"None of us do," Lyra replied. "That's what makes this work. We're all figuring it out together." She paused, then added more softly, "I'm glad you're awake. It was difficult — not knowing if you'd ever wake up. Trying to hold everything together while wondering if we'd lost our leader permanently."
"You did more than hold it together," Satou said, turning to look at her properly. The exhaustion in her face was real and specific — not just tiredness but the particular kind that came from carrying responsibility alone for weeks without setting it down once. "From what everyone's told me, you ran the entire settlement alongside Urgak. Made all the important decisions, kept morale up, coordinated with Loki's people, kept the reconstruction moving. You carried this."
Lyra shrugged, but she didn't dismiss it the way she might have a month ago. "Someone had to. And I knew what you'd want — what choices you'd make. It wasn't that difficult to follow that template."
