At the lantern dinner, Mira sat between Sophie and Richard.

“Did you always know your daughter was going to fix the world?” Mira asked him.

Richard chuckled. “No. But I knew she’d never stop trying to make it better.”

Freya leaned in. “She was always stubborn. Always kind.”

Alexander raised his glass.

“To the quiet ones.”

“To the ones who stayed,” Sophie added.

They clinked glasses, and the wind carried that small sound gently through the square.

A validator posted a simple message at dawn:

“I don’t remember what the founder’s face looks like.

But I remember how it felt to vote for something that mattered.”

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