dying for. She'd done it systematically, rationally, with the tactical precision that defined everything she approached.
She had not planned this.
