He found her in the training space before anyone else was awake.
She was working on the sculpting technique, which had become her early morning practice with the same regularity that his mother's sequences had become his — not because the day required it but because she'd decided it mattered and acted accordingly. The fire flower was holding longer now, the form more defined, the specific patience of the technique beginning to integrate with the instinctive precision she brought to everything.
He watched from the entrance until she released it, thirty-one seconds, and looked up.
"Better," he said.
"Thirty-one," she said. "I counted."
"Progress."
"Incremental." She lowered her hands. "You have something to ask me."
"Yes."
She crossed to the bench at the wall and sat, the specific posture of someone making themselves available for a conversation rather than just a moment.
