The garden was overgrown, but lovingly so. Wildflowers spilled over stone walkways, and vines wove themselves around old iron trellises. The sun had no business being so golden, not after all the world had endured. But here—beneath the gently swaying limbs of a silver-bloomed tree—it was bright enough to melt the memory of war.
A giggle broke the quiet.
Tiny footsteps pattered through the grass, scattering bees and butterflies.
"Maamaa! He's cheating again!"
Maia raised her head from her seat beneath the tree, brushing sun-warmed soil from her lap. Her hands were caked with earth, cradling a basket of herbs and vegetables—but her smile was effortless. Wry. Tired in the right ways.
"He's always cheating, love. That's why we don't play fair with him."
Another laugh, high and wild.
A blur of dark curls and muddy boots tore past the tree, a small wooden sword flailing in one hand. The girl—maybe five or six—had Maia's eyes, but her father's recklessness.
Koda followed her, not running, just appearing, having clearly taken a shortcut no one else could see. He raised his hands in theatrical surrender.
"I would never cheat," he said solemnly. "I merely redefined the rules."
"You cheated," Maia said, rising to her feet and dusting her knees off.
The girl squealed again as she ran behind Maia's legs and stuck out her tongue at Koda. "Told you!"
Koda placed a hand to his chest and staggered backward. "Betrayed by my own daughter. I'm undone."
"You were undone a long time ago," Maia said. Her grin turned softer. "But we put you back together."
He caught her hand as she passed him, their fingers interlocking with the kind of practiced ease that only years of surviving and loving could forge.
The girl didn't notice the weight behind that gesture. She had no reason to.
She was already off again, chasing a butterfly, the wooden sword forgotten.
For a moment, the two stood there. Koda and Maia. No war. No system. Just soil beneath their feet and the weight of the sun on their shoulders.
"She doesn't know what we were," Maia murmured, almost as if afraid the air might remember.
"She'll learn what she needs," Koda replied. "Not what we endured."
He watched their daughter twirl through a patch of light, scattering dandelion fluff.
"She'll have the world we never did."
Maia leaned into him. "Do you miss it?"
"The system?"
"No. The divinity."
Koda didn't answer right away. The silence stretched, filled with the hum of insects, the chirping of birds.
Then, he closed his eyes.
For a heartbeat—less than that—the flowers in the garden straightened. The wind stopped. The sun paused mid-beam, as if caught in indecision.
And then the world moved again.
"No," he said gently. "Because we never lost it."
Maia tilted her head, the faintest glint of light catching in her irises—not sunlight.
"Good," she whispered. "Because I don't want her to either."
Their daughter's laughter rang through the garden like the toll of a bell on a holy day.
And behind it all, beneath root and sky, deep in the fabric of the world—two hearts beat not with blood, but with the still-living rhythm of divine unity.
Not worshiped.
Not crowned.
Not needed.
Just there.
Happy.