The bodies did not awaken yet.
Everything functioned well.
And yet... Nothing stirred.
But Lucien did not mistake this for failure.
This was expected.
A soul and spirit placed into a vessel did not immediately become a person again. Identity was not a switch that could be flipped. It was an agreement between self and world, memory and consequence.
Luke and Cienna had been absent from the chain of cause and effect for too long.
They had ended once.
That fact had been acknowledged.
Their return had been permitted.
But permission was not the same as acceptance.
Causality had room for them now, but it had not yet closed around them.
Their bodies breathed because biology allowed it. Their souls held because structure supported it. Their spirits rested because continuity preserved them.
But awareness required something else.
It required re-entry.
Lucien understood it as he observed their stillness.
