Just then—
Astraea shifted.
Lightning crawled along her feathers in slow, deliberate arcs. It folded back into her body like threads being rewoven. Her vast wings drew closer. The air hummed as mass and presence condensed.
The giant Roc did not shrink like a beast being forced into a smaller cage.
She refined herself.
The radiance intensified, becoming a silhouette of pure brilliance. Feathers unraveled into streams of light. Thunder softened into a deep silence. When the glow finally thinned, something new stood where the storm had been.
A woman.
She was tall. Her posture was straight and balanced like a seasoned warrior at rest. Her features were sharp yet composed, it is beauty shaped by discipline rather than softness.
Silver-blue hair fell past her shoulders, catching faint sparks of lightning as if the storm had not fully let her go. Her eyes held the color of a charged sky just before rain.
Traces of her true nature remained.
