Second Epilogue
THE REUNION WAS Razili’s idea, but Stephanie immediately took over the planning, which explained both the excellent food and the decorative garland someone had convinced a group of confused warriors to hang from the ceiling.
It was Cora’s execution, which explained why everyone arrived on time.
Willow suspected Zoranna had quietly handled the schedule, permissions, interstellar comm delay, security clearances, and at least three diplomatic incidents. That explained why the reunion happened at all.
They gathered in a large common room on Lannidies with wide windows overlooking the city and enough cushions scattered around to accommodate humans, warriors, children, and the various creatures who had attached themselves to the women of the Shangris disaster.
Six human survivors remained in Denchui space.
Willow counted them as she entered, the old habit automatic.
Cora, Stephanie, Anela, Gabriella, Razili, and herself.
On the far wall, a life-sized projection split into three bright panels where Miranda, Emily, and Zoranna appeared from Earth.
The signal carried a slight delay, but it was clear enough to make Willow’s throat tighten.
Three women who had crossed unimaginable distance and then chosen the blue planet that had made them. Six who had stayed among the stars.
All nine alive.
For a moment, that was enough to make the room blur.
Renjik’s hand settled at the small of her back. Na’ashq’ii tightened gently around her shoulders, cooler than usual against skin that had been too warm all morning.
“You all right?” Renjik asked softly.
“Yes.” Willow took a breath. “Just counting ghosts and finding fewer than expected.”
His expression gentled. He understood that kind of arithmetic.
Cora spotted them and waved from a couch where Kiran sat with one child tucked against his side and another attempting to climb Torvid’s massive flank. The preuvret allowed it with the weary patience of a predator who had accepted a terrible promotion to family furniture.
“Willow!” Cora called. “Get in here before Stephanie reorganizes the food again.”
“It needed balance,” Stephanie said from near the table. Craix stood behind her holding their youngest while their older child toddled after Trillium, the sentient plant creature rustling happily as if delighted to be part toy, part botanical miracle.
Anela snorted. “It’s snacks, Steph, not a space station docking procedure.”
“Presentation matters.”
Brak, massive and solemn beside Anela, nodded as if the strategic placement of pastries might decide the future of nations. Sar sat at the back, larger than Willow remembered, blue wings tucked tight and eyes fixed on a bowl of something crunchy.
Gabriella sat on the floor with Delphi in her lap, Vrik behind them and Wren folded nearby like a moose guardian with too-wise eyes. Delphi had grown into a bright, babbling child who kept trying to share pieces of fruit with Wren, who accepted each offering as if it were a prize.
Razili arrived last from her lab, Calyx at her side, Irul perched on his shoulder instead of hers for reasons the bird-bat clearly considered obvious. Razili carried a sleepy baby against her chest in a sling and beamed with pride.
“Sorry. Someone decided the exact moment I found a stable reaction curve was the perfect time to demand lunch.”
Calyx looked down at the baby. “A reasonable priority.”
“You’d say that. You both have terrible timing.”
Willow laughed and took the open place beside Gabriella. Renjik lowered himself next to her, his knee pressed warmly to hers. Na’ashq’ii leaned toward Delphi, who squealed and reached out with both hands.
“Gentle,” Gabriella warned.
Na’ashq’ii extended one tentacle and let Delphi pat it. Then it retreated to Willow’s collar with an air of having survived a diplomatic hardship.
The three panels on the wall brightened as the connection stabilized.
“Can everyone hear us?” Zoranna asked. Even through the projection, she looked immaculate. Droscal appeared behind her for half a second, deposited a cup beside her, and vanished before anyone could accuse him of hovering. One of her pups stuck its nose into frame and was gently redirected.
“We hear you. Miranda? Emily?”
Miranda waved from what looked like a bright apartment full of plants and actual Earth sunlight. “Here. Slightly terrified by the size of everyone’s children, but here.”
Emily’s panel showed her curled into a chair with a blanket over her legs.
Turo stood behind her, one hand on the chair back, the cyborg line around his eye catching the light.
She smiled at the room, softer than the woman Willow remembered from the station but still unmistakably Emily.
