And somewhere within its long memory, not preserved in marble or anthem, but in procedure and hesitation and correction, the influence of one empress persisted—not commanding—
—but enabling.
History, still moving, did not wait for her.
It no longer needed to.
The decades that followed did not feel like an epilogue to those who lived them. They felt like life proceeding at its proper scale, unconcerned with who had once held the center. For historians, however, the era gradually acquired a name—not immediately, and not officially, but through repetition: the Period of Calibration.
It was defined not by expansion or conquest, but by adjustment. Laws refined themselves through precedent. Institutions learned which pressures they could withstand and which required redesign. The empire did not freeze in imitation of Celestia's governance; it evolved by applying her principles unevenly, imperfectly, and therefore honestly.
