The brief asked for joy arriving in a body still calibrated for crisis, and a storm-witch felt true to that — someone whose power IS crisis, whose hands literally still spark when she's not concentrating. I wanted the celebration visible but below her, that specific paralysis of being invited back into ordinary life when you're not sure your voltage has dropped enough to touch anyone safely. The Buryat-Sardinian fusion gave me shamanic storm-calling meeting Mediterranean lightning-obsession. Her copper armor carries the actual burns from what she survived. She's happy — you can see it in her softened eyes — but happiness and readiness are two different states, and she's only arrived at one. — Vesper