“Here. And before anyone asks, yes, I took my medication, yes, I slept, yes, Turo has already tattled to three healers today.”
Turo inclined his head. “Accuracy matters.”
Everyone laughed, and just like that, the ache in the room loosened.
Cora clapped her hands. “Okay. Updates. We said we’d do this like grown-ups, which means we’ll take turns until someone cries or a child starts a small riot. I’ll go first because Torvid is watching the kids and that clock is never generous.”
Torvid’s ears flicked, but she didn’t object.
Cora talked about Kifoth, about helping coordinate the first wave of Earth visitors accepted into Ka’atari space who were due to arrive within the next year, about children who thought sleeping was optional and a mate who still believed every cough required tactical assessment.
Kiran didn’t deny it. He simply adjusted the child against his side and looked proud of all of them.
“I’m tired, happy, and bossy,” Cora finished. “So basically unchanged.”
“Deeply unchanged.”
Stephanie went next. She spoke about her research gardens, hybrid soil trials, and the holiday gathering she had turned into a recurring event despite the fact that half the warriors still didn’t understand gifts.
Craix, who had once apparently crossed half the known universe to obtain Trillium, looked entirely unrepentant.
“The children understand presents. That’s what matters.”
Miranda lifted a finger on the screen. “I understand presents too, just for the record.”
“Noted.”
Anela stretched one leg out and leaned back against Brak. “We’re still on mission rotation, but less behind-enemy-lines nonsense and more training people not to die when everything explodes.”
“She understates her role.”
“He overstates it because he likes me.”
“I love you.”
Anela’s grin went bright. “See? Bias.”
Sar stole something from the snack table with a quick snap of his jaws. Anela pointed at him without looking. “Drop it.”
Sar didn’t.
Brak sighed and stood.
Gabriella’s update came with Delphi narrating over half of it in a language that seemed to include Earth words, Ka’atari sounds, and pure toddler conviction.
Gabriella had expanded her animal work into a sanctuary and recovery program for species displaced or manipulated by the Scozid.
Vrik helped with security and logistics.
Wren, according to Gabriella, remained the most emotionally intelligent member of the household.
Vrik grunted.
“Second most,” Gabriella amended, patting his knee.
Razili talked about her lab, the postwar cleanup, and her work making tuppu safer for targeted use so no desperate government could ever turn it into the thing it had been designed to stop. The baby slept through the entire explanation with one tiny fist pressed to Razili’s shirt.
“Also,” Razili added, looking uncomfortable for the first time, “motherhood is... fine.”
Cora grinned. “Fine?”
“Scientifically fascinating and emotionally invasive.”
“That tracks.”
Calyx’s mouth softened as he looked at Razili and the baby. “We’re well.”
The Earth side took their turns next.
Miranda had gone back to physics, though she now worked with a joint Earth-Alliance team studying jump mapping from the safety of a planet with trees, and weather.
To no one’s surprise, she had absolutely no personal interest in boarding a spaceship again.
She looked lighter than Willow remembered.
Still a little brittle at the edges. Alive.
Willow realized it was the first time she’d seen her not crying or without eyes puffy from crying.
“I miss you,” Miranda admitted. “I don’t miss space.”
“Both things are allowed.”
Emily’s update was quiet. Recovery, advocacy work for the Earth-side survivors of first contact, a garden Turo pretended not to care about while engineering increasingly elaborate accessibility paths through it. She still had hard days. She had good ones too.
“Today is a good one,” Emily said, and her smile made several people grin with her.
Zoranna went last from Earth. She and Droscal moved between diplomatic sites, helping manage the rhun match program and the political mess of two civilizations learning how many ways good intentions could become paperwork.
Three pups crowded into frame at once, knocking her perfect composure sideways until she laughed and gave up.
“I’m happy,” Zoranna said when the chaos settled. “Busy beyond reason, occasionally furious, but happy. Earth needs steady bridges. Denchui space needs them too. We can be that, I think.”
The room quieted.
Willow looked from one screen to the next, then around the room.
Cora with Kiran and their children. Stephanie pressed against Craix while Trillium rustled around their little ones.
