The afternoon light came through the window at a low angle, cutting across the room in warm gold, and Leo stood in front of the mirror without moving for a long moment.
He had not done this deliberately. He had come from the bath, dried off, and simply stopped when the mirror caught him.
The body looking back was his, but not the one he remembered from Earth.
On Earth, he had been fit. Genuinely fit. The result of years of disciplined gym work and careful diet. He had taken quiet pride in that. But it had always been the fitness of someone optimizing within normal human limits. Controlled and deliberate. The closest thing to armor a careful man could build without crossing into something that drew attention.
What the mirror showed now was different in kind, not just degree.
