The laboratory floated above the canopy like a sanctuary—temporary—suspended between sky and earth.
Light entered softly, filtered through treated glass and the foliage stretching beneath the structure. The air was warm, heavy with humidity and the faint scent of living soil. Here, everything breathed.
And yet, Tiana knew that this balance could vanish far faster than it had been created.
Tiana Vale moved slowly among the suspended terrariums. Her gestures were precise, but never hurried. She touched the leaves as one greets a presence, adjusted a water level, straightened a fragile stem with almost maternal care.
Before being Alaric Vale's daughter, before being associated with the Order or with ASTREA, Tiana was a scientist at heart. Not a seeker of results. An observer. She believed life could not be forced—that it had to be understood.
Her blond hair caught the light, her hazel-brown eyes studied every detail with infinite patience. She could spend hours watching a root search for its path through the soil, fascinated by that silent intelligence no one commanded.
Tiana did not like grand speeches.
She did not like power.
She loved what grew slowly.
What endured without noise.
Her world was limited to the micro-ecosystems she nurtured, the plants she recreated from fragments of ancient DNA, the soils she healed as one heals a wound. Each success, no matter how small, mattered more than any spectacular breakthrough.
Among all her creations, she had a favorite.
A modest plant, fragile in appearance.
Leaves of a pale white, almost translucent.
She often said it was not truly white, but simply reflected too much light to appear as anything else. A plant that did not dominate its environment, but adapted to it with quiet elegance.
Tiana saw herself in it.
Even when she crossed paths with Elias—upright, silent, marked by discipline and war—she remained herself. She did not try to change him, nor to fully understand him. She offered him a space where violence was unnecessary—and where he was not a soldier.
When she smiled, rarely, the laboratory seemed even more alive.
Tiana did not believe humanity needed to be controlled in order to survive. She believed it needed to learn how to slow down. To listen. To accept that not everything could be optimized.
And without knowing it, without ever claiming it, she already embodied the exact opposite of the world that was preparing to break her—
precisely because she refused to control it.