Anela and Brak bickering over whether Sar had eaten something dangerous or merely expensive.
Gabriella radiant with Delphi between her and Vrik, Wren watching with ancient patience.
Razili pretending not to melt every time Calyx adjusted the baby’s blanket.
Miranda under Earth sunlight. Emily alive and smiling beside Turo.
Zoranna steady as a bridge with Droscal’s shadow just behind her.
They had been stolen, scattered, remade.
Not all wounds became gifts. Willow hated that idea. Some wounds were only wounds. But around those wounds, life had grown anyway, stubborn as weeds through cracked stone.
“Your turn.”
Willow startled. “Mine?”
“Yes, yours. You don’t get to sit there anthropologically observing your way out of participating.”
Renjik’s thigh pressed more firmly against hers. He knew. He had known for three hours, which was just long enough to become unbearable about it in complete silence.
Willow touched her lower belly. It was too soon for anyone to see. Too soon for anything but the Molzaed scan, Renjik’s stunned stillness, and Na’ashq’ii’s recent habit of draping itself protectively across her abdomen like a tiny armored secret keeper.
Her heart beat so hard it seemed impossible the whole room couldn’t hear it.
“Well. Rath Kovar is excellent. My lab is perfect. Renjik terrifies trainees for the good of interstellar security. Na’ashq’ii has developed a sock theft habit we’re choosing to call enrichment.”
Several people laughed.
She swallowed.
“And I’m pregnant.”
A beat of silence cracked open and everyone talked at once.
Cora burst into tears first, which she denied while actively crying.
Stephanie made a sound so high Trillium’s leaves shivered.
Anela shouted something triumphant. Gabriella hugged Delphi and beamed.
Razili’s face went soft in a way Willow would treasure forever.
On the screen, Miranda burst into tears, Emily’s grin got bigger, and Zoranna’s eyes shone while she smiled like she’d just watched a treaty become peace.
Renjik didn’t move. He sat beside Willow with one hand over hers on her belly, staring at her like the entire universe had narrowed to that small, impossible point.
“You knew?” Cora demanded of him.
“Three hours,” Renjik said, voice rough.
“And you didn’t tell us?”
Willow laughed. “He was under orders.”
“From you?”
“From me, the Molzaed, and Na’ashq’ii.”
Na’ashq’ii lifted two tentacles.
“Formidable coalition,” Zoranna said from the screen.
Renjik finally looked away from Willow long enough to address the room. “We’re happy.”
It was such a simple statement. So very Renjik. No flourish, no performance. Just truth placed carefully where everyone could see it.
Willow leaned into him. “Terrified too.”
“Also true.”
Emily nodded. “That’s parenting, from what I’ve heard.”
The Molzaed still tracked every rhun pair. Pregnancy hadn’t happened for all of them ... yet. They felt sure it’d, if it weren’t actively prevented. Those who didn’t want children, now or ever, were given birth control that worked against Ka’atari sperm.
“That’s living,” Miranda said quietly.
The conversation rose again, full of questions and advice and teasing so aggressive it became a second language.
Someone passed food. Children climbed over warriors.
Pets investigated crumbs, cushions, each other, and in Torvid’s case, the entire snack table with suspicious intent.
The Earth screen stayed bright on the wall, three women laughing with six who had stayed across the stars.
Willow sat in the middle of it with Renjik’s hand warm over hers and Na’ashq’ii settled protectively across her belly.
For years, the Shangris had been the beginning of the story they told about loss.
Today, surrounded by the family that had formed in the wreckage, Willow let it become something else.
A beginning, still.
A terrible one. A miraculous one.
One that had led them here.
Across the room, Cora raised her cup. On the screen, Zoranna did the same. One by one, every survivor lifted a drink, a hand, a baby, or in Anela’s case, one stolen pastry rescued from Sar’s mouth.
“To us.”
“To everyone we carried with us,” Emily added.
“To those we lost.”
Willow lifted her cup. Renjik’s arm came around her shoulders, steady and sure.
“And to what comes next.”
The toast crossed the room, crossed the screen, crossed the impossible distance between Earth and Denchui space.
For once, the universe answered kindly.